Vietnam, Institutional Failure, and the Human Cost | Rick McAllister

Organizations cannot succeed when leadership fails to clearly define mission legitimacy, objectives, or measurable outcomes. Yet it is individuals who bear the cost.

In this episode of Brungardt Law’s Lagniappe, Maurice Brungardt speaks with Vietnam veteran Rick McAllister, who served with the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division in 1970, including duty as a tunnel rat — one of the Vietnam War’s most dangerous and psychologically demanding roles.

Rick reflects on combat, underground tunnel warfare, PTSD, survivor’s guilt, veteran mental health, and the long-term psychological effects of war that followed him home for decades. He also discusses the disconnect between political leadership and battlefield realities, the silence many veterans carried after Vietnam, and the importance of trauma recovery and human connection.

After years of struggling with the aftermath of combat and health complications tied to Agent Orange exposure, Rick discovered an unexpected path toward healing through the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain. What began as physical rehabilitation after open-heart surgery became a transformative journey centered on reflection, reconciliation, resilience, and peace.

This is the first part of a two-part conversation documenting Rick’s preparation to return to Vietnam for the first time in 56 years to meet former North Vietnamese and Viet Cong veterans in pursuit of understanding and reconciliation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

War does not always end when the fighting stops. For many who served in Vietnam, it echoes, lingers, in memory, in the body, and in the quiet moments between waking and sleep. This is a story about the long arc of that experience. From the depths of combat, few can imagine, through decades of invisible struggle, to an unexpected path toward healing found not in medicine or time alone, but along the ancient roads of the Camino de Santiago, and ultimately in a return to the very place where it all began. Welcome to Brungart Law's Lanya, where we provide a little extra perspective through conversations with individuals from across the spectrum of society. I'm Maurice Brungart, your host. I enjoy engaging with experienced, knowledgeable, and passionate people for the opportunity it affords to enrich our understanding of the world through their eyes. The more we learn, the more likely we can become better versions of ourselves and guide others towards the same. Today's guest is Rick McAllister. Rick McAllister is a U.S. Army Vietnam War veteran who served as a tunnel rat in 1970 and during one of the conflict's most dangerous and psychologically taxing roles. After decades of living with the lasting effects of that experience, he found healing through multiple pilgrimages on the Camino de Santiago and now participates in reconciliation efforts, bringing American and Vietnamese veterans together. Welcome to the program, Rick.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Thank you, Marie. It's a pleasure to be here with you this morning.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Well, it's a privilege for me, and I am deeply grateful for your acceptance of this invitation. For our listeners, please know this is going to be a unique interview. It's going to be split up into two parts and conjoined together. We're conducting the first part now before Rick undergoes travel to Vietnam as part of the Return to Vietnam project. And then when he returns, we'll interview him again. And we're going to meld those two parts together. But we're going to jump right into this. And Rick, why don't you tell us about your early days? What led up to you developing the motivation to enlist uh with the U.S. military during a time of conflict?

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Oh Maurice, I grew up in what I would consider a conservative, traditional family in Cincinnati, Ohio. Mother, father, my sister, and myself. Our family had traditions of serving in the military. My grandfather served as a combat engineer in World War I in France, and my dad was a decorated Marine pilot in the South Pacific during World War II. So it was a part of our family psyche that when the time came, I would serve my country. Early on, I obviously didn't know that that would include being involved in a war. But as we all know, in the early 60s, we got involved in Southeast Asia. And when I graduated from college in 1968, I knew that my draft status would change from that of a student deferment to being eligible and ready for combat. At the same time, when I graduated, I accepted a position with a financial insurance corporation to begin their management training program, which I did in Syracuse, New York. So it was during that time that I actually heard from the military, got my draft status change, got my invitation to report for my physical exam. And September of 69, I was invited to uh go to basic training, Fort Dix, New Jersey. That's what started my military obligation. Um I had a sense uh that I probably would end up in Vietnam. I had an opportunity to go to officers' candidate school, but because I had accepted a corporate position uh that I felt would offer me a nice career, um, I opted for the shortest duration of service obligation, which was going in through the draft, two years active duty, two years active reserve, and two years in active reserve. Um, I just took my chances that if I ended up going to Vietnam, hopefully I would come home.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

How old were you at the time uh when you enlisted? And also, what were your particular sentiments or thoughts about the conflict in Vietnam?

SPEAKER_00 4:46

I graduated, as I said, in in 1968. So I was 23 years old. Um uh I went to a relatively small conservative uh liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, Susquehanna University, and we had very little activity on the campus uh with respect to Vietnam, uh, not anywhere near what we were seeing on TV uh back to the larger schools like UCLA and USC in California, and uh where there were some significant protests and public debate about the war. Um I bought into what I was hearing, the domino theory uh expressed by our leaders that if we didn't intervene, that it was likely that all of Indonesia and uh that area would fall to the communists. Um so uh that psyche sort of fit the time uh that I got inducted into the military and I was ready and prepared to go.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

And what did training uh consist of in terms of uh length? Uh had it been shortened, had it been increased uh to properly prepare folks uh for uh service over there?

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Basic training was eight weeks, and then I believe it had been shortened uh by two weeks. Um as I said, I went to Fort Dixon, New Jersey, um, and it was an eye-opening experience for me. Um first of all, I had a letter from the Cincinnati Reds. I had been drafted by the Reds actually out of high school, and uh I did not make it. When I got out of college, I tried out and I did not make it. But the Reds gave me a letter uh to present to the military, suggesting that I be given an opportunity to go to special services and play ball for the United States Army. So on day one, I presented that letter to my drill sergeant who brought me up in front of the entire training company, tore up the letter in front of everybody, and said, You're not going anywhere, young man. You're mine for the next eight weeks. So the the army did what it does best. It it breaks you down, it takes away basically your personality and your persona, and it rebuilds you into what they consider to be the appropriate soldier. Um, in basic training, some of the training was geared for Vietnam, but most of that did not happen until I got to the next stage of training, which was uh AIT or advanced individual training, which was 10 weeks, and I was sent off to Fort Lewis, uh right outside of Seattle, Washington for my AIT.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

And where did you first land in Vietnam?

SPEAKER_00 7:37

I left from uh Oakland, Travis Air Force Base. Uh we refueled in Anchorage, Alaska, in Yakota, Japan, and in Guam. And I landed at Tonsanut Air Base outside of Saigon. Uh, and from there uh we were trucked over to Long Bin, which was the Army's processing base for new recruits arriving in Vietnam. I was there for a couple days waiting for my orders, which ultimately arrived. Um, I got orders to report to the 101st Airborne Division up in ICOR. Uh so we boarded a C-130. There were about five of us that were sent up there at that time. Boarded a C-130, flew up to Fubai, uh up in the northern core of South Vietnam. Uh, and then the first six days I spent training with the 101st on orientation to what took place or was taking place in that particular area of operation, what we could expect from the enemy, and what we would be expected to return. Um, after that training, uh I reported to Echo Company, uh, 1st of the 502nd Infantry Battalion, and uh got all my equipment and was sent off to Fire Support Base Birmingham to start my duty and my time in South Vietnam.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

And for the benefit of our listeners and even for myself, uh, please explain uh what a tunnel rat is or was at the time, and then uh how you ended up in that particular role.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Well, uh I didn't start out as a tunnel rat. Um my MOS in the Army was 11 Charlie, which is infantry slash 81 millimeter mortars. So my initial duty was uh to a mortar unit, an 81 millimeter mortar unit that was stationed on this fire support base Birmingham. So we provided support to the infantry units that were operating uh around our fire support base. Uh and every day we would get uh fire missions where we would have to send mortars out to support the troops on the ground. I did that for four months, and then uh my commanding officer asked me if I would be interested in joining the recon unit, which was also an echo company uh unit. Um, and I was sent down to a place called Pole Bridge, which was the only land access bridge to three fire bases in the area. So we had a security unit at that bridge, uh, and there was an Arvind unit also providing security. Arvans were the Army of the South Vietnamese. They were on the other side of the bridge. Uh, and there was a CB unit there, which the CBs built the bridge. So I spent three months with that recon security unit at the bridge, and we operated patrols uh away from the bridge into the nearby villages uh looking for uh Viet Cong and and uh equipment that might be stored and stashed there. So it wasn't until after I returned from my RR uh in Hawaii uh and got back that my CO told me that he was sending me to the rear area, which when he mentioned that, I thought, well, I'm getting out of combat, I'm gonna go get an administrative job. Uh they finally understood that uh um I might have skills beyond uh spending time with the mortar unit. But it turned out that the army was at that time beginning to turn over more responsibility in the combat operations to the South Vietnamese army. Uh it was called Vietnamization. And uh while we were doing that, we understood that North Vietnam was probably going to be sending more equipment and more men into the South because they didn't feel like the South would be able to take on the initial obligations of the war and actually defend themselves. So I was asked to be a part of an observation group managed by uh Mac V slash SOG, a special group of uh troops over there that had unique missions. Uh I was asked to liaison to them and be an observer, watching for equipment and uh North Vietnamese military personnel coming into our area. At the same time, when they asked me to join them, they added the caveat that by the way, uh, since you're the only person that can fit through the tunnel doors, if we come across a tunnel, would you be willing to go into the tunnel as a tunnel rat, explore and see what's down there, specifically looking for intelligence information? Um, I didn't feel like I had any choice but to say yes. So that's what started the tunnel rat tour of duty, which was my last four months uh in South Vietnam. And could you describe physically what a tunnel door looks like and what the size of a tunnel is, and then what your experiences were like most of the tunnels, entrances in particular, and the early uh part of the tunnel, most of them were about three by three, three feet by three feet. Um the entrances uh were camouflaged in a variety of ways. The a number of them were built right into the jungle floor uh with a camouflage over the top, so you couldn't really tell. Although if you stepped on it, because the the top was made out of wood, sometimes you could detect that you were not stepping on on dirt. Um, other times they would be under fires in the village huts. Uh they would be located in some of under some of the farm equipment, in refuge piles and junk piles. Uh, we had to look diligently to find these openings. And a lot of times they were found by uh the ground troops that were out patrolling in the area, and when they did that, they would call us and let us know that they had a tunnel that somebody needed to come out and go into. Um traditionally, combat engineers were the tunnel rats. Uh, in the early part of the war, the majority of them were Australian. Uh and again, engineers. They were uh trained in explosive detonation, uh, which was how we ultimately destroyed the tunnel. But we didn't have combat engineers in my unit. Uh, and the only thing they had was a guy small enough to fit through the entrance. That happened to be me. Uh, I was a lot uh more trim and and more fit back in those days, and I was not claustrophobic. So I qualified uh to be the person to go into these tunnels.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

And when you would enter the tunnel, what would you go in with? What equipment would you take? What weapons?

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Uh I had a choice of a sidearm, a 45 caliber or a 38. I chose the 38 because I was more familiar with it. And when you discharged it underground, it was uh a little bit uh had less of a discharge sound, easier on the ears. I carried a right angle flashlight that had a red lens over it, and I carried a three-foot probing stick, which I would use to probe in front of me for booby traps. Uh the VC were great at booby trapping the entrances to these tunnels. Uh they would hang snakes, venomous snakes uh at the entrance, or they would dig holes uh with bamboo spikes in them, which they would uh defecate on so that if it broke your skin, you would get infected. Um and I used the probing sticks to uh try to find those booby traps on the way in. Um, I also carried a gas mask uh in case somebody set off some uh uh tear gas in the tunnel. Um and I carried uh C4 explosives uh in the event that I would uh explode a part of the tunnel while I was in there. There were other options for destroying the tunnel. I could come back out and we would drop uh heavier munitions into the tunnels at different points and try to blow it up that way. But I did carry C4, which is an explosive uh that you can discharge underground.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

And considering very few uh troops at the time, you know, from a physical size standpoint could go in, um then what was the particular objective? Were you supposed to go as deep as you could? Were you supposed to simply go to a certain distance and then leave the explosives to uh destroy the infrastructure and then return? Um ultimately, what were you supposed to do each time, or did it vary each time you went into a tunnel?

SPEAKER_00 17:15

No, the the mission was always the same. The first mission number one was to go in and explore, see how extensive the tunnel system was. The second primary mission was to see if I could find any intelligence, any documents in there uh that might give us uh an opportunity to learn what they were planning, what the VC or the NVA were planning. Uh the secondary missions were to determine what was stored in there. Uh the most logical items stored would be bags of rice, uh, weapons, and ammunition. Um we would also look for any indication that an American soldier's remains uh might have been taken in there at one time or another, such as dog tags or other pieces of American equipment. So um once I got into the tunnel, I had the option of determining how far I went into the tunnel and what missions I uh uh ultimately carried out. I did have the opportunity to always come out at any time. Um and if I felt like the tunnel was too extensive, uh as I said, we could call in uh or set up different ways of destroying the tunnel. Um those were options that I had. Uh and I might point out that nobody was ever ordered to go into a tunnel. Um not one single American, as I understand it, was ever ordered to do that. It was always a voluntary uh mission because, in all honesty, not many people could fit through the openings and not many people could deal with the claustrophobic circumstances underground. Um so there were a number of options. I should also say that the entrances were different. Some entrances uh were only three, four, or five feet deep. I went into two tunnels that were where the initial shaft was 20 feet deep, and in those I could not go down feet first. I had to go down head first. So three pretty heavy-duty guys in my unit would tie a line around my one ankle and lower me down slowly uh into that shaft until I got to the bottom.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Um, did you ever find yourself at certain points in time admiring this infrastructure that the Vietnamese built?

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Um yes, after I got home, I was too nervous um about what was going on. And uh just constantly on alert. Uh you have to realize there's no ambient light down there. So the only light you get is either from your own night vision that you uh can stir up yourself or from the the flashlight that you have. The problem with the flashlight is it does give you some visibility, but it also alerts somebody that might be at the other end of the tunnel that you're coming their way. So it was kind of a double-edged sword. Um the tunnels were extensive. Uh many of them were extensive. Some were just bunkers storing uh food, but there were tunnels down outside of Saigon known as the Ku Chi Tunnels that were uh 30 miles long. Uh there were full infantry brigades of NVA and VC that hid out in there for days. They had hospitals, uh, they had babies delivered underground that never saw the light of day for their first six months. Um, they stored uh dead uh soldiers down there. And that brings me to a lead up that the most significant issue for me uh was the smell, and they all had the same smell, and the only way, Maurice, I can describe it was a combination of uh death and human feces, and um it's a smell that uh to this day I still have not gotten over.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

What would you like folks to understand about this experience through your particular eyes, your particular senses? Uh olfactory and what you would hear. Um or through the experiences of your your comrades when you were over there, what is something you would like to convey to listeners about this time that you spent there in Vietnam? What what comes to mind?

SPEAKER_00 21:58

I think the important thing for Me is to understand that there are two stories to the Vietnam War. There's the story that the public got through the media and dominated their TV screens at night, uh, and really portrayed a deceitful picture of what was actually taking place. Um, not only were the politicians involved in that, but there were senior officers in the military that were uh giving incorrect information back to the media so that the public uh would think that everything was going okay and that we were doing the right thing and that we were making progress. The other side of that equation, and to me the most important, is to understand that we weren't making progress over there. And that was not because of the effort of the American soldiers. I I want everybody to understand that everything that I witnessed from my brothers uh in combat, my my brothers in arms over there, we all did the very best we could to uh complete the mission and to support our brothers in combat and help each other make it home. Um there were roadblocks in the way to do that, um, political roadblocks. There were uh things that were set up between South Vietnam and the American officers were if we actually uh came in contact with the enemy, we couldn't engage them until we called back and got permission from local chieftains for that area. And by the time we did that, uh, of course, the enemy was gone. Um, so it got to the point where we ignored those orders, and if we came, if we engaged the enemy, we engaged them on the spot. That was the only way that we could uh make an effort for our to protect ourselves and get ourselves home. So I think it's important for the public to understand that the soldiers that went over, whether they were drafted or whether they were enlisted, uh, served their country well with honor and distinction, uh, and they should be held in that regard uh when we came back. And we know that that was not the case.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Extrapolating from that, what do you think, as someone who has served, who would go into these tunnels, a very unique uh particular type of situation, what do you think is important for people in government who are making these decisions, whether the executive, legislative branch, or military leadership, um, you know, in the intelligence community, so on and so forth, uh, as well as for society? When we are involved in conflict, whether we agree with it or not, that's not the point, but when we are involved in conflict, what is the most important thing that needs to be communicated regarding the conflict? Uh learning from the lessons of Vietnam?

SPEAKER_00 25:17

I think there needs to be a clearly defined mission that is acceptable to the public. Um during Vietnam, uh General Eisenhower espoused the doctrine of the domino theory, which was that if we didn't stop uh what was going on in Vietnam, that all of Indochina, Indonesia would uh succumb to the communists. It turned out that that was not a legitimate uh reason to go into Vietnam. We also need to make sure that if we're fighting in a foreign land on behalf of another foreign country, that they are willing to take on the majority of the responsibility. South Vietnam was never willing to do that, and they were never capable of doing it. We knew that they were a corrupt regime, a corrupt government, and uh even Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense for Kennedy and Johnson, uh, understood this. There were there was talk of having a coup and getting rid of the current uh South Vietnamese government at the time. That would be the DM government and Madame Nu, uh the wife of Diem, but we never followed through with that. So we just allowed a corrupt government to basically orchestrate how we entered and how we engaged in this conflict. Um we can't do that again. We we just need to understand that if we're fighting on behalf of another country or another section of the world, that section of the world needs to be primarily responsible and supportive of what we are doing over there. We should never ask our own uh sons and daughters to go fight somebody else's war, that they're not willing to fight themselves.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Transitioning from Vietnam back to the United States, uh tell us what that was like and when you first started to realize that you know the war was or your experience in Vietnam was following you home.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Well, when I came home and I came home on Christmas Day 1970. That's when I caught my freedom flight. That's what everybody called their flight home. Uh, so I arrived back in the States on Christmas Day, and uh I immediately got caught up in all the rhetoric and the media publicity about uh Vietnam and Vietnam veterans are not to be honored. They were babykillers and uh they were rogue over there. They didn't really follow military protocol. Um, I heard all that. Uh I didn't really know any other Vietnam vets when I came home. I returned to my corporate job that I had before I went in. Nobody was interested in asking me about it, talking about it, and quite frankly, I wasn't interested in talking about it either. So I I just got on with my life as it was. Uh thank heavens I had a good job and I could focus on that. But there were issues associated with my time over there uh that lingered and that I did not know how to deal with, that I initially didn't even know how to identify. Um today we call it PTSD. Uh back then the most noticeable thing was that as soon as the lights went off at night, um, that smell kicked in for me, that smell from the tunnel, and uh I got very little sleep. So for 40 years, uh, and still to this day, uh up until my first Camino adventure, um, that was a lingering issue uh for me. And um I also had survivor's guilt, uh the traditional survivor's guilt that you ask yourself the question, why did you make it home when when your buddies did not? Um that's not just uh an issue that uh soldiers deal with, but survivors of tragic car accidents and things like that who make it out of it deal with the same thing. The VA tried to help me with that. I did spend some time in Charlotte, North Carolina with the VA. Uh I spent six hours waiting to talk to somebody who never actually showed up. Uh, and I ultimately walked out and decided to spend some time with my church minister who did his best uh to counsel me. Um, but we never really got into the thick of things. So I just accepted it as this is gonna be a way of life. I didn't really have any other vets to talk to. I hadn't joined any veteran organizations. So for 40 years, um that was a way of life, and again, thank goodness for uh my friends and for the company that I was working for that I had that opportunity to focus on that.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Did you find that any of your family members that had served previously in wartime um were a means or a source to turn to, or did they come to you, or y'all just it just never happened?

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Basically, it just never happened. My dad, uh, as I said, was the decorated Marine pilot in World War II, never spoke about his time in the military. Everything I learned about my dad, I learned from my mom. Uh, and even when I went to Vietnam and came home from Vietnam, my dad never sat down with me. Um, I think he probably said welcome home, but there wasn't much more than that. He never asked me what happened and how how I was doing, if there were any issues or things like that. Um, I didn't really have any other family members that had served. My grandfather was no longer alive. Um, my brother-in-law had served in the Air Force, but stationed stateside, so he didn't experience Vietnam. And when I went to report to my corporate job uh in New York City, uh really none of the guys I knew back there, then this is a large corporation. There were 7,000 of us in our uh corporate headquarters. Uh, I didn't really know any Vietnam vets back then. And like I said, nobody wanted to talk to me about it. And quite frankly, I didn't want to talk to them about it either. So um tried to shut it out. Uh you know, and you can shut out the outside world, but you can't shut out what's going on inside.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

While this uh was occurring in your life over the years, uh what mechanisms did you find uh that at least provided some form of relief?

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Uh Maurice, I I can't say that I actually found any mechanisms that provided uh relief. And and they all those PTSD issues all took their toll. I mean, I was married three times. Um I can't say that the failure of my marriages was a direct result uh of PTSD or or my time in the military. Um but it didn't help either. Uh so I struggled along those lines. Um I tried to stay busy uh with outside activities and with my corporate obligations. Um and uh I those were the only things uh that really got me through that time until uh 2012.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Regarding your three uh marriages, did any of your spouses uh you know present to you the idea uh that you were carrying um experiences home from Vietnam? Uh did this ever surface?

SPEAKER_00 33:21

My my first wife, who I was married to while I was in Vietnam, uh understood, I think, pretty significantly what was going on. Um she was reluctant to talk about it. I don't think she understood how to make that connection. Um we probably should have gone through some couple counseling. Um it's one of those woulda, shoulda, coulda issues. Um and it ultimately took its toll. Um then my second marriage was short. Out of that marriage, though, came my daughter, uh, who was a blessing in my life and still is a blessing in my life, and who has given me two wonderful granddaughters. Uh, and they have taken up some of the that uh mental anguish themselves, giving me something to focus on. Uh and they are the love of my life. Um the marriages that my last marriage was one of companionship, which turned out to be not very supportive. And and you know, I don't think it's necessary to say any more about it, but uh um no, there there was not a lot of help through the the marriage, the marriages.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

What would you share with anyone who finds themselves uh, and this is not reserved exclusively for those uh who serve in in conflict uh for an extended period of time like you have, uh though it is for them as well, but also to you know include others who've experienced deeply stressful, traumatic moments in their life. Um what what recommendations would you give them? What what would you tell them things to pay attention to in their life and uh and you know uh perhaps steps they could take to start addressing it before it really turning into uh a lifelong issue? And it's not to say it's gonna be a cure-all, but just uh a way of at least reducing uh the negative impacts.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Well, first of all, I think there has to be an outlet of some sort. And uh and there has to be some acknowledgement that life is not the same. The military, when I got back from Vietnam and when I got out of the service, there was no discussion with anybody about uh integrating back into civilian life or leaving the conflict a conflicted environment uh like we all left. Not one single word was spoken about uh what you might experience. And if you do, um here are some options for you. Uh that's pretty much why I just disappeared into my life that I had as a civilian, even though I wasn't really getting any support for the things I needed support for. So I would my my instruction for veterans coming out of service is spend some time with your family, your particularly your spouse, and uh tell them what you went through. Share with them. My first wife, I had I didn't even tell about my tunnel rat experience. I didn't know how to talk about it. Um, and I didn't want to talk about it. So she didn't even have a clue that that was a part of my duty over there. Um, but I think when you get home, you you need to get it out uh verbally. Uh there needs to be discussion about it. Um, there need to be professional people that understand how to guide you through uh traumatic times and traumatic issues, whether that's the VA and they're getting better at it, but they still haven't figured it out, uh, or whether it's private counseling uh through your church. Um and then the other big issue is friends. Um, I think it's important to spend time with other people that have gone through similar trauma. Uh listen to them, what they went through and what they experienced, and maybe there's something uh that I went through that I could have shared with them and we could have helped each other. I went I went 40 years without talking to basically any other vets about what I had experienced. Um and shutting it all up never works. I don't think any counselor would ever tell you that that's the way out. Um, and of course, we know uh what happens today for a lot of our vets. Uh the suicide rate and the homeless rate are still astronomical. Um, these are vets that didn't have any uh outlet for what they experienced. And uh there are veteran organizations today. I'm an active member of the VFW and the honor guard unit within the VFW, and that's been very, very healing for me to uh to help other veterans, to have conversations with guys that were over in Vietnam and what they went through, even if even if they weren't in infantry, if they were driving a truck over there, they experienced some trauma. So I would just ask all veterans or suggest to all veterans, make sure you come home and talk to somebody about it. Don't shut it up.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

When you had referenced your first spouse, your first wife, uh, and that you know you didn't share with her even the fact you had been a tunnel rat. What reflecting back, if you'll allow me, why do you think you did not share that experience with her?

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Um, I think probably a couple reasons. Number one, I wasn't sure she was interested in hearing it. Um there were probably several times I talked about it and and uh and or started to talk about it, and um she just sort of shuddered uh quietly. And my observation was that was something, that was a direction that she didn't want to go. I I should have asked her, um, but I didn't. I'm I made that decision myself to to keep it to myself because I didn't feel that that was something that would benefit our marriage, which was a huge mistake on my part. Um, she had also had uh uh a neighbor, uh girlfriend of hers, whose husband was killed in Vietnam. And then apparently one day while I was serving over there, uh a car pulled up to the front door with and two an officer and a priest got out of the car and came to the front door. And of course, you can imagine what a military spouse would think was going on when that happened. It turned out they had the wrong address. Uh but uh the trauma associated with that event, I'm not sure she ever got over. Uh so um it was my issue in not chatting with her and not finding circumstances that would allow us to bring that out uh and help the relationship, but um hard to hard to redo it now.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

Looking at the other side of the coin, just briefly for a moment, were there any positive moments that you would retract from your time in Vietnam to help offset some of the negative memories?

SPEAKER_00 40:56

I I did have one experience when I was on RR in Hawaii, uh, with my wife flew out and we spent six days together. I contacted uh one of my corporate buddies back in New York City and asked them if they would be willing to instigate and put together a clothing drive for kids' clothing uh and have it shipped over to Vietnam uh to the address of uh the company that I was assigned to, um, and ultimately get it to one of the orphanages. When we were uh doing some patrols through some of the towns, uh I noticed a Catholic orphanage there, and I thought, well, maybe I can offset all the ugliness of war with spending a day delivering some clothes to these kids that were the benefactors of war. Um, so my company uh set out messages to 123 of their field offices, and they collected 32 boxes of kids' clothing and kids' items like baseball cards and football cards and bubblegum and stuff like that. And the Air Force agreed to ship it over. So one day, uh about four weeks after getting back to Vietnam for my RR, my commanding officer called me and he said, McAllister, you have 32 boxes back here. We don't know what they are, we don't know what they're for, but you need to come back. We're gonna send a helicopter out for you, and you're gonna figure out what we're gonna do with these. So I had almost forgotten about asking the guys back in New York to put that together. So they sent a chopper out for me, and I went back to the rear area, and it and it turned out to be 32 boxes of clothing. So the CEO requisitioned a Jeep for me and an interpreter, and we went to an orphanage down in Fuby, uh, and we handed out uh clothing for the day, and I called it Project Smile because of the smiles on the kids' faces. Um, it was one shining light, one day out of a year where I felt like um I'd done something positive, that there was maybe light at the end of the tunnel uh that I could smile. And uh even got to the point where I thought, well, maybe at the end of the war I'll I could adopt one of these kids. Um but they they took the baseball cards and football cards, they had no idea what they were, but they were get they were getting something uh they thought was special. Um, of course, the girls were all excited about the little dresses and the outfits and things like that. So it was a shining moment uh in a dark cloud.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

What brought you to El Camino de Santiago?

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Well, in 2012, uh I one evening had a little bit of chest pain. Uh, long story short, two days later I drove myself to the emergency room and found out that I had significant coronary. Artery disease, and that in two days I was going to be obligated to have triple bypass open heart surgery, all attributed to my exposure to Asian Orange. So I had the open heart surgery. It went well. Fortunately, I did not have a heart attack. So the prognosis for continuing a significant life was pretty decent. And as I was going through my rehabilitation at home, physical rehabilitation, a friend of mine stopped by and asked me if I had ever heard of the Camino de Santiago, which I said no, I had never heard of it. She said she had just completed a journey on it. She told me it was an ancient pilgrimage route that ran across northern Spain in honor of the Apostle St. James. You could walk all 500 miles or you could walk a section of it, but she thought that I might really enjoy it from a rehab standpoint, and she knew I was very much an outdoor person that I would enjoy just the adventure of doing it. She said, go get a hold of the movie The Way with Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez and uh watch it. It'll give you a pretty good overview of what the Camino to Santiago is all about. So I got the movie, I watched it, I watched it again and again, and I got hooked. Um and I made up my mind that this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to go over to Spain, I wanted to walk all 500 miles. At the time I made that decision based on, yeah, it'd be great physical rehabilitation, although at that time I was, I think, pretty well rehabbed from my operation, and looking at it as more an adventure. So I watched probably a hundred YouTube videos about it. I read everything I could get my hands on. I talked to people that had walked the Camino. And on March 31st of 2014, I left the United States for Madrid to begin a basically a 35-day, 500-mile walk across this long trail across northern Spain. Um, it turned out to be life-changing for me. Uh, way, way beyond just an adventure time and physical rehabilitation time.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

At what moment along the way did you begin to perceive a change was occurring?

SPEAKER_00 46:30

Well, first let me say that the the this particular Camino, the Camino de Santiago is a series of routes throughout Spain that all end up in the town of Santiago de Compostela, which is where the remains of the Apostle St. James are said to be buried. So everybody, all the pilgrimages, you're called a pilgrim when you walk this, whether you're doing it for spiritual reasons or not, uh, everybody wants to end up there at Santiago de Compostela, and you actually get a certificate saying you completed this journey. The most popular and the longest of these Camino journeys is the Camino Francais, which actually starts in a town in France called Saint Jean-Pied de Port at the base of the Pyrenees Mountains, and then continues into Spain and across northern Spain. And in so doing that, you walk through a variety of sections. The first section is the Basque region of both France and Spain. That ends in the town of Pampelona, where they run the bulls every year. Um, and then you get into the Rioja wine region, uh, which is enjoyable, um, particularly if the grapes are being harvested. Um, and I came to really enjoy Spanish wine. And then the third region you come to is an area called the Meseta. It's a part of Spain's central plains area. It is flat, undulating with low hills, very little shade. And a number of people who walk the 500-mile camino skip the meseta. They're told it's boring, there's nothing to see there. I didn't want to skip anything. So uh after leaving the town of Burgos and walking into this area, the mesetta, you notice right away exactly what people were talking about. The the landscape opens up, the horizon is a long ways away. It never you never seemed to get to the horizon, which probably an unusual statement. But um I I noticed that there wasn't much to look at uh as opposed to all the other areas, beautiful landscapes in the other areas, a lot of historical things to see, including magnificent cathedrals. But in the meseta, there's just nothing. So about three or four hours into it, you start to get into uh some internalization, some uh nice, calm, pleasing thoughts. Um, I could hear the field birds and the field insects chirping along the trail. I could hear the rhythm of my feet on the pathway, the stone uh farm pathways there, and got into this very, very relaxing and calm uh cadence. Um so after the first two days of that, I realized that I was experiencing something different, that there was a healing, there was a cleansing taking place. I wasn't sure exactly what it was. Um, but there was a wonderful clarity that had kind of come over me. And those nagging issues that always seemed to be prevalent as to why you came home from Vietnam and why you didn't no longer just seem to be hanging in abeyance there. And and all the demons that lurked in your soul, that lurked in my soul for 40-some years seem to have gone dormant. I didn't have an answer for it. So on the third day, I'm walking into a town called Castro Ares. Uh, it's an old historical town on the Messetta. It actually has a castle at the top of it that Julius Caesar spent some time at. But when you walk into the town, there's a pretty little uh Catholic church at the entrance to the town. And I had reached the point where I felt it was necessary to give thanks for what I was experiencing for the past couple days. So I walked into the cathedral or into this church. There was not a single soul in the church. It was a beautiful little sanctuary. I took my backpack off and I walked into the last pew of the church. Um, I knelt down on the kneeling pad and folded my hands and began to think about how I was going to say thanks for this wonderful experience I was having. And all of a sudden, Maurice, without any fanfare and without my even being aware, a young priest showed up and he walked into my pew. He sat down next to me, he put his left hand on top of my folded hands, and he put his right hand across his heart, and he he said to me, Welcome home, son. Now, I had nothing on me that would indicate that I was a military veteran or that I had been to Vietnam, and there's no way he would have known that that was the traditional greeting from one veteran to another, uh, a calming, welcoming home. So when he said, Welcome home, son, I'm melted. I had no idea what was going on. And in the blink of an eye, he got up, he left, he didn't say another word. And I was kneeling there, dumbfounded as to what I had just experienced. Although I knew it was something unique and something special. And that that was the moment that uh I understood that um this experience was life-changing for me.

SPEAKER_01 52:10

Now, you then went back with fellow Vietnam War veterans, correct?

SPEAKER_00 52:18

I did. I actually that was 2014 for my first journey. I went back again, 2016 by myself. I went back again in 2018, and then I decided that, and again, on all three of those journeys, I had similar healing, calming experiences, but nothing like the first one. The first one set the stage. Uh after the third one, I decided, and actually during the respite of COVID, um, I decided that maybe I should take a small group of Vietnam vets with me over there, and maybe they would experience the same thing. So I thought about putting together a trip over there. I called it the Last Patrol just to have a name to market and promote. And I went to a couple Facebook sites, one uh Vietnam veteran site and another a Camino site. And I sent out a message saying if you're a Vietnam vet and you're interested in walking 500 miles and you're capable of walking 500 miles uh across an old pilgrimage trail in Spain, send me a note. I'm thinking about putting together a group to go in 2023. And if you're interested in joining me, uh send me some details. I probably had about 40 people respond. Uh everybody in the positive, some people just supportive of the effort. And I probably had about 15 guys say they were interested in doing it. So I had to start a vetting process. Um, why are you doing it? Uh are you really physically capable of doing it? Are you willing to pay your own way to do this? Um, do you have support of your family to do this? Uh and why are you doing it? And it took about a year to whittle the group down to four other guys and myself, five of us, uh, one of whom had actually done a Camino journey before. Um, the others had not. Uh and I thought we had a very appropriate group of Vietnam vets that were going to make this journey. Because we were all 78 to 81 years old. I also thought it would probably be important to have some sort of vehicle support us. So one of the guys who couldn't walk 500 miles said, I would love to be your driver. So he became our driver. We rented uh when we got to to uh Spain, we rented uh an SUV and he shadowed us the whole 500 miles, and we certainly took advantage of that. But um it it turned out to be a little bit different than I had originally uh anticipated for a variety of reasons. Um, one of the guys had a serious PTSD breakdown, disappeared from us for seven days. We had no idea where he was. Uh, then he ultimately showed back up. Uh, the gentleman that had already done a Camino journey before decided he was more interested in being on his own schedule than our schedule. So it was very seldom that more than three of us or two of us walk together uh every day. Um having said all that, by the time we were done and by the time we got to Santiago de Compostela at the end of our journey, we all acknowledged that it was a very special time. Three of us are still very, very close friends, communicate uh every week. Uh, and I would tell you it was a successful journey, not maybe to the same degree I had hoped initially. Um, but there certainly was some healing and some brotherhood uh that was felt and extended on the trip. We had a great time. And we took 44 days.

SPEAKER_01 56:01

Were your uh colleagues uh in this venture? I mean, were y'all talking among yourselves about your particular experiences or talking about uh what y'all brought back home? Or did it just turn more into um sort of an implicit and indirect, a quiet uh sort of session of relief over these hundreds of miles just expressed in different ways and just talking about each other's personal lives?

SPEAKER_00 56:32

Uh traditionally, Maurice, uh on a Camino journey, you would end your day at three in the afternoon or four o'clock uh at your hostel. They called him Albergues over there. Um, and you do if you have some laundry to do, you do that, maybe take a quick nap. Dinner was generally served around seven o'clock, and then at, you know, for an hour or two, you'd sit around with other pilgrims, other people making the journey, talk about the day's events, talk about home life, where you came from, and things like that. I anticipated for the Last Patrol, the veterans group, that at the end of the day, we would sit down uh over a beer or a glass of wine and we would talk about the day's events and share some stories uh about our personal experiences in Vietnam. That did not happen for a variety of reasons. The first reason is because we were pushing 80 or already 80, those naps took up longer than I had traditionally anticipated they would. The other thing that didn't happen was uh these guys didn't really want to talk about their time in Vietnam, uh, which I understood completely. Uh so we sat and chatted a little bit about what was coming the next day, but the evenings disappeared rapidly and and we crashed uh in our old-fashioned bunk beds trying to get a little whatever little sleep we could. So there was not a lot of camaraderie in terms of sharing tales, uh personal stories of Vietnam. Uh I did say that one of the guys had some PTSD issues, which he acknowledged, um, and which created a little bit of anxiety among the group, but we all got through it. Um there just wasn't a lot of military discussions uh during this time. It was more about what we experienced in Spain.

SPEAKER_01 58:37

Did you pick up on any particular differences in mood or attitudes or the way you all carried yourselves from the first day and then when you completed it?

SPEAKER_00 58:51

Um yes, uh the gentleman who was our driver uh was a bird dog pilot in South Vietnam. And for those that don't know what a bird dog is, it's basically a Cessna that flies at treetop level, uh spotting enemy movement on the ground and calling in artillery or uh our airstrikes or moving American ground troops uh into position to uh intersect these. It's a very, very dangerous uh job. Um I don't know how Ray made it home and how why that little Cessna uh didn't get shot down, but he did. And he and I became very close, and we talked regularly about issues in Vietnam from his perspective above the ground and from my perspective on the ground and under the ground. Um, and we still talk about those things today. Uh one of the other gentlemen was a door gunner on a Huey who turned out had some asthmatic problems and had problems walking uh 15 miles a day and ended up getting in the van and riding with Ray. The other two guys were pretty much on their own and and um didn't seem interested in talking about Vietnam uh at all. So um, you know, I had that conversation with one of the guy, one of the four other guys, uh and he and I basically uh achieved the objective between the two of us, while the other three uh I think had a great time, but not in in line with the mission that I saw or that I thought would happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

So going out on a limb here, uh so obviously El Camino has uh a reputation uh that's been developed over hundreds of years and a natural attraction to a variety of folks. Uh folks looking for, I guess, some kind of relief or introspection, uh, or just simply, you know, they're wanderers and uh seeking, you know, just exposure to new environments. But regardless of the reason, um do you think that there are paths here in the United States that could perhaps offer a similar type of experience? Uh, and especially for people who are carrying particular stressors in their life, like the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Northwest Trail, or do you think it really uh makes a much greater difference to adhere to something uh that has been done for hundreds of years?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:40

I I think there are benefits to both, Maurice. I think uh the Camino offers uh an environment, if you haven't done it before, it environes it offers an environment that's completely different. And I think it gives you an opportunity to expand uh expand your perception of where you are and what you're doing that can include that healing that I experienced. Um I think there are wonderful opportunities for veterans to do that. And as a matter of fact, there are other organizations that specifically put together trips to the Camino for veterans. One's one is called Warriors on the Way. Um, they are not just focused on Vietnam vets, but any uh any veteran uh can sign up to experience it. I've been in touch with the leader of that group, and they they make an annual trip over there uh and they do a great job. As far as trails in the United States, I think both the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Coast Trail uh are opportunities to do that. Um I think uh they both demand a little more from you than the Camina does because the Appalachian Trail, you have to carry your lodging, whether it's a tent or some uh parpolon or of some sort, and you have to carry your food. Over in Spain, all you need to carry is your clothes. Uh everything else is provided over there. So uh I think a pilgrimage, a long walk is a wonderful opportunity, whether you do it solo or whether you do it with somebody that you can open up to and share your experiences with. I think it offers wonderful healing. Um, I'm still thinking about trying to put together some document that promotes that. Um I've started several of them. I haven't finished them, but I'm still working on them. Uh, promoting uh a pilgrimage of sorts for uh combat veterans. So I think there's great merit in doing that.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:50

Um as we come here sort of almost to a close, because this is only part one, and set the stage for part two, uh, you're going to be leaving this month to return to Vietnam for the first time in 56 years. Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:09

Well, 40 years ago, I would not have considered it under any circumstances, but my connection over the last 10 or 15 years with the VFW and with other veteran organizations here in St. Augustine, including the Veterans Council, I've had an opportunity to work with other veterans, spend time with other veterans, and one of the gentlemen uh that I'm connected with, who actually uh works with veterans that have been incarcerated in one of the Florida prisons, um, told me about this organization that once a year puts together a group of Vietnam veterans, and they are focused on a specific time and place in Vietnam uh and an uh division over in Vietnam. So this year the focus is on Hamburger Hill, uh, an operation called Apache Snow that involved the 101st Airborne Division up in ICOR. So there are 18 guests that have been invited, uh, all of whom uh spent time either in that particular combat operation or with that division or that unit uh or were in that particular area. And um the gentleman that I'm referring to asked if I would be interested in doing this. And I said, you know, the time has probably come for me to consider that. So I said, yes, I filled out the application, and I found out two weeks ago, that two or three weeks ago, that I had been uh selected to join a group of 18 uh Vietnam vets, all members of the 101st Airborne Division, all having been over there in 1969 or 1970. Um and all having been involved in that particular area of iCorps. It is sponsored by some significant benefactors and corporations. The it's a 12-day journey, all expenses paid from door to door. We are scheduled to leave on Saturday, the 12th of April. I will fly from Orlando to San Francisco and then from San Francisco to Vietnam via Hong Kong and probably one other fuel stop, and then make the return on the 30th of April. And to me, the significant part of this trip is the opportunity to sit down face to face with our former adversaries. Men my age who served with the Viet Cong or with the North Vietnamese Army, who are trying to heal the same exact way we are trying to heal over here. And I think there's going to be a wonderful, wonderful, beneficial experience to do that face to face with these gentlemen, who, as I said, experienced the exact same thing that we did over here, and I'm very much looking forward to that opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:14

Um God, excuse me for a second. Um you're 81 years old, and you're going to be meeting with, as you stated, former adversaries who are going to be similar in age. Do you think we as people have a tendency to put off moments like this, to put off healing, reconciliation?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:44

I do. I think there comes a time when you accept the bigger picture of what took place. Uh for me, because I kept everything internal for so long, my perception was limited to all the negative aspects, all the things I experienced, the fact that some of my friends didn't make it home. Um that was the focus, as opposed to recognizing that there are times in the life of human beings where you're asked to step out, step beyond, uh, and serve something beyond yourself. Um whether you agree with that perception uh or whatever that particular mission is, um there's an obligation as a human being to support the human race and our planet. And I think what's about to happen is one of those times where we can make a difference in bringing cultures, um the bringing uh pain uh back to the forefront and healing, uh presenting a healing opportunity. And I'm hoping that's what this will be. This will be my last freedom flight. I look at it as I will have made this, will be my fifth freedom flight. My first one was in 1970, coming home from Vietnam, and then my three journeys on the Camino, and this will be my fifth journey altogether, my second one back to Vietnam. Um, this is my last freedom flight, and um that's what I'm expecting out of this for me to finally reach that stage where I've joined the big human race. Uh, I've joined the planet, um, as opposed to just uh a member of a small community in a small country.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:48

Well, welcome back, Rick. And again, thank you for your service. Um, and I I applaud everything that you're doing. Uh, as cliche-ish as that may sound, uh, I mean it with the deepest of sincerity. Uh, I look forward to interviewing you for part two, and you can share with us uh what happened uh over in Vietnam and when you sat down with former adversaries. Is it gonna turn out to be totally unexpected? Much like your your uh walk on the last El Camino with fellow veterans. Uh is it gonna turn into a total clusterfuck, so to say? Uh no, or or is there gonna be some, you know, really some overwhelming bonding? Uh who knows? Uh, but I'm definitely looking forward to hearing your experience, uh, you know what you saw through their eyes, uh, through veterans that left the United States to go with you, uh, and what you uh bring back from that. Uh, thank you for your service. Thank you for sharing today, and I look forward to the next time. Um, to our listeners, again, thank you for joining us again on Brungart Law's Lanyat, where we provide a little extra perspective because the devil's always in the details. Please invite others to join, share your feedback with us. Rick, again, tremendous gratitude.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:16

Thanks, Maurice. It's been an honor to spend this time with you. Very much enjoyed it, and I can't tell you how much I look forward to sitting down with you after my journey and sharing a brand new experience with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:28

Likewise.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:29

Take care, my friends.