Arriving in Vietnam in April 1968, John “Tilt” Meyer volunteered for a highly classified unit without knowing so much as its name. Tilt, it turned out, was volunteering to join Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG), which ran highly classified special operations missions deep into North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. On one of Tilt’s first missions, an area reconnaissance of an important North Vietnamese Army site in Laos, his small team was quickly discovered. A harrowing firefight followed. Later, with only a few months' experience, he became the team leader, taking the responsibility on his shoulders for the decisions made in the jungle.
This episode features the first of a two-part conversation with Ryan Hendrickson. In this part, he shares a story from a 2010 deployment. On...
Rick Jackson enlisted in the Marine Corps in the 1980s, later attending Officer Candidates School and commissioning as an infantry officer. He joins this...
In 2003, Karl Blanke was a weapons platoon commander during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Crossing the line of departure in the first wave, Blanke’s Marines...