469: Dangerous Secret Missions. With Army Col (Ret) Bill Reeder.

This is Jocko Podcast number 469 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. The war raged. It had been raging for some time.

I arrived in the country in the middle of the night on Halloween 1968. I was young, a 22-year-old newly promoted U.S. Army captain, eager to find my manhood to learn what I was made of. I was anxious over the explosive light displays I'd seen in the distance as our World Airways flight abruptly dropped into a steep, spiraling approach, landing at Benhoa Air Base, just outside Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam. As I walked toward the military bus there to pick us up, I noted, with some concern, the heavy gauge wire mesh across the windows.

Our escort told us it was to prevent anyone from throwing grenades through the windows as we drove down narrow streets on our way to Longbin Army post a few miles northwest. Welcome to the combat zone, I thought. Little did I know how far this was from the reality of war I'd soon come to know. I'd heard the unit I was going to, the Hundred and Thirty First, flew special, highly classified missions. some of the most hazardous in Southeast Asia.

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