The Ben Maynard Program
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The Ben Maynard Program
EP. 69 Inspiring Stories: From Battlefield Bravery to Creative Recovery
After a remarkable journey marked by courage and dedication, Ronnie Guyer joins us to share his powerful story of service and resilience. From a poignant encounter with President John F. Kennedy to life-altering experiences in the Vietnam War, Ronnie recounts moments that have shaped his life and continue to inspire others. His reflections offer profound insights into the intertwining of personal narratives with national history, reminding us of the enduring impact of military service.
Listeners will be captivated by Ronnie's tale of heroism, particularly the life-saving actions inspired by his Vietnam-era training, which turned a tragic accident into a story of miraculous recovery. His experiences highlight the transformative power of quick action and foresight, as seen through the legacy of fellow soldier Rick Rescorla. This episode delves into the tactical evolution of military operations and discusses the broader implications of resilience and leadership beyond the battlefield.
In a heartfelt exploration of healing and community, we touch on the significance of art therapy and spiritual growth for veterans coping with the scars of service. Ronnie's involvement with veterans' programs at the Nixon Library showcases the therapeutic benefits of creative expression. The episode also emphasizes the importance of mentorship and faith, illustrating how these elements contribute to personal development and the nurturing of future generations. Join us in honoring the dedication and bravery of our veterans and sharing stories that resonate with hope and inspiration.
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Hey there, welcome into the Ben Maynard program. Thanks for being here. Before we get started, I'll remind everybody that this program is available wherever you stream your podcasts. Okay, just simply search the Ben Maynard program. You'll have so many different options to choose from. Pick the one you want to go with and do it. Just listen in, okay. Secondly, if you're watching these two handsome gentlemen on YouTube, thank you so much, greatly appreciate it. You can't resist this right here. But if you are watching, please subscribe to the channel, Give me a thumbs up and leave a comment. You know I like your comments. I read all of your comments. You know that. And, last but not least, follow me on Instagram. Ben Maynard Program all one word. That is it, okay. So there are plenty of ways to take in this show for your dancing and listening pleasure. And with that, as you know, we're celebrating Veterans Day. This is Veterans Day weekend for me, and I'm bringing in my good buddy, ronnie Geyer, to the program. Thank you so much, ronnie, for being here.
Speaker 2:My honor and thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1:No, it's an absolute pleasure for me. And before we get started, I'll just kind of bring everybody into our association and the nature of our association. Ronnie and I met at church I don't know, I guess it's been like, I don't know, four years ago or so, something like that and so Ronnie and I, of course, we attend the same church. I don't know, I guess it's been like, I don't know, four years ago or so, something like that, and so Ronnie and I, of course, we attend the same church and it's hard to miss either of us because we are the front row, we are the front row of our congregation and so-.
Speaker 2:As we worship, and dance.
Speaker 1:That's right, and so that's kind of how Ronnie and I met, and Ronnie has, over the years he has shared a bit of his story with me and it really honestly it's just a bit.
Speaker 1:And it really honestly it's just a bit, and because we are doing a celebration of veterans and I just I really want to show my appreciation for every person who has either sacrificed they, whatever portion of their life they have given to our country and our freedom, whether they fired a shot, whether they saw battle or not. As soon as you sign your name on the dotted line you are giving yourself, no matter what, because there's always that chance, and I want to make sure that we celebrate and say a proper thank you to our veterans, and I did a little bit of that last night on my live stream, but this one here is where we really start. So, ronnie, thank you again so much for being here. I have one question to start this thing off, and then you're going to go. Have one question to start this thing off, and then you're going to go. What? What compelled you to sign that dotted line and give yourself to the, to the U S government?
Speaker 2:In my, in fact, hello and thank you very much for being with us and thank you very much for being part of my life. I am 82 years old and I would say my real life started when I was in the United States Army. I had several things happen to me around college time, and there were three things that really threw me for a loop when I was 20 years old. First of all, my mother, who was only 40 years old, died, and so that was a loss. That was boy. I wasn't expecting that and I was 20 years old. She was 40.
Speaker 1:Are you an only child?
Speaker 2:Yes, no I have a sister that's younger.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay. And then my ballroom dancing partner, who we in high school were taught how to ballroom dance by Mouseketeer Bobby of the Mickey Mouse Club. Ha ha, hi there Mouseketeers, hi there Mickey. Yeah, all stuff like that for four years, oh geez. We were also first loves, and when I thought I was after my mom died, that I that I was ready to get married. She was not Okay, and I learned, right then and there, a strong lesson, which is guys are always ready and girls are ready when they're ready, and that is the only thing that matters.
Speaker 2:I had to learn it the hard way, but that is what really happened. So that's two difficult things that threw me for a loop. Just a couple years later actually less than a couple years later, when I graduated from high school, eight weeks after high school, I met JFK. I met President Kennedy on the day after he received his party's nomination for President of the United States. Okay, downtown Los Angeles. And I was there working in my first job before I started to go to Loyola University in the fall and right place, right time. He stops his car when he's going to get ready to go down to the Coliseum and I'm right there to be with him when he opens his car in downtown Los Angeles, near where I worked, to be taken by car there down to the Coliseum to give his acceptance speech to the country.
Speaker 1:He was accepting the party's nomination.
Speaker 2:He was accepting the party's nomination and I was standing right there as he opens his door. That was dropped off right there in the street, there at the hotel, and oh, hi there, mr Kennedy, how are you Good to see you today? Et cetera. We started talking and stuff. I said, well, I just came over. Are you going down to the Coliseum? He says yes, I am. I says, well, the cars that are taking you the Vice President Johnson, your co-, is right there waiting with his family in the other car. And I just came from there. Would you like an escort to go there? He says lead the way, son. So then, that's the way it was.
Speaker 2:We went over there and by the time we'd walked over to where those cars were, a group in the back end of the car these were convertibles had assembled and he started shaking hands with them. He stood in the back seat and bent over and said thank you, thank you, thank you for being here. So I get in line about halfway and I go best of luck to you, november Senator. And he says thank you, thank you, thank you for being here. So I get in line about halfway and I go. Best of luck to you, november Senator and he says thank you, son, good to see you here, thank you for being here. And then I walk on. So I did not wash this hand for three days.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I got to see it on television at 7 o'clock that day. So I was very tight and close until November 22nd 1963, when he was assassinated. And I went crying throughout the house when I heard that, because I had just woken up and no, no, not this. After all, three of these things, not this, not this, not this. And I said, Ron, you've got to get out in this world and you've got to see for yourself what's really happening out there, what's right, what's wrong, and instead of what people are telling you to how to think, and all of that stuff.
Speaker 2:In other words, see it yourself and I said well, the United States Army seems to me I've got to do. I got a nose from the draft board anyway. I said let's go, I'm looking forward to it. I am prepared openly to take care of everything, and if it matters that Vietnam in the process cranks up for a battle, I am certainly ready for that too, because I need to see it for myself. And that's what I did. I was very open to the whole thing and I met wonderful people all the way and I ended up in the first major battle of the Vietnam War and ended up seeing all kinds of things and enough to come back home to know what is right and wrong and what is real and what isn't, and when I'm being lied to on television.
Speaker 1:What year is this?
Speaker 2:1965.
Speaker 1:That was the first battle of Vietnam.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Because, listen, this is going to be an education for me as well. All right, so my questions may seem insignificant to you, but not to me. So 1965, first major battle of Vietnam. Every battle has a name.
Speaker 2:Battle of the Ai Drang Valley, or the Valley of Death.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Battle of the.
Speaker 1:Ai Drang, ai Drang, ai Drang.
Speaker 2:And a movie was made.
Speaker 1:I was going to say doesn't that lead us to another subject we'll be discussing very soon? Okay, all right, all right, we won't get there yet. I want to. I don't want to jump ahead too much.
Speaker 2:So I just want to make it plain the United States army and I say this to anyone that thinks about the military, particularly nowadays, because it's pretty darn straight Grab it, become an adult, get out there and see what's happening and what's really not happening, what is really correct and what is not correct and you saw it in the voting of this week. You have got to see for yourself what is really real instead of what you're being told and that is becoming very well accepted to look at here in this country. But you need to have that in order to have our country and you have a life that can't be manipulated by anybody else. So I came back from the first major battles of the Vietnam War in 1966, ready to go because I could see what's happening and I said I'm ready here to tell my story. You fight communism, the people who love to kill. It's as simple as that and I'll tell you. I'll tell you as soon as I started talking like that. No one wanted to hear it. No, I heard it all on TV.
Speaker 1:This is 1966.
Speaker 2:This is Walter Cronkite.
Speaker 1:Yeah who at that time. That's the most respected man in TV journalism.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he told me he killed the LBJ, the successor to Kennedy. He killed his presidency by saying that we're time for us to leave Vietnam and he had more power with the American people on CBS than the president of the United States did. That had to change and it's taken 50 years.
Speaker 1:Doesn't it seem, though, to what you just said, that really the last and I'm not going to just say the last four years, or eight years, with our previous and now are going to be our president elect Trump? Even prior to his years, the media started to play a bigger role in what people's perception of reality was. I mean, is that kind of a correct statement that I'm making? Oh, yeah, and where? Not just especially in the last four years, and we're going to get back to this here, but in the last four years, we have been told not only by a particular political party that was in power, but we were also told by the media not to believe our lion eyes, and you touched on it a little bit, and we're going to get back to Vietnam, because we're getting back to Vietnam in a second.
Speaker 2:But the bottom line of what my message was, grab it.
Speaker 1:The military is healthy.
Speaker 2:It is a chance, but God loves you so much that he created his plan for your life long before you ever created the physical universe. Live it, find it and find out what's really real and what really isn't. And guess what? I'm 82 years old and I'm the happiest man I know.
Speaker 1:And I think to what you said about the military, I think these next four years you're going to see a huge increase in men and women, you know, signing that dotted line and joining our, our, our various branches of military service.
Speaker 2:We're going to have to.
Speaker 1:Not only are we going to have to, but I think we're going to see it because of what happened this past Tuesday, and that is going to be motivation enough to do it. Yeah, knowing that they have, that they will have a leader backing them 100%, supporting them 100% and giving them whatever it is that they need to do their jobs the right way.
Speaker 2:Isn't that nice? And I've waited 58 years for it. No, nonsense, it's not going to be, there's no nonsense.
Speaker 1:There's no nonsense. Okay, so let's. Let's get back to Vietnam, please, because we got a long ways to go here, this is good.
Speaker 2:Oh no, this is you well, the one of the interesting things in my life is that, because of the military, because of my experience, because of the people I met, where God placed me is now grown. It's not just having it down here, it's growing its own self. My commanding officer was Hal Moore, who Mel Gibson portrays in the movie we Were Soldiers. I was a radio man driver, orderly to him. Are you kidding me? I grew up next to disneyland in the 1950s thinking I was going to grow up to be a good mousketeer. And they make you mousketeer. Yeah, right, okay, god had other plans. Five foot five he was, six foot two I was. He was carrying his stuff and I was carrying my 50 pounds of radio gear and everything else and stuff like that. But that's what the story itself has now grown into part of the new sequel to the Passion of the Christ, which is the Resurrection, that's coming out next April.
Speaker 2:Really 18th, mel Gibson, the man who wrote the screenplay to we Were Soldiers oh shoot, I always forget his name, but anyway, the guy who did Braveheart, I forget his name. He directed it and he was a screenplay writer and I've had hours with him and talking about my experience in that Valley of Death.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And about the one man giving himself up for the other, the self-sacrifices, because in the valley of death I was thinking halfway through. Isn't this what Jesus did for us? Same, same, yes. And that has touched his heart. So he's written a screenplay to the sequel to Passion of the Christ, and it includes our story.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, see, so it grows.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this battle, the first major conflict in Vietnam With helicopters. I dang right, yeah. I drang I drang, drang, drang drang. Okay, I'm going to get that right. That's what we call it, but it was something different than what was it? Something different and a lot. How do I word this? It was different than what you were being told initially. Right, it was a lot you were.
Speaker 2:You were taking on a lot bigger task than oh yeah, it was being sold well, in two ways. In our way, we were the ones with all the helicopters. We were 20 000 men. First cavalry division air mobile means fighting with helicopters, flying everybody in and out, etc. Coordinating with jets that will come in and help with fire and all of that and the best man to do the job to do the first battle was later made the best infantry battalion commander of the 20th century, Hal Moore.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Portrayed my Mel Gibson, but what you're leading to is that it was a new way of fighting warfare, and it was, but now everyone, everywhere, fights the same thing in the same way. Okay, what you see on TV is what we first did in the November of 1965. And that's what I got to live. Wow, see, now God puts these things in you, in your heart and in your, in my case, 2050. Thank, you. To understand things you would not have had a touch of if you hadn't have been there.
Speaker 2:And then I got there and I could come home and share strong, strong things like that and with nobody listening and the, the powers that be, the press and all of that stuff has had their way ever since, in the last 50, in the now 50 years. Well, now you have a new way of looking at things that people are going to be telling you about very, very quickly, because a guy named a guy making rockets that are going to be going soon to Mars, is tuned in exactly the same way I am, and he's out there sharing about what is real and what isn't, and he's doing it and then he acts on it. He's the richest man in the world now and he's building his rockets. No one else can build rockets like he can and he wants to, within 20 years, have people on Mars.
Speaker 1:Right, I want to reach back here behind, so I'm going to get up for a second. But Ronnie Ronnie brought a whole bunch of stuff to share on camera, so we're going to do that too. But the first thing since we were talking about let's try to get the light off. It's going to be tough because it's got a glossy front.
Speaker 2:You want to go back to the side.
Speaker 1:That's right, but we've got the movie poster here that Ronnie has. I'll get it right there, like so when we were soldiers. Okay, yeah, and that's the guy. That's the actor portraying the guy that Ronnie served under.
Speaker 2:Hal Moore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Hal Moore.
Speaker 2:The best infantry battalion commander of the 20th century.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Per the United States of America.
Speaker 1:That's just great. And so you said you had come back home after a year. Well, it was less than a year for me. Okay, did you go back again, or was that the only tour you did?
Speaker 2:That was the only tour that I. The only reason I didn't go back, okay, because when I was leaving, I was looking outside the plane, looking down at Vietnam as I was leaving, and I said, oh my God, there's so much more to do here. Do I really want to leave this place? And I said I don't think I should. And then, when I got back to being processed out, they always say well, does anyone want to get a re-up? Go back into the army for another two years. I almost walked off to the side the way they wanted us to. If that's what you wanted to do, I thought nope, ronnie, within two years you're probably going to get married and you do not want to put your family. What they have to go through when the loved one is is, uh, possibly dying in battle right, right, that's what happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah with me, okay, okay all right, but everything that I learned and it's army and it's not, it's everything is the way you can look at things and get a a hold of anything that is just new and different. You know how to go right into it and grab it and share it with people, and it's wonderful.
Speaker 1:Well, what I, what, what I like and I appreciate, and we've had our discussions in the past a little bit, but you know, you know I mentioned that I have family members that served you know, I've mentioned my father serving on a destroyer in the Pacific and during world war two, my grandfather in the army, my other grandfather in the Navy, uncle in the Navy.
Speaker 1:I've had friends that have served even if we weren't, even if we weren't at wartime. You know, just to give yourself, you know, hoping that it never happens. But they're knowing that there's the possibility that you could be sent away somewhere to go fight, whether it's our war that we're involved in or a foreign war somewhere. But I really am so proud, not proud so much when I was during my teen years I was in high school from 79 to 83. And that was just a short while after we had pulled out of Vietnam and left basically next to surrendering. But we didn't call it that and our soldiers that served, died, sacrificed, gave up their lives, gave up body parts, whatever it might be.
Speaker 2:And families.
Speaker 1:And were separated, were taken from their families, come back home to be spit on and cursed and called every name in the book. That wasn't good. It was nice. And for a teenager, let me see. Let me let me back up a sec. For a teenager, I don't know that either I didn't learn or I wasn't being taught in school what was really going on, so I didn't really know what to make of it. But then you know, fast forward to the first. What was it?
Speaker 1:Desert Storm in 91, 92, under George H. Not only did our government but even our media at that time said we're gonna support our men and women in the armed services. And that's when it started to turn and where we as a nation once again started to show the love, admiration and appreciation for our service members, past, present and future. And I love it. You know, 40 years ago you couldn't have wore that hat without catching a bunch of stuff for it. You can wear that hat so proudly and it makes me proud, makes me prouder than ever, to know that we love our armed service members, doesn't matter what branch of the military is, and I will stand behind each and every one of them. I will stand beside you, whatever it is Again, past, present or future, I love, love, love our military people.
Speaker 1:That's the word love, that's right, yeah, so anyway, it's just nice to see that that happens and I love it. When you come to church on Sundays and you're decorated You've got your hat, you've got your ball cap. On what you're wearing today? Sometimes you're wearing this jacket, sometimes Ronnie just goes very casual and wears his Hawaiian shirt. But but he proudly wears his stuff and I love it and celebrate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much, thank you.
Speaker 1:So, so, thank you, but, yes, please go on, cause you've got such a story and I, I want our, I want our watchers, our viewers, our listeners, I want the entire audience to hear about this.
Speaker 2:Well, the military makes you ready to jump, ready to move. If there's a problem, you go for it. You really do, and I've had the blessing of being at the right place at the right time and saving three lives. Three lives, Wow. In around 1981, I was taking my son home from school.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Turned the corner in Chino and there's a whole bunch of cars that are stopped and everything else and I park off to the side and it looks like there's some people down on someone in the street and so I jump out, I start to run over. When I came back from Vietnam, I had been trained in first aid and the heart and all of that stuff.
Speaker 1:You're okay, you're okay.
Speaker 2:And I parked the car right away and I started to run out and my son said where are you going, pops? He was big even then. So it's Pops and I loved it, and it's still the same way, okay. And I said I'm going to see. It looks like someone's been hit down there and they're having trouble because the two men on the little boy that was flat on his back was not apparently responding to their yelling at him.
Speaker 2:Wake up, little Joy Lou, wake up, wake up, wake up. And I said it looks like they need help and I'm prepared, bobby. So, uh, I'm on my way to see to, uh, to to help because I'm trained. And then I run up there. The two men look up at me. When I'm there I said, uh, he's not breathing, we can't wake him up. We can't wake him up, he's not breathing. I said okay, good, I'm trained. Uh, uh, he said you want this? And I said, yes, please release immediately. And they did Boom, like that. I went right down, cleared the airway, looked for a pulse. There was no pulse and so I just immediately went down to him and for a little boy of two years old, two, yes, this little boy had run out from the front of his own house into the main street, oh wow.
Speaker 2:And he had a Toyota truck, ran into him at the side and bashed his head open. Now, what we saw was a little better looking than this.
Speaker 2:It was like this because it was the little elephant boy, or the elephant man yeah yeah, this big story it had broken the top of his head from here all the way to here and it was help me, you know, like that. But that's what we were looking at him and and while these these guys were yelling at him, no, no, I got down there quickly and I got the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. You have to do it with your fingers on the chest 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I cleared the airway. Blow, blow. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Third time 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. All of a sudden, he's out, he's breathing and he's going. The greatest scream loudest. Like that, exactly like that. Wow. And he was living.
Speaker 2:And by the time that had happened, the paramedics had finally arrived and pulled me away. You've done your job well. Thank you so much. We've got it from here much. We've got it from here. What happened after that was they picked them up to go to the biggest hospital in the San Bernardino, around San Bernardino. I forget what the name is, it's the famous one Loma Linda. Loma Linda, okay.
Speaker 1:It's the one I could think of, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. Thank you and one thing you are and you're being taught this when you train, when you're training that they always say no matter what your feelings are, go for it, act. But you're going to have know that you're going to have the same negative feeling of what happens if I fail and people will not, will yell all over me for not not being successful or something like that, whatever could happen yeah, yeah, jump right in, jump right in and uh.
Speaker 2:But I did have that backward draw for about two weeks. I didn't call draw for about two weeks I didn't call. I know about one week I didn't call the. I was afraid. I was afraid to find out if he made it. Okay. So I finally called in on the first week and they got me to the right place and a nurse answered and I said is he there? Yes, he's still there. And and I said, oh good, I'm glad to hear that. She says oh, you're the one oh you're the one, oh, you know.
Speaker 2:And I said and she said get that, you know, get that. She says Get that. She says the doctors are all walking around with their heads up in the air saying it's a miracle, because he has nothing to show that he was hit with a head wide open, it's all healed in one week and they have no. It's a miracle.
Speaker 1:It's an absolute miracle. Nice to be known as the one.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, I mean really. Okay, miracle, nice to be known as the one. Huh, wow, yeah, I mean really.
Speaker 1:But okay, say, well, I've been called number one before, but it's usually a hand signal with a certain finger, you know, but you were the one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great but and and uh, so thank you very, very much. So, uh, uh, she said he'll be gone next week sometime, okay, and you probably go by the house, wow. So I, I, I waited towards the end of that week and I said to my wife would you like to go and meet the family?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And she says, okay, yeah, let's go. And so we went, we walked in. I mean, thank you very much, they said, and the mother, and I'll call him. He's going to come down from mother and I'll call him. He's going to come down from upstairs. And so he comes in and I'm going because I'm used to seeing this. Yeah, it's the same voice. I mean everything's normal, yeah, even where the hair is laying down on the head and everything, everything's normal. And he has just a little black and blue mark under one of the eyes. He had been saved and the doctors are saying it's a miracle.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean, yeah, okay, that's one. Yeah, that's um, there was a when I was with the state legislature uhs, I was representing a member of the state legislature, van Tran, vietnamese, okay, so I was very much in with the Vietnamese community. Right it was great, so I was right back, and only this time I can be with them. I'll understand how much you love freedom. Okay, see, more of the story comes See.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, okay. See more of the story comes. See, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, absolutely, I, I, I. I got something to say. I don't want to say it cause I don't want to interrupt, I'll come back.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, go, go, go, go go. The um. Uh, we as a come in and help with the processes and stuff like that. Okay, they have a word for it, but they were there and then they go back to college. So when they were going back to college this one year, we were taking them all out for lunch and said, well, let's go down to this place. And they all say okay, and then they said no, let's go back over here.
Speaker 2:Well it was uh one on the on the main street, harbor boulevard in the costa mesa, and we walk in and we have a big. It's packed and uh, we have a long table and we're next next to a row of little small places to sit.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, and we're sitting there for just a minute or two and then all of a sudden this guy's trying to work on this woman with the Heimlich thing, and I'm trained as I see he's working and she's not reacting at all. He's got her like this, sitting there, uh, in the chair and uh, um, and I'm yelling out to him lower, harder, lower harder. It's not working at all. Finally, she falls back and she, she faints back on the side. It's one of those cubicles round cubicles.
Speaker 2:So I jumped up to him and I said please. He says do you want her? Yes, I'm trained, please release. So he gets away. And she's a 40-year-old woman and she's down like this. So I get down like this and start Heimlich, heimlich, heimlich, four and five times and she's rolling, rolling, rolling and I'm getting very tired.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:About the fifth time and I said, well, I said a quick prayer, I said, God, it looks like I'm going to go for one more. I think I've got that in me, but I think I'm going to have to wait for about a minute or so before I start again. Please, if it be your will, please help her. If it be your will, If not, I understand, but show me a sign. And so that's as. I'm waiting to do the next Heimlich and I do the Heimlich and I'm doing it five times higher, harder than I ever did in my life. Like that Poof out, like that, she's out, Wow and she goes. Oh, like that. There's people coming over and stuff like that, and paramedics come and so they long story short, uh, the um, the head of the, uh, of the medical people that arrived, uh, pulled me off to the side while they're working.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And then uh to, to get, uh to get all the, all the information and stuff like that, and I'm in the hallway and then this is about half an hour, not half an hour, maybe 10 minutes later she's walking out and she says thank you, he saved my life, I like that. And she walks out and that's the whole story. Wow, Right place, right time.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Primed and ready to go. Okay, it's a good way to live. It's a great, great way to live and you just relive it and it's a feeling of deep love, deep love as you're doing it. When you're doing it, you're not afraid. You're not afraid You're doing what you're trained to do, right afraid. You're not afraid. You're doing what you're trained to do, and then you're actually living it. Oh, so this is the way it feels. Yeah, this is the way it feels. This is the way it feels, honey, and God's saying this is your spot training at this point, okay.
Speaker 1:God's saying he's over you and he's saying come on, you're the one, and again you were the one.
Speaker 2:That's about right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'll show you why later.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, tell me a little bit about some of the stuff that you have on your jacket. And then, and then, I know, I know, I know everyone who's watching at home sees this here on the table. They probably think it's something that was picked up at Spencer's gifts or something. I promise you it's not. We're going to get into that one. Okay, we will, we will get into that. So, yeah, so you know, tell me about, well, some of the stuff on your jacket.
Speaker 2:Well, let's see, see if I can get it up there a little bit. Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 1:There we go, like this one right here. Tell me about this one. This is the first cavalry, this is the first cavalry division air mobile.
Speaker 2:The first cavalry division is all helicopters. Now.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:We were the first to have a division the size of 20,000 men this is Army 20,000 men this is Army, 20,000 men and 400 helicopters. We had Huey helicopters, Chinook helicopters, which is two blades going, which you see all the time now fighting the fires. We were the first ones to have those. Those were Chinooks, which they have two blades, or the big sky cranes that are doing the fires. You know they have a little thunk up there here and they're coming down. It all goes to a lake.
Speaker 2:It's water that goes Okay, that's a sky crane, Okay, well, at the time that we went to Vietnam with our helicopters, there were five sky cranes made in the world and we had four of them.
Speaker 2:Wow sky cranes made in the world and we had four of them. Wow, okay, so that all of these things that, uh, the army had put together over a year and a half of how to fight a new kind of warfare, which is what you see on tv now, this was the first and this is what I got to see first. Okay, and and uh, and begin to understand. Okay, was that? Does that answer your question?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay, that's that one, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:This is my pin. It's a 40th anniversary pin. That was the 40th anniversary of our first major battle of Vietnam War, the Battle of the Ai Drang Valley. So that was 1965. This is 2005.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we had gatherings in Washington DC in November of 1965.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, okay.
Speaker 2:And we go to the Vietnam Wall on a Sunday at 4 o'clock in the morning to ourselves as we are reading off the names of our 305 people in our unit that died during that battle in Washington DC. Now, if I ever thought that I'd be doing things like that, I went in the Army and I ended up over to Vietnam. I end up back 15 miles away from where I was being ordered to go to Vietnam in the morning but smelled just like Maryland.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, just you know, you know. But what was also? There was NBC news covering it.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, so they ended up taking some nice pictures of us and stuff.
Speaker 1:This was this was in oh five, the 40th anniversary. Okay, there's a couple of things you have, like you've got a patch on your jacket, this one here, the shield, but you've got one just like it on the table. However, that one says Air Mobile, vietnam, with the horse head on it. Can you explain that one? Can you show that one to the camera? You want this one, yeah, yeah yeah, let me hold that up.
Speaker 2:Air mobile says air mobile on the top. That's sort of the use of of helicopters when you see it on tv. That means they are air mobile. They are mobily, mobiling uh all of their action in a helicopter. We are taking men and supplies uh by helicopter. Uh, the way we take men to their battle like we did was our first was by driving or flying them in and they jump off and then the helicopters leave to go get more people in, more people in or supplies or ammunition or whatever.
Speaker 2:And it's interesting because that first battle was our 400 men being surrounded by thousands, I think.
Speaker 1:I read somewhere it was in upwards of about 4,000. About that when it was initially told to you or to Hal, it was a much smaller number.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we didn't know.
Speaker 1:Until you got to the spot, and then you uh, yeah, I don't think so well, uh, you know what?
Speaker 2:how more, uh, what, why, how more wanted to go there no find them. Period could be four thousand fine just whatever helicopters in, will coordinate everything and we won that battle. Twenty uh two, four thousand four hundred us, surrounded by many thousands of us yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And we won it. Now we are of the 7th Cavalry. This is for the division. We are the 7th Cavalry. The 7th Cavalry is the smaller size. It's our 400 men. But the 7th Cavalry was initially Custer's regiment. Wow, wow, yeah, it was Custer's regiment in the Battle of the Old West with the Indians and things like that yeah.
Speaker 2:The changing of the guard there and stuff like that, taken to an area without helicopters or you know, and they, they were surrounded by 5 000 men and uh which were not known as being there, and uh, they immediately got uh, got, uh surrounded, and within 45 minutes we now know uh, they were all all killed. So custer's last stand Custer was the lead of that regiment and so it was always a very famous story. Custer's last stand a hero. And now people know that that was not quite a hero, it was a different thing altogether. But a little bit later we turned it all around.
Speaker 1:Turned it around, all around, so let's talk about a couple of the other things that you brought with you that are sitting here on the table. There's a bunch right over here on the side that you can't see it's off camera but let's talk about some of these things here that are on the top of the table.
Speaker 2:One of the gentlemen that was in our battle.
Speaker 1:Well, that's right, you can't take it with you, but you can talk louder.
Speaker 2:Okay, I need to find something.
Speaker 1:Okay, hey, that's right, I'll occupy the time. You folks at home, you have no idea, ronnie brought so much stuff. It's practically a museum. It is, it's just yeah. Stuff. It's practically a museum, it is, it's, it's just, yeah, it's, it's, it's awesome. I think we had to make, uh, two trips from the car into the studio here. Yeah, good stuff. But there's, there's a couple of things here on the on the table as well. We're going to get into them. I don't think you can see them off camera. So, okay, let, okay, let's okay. So what I'm holding here is a book Uh, it's titled touch by a hero, a nine one one, I mean, I'm sorry, eight nine 11. Widow's journal of love and legacy. I'm going to hold this up here to the camera so you can all see it, okay.
Speaker 2:That means nine, 11. That isn't. That is the author. Is the uh wife uh of uh of uh, rick rascola, who was in our unit in our battle that I've been talking about right a lot of lives uh, there and he was very good at what he did.
Speaker 2:And he came back home, uh, to the united states. He was from england, became a usa citizen, got a master's degree, law degree, and ended up being in charge of safety for the Tower 2. Dean Witter, morgan Stanley, 30 floors in 1986. And he immediately looked around and found that we were very liable to have bad guys come from the Middle East to have an attack on the towers.
Speaker 1:And this was what year 1986. 1986 he was saying this.
Speaker 2:Yes, he was Not only saying it, he was telling the authorities in New York City that we should redo and revamp the garage in the bottom, because people just bring in a van with explosives.
Speaker 1:Which happened in about what? 94? 1983. There was one in 83, also 83.
Speaker 2:This is the one I'm talking about. Wow Okay, no, no no, this is the one 9 talking about. Wow, okay, no, no, no, this is, this is the one. 9-11 is here.
Speaker 1:Yes, the first attack was.
Speaker 2:That was 2001.
Speaker 1:Okay, but didn't we have a bomb down in the parking garage? Wasn't that in 94? 93.? 1993., oh, 93. Okay, Okay, 93. Yeah, yeah, okay, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha yeah.
Speaker 2:He predicted they would be hit and what they wanted to do. These people wanted to blow up one of the one of the towers and have it fall on the other.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's exactly what they want to do. So he he had warned the authorities in New York you're going to get hit unless you get that thing certified, I mean protected.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And they said go mine sand. And so he did. What he did was he trained all 3,000 of his employees, once these kind of attacks came, to get out of the building two by two, get out of the building. The first thing to do was get everybody out of the building in case something happened, and so that's what he did, and he didn't have any casualties from his group and stuff like that. I think they had six people that were lost, but not of his group. Anyway, right after that was over with, he predicted an airstrike You're going to get hit by the same people in airplanes. And they said go mine sand. And so when the first plane hit tower one, wow, uh, from tower one, is it okay to go on?
Speaker 2:yeah, okay, of course, of course the first time he uh, I'm living all of this man.
Speaker 1:No, I just think that this is no. This is you know a guy who? Why do I keep dancing?
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:But a guy. He says, hey, I mean he puts out a warning. Listen, this is what's going to happen if you don't do A, b and C. All the terrorists he knows he's a terrorist and and and so it first comes to pass in 1993 with the, with the, the with the van, uh bomb in the parking garage. Um, we get past that. The, the damage was minimal, it was I shouldn't say minimal, it was it was a mess, but it didn't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it didn't, certainly didn't bring down any towers. And then he says, uh, but hey, okay, you got past this, but if you don't watch it, this is going to happen. It's going to happen from the air he's predicting it and but it was because of his expertise that he knew yeah, and still, still the officials, the government officials didn't listen. And we're talking. He first says something in 1986, seven years later it happens in 93. He says alright, you got lucky this time, right.
Speaker 2:It happens in 93.
Speaker 1:And then he says you got lucky this time, but. And then he says you got lucky this time, but and then and then in 2001. Right, the worst thing happens right.
Speaker 2:So the first plane hit tower one and the speakers came over uh, tower two, don't stay where. Stay put where you are, we're back, we're evacuating tower one right, there's a fire, people right stuff like that he gets up on his desk and and moons everybody and says get moving like you've been trained two by two that's right, get down there. And while he's going down with them, up and down with them, he's um singing cornish hymns. He's from cornwall England, and stuff like that, and God bless America and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So he was playing escort, but he would get people down and he was going back up and getting them down.
Speaker 2:That's right, wow. And as he had gotten his people out, he was going back up for stragglers. He had gotten his people out, he was going back up for stragglers. He was told that his wife was trying to get a hold of him on the phone.
Speaker 1:So he calls Right.
Speaker 2:And that's who wrote this book. Okay, and she asked me to write something in it, which I did. Okay, the what I learned from Rick Riscoll. He inspired me. Okay, and thank you, United States Army. Thank you. He says to her please know. They married late in life.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They've been married three times. He says please know if something should happen. Please know that I love you and that you made my life. And she says well, you made my life too. He hangs up the phone. She immediately looks at the TV. She's watching Tower 2 going down Wow. That's that story. Well, we connected at one of our the reunion right after in Washington DC With her. She was there, she was invited guest, she was being honored.
Speaker 2:Okay, and we honored him there at our function and that's where I didn't meet her then. But I ended up meeting her shortly thereafter and I said I'm very, very busy and I'm on talk radio and everything else about this, about Rick or Scarlett, and she says thank you, and we ended up being together working out to have a president of the United States give her a presidential medal of freedom for her husband.
Speaker 2:And we'd go after president, after president, after president, after president, with no response. The Pentagon would pass it on to the White House and it would die until President Trump that's the one that did it.
Speaker 1:Hold on, I'm looking through this, I'm flipping through this. I'm trying to find where Ronnie, where Ronnie's pieces. I see, I just see general how more, though? Yeah, I saw where he had something.
Speaker 2:It would be just after that, I mean, I think yeah but I need to get my glasses.
Speaker 1:That's okay, I'll look through it. You're going to. It's going to have your name attached to it, so no, please continue again. So we get to President Trump now.
Speaker 2:Well we are. 80 of us who were in the battle were invited also to be there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, which is interesting, because I found your page. Oh good, because that meant that we would be there for everything. And the interesting thing is that this is the entrance.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:This is the invitation to the White House.
Speaker 1:And this was the.
Speaker 2:The wife.
Speaker 1:Yes, it says the President requests the pleasure of your company that's Trump on the occasion of the presentation of the President's Citizen Medal to Richard Cyril Rescorla, to be held at the White House on Thursday, November 7th 2019 at 6 o'clock, Southeast Entrance. So that's where his widow was given his um uh medal of freedom. Then, Right, Gotcha. Oh, can you see that? Wait, I'm trying to get that up on the camera there. Yeah, it's kind of hard to see.
Speaker 2:Sorry about that.
Speaker 1:But there, there we go. We've got a little bit there. But yeah, I know, with the studio lights and all that stuff it's it can be difficult at times, and with being in the plastic case too, the lights shine off a bit, it's hard to see. But how awesome is that? Ah, thumbs up for the president, I love it. It says right here Wait, hold on, hold on. Yes, this is our local paper, but here's a picture and then I'll read the caption. It's this picture right here in the center of the page and that's President Trump on my fingers.
Speaker 1:He's pointing.
Speaker 1:He is pointing from his position and it says it says president Trump at the podium points to Ronnie Geyer with his arms up. Ronnie is the one with his arms up in the East room of the white house when Mr Geyer and 60 veterans were asked to stand during a November 7th ceremony honoring the late Rick Rescorla, with whom he served in Vietnam. Yes, and then you'll see, right here, there's a small article accompanying it thumbs up for the president. And here, right here in this picture, here is our dear wait, let me there. It is our dear Ronnie Geyer. Yes, yes, it says Chino Hills resident Ronnie Geyer's thumbs up to president Trump during a ceremony at the white house. Caught the president's eye. Yeah, and Ronnie's sport a nice black suit and it looks like and tell me if I'm right, are you wearing your purple heart there or are you wearing your Purple Heart there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, are you wearing that Purple Heart pin? Yeah, okay. Purple Heart pin. This one, okay, and another one.
Speaker 1:Gotcha. So that pin right there, that Purple Heart pin. Yes, you weren't wearing the actual Purple Heart with you, that's right, yeah, that's beautiful, that's beautiful, that is beautiful, that's, that's beautiful, that's beautiful, that is beautiful. You've got your purple heart right here on the table. Can we, can we, uh, take a look at that and show, show everybody at home now it's, it's um.
Speaker 2:It's not in great shape because I make sure when I talk to students in school they all get to hold it. No that's okay, any student that I talk to. I have my purple heart ready for them to have it like this. Yes, oh you hold it right out, you show them. Yeah, just like that.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to hold it up to the camera.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think that this is the first time I have seen a Purple Heart with my own eyes. Really, you see them on television or pictures or whatever Good for you. I've never held a Purple Heart, so I'm happy about that.
Speaker 2:Thank you, United.
Speaker 1:States Army. Yes, thank you. I'm going to try this. I'm going to zoom in on this, okay? So let's see if I get this right. Boom, boom, boom. Yeah, Look at let's get it right there oh that's nice. Look at that.
Speaker 2:Look at that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Looks good on camera, doesn't it, ronnie? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Right next to the yummy, exactly.
Speaker 1:Let's zoom out.
Speaker 2:Why do you like the army? Well, there's certain reasons.
Speaker 1:No, but that's beautiful. And that's a picture of George Washington right, yes, it is Now why Because?
Speaker 2:he was the first ones to have a purple cloth put on the front of his men. Oh yeah, and it wasn't until the 1930s. Our Congress decided to have that middle made.
Speaker 1:Gotcha.
Speaker 2:And we've had it ever since for our military.
Speaker 1:And it's in honor of General George Washington right.
Speaker 2:Sure it is, because that's the one who did it, yeah, but it's also for us who are wounded or killed, right, and that would go to the family if it's, if it's a matter of being killed yes yeah that's great really terrific, it really is. This is the um. I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I was gonna I was going to um let's see, see if I I look like a monster, which is fun because I'm five, five. Thank you very much, ladies, gentlemen, you know what?
Speaker 1:Let me see it says. It says right here that these are. These are Ronnie's words in in Susan's book about her husband Rick. And it says in the first battalion, seventh US seventh, calvary regiment, I was a Vietnam radio man, slash driver for Lieutenant Colonel Howell Moore and his Sergeant major Is that Basil, okay, basil Plumlee?
Speaker 1:Yeah, in a then free South Vietnam's central Highlands of 1965. Early on we would hear the secondnd Battalion's Lieutenant Rick Rescorla sing to his men over our field. He singing to his men for was Moore and Plumlee's initial incredulous reaction. Well, whatever works for them, ronnie said, and work it did, for Rick Rescorla was even then laying the groundwork for his fellow soldiers to be all they already are in God's eyes, especially in forthcoming combat against all odds. This was grandly proved out while we were in the fight for our lives in a valley of death called the Idrang Valley Battle in November of 1965. While surrounded by overwhelming enemy, lieutenant Rick Rescorla's men staved off human wave, assault after human assault, to victory, while Rick inspiringly sang to them. As I listened on our field radios a preview of things to come later on after the Vietnam War. And Ronnie goes on for a little bit longer, but you get the gist of it, and that's exactly what you were saying on 9-11.
Speaker 2:When he's escorting his people out of the building, he did it under fire and he is singing to them Under fire, right and he's singing under fire. Under fire To keep them calm To keep them ready to fight.
Speaker 1:It empowers them and empowers them, empowers them, empowers them, and he's doing that during battle too, it all it's all started right there in vietnam. Yeah, started right there in vietnam. Wow, yeah, good stuff, good stuff. There's a couple medals right there too, before we get into uh yeah, this is from.
Speaker 2:Well, let me give you the metal, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, let me put these back on, get mine too. That's the metal oh, okay, like this the one that uh, susan rescorla has is the the one with the ribbon on it and stuff like that. But that's the coin.
Speaker 1:Oh, and it's got his name on it as well Richard Rick Rescorla, yep, 1939 to 2001. It says friend to many, hero to all on this side right here.
Speaker 2:And I'm going to zoom in again, isn't that?
Speaker 1:something. Give you a good look. I hope you can see. Look, there we go. Okay, that's.
Speaker 2:With the towers?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, got the twin towers there. And then on the other side, let's back up a little bit. There we go. Back up, there we go. It says leave no man behind. Hardcore. It's the foundation of patriots. Love it. Presidential Citizens Medal presented. This is what I dig. This one, too. This is a great honor, presented by President Trump 2019. Yeah, what a great honor. A great honor, man.
Speaker 2:this thing's weighty too it has the medal of freedom, and then this one yeah, that's some heavy stuff right there it is this is from susan riscola, the 10th anniversary where she of 9-11. She was given that when she toured the uh, okay, 2011 or 2001 to 2011.
Speaker 1:10th anniversary, 9-11. Never forget, I'll zoom in one more time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 10th anniversary.
Speaker 1:Let's get right there. Okay, you see that pretty good. Yeah, okay, that's a good shot of it. And then on the back side, home of the Free, I love it Because of the Brave, and it's just really a salute to our military, because right here it says Army, marine Corps, navy, air Force and Coast Guard. Yeah, good stuff, that is great. Yeah, good stuff, that is great, that is great stuff.
Speaker 2:A lot of questions being answered in different ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now let's get to this next item we have here on the table. Yeah, it kind of looks like an Emmy Award, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:It is an Emmy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, why don't we talk about it then?
Speaker 2:Oh, why didn't I ask you to? No, that's wrong, wrong, yeah, rick Riscola. Rick Riscola's story is part of exactly what we talk about in a PBS special titled Vietnam Speaks. Okay, we've just heard together.
Speaker 1:Get into your microphone just a little bit, just get closer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've just we've just heard all of these things that happened here in the United States from people that were very, very, very much doing what they need to do under difficult circumstances or just in preparation of difficult circumstances, and it can all happen here and it has. That was the big surprise, so we share. A couple of veterans are asked to give their story and I start it out, are asked to give their story and I started out and you can guess what it sounds like and they I tell the next story which I'm going to be telling you as part of that, and and and they put it in for an Emmy and it won. It was the first Emmy won by that was made in the Inland Empire.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, this is good and this is actually okay. So you might think that if you're holding it, that's the right way to hold.
Speaker 2:No, this is actually the right way to hold it, because that's the front side of it right there. Please repeat after me.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm gonna repeat after Ronnie.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'd like to thank. I'd like to thank the members of this academy.
Speaker 1:The members of this academy.
Speaker 2:For this award.
Speaker 1:For this award.
Speaker 2:Congratulations, you're a winner.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, when I talk to students in school I've been doing it for 20 years I bring that with me and I share that with the students. Every one of them that are there, and I do it exactly the same with you. So that they can touch it, and the same way with the purple heart. That's why it's all kind of raggedy, because it's been used.
Speaker 1:Right and these. I'll tell you, this is nice here, this is weighty, this is heavy and this is what it says on here too. So this was in 2018, when, when you received this this, okay, so it was for the year 2018, but you received it in 19 okay, it says says uh, 2018, pacific southwest emmy award, military program or special vietnam speaks that's the name of the special right Ronnie Geyer, empire Network, pbs. Yes, so listen. Okay, this is cool people. I want you to grasp this. On this podcast, so far, just a year, we've had musicians, we've had authors, we now have our first veteran in studio and our first ever emmy award winner. Yeah, all in god's plan.
Speaker 2:As brian says at our church have no fear, you're very dearly loved, and I share this with the students in school have no fear, for you're all very dearly loved. I said yes. Then he said god loves us so much and loves you so much that he created his plan for your life long before he ever created a physical universe. And I look back at my life here.
Speaker 2:I'm 70 years old at the time yeah I said, I said you think, and I looked up at him I was going to go you, you think, you think and I just didn't. I couldn't do it. I would have gone like this you think, you think, you think, you think, you know. But that's demonstration of my life, because I was starting out in a need to be fulfilled and it was to go into the United States Army and get things straight, which means getting out there and seeing things for yourself and making your own appraisals. And you know why.
Speaker 1:Because you're worth it. Amen yeah, can we get an amen? Yeah we just did.
Speaker 2:I'd like to go to the next thing.
Speaker 1:Please, please, please continue.
Speaker 2:Okay, the part of my story with the Vietnam Speaks was to share a particular thing that happened to me in preparation going to Vietnam.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And it was I had to go visit my mother's grave. This is 1964.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And go up into the hills in Orange to see her grave. It was difficult. She had lupus, collagen disease, which means that's the undefined and undefinable at the time disease, and so it led to consternations in the family. It was between the husband you're not get out, you're not sick, and the doctors are saying yes, back and forth, so you get kind of confused. That's what it oh, confused. Yeah, get it straight. Okay.
Speaker 2:So I didn't go that often to my mother's grave, okay, and she had died only a couple of years earlier, right. And when I was sent back, after getting my orders to go to Vietnam and then report to Fort Benning and then go over to Vietnam for the first actions, I came home and I had two weeks to myself. So I went back to Loyola University and made my first confession to one of the priests there and stuff. It's been a good time, good time to do it, okay. After I got everything done, I went back. You've got to go see your mother, okay. So I went back up to see my mother and I went that beautiful day, uh, looking down on her the sun's shining down from this way, and um, and I came to her with a question, and, uh, and and and my heart wanted to talk to her after I'd gotten everything taken care of, including the confession. So I was ready.
Speaker 2:I looked over and I said well, mom, most open moment of my life. Well, mom, I'm on my way to the first major battles of the Vietnam War, I know it, and in a whole new way of fighting warfare. And we shall see. But, mom, I want to live past this war. I wonder how things are going to turn out. I want to live past this war, but I don't want to have to shoot or kill anyone in order to do it. And her voice came immediately from beyond the physical universe, up right through me to the ground, tinglings here and down on my toes, and my wife, my mother Evelyn wife, my mother Evelyn, said more clearly than when she was ever alive on the earth. She said to me have no fear, ron, for you will survive this war and you will do so without having to fire a shot. And I said oh, thank you, mother, thank you.
Speaker 2:And I started to bring out a whole new way of fighting warfare. We shall see what she'll see. I was in every major first of this war. Yeah, okay, I was in all of these different new things going on and stuff like that. I was handling our dead and wounded, casualties in the Valley of Death and helping people get to where they have to be and stuff like that. But I also witnessed everything I needed to do or what God had in mind for me, right? But I never once had to aim to shoot, to kill and pull the trigger of my weapon. No greater love hath a mother that came from beyond the physical universe, that came from heaven, that came from my mother there.
Speaker 1:Right, okay.
Speaker 2:So that prepared me for that and it also made me open to what the other things were going to come.
Speaker 1:Amazing and I touched on it earlier in our conversation, ronnie that there's maybe a perception or conceived notion that if we are as a country are not at war, then being a part of the military is not as brave as those who have gone and served in combat. And I don't think it matters, because when you do and our military is all volunteer now there is no more draft so when you volunteer to join any branch of service, there's always a chance, and I guess I equate it to our law enforcement. A guy can serve 30 years for a particular police department. Never once have to draw his service sidearm Doesn't make him any less brave, that's right.
Speaker 1:Because you never know from day to day what's going to happen. Yeah, and same thing in the military.
Speaker 2:I have a son, this tall, tall lapd right.
Speaker 1:That's one thing we have in common. That's right. Yeah, so, um, it's just any, any man or woman that volunteers serve in our military. God love them, I love them and respect them and just thank them.
Speaker 2:I was told at church a couple of weeks ago that a mother told me that her daughter, an adult daughter, has volunteered. She's going into the Army. It's going to be with the Reserve, but that's six months active and whatever Right right right. And you know what I said to her right away. That's all the conversation we had, yeah, and I just simply said good, good for her. Yep, tell her thank you. That's it Very simple.
Speaker 1:You know, I have a friend of mine. We've known each other, oh my gosh, years upon, years, upon years, I think, since, like the first grade, no, you're not, you're looking good.
Speaker 1:I still look kind of fat Because I am, but I have this childhood friend and we grew up together and we still see each other and talk to him. Just a couple of weeks ago, his son was a great ball player. He went to I believe it was UCSB, played ball for the Gauchos. He was drafted by Philadelphia Phillies and he played in their minor league organization for, I think, a couple of three years. And I think when you reach a certain level, you realize you're either going to move to the next level or it's not going to get any better than it is. So he bowed out. What did he do? He followed in his father's footsteps and volunteered to go into the service Now his dad served in the Air Force, but his name is Alex, by the way. He is now serving in our Navy and to go from a baseball career, you know. And then you say goodbye to that, I'm done here, I've done what I can and I'm moving on.
Speaker 2:And then you volunteer for our service and he's in the Navy and God bless him. Yeah, you know good stuff.
Speaker 1:It's just I never did and I and I feel bad that I never did.
Speaker 2:I know that I've heard that a lot, not at the beginning.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But in in this century, yeah, yeah, People, and they say it, joy. They don't say it directly, just matter of fact. It's not like they're owning up to it, but they're saying in so many words I regret it. Yeah, I really missed out on something.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, yeah, because I mean, look, our lives are what they are, and had I volunteered for the military, you and I wouldn't be sitting here right now having this conversation. So things happen a certain way to where it all falls into place, and so we are where we are, and but, yeah, just, I guess I would say, as a 59 year old man, if they would take me, I'd go now I would. If they would take me, I'd go now I would. If they would take me, I'd go now, especially with well, I might wait till after January 20th of next year, and then I would go there, you go.
Speaker 2:Okay, can I do that? Can I do that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, as long as they haven't done something to it Right and I might yeah, that's yeah, that's that's right. And if they were to take me, you know what I think I just might follow in my and my dad's footsteps and go Navy. You know, Nothing wrong with that right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I can't see how you can go any other way. It wears. It wears well on you.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you. Well, you know what I mean. I, this is my dad's, this is my dad's navy ring right here. Oh for, this is his, this is his ring from the navy. And he was, he was much, he had huge hands but they were much smaller at this time.
Speaker 2:But that's his navy ring. Oh for him. And small.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's like about an 11, 11 and a half. But uh, when I go to fix up and go places, I will put that one on my left ring finger only because it won't fit on the right. So Catherine's okay with it. She doesn't get mad at me as long as I've got a ring on that finger, she's okay.
Speaker 2:USN. Yeah, nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That is really nice.
Speaker 1:I cherish that.
Speaker 2:I really do I really do.
Speaker 1:I really do, um, you know it's unfortunate that, um, that I'm sure that my dad suffered the effects of wartime and being a part of he didn't talk a lot about it when we were kids, other than to say something like I experienced a lot, I saw my friends die, stuff like that but really that was it. Honestly, it wasn't much more than what I just said and I guess there's something to that. We spoke before we hit record. We were speaking about another member of our church and he was invited to be a part of Veterans Day weekend and he kind of was like I don't know if that's where I want to go, ben, and I completely respect it, but maybe that's where my dad was too. It's just he saw so much and it just had an effect on him and he just didn't want to talk about it.
Speaker 2:What I do is I share, people share what I went through. I went through a process of a um, an organization in Costa Mesa when I was with the legislature. They were part of the whole thing there, so I represented our office to them and I took their how they train them to tell their story correctly in a way that that is very meaningful and that heals PTSD. Yeah, yeah, so that would be, that would be good.
Speaker 1:Did you? Did you have any issues with that when you came back? No, I mean you were in that. Did you have any issues with that when you came back? No, I mean you were in the I-Dang battle. You know the valley of death, but you came back okay.
Speaker 2:I've been saluted by God before I went there.
Speaker 1:There you go, that's what matters.
Speaker 2:And I thought of Jesus in the battle.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I said, well, isn't this the sacrifice these guys are doing for one another, the same thing that Jesus Christ did on the cross? And then I published it. I published it, I used it, I wasn't silent.
Speaker 1:I was continuing it and, as Christians, I think that's a way to look at service.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Don't go any further. Hold that, just do it. I'm going to hold it. I'm going to hold it right there. I'm going just doing it, I'm gonna hold it right there, I'm gonna freeze right here that's what I think is going to show up in the new yeah uh, passion of the christ. Okay, because of the information that the uh, that the uh um screenwriter for the passion of the christ, yeah I mean for uh resurrection no oh well, uh, for we were soldiers oh yeah, yeah, now and and now a passion of the Christ is part of.
Speaker 2:So I think it's going to weave in there. And the reason I say that is because when we last saw each other we were in the men's room waiting for our plane to. We'd been canceled and then they got a new plane going but we both ended up in going. But I ended up. We both ended up in the in the restroom. I walk in, he's getting ready to go out. Hi, good to see you, and all that. And we had our talks and stuff and our first talks anyway, and so I I do my business and then I wash my hands and as I'm walking out, I noticed that he stayed outside. He went up to talk to me. I said, I said thank you, good to see you again gotcha he said good to see you.
Speaker 2:He runs right by me. He says aloha, ronnie, it's my handle on mine. Yeah, aloha, ronnie, you're just, you're just, uh, you're so very thankful for everything you've given for me. You've given me a lot to think about. As he's running, walking by, he goes about 10 feet, stops, turns around and goes to me again and he says listen to me, you gave me a lot to think about all these things right here. Yeah, passion of the christ resurrection, and it came from your heart today and it came from your heart today came from your heart today, thank you, but yeah, I just.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's the same thing I've been doing. Yeah, when it comes to service.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is no. You know, men and women sacrifice themselves all the time, and and they're not why can they do it? They can do it because the greatest sacrifice of all was by our Lord and Savior.
Speaker 2:They're not alone. Yeah, and they don't feel alone. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Man.
Speaker 2:Wow, well done. Well done, long yeah, and they don't feel alone. Yeah, exactly, man, wow, well done well done I did nothing. I had to live it to get it when I um um good for you.
Speaker 1:You have a great heart oh, I, I do okay, thank you, ronnie. When I'm embarrassing me.
Speaker 2:When I once saw, when I once saw, the producer of the PBS special Vietnam Speaks, I once thanked her very much for not taking out the spot I have in there about my mother.
Speaker 1:Oh, when you visited her grave. Yes, gotcha.
Speaker 2:That was included in that half hour. I said everyone else, I've never seen anyone put it in. I share it, but they don't put it in. I said thank you very much for putting it in. She says putting it in Ha-ha, you can't take it out. That's what gave us the Emmy, isn't that sweet?
Speaker 1:That's awesome. You know what, ron? Okay, so tell everybody about some of the stuff you do now, because you do a lot of public speaking you mentioned you go to schools and do it, but you make appearances at the Nixon Library from time to time and you get up there and you do some public speaking. Now talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, it was the last year and a half or so, maybe two years I've been involved in that. I even have one of the docents ladies was in my school when I was still in school and she was a sophomore and I was a senior, was a sophomore and I was a senior. She happened to be the school friend of the girl I was talking about. That I first started dating and stuff like that. So we got along very well, just as I'm doing these different things, and they called me in to do things and stuff and I ended up getting awards from the Nixon Library for that response. But I also showed that they had a situation where they have the veterans do artwork Artwork as a way of healing and stuff so that is a therapeutic way of managing their, their, maybe their ptsd.
Speaker 2:So they yeah, so they. So they asked me I was working with someone that was having me going into a lot of these things and uh, she was like a manager and uh, she, one of those managing things was one of those organization things with it's with the with the library, and the library has theaters, so. But this one here was interesting because the chairman of the board of supervisors in orange county was backing it and he was there for the big meeting showing the results, the paintings and stuff like that, it's like displayed at the library, uh, and stuff like that. And so I was invited, uh, with my manager to also, excuse me, partake. Yeah, so we did our. I did a picture of me with a radio no, you didn't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you don't. You don't have that. You don't have a picture of that with you today, do you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I have to look for it. Okay, but I'll get it for you.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:It'll be in the computer and then they have a night of showing some of the results. For a month they're on display at the library. Yeah, okay, which is neat. But then at this theater they have four or five of the veterans get up there and talk about how they feel and they process and stuff like that Sure.
Speaker 2:And then they had, of course, the gentleman from Orange County, the chairman of the joint. Okay, but he was not the opening speaker. They had me be the whole, and it turns out that a lot of it, what I came out with, is what we've been talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But he was, and after we were all done, I was done. He gets up there for 20 minutes and when I said these different things about five times, he says Ronnie was right. Ronnie was right. Now. What I did say when I started out and I'd already said it at the Iowa battleship in the K yeah, on Memorial Day and stuff like that I started out by simply saying and I'm sharing this at the library US military is holy. What I saw on the battlefield, one after the other, what is Jesus Christ also doing for all of us and our souls? It's the same type of sacrifice, it's out of love and that is a connection very, very close. And I said from there and I share with them how it is that it is holy because they are acting out the same love that Christ did for all of us and they are either learning or they are just simply giving it of their own hearts. It's the same type of love that Christ gives to us in the military.
Speaker 1:Amen, Amen. So wow, that's just. That's great stuff. Ronnie's looking me in the eye trying to see if I'm crying now.
Speaker 2:He's right, ronnie's right, yeah, great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know, um I look, I look forward to Sunday mornings.
Speaker 2:I you know it's very special Well.
Speaker 1:I one. I serve in the children's ministry, and so I do look forward to that as well. You know, laying uh the groundwork or a foundation for the uh, third and fourth graders. That's who I work with, and every other week it's the first and second graders join along too yeah, and I like it because I'm the only man.
Speaker 1:Well, I shouldn't say I'm the only man. Well, I shouldn't say I'm the only man there, but I'm the only man of my age. There's one, or I think there's one another man he's, and he's much younger, he's probably a good 20 years younger than I am. And then, of course, there's some of the high school, and I think there's I think they're actually all high school guys that help out from time to time as well. But I see it as being sort of a role model for these kids Seeing somebody of my age that is able to have some of the the spunk that these little, you know, third and fourth grade kids have too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they say okay, well, you know, okay, Mr Ben, yeah, we know he's an old guy, but he's kind of a cool guy Cause he's not, you know, he doesn't.
Speaker 1:He's not, he's old enough to be my grandpa, but he's not, doesn't act like grandpa, you know. So I try to be a role model to these, to these kids, and, like I said, lay a foundation of Christ on them so that they can see where somebody, where they can be at my age, where they can be at my age, they can be like me, they can act like me at my age when they reach my age. And I've been trying to encourage more men of my age group to get active or get involved in that ministry, cause it's just so vitally important. I really do. I think that I've said for many years and it's not my words, so to speak, it's my, there are my thoughts that you know, men were put here to be not only head of household but to be the guide yes, the guides, yeah, that's a good one and to steer us through our, through our Christian life. You know, whether it's your kids, your grandkids, your spouse.
Speaker 2:Or your Brian.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So that's what I try to be. I just try to be, I just try to be a role model for not only my, my family, not only my community, but my church as well. And I figure, if I can be my best self in all three of those areas, it carries over to other aspects in your life work, social life, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, you chose.
Speaker 1:You have that joy at church. We have that joy at church, ronnie and I, we like to do this thing. We like to do this thing when we go on Christmas or Christmas Eve service, whichever, whenever it is, we it depending on the day of the week that the holiday falls on. And, like I said, we, ronnie and I, are in the front row and I'm on this side of the aisle, ronnie's on this side of the aisle and we are on the aisle. And you know, the service usually likes to close with silent night. So Ronnie and I actually will turn and face the congregation and sing Silent Night with them, you know, not so much leading them, not trying to take anything away from our worship team, but just turn to face the congregation.
Speaker 2:Together like this oh, yes, no, no, no. Arm and arm In the aisle way.
Speaker 1:Arm and arm right in the middle of the aisle. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Feels great.
Speaker 1:It's good stuff and it's. It's a love I have for you. Ronnie, I love you dearly. I really do. I love you dearly. What I see in you and what I hear now Same. You're a tremendous member of our church. You know, people say Pastor Brian likes to say from time to time, be a part of something smaller, where you can be missed. When Ronnie doesn't show up to Sunday service, ronnie's missed, and that's a much larger group, ronnie's missed, thank you.
Speaker 1:No, no, absolutely. We could go on a lot longer, ronnie. Uh, in fact, we're gonna have to do this again, you and I okay we will have to do this again. This has been such a tremendous just conversation um Just conversation and education as well, and I've loved every moment of it, it outlines yourself. Why? This isn't about me, ronnie, this is about you.
Speaker 2:But it is, ah well, yeah, you're getting it. Of course, god has us here to listen to each other. I'm, I'm, I'm getting your reactions to, to my feelings. That means an awful, that means an awful lot, and yeah, so we'll both be changed by it.
Speaker 1:I think so, I think so, and I get emotional here and I'm getting emotional here About to kick Ronnie out. But no, this is it really has it's been tremendous. I thank you for your service in the Army fighting in Vietnam, bringing back these stories though, Bringing truth okay, thank you bringing back the? Truth yeah most importantly, yeah, because, just as love conquers all, yeah, the truth always prevails. Yeah, and so I appreciate that love, wins, wins.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely it does, it does. But I've loved every moment of this and I thank you for your service to our. I thank you for the service that you continue for our military personnel, past, present, future.
Speaker 2:And the kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and thank you for your service to our church as well.
Speaker 2:Bless your heart, same to you. Why are we so blessed to be together at a church that makes us real, yeah, simple. It is makes us real, yeah, yeah, simple.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:All right Look.
Speaker 1:All right, so let's just wrap this and let you all get on with your day too. Okay, and listen. Remember we have another episode coming tomorrow as well. So we're continuing our Veterans Day, our thank you to our veterans and our celebration of our veterans. It continues tomorrow. All right With that?
Speaker 1:I'll remind everyone that this program is available everywhere that podcasts are streaming. So just search the Ben Maynard program, choose the platform you want and go with it. Choose the platform you want and go with it. Or again, look if you've enjoyed this right here, share it with your friends. If you're watching it on YouTube, share it with your friends. Share it with your family. It's just good stuff here. Okay, I don't care if you watch or listen to any other episode of this podcast, but this is some good stuff right here. Listen to any other episode of this podcast, but this is some good stuff right here. But if you're watching on YouTube, then please subscribe to the channel. Give me, give Ronnie, a thumbs up and leave a comment. I love your comments, comments that you leave. I'll share them with Ronnie as well. All right, and last but not least, follow me on Instagram. Simply, ben Maynard program and, last but not least, follow me on Instagram, simply Ben Maynard program.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Now, with that, we are done and I'll see you again tomorrow. Okay, this is the Ben Maynard program. Tell a friend.