MACV-SOG Operator Could Smell Enemy Ambushes Before He Saw Them

When you’re looking at taking somebody out that close, I mean, how the hell do you get that close to them and think about it,  exactly what you’re going to do? >> Yeah, well, the opportunity, you know, presents itself. It’s It’s not, in most cases, >> [clears throat] >> it’s not that that’s what I start out to do unless unless it’s dark and I’m sneaking up on you because I need to take you out um without making any noise.

Um then I’m I’m thinking mostly about how do I get from where I am to where you are without you knowing I’m coming and knowing that I’m there. And you know, the what I’m trying to do is get from here over there. And now I’m next to you. You don’t know I’m next to you. And you’re going to feel a sting on the side of your neck.

 You’re going to feel warm blood go out and everything’s going to fade to black. And your knees are going to start to crumple and I’ll catch you as you’re going down so you don’t make noise. But it’s over very quickly, but I’m spending most of my energy and thought process about how do I get to you. I’ve got to get over there without you knowing that I’m there if I’m going to do something like that and be quiet and not discovered.

So, there are things that I want to do depending on the terrain. I may do a distraction. I may toss something over to another direction for you to hear just to redirect your attention for a second while I can get closer to you. Um depends on how much I know about what the terrain’s like. Is it raining? has it been raining? I mean, if it’s raining I’m going to be all over you.

You know, I don’t have to work hard to get close to you. Well, if it’s not raining and everything’s really quiet, I have to be very careful. Cuz I can’t see the ground and I’m going to step on something. Twig’s going to break or something and you’re going to hear it. And one thing is to if I’ve got a pebble, if I’ve got something that if I do break a twig here, I can launch that little pebble off to the other side of you over there so you hear that louder than you heard this.

And now you’ll you’ll turn that way. And that gives me a chance to get closer. >> Did you come up with that? You are a [ __ ] master. >> In that case, all right. So, what my friend said uh [laughter] >> Can’t argue that. >> But, you know, I it just This is still really kind of a topic, but but how you walk um typically we put our heels down first and then the rest of the foot comes down.

Uh but what I had read about decades ago was that American Indians slipping up on their prey, whether it was another Indian tribe or animal, whatever is that they went toe first. If I go this way and I step on a trig or twig it’s like there’s a little amplifier there and it’s throwing the sound out in that direction.

If I step on it and break it with my toe, the sound’s coming back this way. So, you don’t hear it as much. So, I used to have my my little guys toe down. Toe first. Toe first. Let’s practice that. Toe first. And you’ll be quieter. Uh I I had a thing that I call invisibility. I used that hand signal.

 If I did that, go invisible. Be invisible right now. Be invisible. Nobody can hear you. Nobody can smell you. Nobody can uh you know, know anything about where you are. Change how you walk. And we started changing how we move through the woods. I don’t know if you hunt deer or not, but if if you watch a deer, he’s the hardest to see when he’s coming directly at you.

Until he stops. And when he stops, what he he s- screws up with is he starts looking right and left. And when he starts moving his head, you’ll see it. Cuz the different color in the skin and there any movement like that, you’ll see. Horizontal movement is much easier to see uh than vertical movement. So, instead of the point man walking through the jungle, you know, moving his weapon and twisting his body back and forth, so he thinks he’s going to be ready to fire um you know, if he encounters somebody, that’s just giving him away.

Don’t move the weapon. Scan your eye Your eyes are not You won’t see him. The eyes move. Keep your weapon here because you don’t know if he’s going to be over there or over here. So, if you do it like this, now he’s but he’s actually over there. By the time you can get back around to him, you’re dead. >> Split the distance.

>> So, so teaching teaching them how not only for the foreman to do that, but move the whole team. Straight. You start zigzagging, you’re easy to see. As you’re coming. So, I started teaching them all kinds of >> [clears throat] >> invisibility. No soap, nothing that you can smell for the last 3 days before we go out.

I don’t want them to smell us when we’re out. They’ll smell the soap cuz they don’t use the soap. And soap just stands out when you go out there. In fact, they even got to the point where I started making them eat North Vietnamese type food. Cuz I told them, if we’re out there >> [clears throat] >> and we’re out there 4 or 5 days, eventually you’re going to have to poop.

And when you poop, I want it to smell like NVA poop. And they find it, I want them to say, “Oh, that’s that’s one of us.” Sweat. My my father told me when I was a little kid, one time there was a dog, strange dog, and the dog was growling at me. And, you know, my father was went over and petted him. And I said, now I was just a little kid, I said, “Why is he growling at me? And he’s not growling at you.

” And my father said, “He knows you’re afraid of him.” “How does he know that?” “He just does. He knows you’re afraid of him and he’s intimidating you. He knows I’m not afraid of him.” It took me, you know, a couple of decades to figure out what was going on. When you All sweat is not the same. You go out and do some exercise or it’s hot in here and you sweat, yeah, sweat smells.

If you sweat because of fear, fear sweat sweat smells very different. It’s much stronger and it smells different. So, if you’re uh laying in an ambush site waiting to ambush me and you know when you ambush it’s obvious team those jokers are coming after you, you’re laying there sweating with fear sweat, I’ll smell you.

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 Go to spotonfence.com/srs and use code SRS for $50 off the Nova collar. That’s spotonfence.com/srs and use code SRS for $50 off. >> On more than one occasion, I’ve stopped the team. Stop. You know, they’re there. And I can smell them laying up there in the woods. I can smell the sweat. Dogs can smell the difference between fear sweat and normal sweat.

So, they It’s easy for them to tell that you’re afraid of them. So, um They want you to relax. They want you to your poop to smell like any VA poop. They don’t want any soap or anything like that on you that people can that the NBA can smell. So, that’s all part of being invisible. Jump up and down. Nothing should make a sound on you when you jump up and down.

 You should have nothing on you uh that’s a bright. All the the buckles and metal things on your harness need to be painted black or wrapped in black friction tape um so they don’t shine. Uh You need to be camouflage. All this stuff counts. Take pictures of them and say, “Look, what does this look like?” That looks like Ben laying on the ground cuz you can see all the buckles on him.

Or you can see he’s got two yellow smokes on him. And the bottom of the yellow smoke is white color is yellow. And it’s got a like kind of a a light white band around around the thing. You can’t have that. It makes you show up. And how you walk, uh how you approach people, that’s all part of being invisible human in the daylight.

And ways to do that. Maybe you’re giving you more than you want to know, but >> You know, something I didn’t say at the beginning is the Vietnam generation is what inspired me to go into the SEAL Teams. And hearing you talk, I’m just realizing so many of our TTPs and SOPs and all that kind of stuff came came from from you guys.

It’s pretty surreal for me. >> I think a uh A lot of it did. >> [clears throat] >> Came you know, from SOG guys. But because of the intensity of the missions and where we were going, if you were going to survive, there were things you had to do. And we learned things. You know, I I felt stupid um when I realized that some of the people who came after me in ’70 started using the earplugs that we use on the range when they’d get on the helicopter.

Because if you ride on a helicopter unprotected ears, it’ll be 2 hours plus when you get off of that thing before you get your full hearing back. So you you do a security stop and you’re out there trying to listen and see if you hear anybody moving or what. You can’t hear yet. And I I discovered that for me um when uh I saw a um headset hanging in the helicopter.

 We’re on our way out. I saw a headset and asked the crew chief, “Can I use that?” And he said, “Sure.” So I got the headset and I put it on and discovered I I used to watch the door gunners. They’re sitting there and we’re going out and their heads bouncing up and down and I I thought, “Wow, it’s rough riding on the outside where the door gunners are.

” I put that headset on and I thought He He’s listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival. You know, their heads moving with the beat [laughter] and I’m stupid. The The pilots have got the the radio station on. >> [laughter] >> I mean I didn’t know that. And then and then I I realized that when I got off the helicopter, I could still hear.

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