Nov. 10, 2025 - Human Events Daily - Jack Posobiec
47:59
Celebrating The 250th Birthday of the U.S Marines Live From Philadelphia
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This is what happens when the fourth turning meets fifth generation warfare.
A commentator, international social media sensation, and former Navy intelligence veteran.
This is Human Events with your host, Jack Posovic.
Christ is king.
Sunday's vote was the first clear sign that a bipartisan deal had been reached after a roughly 40-day stalemate.
The Senate voted 60 to 40 to back a revamp the GOP funding bill that would keep the government open until the end of January.
Eight Democrats joined Republicans to pass the bill, including Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, Senators Tim Kaine, Catherine Cortez-Masto, and Jackie Rosen, among others.
Overnight, the aviation industry facing its worst day of cancellations since the shutdown began.
I was coming from Tampa, and that flight delay, delay, delay, then it was canceled.
Almost 8% of flights canceled as of Sunday night.
New backlash as the Trump administration moves forward with a plan to introduce 50-year mortgages.
Over the weekend, Trump's sharing this image comparing the proposal to the 30-year mortgage policies championed by FDR nearly a century ago.
The move could potentially kickstart the now stagnant real estate market.
You said affordability was at a phone job and you didn't want to, you said last night you didn't want to talk about affordability.
I talked about it.
When did I not want to talk about it?
I talk about it all the time.
We are much better than Biden and all of them.
Now, just so you understand, do you remember that the Biden administration had the highest inflation in 48 years, but most people say ever recorded?
Do you remember that?
Right?
Do you remember it?
Did they have the highest inflation in 48 years?
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The answer is yes.
In a social media post, President Trump says people who don't support tariffs are, quote, fools.
Trump says the U.S. is taking in trillions of dollars and will soon start paying down $37 trillion in debt.
He also says a dividend of at least $2,000 would be paid to everyone, but not including, quote, high-income people.
For 250 years, Marines have celebrated their birthday on November 10th.
This day has always been a time to celebrate our history.
But at every pivotal moment in our country's history, when our nation has needed the might of the Marine Corps, Marines have celebrated with a true fighting spirit.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard today's edition of Human Events Daily live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
I am here in Philadelphia, right where I grew up on November 10th, 2025, Anno Domini.
And why are we here today?
Because I'm not the only one from the Philadelphia area, because today is the 250th birthday of the United States Marine Corps, which was born right here in Philadelphia, not very far from where I sit right now.
Now, we're down here at Penn's Landing, and if you hear the cacophony around me, that's because I'm at a gathering of Marines who are Vietnam veterans that are here celebrating their, I believe it's their 41st reunion that they've come together.
Their entire company has come out, and we're going to be on with some of the generals, actually, Marine generals that served in Vietnam that are here today.
And I'm so gracious and honored to even be invited to cover an event like this.
But let me tell you a little something about the story of the founding.
So, back in Philadelphia, remember, the Second Continental Congress is getting done.
This is pre, even before the Declaration of Independence.
The Marine Corps is actually older than the country itself.
The resolution was approved on November 10th, 1775, dedicating a landing force to serve at sea and on shore.
That resolution was approved November 10th, 1775, by the Second Continental Congress, which is, of course, right down the street from where we are at.
And if you see right behind me, you can actually see the great battleship New Jersey, and that's the Delaware River across.
You're looking into Camden, New Jersey, right there.
First Commandant of the Marine Corps was Samuel Nichols.
The resolution commissioned him, who was a prominent local innkeeper, as the first commandant and captain of the newly formed Marine Corps.
Now, this is the part where it gets really good.
Right down here, just blocks away from where I'm sitting, at an alley near Penn's Landing on the corner of Water Street and Tun Alley, there was an establishment called Tun Tavern.
And Tun Tavern, which was owned by Nicholas's friend, Robert Mullen, he went in there and he walked in to this tavern that evening, which they saw as a natural gathering place for the colonists, for the Americans.
And of course, as the story goes, he walked in looking, went into that tavern on that night, November 10th, 1775, and said, We're looking for a few good men to serve in the Marine Corps of the United States of America.
And of course, hundreds of men, 300 men by March, joined up for the United States Marine Corps where the very first recruiting drive was held in a tavern just blocks away.
And you can imagine the colonists sitting there, pounding their ale, saying, You know something?
We're going to get in there.
We're going to go and get in the fight.
That's the people of Philadelphia.
That's the people of the United States Marine Corps.
Those are the men that founded this country.
The United States was not founded through debate society.
The United States was not founded by people, you know, just arguing out in the marketplace of free ideas.
No, the United States of America was founded by men of action.
And when George Washington was looking for men of action, who did he turn to?
He turned to the United States Marine Corps.
And when you look at our country and when our country has faced its darkest hours, its darkest moments, whether those moments were here at home, like the battle for our own revolution, our own independence, War of 1812, World War I, World War II, who did the United States turn to in all those times?
It was the United States Marine Corps.
And yes, even in Vietnam, and we're going to talk about Vietnam today because we're here with the Vietnam veterans.
And we're going to talk about the fact that the amount of KIAs, and we were at the Memorial Service, which was held this morning outside of the Vietnam Memorial, the amount of KIAs with this unit.
And I've got, oh, the brochure is over here.
I was showing it this morning on War Room.
Seven pages, single spaced of men killed in action.
We need to take it seriously because there's nothing more serious and there's nothing more deadly than a Marine in combat.
We're right back.
Jack Pesobic, live, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Stand in our way, and our golden age has just begun.
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Now it's time for everyone to understand what America First truly means.
Welcome to the second American Revolution.
All right, folks, Jack Pesobic, we're here live back in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Human Events Daily.
Today is the birthday of the United States Marine Corps, which was born in Berkeley, the first recruiting drive just blocks away, ton tavern right here at Penn's Landing, where we're all sitting right now.
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All right, now, since we're here on Human Events Daily, and we've always got a Navy veteran, believe it or not, there's been a Navy veteran on almost every single episode of Human Events Daily.
However, today's all about the Marine Corps, which is a certain lesser-known department of the Navy.
Just got to get that in there.
But of course, I wanted to bring on one of my good friends.
You guys know him, Dan Caldwell.
He's the former senior advisor over at the Pentagon, the Department of War, and of course, a proud United States Marine veteran.
Dan, how are you?
I'm doing great.
And Jack, you set it up, so I just got to go for it.
When you say we're part of the Department of Navy, you're correct.
We're the men's department of the Navy.
Now, Dan, I just wanted to let you know that when you're in the green room here at Human Events Daily, I know you might get a little bit hungry, so I've let out a couple of packs of Crayola crayons for you to gnaw on if you get your appetite up a little bit.
Well, I appreciate that.
I am getting hungry.
I hope you have the green.
That's my favorite flavor.
That's so weird.
We keep running out of the greens, and now I think I know why.
But Dan, we're here with you know, we're here with the Vietnam veterans.
We're here with my company.
And one of the things that this memorial earlier today that really struck with me was the intensity of the Vietnam conflict and how intense it was for the Marines.
Seven pages single spaced of KIAs that they read through a single bell rung after each one.
And it took quite some time to get through the entire list because they read the names out.
And you realize that, wait a minute, that's just one company.
So walk through for me the intensity of Vietnam for the Marine Corps and part of the Marine Corps history, and also just the understanding that it gives those who have served when it comes to those discussions of perhaps sending Marines into the fire all around the world yet again.
Yeah, this is important, Jack.
And first of all, I enjoyed watching part of the ceremony that you posted today.
I just want to say, you know, when I was going through basic training in the Marine Corps, I was always told that we walk in the shadows of giants.
And the Vietnam Marines were definitely those giants for us, junior Marines.
Always looked up for up to them.
And we were well educated on our history in Vietnam.
And you cannot overstate the intensity of the Marine experience in Vietnam.
So, first and foremost, it's important to know that most of the Marines of Vietnam served in I-Corps, which is the military unit that controlled all the U.S. military assets in the northern part of South Vietnam.
So, they were right on the border with North Vietnam, the DMZ, and then they also controlled areas all the way out to the border with Laos.
So, that's where you had places like Khe San, where there was a famous battlefot, where the Marines really distinguished themselves, basically held out in a siege for several months.
And then out more towards the sea, you had Hui City, where the Marines fought the famous battle in 1968, the Battle of Hui City.
So, this is where you had the North Vietnamese, the VC, they were closest to their safe havens, they were closest to their supply lines.
So, that is where you saw some of the most intense combat of the war.
And so, that is why you had very high Marine casualties.
You had a lot of very intense combat, and you had a tremendous amount of heroism for Marines that served throughout that war.
And so, it's unfortunate that I don't think a lot of the Marine history in Vietnam has really been highlighted.
You've had great books like Fields of Fire, The Nightingale Song that have talked through that, but it really, it's nothing compared to what I went through in Iraq.
And it's nothing compared to, again, there's a lot of brutal fighting and heroism in Afghanistan, but it's really nothing compared to that.
It was significantly worse by every measure.
And so, Dan, and I could see that from, you know, it connected with me today because as they read the names, so many of, they also read the dates.
They read the dates of their sacrifice.
And so many of the men, you know, the dates would line up.
It was the same day that they were all killed.
And so, you realize these battles that were coming back day after day after day were just so intense.
And this was totally different from what we even saw.
And obviously, I remember the Iraq-Afghanistan era as well, but it was just a magnitude larger.
Dan, you know, you and I talk about this all the time, but you know, obviously, the United States Marine Corps is willing to go wherever Uncle Sam sends them.
But isn't this also on the flip side why we need to be very, very careful and honor their service and willingness to do that if we are to then call them into, say, you know, Iran or Venezuela or one of these places?
Absolutely.
You know, just because you have a highly trained, well-equipped, lethal United States Marine Corps does not mean that you should send it around the world to fight in every conflict or solve every problem.
Military force should always be the last resort.
And too often, especially in the post-Cold War era, our policymakers have deployed not just Marines, but soldiers, sailors, airmen to conflicts that are not in our national interest.
And the Marines and all other service members distinguished themselves well in those conflicts.
But let's just, you know, Jack, let's just quickly talk about what's going on today at the White House.
At the White House today, there is a former leader of al-Qaeda meeting with President Trump.
Al-Shara, also known as Jalani, is now the president of Syria.
I think, to be clear, it's very good that President Trump is engaging with this guy.
He clearly wants to do business with us.
Instead of starting another civil war in Syria, we should engage him.
And I applaud the Trump administration for doing that.
But let's think of the symbolism of that for a second.
This guy fought United States Marines in Iraq.
He was a leader of Al-Qaeda.
And he essentially joined Al-Qaeda because of the Iraq war and because of our overreach in the region.
And so we've invested all this blood and treasure in these wars.
And the end result is our enemies winning.
And it's because in most cases, we didn't need to fight those wars.
We didn't need to deploy the Marines.
So I think that's an important lesson that we should absorb.
Again, we need a well-trained Marine Corps, well-trained Navy Air Force Army, but we should absolutely use them as a last resort.
And just them existing isn't a reason that we should send them around the world to serve as the world's policemen.
And that's exactly right.
You know, when you have a fighting force that's willing to do that, that's willing to go into harm's way.
And by the way, and I'm just going to say it, that, you know, even though the Vietnam War, and there's obviously a lot of questions about the Vietnam War, many of which I hold, but people need to remember as well, the Vietnam War was about fighting communism.
Yes.
And that when you talk to the men who came back from Vietnam, that is the number one reason they give for why they fought.
They said, I was fighting communism.
That's why we went over there.
And so you don't hear that from, you know, many of the sort of anti-Vietnam War stories that are told.
Now, that being said, it also stands to reason that we asked the question, did it make sense and for the conduct of war, et cetera, et cetera.
And so when you look at all these things together, it's really begs the question, right?
It always begs the question of, did we get into something for the right reasons or are we going in and creating more problems because of our interventions?
And you just mentioned Syria, for example, something where the United States did intervene.
Now, obviously, we were not directly involved in the Civil War, but we certainly were indirectly.
And that was a civil war that led to this al-Qaeda, you know, quote unquote, former Al-Qaeda leader now becoming a head of state over there.
And there are serious questions about what's going on on the ground of the Christians underneath Al Jalani.
And I'm going to continue to call him Al Jalani, by the way, because that's his name.
And questions that unfortunately, you know, we're having a lot of trouble getting answers for.
Absolutely.
I want to go back to something you said about Vietnam.
I think it was Senator Jim Webb, former Secretary of the Navy, wrote Fields of Fire.
He said that he could make a better argument for intervening in Vietnam in the context of the global Cold War than he could in Iraq, regardless of how bad Vietnam became, how detached from core objectives in terms of containing communism it became.
I believe that you can make a better argument for Vietnam in the Cold War context than Iraq in 2003.
But here's something you mentioned, the protesters too.
If you think about people who protested that war or avoided service in that war, a lot of them became leaders in the national security space after the Cold War, and like the Clinton administration and the Bush administration.
And it was that generation, the anti-war protesters were the ones who really drove a lot of our bad foreign policy, whether it was like the humanitarian interventionism or people like John Bolton, who proudly dodged the draft in Vietnam, pushing the Iraq war, because they never absorbed those lessons because they never fought.
They were too, they're too cowardly to go and serve the United States.
Or in some cases, they thought the communists were the heroes.
And so that's an important point to me.
Dan Caldwell, we're on.
Today is the birthday of the United States Marine Corps.
We're here live in Philadelphia, PA, Human Events Daily.
Right back.
Talk about influencers.
These are influencers.
And they're friends of mine.
Jack Pisovic.
Where's Jack?
Jack?
He's got a great job.
All right, Jack Pisovic.
We are back live here.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Human Events Daily.
Here for the birthday of the United States Marine Corps on this day, 250 years ago, in a tavern just steps away.
The tavern had burned down in the 1700s, but there is actually a plan afoot to kind of restore it and rebuild it.
And of course, we'll be checking back in on that as soon as it's up.
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I want to go back on with former Pentagon senior official Dan Caldwell, United States Marine veteran himself.
And Dan, we were talking about, we're talking about the Vietnam War and putting it into context.
It was certainly done with the context of containing communism.
And that is the argument that is done for.
When we wrote our anti-communist history book last year, myself and Joshua Lysak, that's exactly the way that we framed it.
And we sort of left the other debate, you know, sort of for another time.
But it really does speak, I think, to the conduct not only of how the United States gets into wars and also how the United States conducts those wars once we get into them.
Because, Dan, when you really look at it, you know, when the United States got, quote unquote, got into Vietnam, did it really achieve the result that we were looking for?
Unfortunately, at the end of the day, the war ended with a Soviet allied state controlling Southeast Asia, not just Vietnam, Laos.
And then after Pol Pot was overthrown by the Vietnamese, you know, Cambodia too, is that the Soviets were able to build a base in Vietnam and they were able to more effectively project power into, you know, the South China Sea.
Now, at the end of the day, global communism lost.
And thankfully, Vietnam is coming around to our side, has in a lot of ways come around to our side.
The Secretary of War, Pete Hegsep, was there just last week.
We're signing military deals.
And there's an alignment, and I think it's a good thing, emerging between Vietnam and the United States on some key issues.
I also think it's one of the important lessons of Vietnam, though, that a lot of people forget is that in 1975, if you go back to that time, a lot of people thought that global communism is now on the march.
You know, you saw a lot of communist victories in Africa to Latin America and places like Nicaragua, obviously had Angola and Africa.
And in 1979, then you had the Soviets move in Afghanistan.
What happened 10 years later, the Cold War ended.
And so I think the lesson from one lesson from Vietnam is that one military defeat does not mean the end of American military or the end of American power.
And that it, you know, like people were talking about Afghanistan, the fall of Afghanistan, you know, being this absolute disaster for American power.
And it wasn't a great look.
It wasn't good for our credibility.
And then people try to connect it to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which I believe is wrong, you know, cards on the table.
But at the end of the day, it didn't really impact our ability to do things in Europe or to do things that we needed to do in the Pacific.
That was our own policymakers' bad decisions.
Luckily, after Vietnam, with Ronald Reagan and others, guided by a lot of Vietnam vets, I've noted, the United States military rebuilt, retooled, and by the end of the Cold War, had recovered from Vietnam and became a very powerful force that was able to deter the Soviet Union and ultimately help secure a victory in the Cold War.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
And so we look at the history of these things and it should give us pause.
I just always think that if you understand the history of warfare in the United States, especially in the post-World War II era, it should always give us pause when we question about whether or not we should get involved in yet another armed conflict and especially putting boots on the ground.
Because you look at the history of Korea, look at the history of Vietnam, and you have to, and now the history of Iraq and Afghanistan, and you have to wonder: okay, did this make sense?
Was the juice worth the squeeze?
Was it worth it for all those seven single-spaced pages of KIAs in Vietnam to hand the Soviets a support base there in Southeast Asia?
I'm not sure.
And you talked to a lot of the guys who came out and they said, well, we could have won this thing, but we were told to pull back and we were asked about rules of engagement.
And it has nothing to do with the valor and the bravery and the courage of the men who fought.
It has to do with the political decisions made both before, during, and after the conflicts.
And that is always where the problem seems to be.
But I'll tell you what, Dan, when I go and I meet with the veterans or even the current service members, I don't think the problem is with the United States Marines.
No, absolutely not.
And it is still a fantastic group of warfighters, and they carry the spirit of the Marines you're with right now in Vietnam.
That same spirit that motivated Marines in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam is still within every Marine currently serving in the United States Marine Corps.
You know, there's a lot of this talk about, oh, the Marines of today are softer.
And, you know, that stuff's been going on since the founding of the Marine Corps.
You know, the Marines that were fighting in World War II, they're probably their salt dog.
World War I veterans are probably saying the same thing.
It goes back generations.
But let me tell you, you have an incredible Marine Corps that's able to do incredible things.
And their training is superb and they're motivated.
And on top of that, they're innovative.
That's an important part of the Marine Corps history: that this is the brand.
That's key.
Dan, we're out of time because I got to cut you off because the general is coming up next.
Dan Caldwell.
Go give him a follow at Dan Caldwell.
Where is Jack?
Where is he?
Jack, I want to see you.
Great job, Jack.
Thank you.
What a job you do.
You know, we have an incredible thing.
We're always talking about the fake news and the bad, but we have guys, and these are the guys that be getting public.
All right, folks, Jack Posobic, we're back here live, Human Events Daily, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
We're here for the birthday, 250th birthday, United States Marine Corps.
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All right, folks, so it's a true honor to be on here today.
This special guest that we have, this is Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper.
He was the commanding officer of my company during 1968 to 1969, a student of Naval War College up at Newport, Rhode Island, and then later assumed command of the 2nd Battalion 7th Marine Regiment before commanding the 4th Marines.
Lieutenant General, thank you so much for joining us today.
Good to be here.
Reflect with me if you can.
What is it when you got to Vietnam in, and then was your first time in theater 1968?
Was that when you first arrived?
No, that was my second tour.
That was your second tour.
In my first tour, I was an advisor with the Vietnamese Marine Corps.
I was wounded after about four months and evacuated.
So this was my second tour.
So this was your second tour.
How did you say?
Okay, I see it here.
So 65 was your first tour, and then 60.
And I'm reading this, by the way.
You were wounded while attacking an NVA machine gun in a rice paddy outside of Saigon.
The Vietnamese unit I was with was the 3rd Battalion.
They were going after a base camp of the Viet Cong south of Saigon, and I was with the lead element.
And as I was calling in Army helicopters to try to take this out, it got shot in the stomach at that time.
Now, when you got hit with that, did they take you, did we have in 65, did we have those mass units?
Did we have a U.S. military there, or was the Vietnamese?
Yeah, there was a very brave couple of Army war and helicopter pilots.
They took that, it was a Huey with guns on the side.
They brought it right around, shut it down.
They took some rounds through the cockpit.
They picked it up and turned their tail back towards where the enemy was.
I crawled over and got in, and they took off, took me straight into the Army's 3rd Army Field Hospital.
So I was probably in the operating room within about 30, 45 minutes after I was wounded.
That's an incredible turnaround to be able to get in, get out from a hot battle zone to be able to get to the hospital unit so quickly.
And it really speaks, I think, to the competency of the men that were there on the ground.
I read a manual about the First World War and said stomach shots were always fatal.
Yes.
It was good to be a little further along in time.
You were breaking the mold on that one, breaking the odds on that.
But that really also became sort of the story of Vietnam: there was so much medical innovation that came out of these intense conflicts, these intense situations.
We called it the golden hour.
If you could stabilize a Marine and get them out to a medical facility within the golden hour, the odds of surviving were much higher.
Yeah, so that was about one hour.
So then you get wounded, you come back.
What was it like getting, you know, being on the mend and then coming back three years later as a commanding officer?
Well, coming back to the States wasn't pleasant because that's when the anti-war elements were pretty high.
My parents, for example, there was a picture of me in a local paper.
They got those papers with obscenities written over, sent to them, and things like that.
So it wasn't pleasant coming back into the States.
But going back out as a company commander was almost a dream come true.
I'd always wanted to, I'd commanded a platoon.
I always wanted to command a rifle company.
So to have that opportunity, I valued it.
And just until we get it out, what was your age, 1965?
How old were you?
I was 29 years old.
I'd been in the Marine Corps since I was 18.
I'd been enlisted for a couple of years.
So I had a good bit of experience and felt pretty confident.
That's incredible.
And I want to ask about that.
So you get wounded.
You take a wound in a conflict that you didn't start yourself, but you'd been ordered to go to.
And your parents were skitting obscenities about you even coming home after being wounded in combat.
Yes.
What did your parents say when they got that?
I think they were upset and to give an indication of what it was like.
When I came home from the second tour with my company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, my wife had to change her phone number to an unlisted number because she got harassing calls.
Just things that shouldn't have been done.
No, it's absolutely things that shouldn't have been done.
And you look at the history of it.
And I was really, you know, I mentioned before that I was really moved that, you know, when we were going through the booklet here and they read the names, it's seven pages single spaced, name after name after name of the Marines that didn't make it back.
And realizing the intensity, and that's just this company.
It is a lot of casualties.
Now, in terms of commanding that company, I often tell folks, if it wasn't for the separation from my family, and if it wasn't for the casualties, that would be my groundhog day.
I would lead that company for my entire life.
Some fantastic Marines and Navy corpsmen.
You're living on the edge.
It's a certain excitement to it.
And just some great people around you, both in terms of their professional skills and their courage.
So the casualties are obviously something that just a tragic part of being in the military.
Well, that's exactly right.
And I appreciate so much that you and the men and the families are still here, even today, all these years later, that are commemorating, that are standing.
And it is about honor, but it's also an act of duty, isn't it?
It is.
What most folks don't think about, they think about camaraderie in the military, but it's actually a love, a love for each other.
And what we find in the reunions is the first time someone comes, they're a little leery the first afternoon or evening.
The second day they get into discussions, look at photos that were taken there, begin to talk to whatever squad or platoon they were in.
By the Sunday morning when they get ready to leave, everybody's in tears.
It's just a real emotional event.
But there's no way to really explain it unless you've lived it and have that feeling.
But it doesn't matter what your walk of life is, anything about your ethnic or religious background, none of that matters.
You are a United States Marine and you've been in combat together.
That's what counts.
You've been United States Marine, once a Marine, always a Marine.
And I would have loved, I know that the tavern, they're working on getting it back together.
It would be just about a couple of blocks from where we are.
We are in the city where the Marine Corps was born in 1775.
John Adams had a maritime commission that they were studying whether we needed a Marine Corps.
They decided that we did.
They informed the Second Continental Congress, and there was a resolution that established two battalions of American Marines.
And Samuel Nichols was the first commissioned officer, and he began to recruit Marines, sent drummers and pfeiffers throughout the town, and got the first Marine.
So this is, Philadelphia is the home of the Marine Corps.
What does it mean to you that do you think that the Marine Corps, the first recruiting drive, was in a tavern?
Well, that's appropriate.
That's where it should have been.
No doubt about it.
Now, do you think if we went into Philadelphia taverns today, we'd find some ready and willing enabled Marines?
Well, what the Marine Corps always tells these young men, they're not good enough.
And then they've got to prove themselves.
In fact, one of my favorite stories is of a recruiter that recruiters from all the services go into high school, and each of the other services talk about the benefits, the training, what you're going to get out of it.
And the Marine recruiter walks up there and looks out over the student body, says, I don't think any of you are good enough to be Marines.
But if you think you are, I'll be in the back.
Come back and see me.
And that's how we get the kind of folks we want.
And that's the kind of folks you want.
And then the pull-up bar comes out, and the push-up competitions begin and all the rest of it.
And no, it's absolutely appropriate.
And that's the Marines cut from a different cloth, but that's how you get the few and the proud.
We're coming up on a quick break here.
And I'm looking, I'm looking at the comments here.
General, you're able to stick with us for another segment?
Stay here as long as you want me.
All right.
He's staying here, folks.
We're in Human Events Daily.
We're here live, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
We've got General Van Riper, who's here with us.
He was the commanding officer of my company there in Vietnam, 1968, 1969.
He's telling us stories of the Corps.
He's telling us stories about what it was like when he was there facing off against those godless commies in the Viet Cong.
We'll be right back here.
Human Events continues.
He's written a fantastic book.
Everybody's talking about it.
Go get it.
And he's been my friend right from the beginning of this whole beautiful event.
And we're going to turn it around and make our country great again.
Amen.
All right, Jack Pesovic, we're back here live, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
We're on with General Paul Van Riper of Mike, the commanding officer of Mike 37.
And General, I had to ask you, so Mike 3-7, am I correct in understanding that this is the most decorated unit for the Vietnam War?
I'm not absolutely sure of that, but it certainly was one of the most decorated.
Saw some of the heaviest combat.
Went into the end of Vietnam in July of 1965 and didn't leave until October of 1970 and was involved in some of the heaviest fighting.
I know when I was there, what we called the post-Tut Offensive, the casualties were pretty high.
It was a great unit, a great unit.
That's incredible.
Well, and General, I want to thank you for your time today.
I want to get one of your predecessors here, another former CEO of Mike 37, but I wanted to say thank you.
And if you don't mind hearing it from a Navy guy, SemperFi.
Okay, well, it's the Navy Marine Corps team.
Tom Droughty here is an old friend.
So I'm glad to pass the mic to him.
All right.
Well, let's get him in.
Thank you, General.
Another general coming up here because we've got a number of Marines here joining us at On Human Events Daily Today.
I want to get him in.
And it's just an incredible and absolutely incredible.
General, thank you so much for joining us here.
We'll get you sitting down.
Great to meet you as well, General.
Get you, get your mic right there.
And you could just look right at me.
You don't need to worry about looking at the camera.
But the people will see, I promise, General.
Now, so I'm looking over here.
Now, you were the commanding officer.
So prior to, prior to Paul getting there, you were the commanding officer going back for my company in 1966.
So you were there prior to that.
Now, let me ask you: who had the tougher job?
Was it you or Paul?
Well, you see, in the Marine Corps, there's only two good jobs.
Right.
The one you just came from and the one you're going to.
But there could be no better job in Vietnam than to command my company.
Is that right?
Absolutely.
I loved them.
They're tremendous.
I still talk to them to this day.
We met each other in 1963 and we kind of grew up together.
So it's just a many ways a father-son relationship.
I quoted the other night from Sun Tzu: Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys.
Treat them as your own beloved sons, and they will be with you even unto death.
And that's the relationship that we had with my company.
They, in many ways, were my sons before I had children, but they're my sons and will be till we die.
Amen.
And you went into those valleys and you went into those jungles with them, and they went with you.
All the way, absolutely.
But it was just an honor to command a company like Mike and to be a part of history.
Oh, they're asking me if you can hold the mic just a little bit more.
Okay, sure.
Okay.
Better audio.
Where you're with the veterans, when you speak to Marines today, when you, you know, people who are thinking about getting into the Marine Corps or maybe your E1s, what advice do you have to them as someone who's seen it all?
Just be proud of being Marine.
Our core values are courage, honor, and commitment.
And those are the things that we expect and are produced by the Marines.
Great training out of boot camp, preparation for whatever the assignment would be in the Marine Corps.
And every MOS is important.
So I'm an infantry officer, but we had to rely upon artillery and aviation and tanks and all the rest of them.
So it's truly a team.
And, you know, once a Marine, always a Marine.
It's just always the case.
Well, that's right.
And they say that, and you'll have to correct me if I've got the story wrong.
It's come from a Navy guy.
But if I remember correctly, it was German dispatches in World War I that were intercepted and they said there's a new kind of fighting force that the Americans have sent over.
We're not sure who they are.
They're not soldiers and they're not sailors, but they fight like a pack of devil dogs.
Teufelhunden.
Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
And that and who and who was that again?
And that was the United States Marines.
Oh, yes, the Teufelhunden, yeah.
The Teufelhunden.
Devil Dogs, yeah.
And that, and that, of course, has gone and become, and I said the Marines found that and they immediately adopted that as the nickname throughout time because that was the even the German Huns were willing to say that.
Yeah, what a great nickname, huh?
Oh, it's incredible.
And when you look for what makes, General, what makes a good Marine?
What would you say?
Well, the number one thing is integrity.
And that is, you're always expected to do the right thing for the right reasons.
And that integrity expands to those that you're serving with, your fellow Marines, or now sister Marines as well.
But that they can rely upon you and you can rely upon them.
And I mentioned last night that in the summer and fall of 1966, over half the company was wounded or had been wounded.
So just tremendous actions.
And General Van Riper has described some of them already, all the way until 1970.
And my company was always in the thick of it.
And again, we're not sure who's the most decorated unit, but as far as I'm concerned, the one that is dear to my heart and will be until the day I die is my company.
Mike 3-7.
When you look out there and you look back at the history of it, what do people get wrong about the history of the experience of the Marines in Vietnam?
I think, and I taught a course on Vietnam.
I think the problem is that for many Americans, they mixed up the war with the warrior.
And if they didn't like the war, they had a tendency to take it out of the warrior.
And that's just wrong.
And the way some of the veterans were treated when they returned, you know, is inexcusable.
But, you know, we got over it.
The people understood eventually that we had a job to do and we did it.
So I think that's one of the things that always stayed with me is when you send, when you want somebody to fight, you send in the Marines.
I mean, there's not, and we can do demonstrations and feints and all the rest of it.
But when it comes time to fix bayonets and charge, as I once said, the opportunity to get that command, then you fix bayonets and you charge.
You're expected to.
Wait, hold on a second.
You were still using bayonets in 1966.
Oh, yeah.
That's a great weapon.
When it came time to take a position, reinforced battalion, and my company going up against it.
Used every supporting arm I could, artillery aircraft.
So the sun is going down.
You don't want to attack a position where they know where they are, but you don't know where they are.
So I said, there's only one thing to do is fix bayonets.
And when the bayonets went on, this is amazing resolve that came over the company.
It's like, this is as grisly as it's going to get.
You know, we're not going to shoot somebody at 300 yards.
We're going to smash or slash or beat to death another human being.
And at the end of that, at one end of this rifle, at the other, there's going to be someone alive and someone dead.
And you hear story, and I've read so many accounts of the close quarters combat, the tunnel combat that tunnel rats, yeah.
The tunnel rats, yeah, I've read quite a bit.
And it doesn't get more harrowing than being up close and personal.
And, you know, a bayonet is not exactly effective at 300 yards.
No, we're about three feet.
Yeah, or less.
Or less, General, we're just about out of time.
Final minute to you.
What does it mean that America is turning its face towards the Marine Corps today on the 250th birthday?
I think that the first thing should be the gratitude for having a Corps of Marines that is most ready when the nation is least ready.
And in these days, when we can't predict the future, we just have to be absolutely ready for the next step.
That means staying prepared, staying trained, staying in shape, modernizing equipment and so forth.
But all of that depends on one commodity, and that's the Marine who's holding that weapon, operating that drone, whatever the case may be.
And that's where our confidence must be, and it's our duty to make sure that our nation always has that confidence in us.
Amen to that, General.
The power of a single Marine rifleman defending the United States of America means the United States will never fall.
