>>So David, the Charlottesville
community knows you

as a feature writer
for the Daily Progress

but I'd like to start
out talking a little bit

about your past.

Tell us about joining the Army.

>>No, I can't tell
you about that.

>>(laughs) You'd
have to shoot me.

(laughs)

That's sort of true.

>>I was somewhat of a disaster.

Well, I was a disaster
in high school.

I decided to join the
Army when I was 17

and my parents were happy

to sign off on that.

And I went in

and my first tour was in Korea.

And then I came back,

and I wasn't back
but a couple months

and I was assigned to
First Calvary Division

and they'd come
down with the orders

and this is 1965 for Vietnam.

So I went over.

Started there, really.

>>So you stayed in the Army

for a couple of years, left

and then came back

to join the Jump School?

>>Yeah, I was in for three years

and then I had a break
of about nine months

and that wasn't
really working out.

There was a lot of
residue left from Vietnam.

I'd been in some major battles

and coming back
from that I remember

when I first got
home the first night,

I kept opening up
the refrigerator and
shutting the door

because it was so foreign to me

that I could just reach in
and grab a cold whatever

and just the lights and all that

because I had basically been
in the field for a year.

>>Right.

>>So, I just didn't adjust.

And after nine months
I decided to go back in

and there'd been a lot of
paratroopers in the First Cav

and I really liked those guys.

And so I said, if
I'm going back in,

I wanna, you know, at least
try to be a paratrooper.

So when I was in Jump School,

the instructor came up and said,

if any of you guys think
you wanna be snake eaters

which we call
special forces guys.

>>Okay.

>>That guy'll, you
know, talk to you.

So everybody 200 guys go over.

Out of those 200
guys took the test,

six of us came down for
orders for special forces.

And out of those six guys,

two of us graduated

>>Oh.

>>about a year later.

>>Why do you think you made it?

>>It was a miracle.

This is a completely...

You can watch as many
programs on television

about special forces training

but until you actually
go through it,

you have absolutely no idea.

And every day, you're being
tested in one way or another.

And the perfect example
of this is I was there

for about a month in training

and I was changing a light bulb.

A light bulb had burned out in
our hallway in the barracks.

And one of the Glow
in the Dark Guys,

these are the guys
that teach us.

These are the guys who have
to accept you into the family.

And he said, "Give me that."

And so handed him
the light bulb.

He smashed it on the floor.

He picked up this
big shard of glass.

He handed to me
and says, "Eat it."

And I took this shard of glass

and I put it in my mouth

and I bit down on it fully
expecting it to cut me up.

But it turned into
little granules of sand,

completely harmless,

which he obviously knew.

But this was a test,

and he just kind of
nods and walks away.

>>Try to explain to
me the difference

between a soldier
and the Green Beret.

>>In our creed, it says,

"We will never surrender
though we'd be the last."

Which means we die in place.

We don't surrender.

We die in place.

It doesn't matter
if we're the last.

And I think a country has to
have those kinds of people

with that kind of mentality is

that we don't surrender.

And if you're gonna take us on,

you're gonna pay

and you're gonna pay dearly.

>>So now I didn't
hear this from you,

but I saw a photograph of
you wearing a Purple Heart.

You wanna tell us about that?

>>That's just obviously a
medal that you don't wanna get.

But we were on a mission
into North Vietnam

and on the fifth
day we're supposed

to be getting
pulled out that day.

And it was around noon.

And we'd been
surrounded by these guys

for that whole
time that we're in,

but I heard some noise

up to the side of our position.

And I went down there to...

Crawled down there basically

to see what was going on.

And I heard some rustling.

I knew it was some
NVA coming up there.

We were on a ridge.

And so I pulled out a grenade

and pulled the pin
out of the grenade.

And about that time I heard
a thump up in front of me

and the NVA down below
me had thrown a grenade

up towards me

and about then it goes off.

And I feel a searing
pain in my neck.

And so my first thought was
to get rid of this grenade

with the pin out of it.

And I knew where that guy was

and then put it down there

and got him

and then everything erupts,

and we get into a big gunfight.

So at one point I was
up against the tree

and these bullets
started to hit right

above my head in the tree.

And I rolled over on my side
to get lowered to the ground.

And the blood that had
pooled in my lap just poured

onto the ground like a bucket

because I bled that much
in a short period of time.

And then I just started
to go into shock

and my vision started
to close down.

And fortunately, Hanger
and Trepier, got up to me,

put a pressure bandage on there

and got the bleeding to stop.

But when the helicopters
came in finally,

and I can tell a
story without saying

how courageous those guys were

because this was bad
news all the way around

but they did,

and we got back to Da Nang.

And I consider it my
best day of my life

because everybody was
there was hugging us

and, you know, that whole, it
was just a magnificent moment.

>>Your best day.

>>Yeah, definitely my best day.

>>All right, so
after nine years,

you left.

Tell us a little bit about that

and how you ended
up as a writer.

>>I had told myself

when my dear friend
Bill Brown was killed,

and I'd just come back

and they told me

that the whole
team had been lost.

And I took it
stoically at the time.

I just nodded

because, you know, I'd heard
that kind of news before.

And, but that
night I was walking

by his hooch

and it was his
parents had sent him

a little artificial
Christmas tree.

And before they went
out on the mission,

we had trimmed this
Christmas tree.

And that night I'm
walking past the hooch

and the wind blew the door open,

and I looked in the hooch

and there was a
Christmas tree lit up.

And I just fell to my knees.

It was the only time I
ever cried in Vietnam

almost three years
I spent there.

And I just fell to my
knees and I sobbed.

And,

when I got up,

I said that someday somebody
was gonna have to know

about these people.

And I decided then I was
gonna write a book about this.

And when I got out,

I went to college thinking

that they could
teach me how to write

and quickly found
out that they can't.

And...

(Terri laughs)

But I also found out that
I had the gift of writing.

And I would sign that
first sentence of that book

for five years.

And I was doing
this nowhere jobs,

just keeping myself alive.

Every night coming home

and trying to start this book.

When the first sentence came:

"At 25 yards,

the front side of the machine
gun nearly covered the back

of the resting
soldier's head..."

That's it.

It started

and I wrote a whole
book in nine months.

>>And had you not
had that experience,

you might not have even had the
calling to write, who knows?

>>Well, that's exactly it.

So, I consider the three
major blessings in my life

to have been,

one being accepted in
the special forces family

which is
extraordinarily special.

The second blessing a lot of
people don't understand this

but is Vietnam.

Because,

Vietnam provided the
atmosphere for me

to have the best friendships
I will ever have in this life

and the deepest friendships.

And the third blessing is
here at Daily Progress.

I love the daily progress

and it has given
me the opportunity

to do the most amazing things

for all these years.

To be standing right
next door or next

to a surgeon harvesting a liver

in a hospital in
Beckley, West Virginia

and flying back with him
and standing next to him

as he puts the good liver

in a person here at UVA.

And, you know, it's just
endless all these opportunities

that you get as a journalist

that you wouldn't get
in any other jobs.

So, it's just a great blessing.

And, you know, you get
people read your stuff.

(both laughing)

So, well what's better
for a writer than

to have people doing that?

>>What's one of the most
risky projects you've ever,

you know, attacked?

>>Well, I'll tell you
the one that jumps

to mind immediately is I did
this guy who's coming here

to the area to have these
people walk on coals, right?

>>Oh, oh okay.

>>The 1200 degrees coals

and it was who do
their thing, you know,

so, everybody else
is like taking a run

and going tippy tippy
there off of 'em, right?

But I said to myself, you
know, I can't do that.

You know, I'm a
special forces guy,

if I'm gonna walk on the coals,

I'm gonna walk on
the coals, right?

>>Okay.

>>So, I step off onto
these 1200 degree coals

and surprisingly enough,

it felt exactly

on my bare feet like burning
hot coals would feel.

(Terri laughs)

And I'm going, I'm
in trouble here.

(laughs)

But what was really
interesting is

that it didn't
really burn the soles

of my feet like you would think.

>>And you did write the article?

>>I did indeed.

>>Be interesting to
see what you wrote.

(Terri laughs)

>>Yeah. yeah. I'll have
to revisit that one.

>>Yeah, we'll definitely
have to do that.

David, thank you.

>>You're welcome.

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