Transcripts For CSPAN3 Oral Histories Kenneth Carlson West Point Interview 20180211

About growing up in a military family, including his time as a teen in vietnam during the late 1950s. He also describes his experiences as a west point that, his years teaching at military colleges, and time when Newt Gingrich audited his class. The interview is held by the west point center for a history great it is about an hour and 40 minutes. Today is 13 november 2015, and i am in the center for oral history with Esther Kenneth g carlson. How are you, sir . Col. Kenneth carlson i am fine. Could you spell your name for us. You are not the only carlson in your class. Col. Kenneth carlson there is another one in the class with the same name. I am kenneth g carlson and i was a basketball player. Did that cause any problems for you . Col. Kenneth carlson absolutely, it did. I walked in with my bag, and the people who had the roster said you have already signed in. And i said no i havent i just walked in the door. Kenneth carlson, you have already signed in. And i said i really have not. And they said there were two. With getting his laundry which was much too small for me and he was getting mine. So now my classmates know me as Kenneth Carlson a large and he was Kenneth Carlson small. He did not like that so he is now can carlson handsome and i am can carlson large. Large. Me ken carlson tell me about your background. Col. Kenneth carlson i was born in detroit. My father deployed to world war ii just after my birth. He went to the pacific. He was going to be part of the invasion of japan from the philippines. He was an ordnance officer which was white we were in detroit. My mother and brother and i went to japan why we were in detroit. My brother and mother and i went to japan. My brother went to school program. Mail order time. Two years old at the i learned to speak japanese for i learned english. Boys a blue, blonde headed and i was speaking japanese. Back, i was three years old. We went to the naval war college. They didnt send my dad to the army or college because they wanted him to transfer to the brandnew air force. My father wanted nothing to do with the air force. They said, you are a rising guy so we have to get you some experience. They sent him to the naval workhouse. This is pretty cool. We enjoyed that time, although i was too young to remember it. We moved around 16 70 more times until we ended up in vietnam 16 or 17 more times until we ended up in vietnam. I have an article from vietnam magazine, and i published an article in this in 2009 called, my whole family served in vietnam. Ae interesting part is that lot of people say my dad or brothers served, but not many people can say my mom served in vietnam. My dad was the deputy chief of the mad under hanging sam from under mag hanging sam williams. He was the head of 50 or 60 americans. My dad was a brigadier and there was another brigadier. We lived in a nice mansion with servers and drivers. They had to go on the social circuit every night for three or four things a night. It was really bothering my mother for two reasons, she started to become an alcoholic and she was on high heels hours on end and started to hurt her back. In the middle of my second year there what year was this . Col. Kenneth carlson this was 1957 and 1958. I got there in 1957 and we came home at the end of 1958. One conference my dad was coming were timed about where they were supposed to be, he talked to someone at the conference and a huge planter outside of the Office Building blew up. It was targeted for him. He was supposed to be killed by this planter blowing up. My mother was upset about that. Later, they drove by and through a hand grenade under my school bus. Moving and is was was sitting up front, but it blew up the back of the bus and a lot of kids were cut up. Within a month, they tried to kill my dad and try to kill me. My mother was then becoming frantic. , orderspoint in time were sent to vietnam who said we want general carlson to go to startnd take them to the in laos. There wasnt anyone there except for i assume some north vietnamese. He said, no, i cannot do that. My mother stayed up all night and he stayed up all night writing a letter which was stamped topsecret. He said they are trying to kill us and a lot of different things. Where he gotack the order for his second the star and retired in 1962. How was it living in vietnam . Col. Kenneth carlson i had a lot of fun in vietnam. I was a 13yearold or 14yearold kid with a diplomatic immunity card. That got me and my friends out of a lot of trouble. I would flash it and they would have to let us go. We only went to school in the morning because it was too hot in the afternoon to stay in the classrooms. Tothe afternoon, we all went the French Sports Club in vietnam. It was near the president ial palace. It was still popular to buy french girls because their parents were working in vietnam after the french left. I would go over there and i was learning french in school and i learned french by talking to the girls in the bikinis. At 14 years old, i had to communicate with the women. I had a good time. We went to hong kong and india and side trips. We finally came home in late 1958, and we went around the world and came back from paris and i flew across the atlantic on the second 7072 ever cross the atlantic. Ow. W col. Kenneth carlson we went from paris and then back to new york. That was the first jet. A minute ago you said white mice. Col. Kenneth carlson that is the vietnamese police. They wear full uniforms and a revolver. When you see it, they were the white mice. I imagine you learn to speak french. Col. Kenneth carlson i took it throughout high school and got into advanced french and i used it in europe. If you dont lose use it, you lose it. Did you learn any vietnamese . Col. Kenneth carlson i learned some vietnamese swearwords. What year did you arrive . Col. Kenneth carlson 1962. What was your expectation when you showed up . Col. Kenneth carlson first let me say that my dad did not want me to come to west point. My brother is a 1961 graduate and he said, you are a merit scholar and you have other opportunities are you have the League Schools trying to recruit you. Why dont you do that . I said, i think i will. I will go to princeton. Then president kennedy gave his famous speech that we will go anywhere, pay any price to protect liberty. I said, dad, i have changed my mind. I want to go to west point. He said, are you sure . It is not going to be pleasant. I said i have heard stories from you and my brother, so i will be prepared. When i walked in the door, i was too well prepared. We picked up and dropped your bag and when youre told to drop your bag, you drop your bag. And he said to pick it up and i told you to drop it. I picked it up and it bounced. They told me to open it up and they saw all the foam. He is one of the guys who knows the inside stuff. I told him about my father, and then i was toast. [laughter] it was a challenge . Col. Kenneth carlson it was a challenge. I was a great student. 57th in my class out of 579. I was in the top 10 . I was not a star man, but i did not have any academic problems. One of the things they did with me is that my officer called me in and said it is never a good idea to be called in but he called me in and said i need your help. D i said, you need my help he said im giving you a new roommate. He is in the ejection seat and he is currently last in the class and if he goes deficient in anything, he is gone. He was a great hockey player. So he was moved in with me and you are the closest we have two a star man and i want you to help them with academics. Kevin would come home from hockey practice and he would say, i need to rest my eyes for just a little bit. I would lay down and say youre having a review in electrical engineering, are you prepared for that . Knowuld say, no, let me what i need to know. I brought him up 11 files. When he moved in, he was at the bottom. He ended up becoming a doctor. He was an ob gyn. That is why i never had to see him. If i looked up on an operating table and saw him operating over me, i would die on the spot. [laughter] col. Kenneth carlson he wasnt the sharpest tack. Usage said you played basketball a little . Col. Kenneth carlson you said it you played a basketball little . Col. Kenneth carlson i played for bobby knight. Bobby was working for the coach at the time. They asked bobby knight if you would be the head coach, and he said, yes. I am in the army. Get him outey would of the army and we will make you a head coach. Somebody wrote a number on a piece of paper and said, this is what we are going to pay you. He said, ok, i will do it. By been it was a handson coach. He would grab you. He used to kick the bucket of water and throw chairs across the court in the middle of basketball games. The got thrown out. He was a super basketball coach. Until mike sous chef i played for him for a year and a half and then i realized i was not going to be a starter, and then i didnt get on well which was probably my fault. I left the Basketball Team and went to other activities. As you progress through and you got ready to branch, what was in your mind . Col. Kenneth carlson we all had to go to ranger school. They did not send us to the basic course. Maybe if you want to ranger school, you might learn enough about combat that you could actually succeed in vietnam when we all knew we were going. So i said, look, this was at i was runninge infantry skills. They put us in a concrete trench and showed us tank attack. Pretty soon, there were five of them and they drive over the ditch and they told everybody to get your heads down. I amd, you know, when commission, i want to be the guy in the tank, not in the ditch. [laughter] and you are high enough that you got it . Col. Kenneth carlson yes. Were there others who were higher . Yes,. Kenneth carlson sometimes there was a guy so gung ho they go infantry. Said armor. This, ind of all of said, where are you thinking of going, wes . He said im choosing between munich and berlin. I said and this is the smartest guy in the class. I said, wes, you dont want to go to munich. Of course he chose munich. I went to berlin. How was berlin . Col. Kenneth carlson berlin was 90 miles behind the iron curtain. The berlin brigade was located there and it had three Infantry Battalions, one tank country, one artillery battery, and one detachment. Then the brits also had a brigade there and the french had a brigade. I went in as a platoon leader of company f of army. Armor. There was a guy who a lot of expense and he said, when did you graduate from the basic course . I said, sir, i have not been to the basic course. I said none of us went. He said, what do you know about tanks . He said you cant just learned by experience. 1967. January he said i will send you to a tank commander course in west germany. You will be there with a bunch of sergeants. You will learn everything about a tank. That was the smartest thing he ever did. He sent me down there and i learned how to take apart and put tanks back together in the , thend when i came back troops were no longer able to make fun of me. Before i left, i am sitting out there trying to figure out things. One sergeant asked many times i had done that, and i said, i dont know. He said you have to keep track of it because he be due to much it falls off. I was putting stuff in the logbook. The troops but this was hilarious. I was in the motor pool where i took, and one of the guys something of a tank and said, you have a longdistance call from america. I picked it up and the guy on hi, kenny,aid, its mommy. Being it ended up being a very good experience. What happened to me was we had an Immediate Reaction platoon that had to go out with 10 minutes notice. We had to be at checkpoint charlie if the russians started making noise and screwing things up again. I was called out at four clock in the morning to report to a certain block in the woods that surrounds berlin. It said to report to the commander at block 68. I hadnt been a leader very long, so i was smart enough to to be the second in line. We got out there and there was cant think of the name of the man, but i reported to him and he was in hunting close next to his mercedes. Carlson, iieutenant want you to take your platoon and go down to that on the other end of this open area and i want you to come through and when you come out of the wood line, i want you to put your unit in. Ine and come with me there were five points in line driving toward this mercedes. He said i want you to be sure to be buttoned up. Do not let me see any heads sticking out of any tanks because i want to see if you can do this without hand signals. I had no clue what was coming. We went down the road and we lined up. Hats. Ody lock your we are going right for the mercedes. I had no clue. And got outulled up and said that was outstanding. I got accommodation as a second lieutenant. Do you still have that paper . I have itth carlson in my file. I was congratulated. I met my future wife in berlin. She was working for the state department. Vietnam was going to and i was a platoon leader. Aey picked me to be commanders aid. Baldwin who was the Division Commander and Samuel Goodwin who retired as a brigadier out of the brigade. There is one story i need to tell you, which is one of my favorites. I am four days and general baldwin calls me and says we need to go and we have troops down training in the zone in west germany and we need to go. I came out and i have a sergeant who is a stenographer and a sergeant who speaks fluent german, and i asked how to get airplane reservations to get me to frankfurt and then back . Some of the gave me a vehicle and they said you have your own plane. I do . Aid, he said make sure you have handcuffs and you can care the generals plans. As a commander, he has to carry contingency plans wherever he is. He will have topsecret documents. I had no clue how to get to the airport. They said they would pick me up in a mercedes and take you. When we got there, there was a little plane. There were two pilots in front and two passengers and back. Back. We got in any general was reading time magazine. Because i am ap ranger and i am supposed to know where i am 100 of the time. I am looking at the map thinking that he was going to asked me what was down there . I am expecting him to give me a quiz. Navigating from the air is not the same as navigating from the ground. Sudden i go into a panic. I needed to know where i was. There is a general in the backseat so there must be a way to talk to the pilots. So i am looking around. There was a funnel and i said can you hear me out there . The general drops his time me why i and asked was talking into it. [laughter] said, i didnt realize. Showed let me show you how to do it. He tapped the pilot on the shoulder. I was so embarrassed and he thought it was great. When he got back, as you might expect, he said let me tell you about the first time we flew on the plane. I became the laughingstock of berlin. [laughter] you said you had experience in berlin before . Col. Kenneth carlson yes, when i was a cadet. To germany and a couple classmates and i went to berlin after we were done. Sitting by the new wall, not the new wall, but it had only been up for two years. This was 1964. Beer and areng a looking at a little old lady and she keeps looking at her watch and shelight changes never crosses the street. She looked at her watch and pulled out a pair of binoculars are to look across the wall. We stood up and looked across the wall. About five or six blocks in, a little old man keep of the seven story window with a pair of binoculars and they waved and blew a kiss. She put the binoculars in her bag and walked away. I ranver to her so over to her and asked her what she just saw. She said that was my husband. I said how is it that your husband is in east berlin and youre in west berlin . Did they wall went up, he was on a business trip and ive not been able to touch him over in over two years. The concept of freedom was never clearer in my mind. I said i wanted to be stationed want to face these guys on the other side of the wall and give them the italian salute every day. I was able to do that. My platoon was moving and we saw the russians all of the time. An incredible story. Col. Kenneth carlson that is when i said i wanted to be in berlin and mentally, i got to be in berlin and thankfully, i got to be in berlin. When did you get back home . Col. Kenneth carlson let me look at my cheat sheet here. Ok. Col. Kenneth carlson i left in october 19 68 and got home for a short leave and played straight to vietnam. Who did you go to vietnam with . Col. Kenneth carlson myself. Andas just after the siege the marines needed a lot of help and they brought us over to give more armored support because they realized when the marines were surrounded that it could have gone either way. When that brigade came over, they had a cauvery troop with them calvary troop with them. That is not where i was supposed to go. From a set of orders George Pattons son and he offered me a calvary troop at the request of general goodwin. And i gott of orders to the 90th replacement battalion and everyone was rushing to go to classes, and i am looking for a jeep. I just wanted to get out as fast as possible. Asked what iup and was doing and i said i was looking for transportation because i have orders. He took them from me and tore them in half. I asked him what he was doing. He said this is vietnam, we amn what they say. You out, and that is what i did. Wow. What was it like when you arrive at your unit . Col. Kenneth carlson when we landed, they we had to stop a couple of different places. There, they never stopped the airplane because the marine airport was under shelling. The c130 went down the runway and they opened the back and kicked our stuff out and we ran out the back door and we were handed helmets and ran for cover. Welcome to your new unit. 157 artillery coming in on us. Running off a c130 . Still moving and they just pushed it out. They handed us helmets and we meant we got our bags later on. That is an incredible welcome. Col. Carlson i had been as far north as da nang when i was a kid but i never knew where that was. The it is the forest farthest airport in north vietnam. So i got into this replacement detachment and they issued us a uniform and they told us to get patches sewn on by the local vietnamese and they gave us each an m16 rifle. I never fired an m16 rifle before and nor did they give us an opportunity to before the second night. What did you train on as a connect as a cadet . Col. Carlson m 14. Came innd night they and said are you guys officers, heres a clip for your m16, i want you to go to this bunker and you get and you to go to this bunker so i ran out and took charge of a bunker. We were under a ground attack. My rifle time i fired it jammed. I do not know what to do. Thankfully, it was not a big ground attack but it was a big attack. That was the first day and then does go days later i got called in by the Brigade Commander and he said captain carlson, have you ever been a calgary man and i said no, sir and he said youre are about to become a calgary man. A cavalry man. I am relieving the commander and putting you in. . Sir, what will i be and he said report down to landing zone nancy and i was suddenly in command. What type of vehicles did you have . Col. Carlson m 48 tanks and armored calvary assault vehicles and then two m16 machine guns pointing out either side. Medicsedical tracks with in it. 44 combat vehicles and that does not include any of the wheel stop. Any of the wheel stuff. What was your mission . My mission was not to do what the brigade told me to do, although they would give me missions occasionally. They had attacked me they had attached me to a tank battalion. I was attached to them but they never gave me a mission. The first time i took the troops to the field, which was about four days after i was in command, the first helicopter to land was a marine helicopter and it was the commander of the ,hird rain division, ray davis who in world war ii one the navy cross and in korea won the medal of honor. And a couple of silver stars and a couple of bronze stars. He was a star. Carlson, ive not met you but i have heard a lot about you. You have a unit that moves faster with more firepower than anything i have in my division and anything in your brigade. He said youre going to be my fire truck. Whenever i call you for a Strange Mission you turn on the red lights and move like cal. And move like hell. How i known i said with the mission is and he says my shop will call you and tell you what needs to be done. If you have any question about any mission, here is my card. He pulled out a Business Card hison the back he wrote frequency and personal callsign. He said if you ever have a problem, i only give this to battalion commanders but i am giving it to you. You call me if there is a problem. Do that,y i had to later on down the line i had to do that because i had a stupid order from his headquarters. I was Walking Around with a get out of jail free car. Time inis your second vietnam having a get out of jail free card. Col. Carlson that is exactly right. How to get in touch with him. That is great. How did everything go . Col. Carlson we did a lot of work along the dmz. They wanted us to be a show of force. This was just after the battle where five American Marine battalions were surrounded by three north marine north vietnamese divisions. The battle lasted for five and a half months. These guys were living like sea130 and the c130s cannot get into them. We were on the low ground and they occupied the hillsides. Everyones in a while they would send my troop up there to take a look around and make sure we have troops that the move to the anwer ocean to the laoti border. On one mission i got call from the marine headquarters that said i have a mission for you. I said what is the mission and they said, when the marines left, they left their minds unexploded. We want you to go out and blow up there mines. I said to they give us a map and he said marines do not make maps. How do you expect me to find these mines . Drivingt you to start your combat vehicles around the and start exploding the minds. Mines. T exploding the i said this does not sound good but i will try. When a tank went by and we hit an antitank mine. That is the point in time when i said sees work, i am calling the division. I said are you the dire game it is mission, and i said i am not doing that anymore. We just hit and antitank mine and we have no idea what we are going to see but im not going to blow up my entire troop. Legal orderhis is a captain and i said im not going to do that. That transmission ended on a bad note and i pulled out the card. Howid sir and he said ken, are you doing . Order i said i had an order. I am blowing up my minds with my vehicles. He said who is the stupid asshole who told you to do that . And he said your tanks have and he hitting mines said thank goodness you told them that and thank goodness. He says i have another mission for you. Evacuate the vehicles and i want you to continue until you get to these coordinates, and i want you to turn into the north. Dont cross the ben hai river that separates north and south vietnam. He said there is a big, huge dry rice paddy there. I want you to set your troop up in a perimeter which guards that rice paddy. I want the vehicles facing outward. I asked what the mission was and he said set up the perimeter. That is all i can tell you. So we did that. And my lieutenant said, what are we going to be doing . I said, stand by. This is directly from suddendeath 66, so we are going to do this one. We sat there for a while and incomes a ch46, which was the navy version marine version of a ch47 helicopter. The ramp falls down and out comes six guys in the cozy whites carrying cans. They set up along the paddy dike. They are standing there waiting and we are waiting and then the lieutenant calls me and says, sir, what is going on . And i said standby. Out of the dmz comes a Marine Force Recon team. There were about 15 guys who hadnt shaved in a month. They are dirtier than dogs, and they come walking out and they meet with these guys and they make each one of them an ice cream sundae. There were cherries, whipped cream, nuts, and these guys stand there and eat an ice cream sundae, and they hand the stuff back and they put it back in the cans and they walk back then and the helicopter takes off very might lieutenant again called me and said, sir, what did we just see . And i said i think it was an ice cream social. [laughter] col. Carlson i said i really dont know but all i know is where the order came from. About five minutes later from his helicopter, the ch46 calls me up and says, can and by the way, this is the way marines talk on the radio. They call you by your name instead of by your call sign. So he said, ken, i that you wonder what we were doing. And i said, sir, we were curious. And he said those guys have been in the dmz for a month, and i figured they deserved an ice cream sundae. And i said, sir, that is an excellent idea. We were glad we could see it. He said, in order to make that happen, i had to have absolute security of that dz, and i said, ok. He said, i was one of the guys in the cooks whites. The only way they would allow me to be that close to the dmz and in danger is that they made me promise i would have absolute security and you are the guys who did it. Semper fi. And that was all i could say. I told everybody, and they said that is one of the best missions we ever had, getting those guys an ice cream sundae. , after ionths later was out of command, i commended for six months, i went to the brigade staff and i got a call from the marine headquarters that said general davis would like to invite you to dinner tomorrow night. The miss america troop was in town and he was going to have them for dinner. You are the only army guy we are inviting. They said can you come, and i said can i . I started shutting my boots i started shining my boots. My driver took me down there and we had cocktails. I was the youngest guy in the room but i was the one with the most combat. Most worth staff officers. I was sitting across the way from the kernel who had given the from the colonel who had given the original order. It came down to i did not do the right thing and im sorry. I sat with miss new jersey and miss arkansas. We were in the middle of the dinner and all the sudden the are beingn and say we hit by rockets and we all have to evacuate to the bunker. Firstoking around at this plated dinner ive eaten and a half a year. I grab a hold of miss new jersey and we go out to this bunker and it had a viewpoint or you could see what was going on. We are watching the rockets coming in and miss arkansas is on one side and miss new jersey is on the other side and explosions are going often these women are scared to death. Miss arkansas said that kind of looks like the fourth of july and i said no it does not. People are dying when those things land. That does not happen on the fourth of july. She started crying. Miss new jersey said when you come back from vietnam, where you going to go and i said i do not know, and she said i want you to come and visit me in new jersey. I did not, i went back and married the girl i met in berlin and we had four children and now we have 13 grandchildren. I made the right choice. Spending the night in a bunker with a couple of good looking ladies on either side of you was an interesting experience. What did you do after that . Col. Carlson after my command . I went to the brigade shop and answered congressionals. I had totigate investigate and write the congressionals for the Brigade Commander to sign. I do visit the site of wherever it happened. I had been a commander so i knew what questions to ask. He would sign the letters and they would go off. , it was aticular case letter from one of senator kennedys constituents who said on son was killed in vietnam 1969, and hemarch, was on a tank. They told us they had to seal the coffin they do not tell us why they had to seal the hisin, we wanted to see body. I do not have to investigate that one because i was in that battle. He was riding on one of my tanks and he was hit by an rpg and his body was blown apart. After i had gotten control of the situation and we had defeated the enemy that was firing rpgs at us and i people continuing to work that issue, i went back to see what the wounded situation was. Nobody was touching the sergeant and i said we have to fix this gentleman up. We have to start putting his body parts in this poncho and my troupe said he is not one of hours, i said yes he is, he is an american soldier. One of the platoon sergeants saw me picking up body parts that included his head and he jumped on those other young troopers and said you are letting the commander do that without your help, youre not thinking. Everyone started helping. In, i knewetter came what happened from personal experience. We wrote that in the letter. Mistake made a serious when they said he died and a small arms fire. And rpg is not small arms. His body was dismembered and is not fit to be viewed in a casket. We gave him all the honors we could possibly give him and all the awards and decorations. He was a brave soldier. And i turned that over to the brigadee to the commander it is the only time i ever saw him cry. Wrote 200 and something congressionals in six months and that i was redeployed back to united states. When you came in to the united states, what was your mission . Col. Carlson my mission was to get married to the girl i left behind. I was sent to the infantry and i called the Armored Branch and said why are you sending me to the infantry advance course and they said we want officers with combat experience to go down and tell these guys at the Infantry School where they are right and where they are wrong. So i went to the Infantry School and ended up first in the class down there as an armored officer but i had to leave three days early before graduation because i had to report to graduate school at princeton. They said youre going to be an honor graduate but youre not good to be the distinguished graduate grade i said all of the tests are over. All of the papers are turned in. I had a 99 something average, arent i the distinguished graduate . They said we do not like to give that to other branches. I was a good graduate, but i was not the top guy. Then i went to graduate school. Tell me a little bit about your wedding . Where did you get married . Col. Carlson my wife lived in salt lake with her family and my folks were living on the east wast still and my brother in oklahoma at the time, at the artillery school. We decided to get married in salt lake but we cannot do it at a mormon wedding because both people have to be mormons. Her president which is kind of like your bishop, he agreed to marry us in a civil ceremony which we did at fort douglas, utah, and the military chapel there. It was snowing, it was december 6, and i can always remember that because it was one day before pearl harbor day. It was snowing and we got into the chapel. The night before my wife to be set im not certain that we can do this. She said we have a lot of history but youre not a member of the church. I said i have flown a bunch of people in here, theyre planning on going to a wedding so i am going to be standing up front with my brother, if you do not show up, i will have a little hard in my pocket and i will say we are not going to i will have a little card in my pocket and i will say were not going to have a wedding, heres the situation. She said i do not know. The wedding came off and she came in with her father and they played here comes the bride, she walks up, and just about where my father and mother are sitting she stops. She stops. I reach into my pocket and pull out the card and she says no. What happened is her train got caught on a nail. She comes bouncing forward and we got married and she said i do three times. I made sure she was going to be good to her word. And we have now been married almost 50 years. How was princeton . My. Carlson princeton was choice. I was selected to teach in the social Science Department at west point. Where wouldlonel, you like me to go to graduate school . I said where do you prefer your people to come from. We likewe like harvard, princeton, we like johns hopkins, we like stanford. Those are the big schools for International Relationships and economics. I said do you have a preference . He said that is your call. I said i think i will go to princeton. When i got there, the first day we arrived, one of the reasons i picked princeton is i said stanford is in flames and i do not think i want to go to harvard because it is also equally leftwing and against the war but princeton is a pretty conservative place. At princetonived they burned down the rotc building. This was 1970. We do not live on princeton campus, we lived in a small new jersey town nearby. I had a great time learning International Relations, except the professor who took jane fonda to north vietnam, as antiwar as they get, and he was the professor of international law. Those greatne of big bowls with her per pressure speaks and everyone looks down on him and he was lecturing on the vietnam war from which i had recently returned. He said, there are no north vietnamese troops in south vietnam, these are all indigenous who are fighting against an illegal government, the north vietnamese are not involved in any way. I stood up, i did not say a word, i stood up, nobody knew i was a captain in the army. I had started growing my hair, i was not wearing a uniform, i stood up and he looks up and he says you are you . A chancehave not had to personally meet you but i am captain ken carlson and ive just returned from vietnam and i am here to tell you that there are lots of north vietnamese troops in south vietnam. I was engaged with many north vietnamese units in uniform and we had a very good kill ratio of 100 to 1. Professor,e you, that there are north vietnamese. He said see me in my office, which i did, and everybody said who was that guy. I went to his office and he said i did not appreciate you interrupting my lecture and i said i just stood up and he recognized me and then you asked me what was my problem. He said i did not appreciate you trying to invalidate the points i was making. I said professor, if you miss the point you were wrong. I do not know why you felt like you had to be wrong but you are wrong. He said, do not do that again. In his course, by the way. Princeton, Judith Miller who is currently on fox news was one of the classmates i had at princeton and she was a wild eyed antiwar liberal. When she learned i was an officer, i put a sign up that said war is my business, she hated that, she said how can shoot those innocent women and children. I said they do not run so fast. I said we never did that. I said we made sure we were not killing civilians. That is not to say that no civilians ever died, but none of my soldiers ever shot a civilian. She said i do not believe you. Is your guyrd faulk now. Now she has become a wild eyed conservative, so at some point she saw the light. Teaching . S it like col. Carlson the best three years of my life. I had great people around me. Mccafferty was executive, i was working with wesley clark, a bunch of people who are very smart people. I taught economics the first semester and the only economics training i had was from my instructor with the cadets. I said you might recall that the grade you gave me was one of the lowest grades i received an four years and he said that is why youre going to teach it. You have to learn it before you can teach it. Sometimes i was 20 minutes ahead of the cadets. Doetheless, i was able to macro and micro and International Economics and the students loved me. I love teaching them. The second semester i taught International Relations, and you an are going to give elective and the elective was Public Policy administration which is how does the bureaucracy work or not work. I was well read on that. I had an elective for the last dose per years, i started with two sections and ended up with six sections. Fast forward to the time after i retired, my wife and family are visiting me in new york and we are walking along, going into the World Trade Center and does good guys stop me and say are you captain carlson, and i say not anymore, i am mr. Carlson now. They said sir, i have your class i had your class. He said i threw away everything except my west point atlas of american wars and your course notes and i still look at your course notes when im trying to figure out what is going on in the government because you had it right and that is why there are some people signed up for your course. My 16yearold is standing next to me. I cannot if paid this guy enough money to say this. A 16yearold thinks my dad does not know anything. They walked away and my son said, dad, who knew . Now you do. An interesting experience working on wall street. Lots of interesting experiences but you do not want to hear those. At the right time we do. After you left the department, where did you go . Col. Carlson that is when i have to go to my cheek cheek to my cheat sheet. Is that the time you went to the command and general Staff College . Col. Carlson that is correct. I went to fort leavenworth, kansas. I got involved in a lot of Community Activities because i had kids and had to referee things and announce things and so on. My wife let me build an office in the basement in our town house we lived in and she kept the kids away from me so i actually do the homework. Is anotheray this army school, but i figured this is the next level. They also had me teaching courses there, they had me teaching courses on International Relations and economics, which i can do. I ended up winning the marshall award, which was a real honor. As a result of that, the chief of staff of army gets to make your next assignment. I do not know that. They did not tell me i won the award until the day before the award. Assignment andn they said general rogers is the guy who is going to assign you. I said i need troop time is a major, will somebody please tell him. Please tell him i need troop time as a major to make me qualified to become a battalion commander. They said he will know all that stuff. Work on the to combat Vehicle Technology program which was being run out of his office at fort knox, kentucky. It was not a troop assignment. I had been screwed by the chief of staff in the army. I made alledge mens had made arrangements with the division at fort knox and said i position with one of your battalions as soon as i can get away from this chief of staff. They said absolutely. Then i came down to see the lieutenant colonel. I was promoted almost immediately. I never had troop time is a major, which meant i was not fully qualified to become a battalion commander, at which point in time i went thanks a thanks a lot, general. I became a brigade x. O. Was v. I. G. For fifth corps. I taught at the National War College. I was a member of the founding faculty of the school for advanced military studies. I did a lot of educational work, but i never got to the point where people would say we think this guy who we promoted twice should be an 06. One of the people at the school of advanced military studies, he said, ive got a congressman coming in who wants to sit in on one of the seminars. I want him to sit in on your seminar. He is a historian. He knows some stuff. Send him some literature. I contacted his woffs, said when is this gentleman going to be able to come . I told him, we have a seminar that goes from 8 00 until noon. He would like to stay for a week. We are doing the russiangerman second world war, battle of kursk. It was Newt Gingrich, the congressman from the atlanta airport, at that time, brandnew congressman. He came in. I sent him a bunch of stuff to read. He came in fully prepared. I said, congressman, the deal here in this seminar is no quarter asked, no quarter given. So if you Say Something that doesnt make it true, ive got 16 smart majors here who are likely to challenge you. We did that for a week, and he said, these are the best seminars in the military that ive ever been to. He said, you are not trying to run the show. You are letting these guys do the work, but every once in a while, you will throw out who thought about this and who thought about that . So at the end of the week, my wife victoria and i were having a dinner with gingrich, and he said, i understand that you are thinking about getting out of the army. I said, well i got passed over for 06, first time. Thats the bell that says its time to leave the ship. He said, i want you to come work for me. I said, doing what . I want you to be my chief of staff. Victoria and i looked at each other. Can we talk about this a little bit and get back to you . We came back and said how much would you get paid as a chief of staff . About 70,000, which was more than i was making. Victoria and i said, we have been to d. C. We dont think we can do that. Weve got little kids, and we dont really think that we can, so but thank you very much. And so i watched Newt Gingrich grow up, my life would have been totally different had i resigned. The second time around, i got picked up. I was one of two combat arms officers not selected in the first year who were selected in the second year. It was because there were a whole bunch of generals in the army who knew that when i was a brigade x. O. , i turned in my commander for doing illegal stuff and he got relieved. I resigned my position as brigade x. O. , and i sent this letter to the general commanding the division and he was colonel at the time, both chief of staff in the army. I sent one to the court commander as well, said i cant work for this guy anymore and the honorable thing for me to do is to resign and here is why. I laid this out in a sixpage letter of the stuff he had done, which was illegal, immoral and fattening. So as a result of that, they called me back to fifth corps and said we want you to run it, be the head of our plans division which i did. And then, of course, he wrote an oh yar on me which then became a black mark. Once i sent in my for this thing, it became a blark mark on my record the whole time i was being considered for 06. Its easy if you are on a promotion board. Get rid of files as fast as you can. If you see a black mark, thats a discard. But the second time around, all those people who knew that i had gotten passed over the first time had written letters to the board, saying, we have done an injustice to ken carlson. So i was the first guy on the list to get promoted to 06. And at that point in time, they d been glenn owe tis had been trying to get a sams graduate to come over and be one of his plans officers, but the chief of staff of the army said they only go to corpses and divisions. He said i have the army group. Dont i count . He said theres not enough of them to go around. As soon as i came out on the list, otis wrote and said i know ken carlson. So i went to work for glenn owe tis. After him, otis. After him, i stayed in heidelberg for six years which was really long. My kids had the opportunity to finish high school, two of them anyway. And then i went back and taught at the National War College and retired. I finished 26 years in uniform and four years at west point. People say how long were you in service . I said 30 years. Did any of your children go to the army . Col. Carlson no, no. Actually, they when i was talking to them about are you interested in going to west point, they said dad, we know what youve been doing and thats not the life that we want to live. I said, you do whatever you want to do. By the time i was in wall street, i can pay for any school you want to go to. So pick which one will let you in. They all went to b. Y. U. And all got married out of b. Y. U. Wonderful. I am going to ask you a little bit about what youve done since the army. Before that, i see you have a purple heart. You mentioned your hearing. Tell me a little bit about that. Col. Carlson the day that Sergeant Gibbons was killed, the battle of cam hung, you can google it and you can find a complete description of the battle from a number of different viewpoints, one of which is captain carlsons view of what happened at cam hung. We were on a night defensive position outside of the combat base, and my ambushes were all out, were trying to keep the north vietnamese from coming in and talking to the villagers at night. So we were up for the night and i get this call from the headquarters that said we want you to remember to headquarters immediately and not with a combat vehicle. So bring your jeep in. I said in the middle of the night, i come in with lights on . No, blackout. My driver said sir, where are we going . We are going over there, about three miles away. He said can i turn on the light . I said no. So we drove in the dark. We got there and thankfully they had told people that a jeep was coming in so they didnt kill us. I reported to the Brigade Commander. He said, ken, i am about to ask you to do something that ive never asked anybody to do before. I want you to take your troop and move Cross Country up to cross the river and get to a then youled tam lo and will come under the operational control of the fifth cavalry. They found a north Vietnamese Regimental headquarters being guarded by two battalions there on one side of the hillside. They want you on the other side with your troop. So we drove all night, and because we couldnt have any lights on or anything like that, i had to get off the vehicle every so often and shoot. We were going Cross Country in the middle of the night. I think thats the only time that happened in the vietnam war where a cavalry trooped moved in the middle of night without being able to be on any roads. Into theross the river place and we had not yet heard from the third or fifth cav. Nick from the 57 was the operations officer. So i tried to contact him. We couldnt make contact. So i told him, put everybody to sleep now and you guys come and we will figure out what to do. We didnt get any sleep that night. By that time we had heard from the third or fifth cav. We want you to line up so you are looking down into the valley and we are looking down from the other side. There is an Infantry Battalion of marines that have put a cork in the bottle and then we are going to blow the hell out of them and see what happened. So we got there and watched the air show the next morning, outstanding, napalm, the whole nine yards. Lots the snake and ape. So at 5 00 in the evening, they said, take a platoon of yours and go down the hill and do some body damage bomb Damage Assessment for us. Find out whats left down there. I took the nearest platoon, leave the tanks and they were missing a tank so they got another platoon tank. They wept down the hill, followed by i was in the middle of the platoon with my track. I wasnt going to lead from a tank. I got down the bottom of the hill and there were still guys alive with rpgs. The firefight ensued. People were thinking they were talking on their intercom. They were talking on the troop net, so essentially i lost command of my troop because people were i was getting nothing but talk from other people. I kept saying get off this net. But i couldnt do it. I wanted to make sure it was pointed in the right direction. I was a little farther back. I jumped off my vehicle with an m16 filled with tracers, nothing but tracers. My platoon leaders and i had this deal where i said if i cant communicate with you and you see people firing nothing but tracers, shoot that way. So i jumped off, and when i was running over to get to a position where i could start shooting tracers, my rifle got knocked out of my hand. I said what the heck was that . I didnt want to drop my rifle. I picked it up, kept on with the mission, started firing tracers. Everybody started shooting in the right place. The firefight was over and perhaps in perhaps five minutes. We killed everybody inside that wood line. And so then on the way back, i am walking up the hill, and first of all i helped pick up Sergeant Gibbons. I told you that story already. I am walking up the hill and there is another one of my troopers who had gotten hit in the arm by an rpg and had a huge hole in his arm. He was up on the hill, we were having the medevacs and all the medics were working on the troops. I stopped to try to see what i could do for him. I cant stand the pain. I cant stand the pain. You got to give me morphine. I said i am not allowed to carry morphine. Only the medics carry morphine. He said, you got to put me out of the pain, do something. So i hit him as hard as i could. I learned boxing at west point. I knocked him out. I broke these two knuckles which are still broken. They look a little different. So he was out. And then i carried him to the helicopter and put him on the medevac. At that point in time, i suddenly realized there was something going on with my left arm. I didnt feel right. I rolled up my sleeves. I had been shot. Had knocked my rifle out, my rifle was hit by an ak47 round. That ricocheted into my arm. Boom, i dropped the rifle. But i didnt knee. I was pumping so much adrenaline that when i got to the point, i said hey, any medic around here . Oh, my god. The captain has been hit. They pulled the bullet out and dressed the wound. They said weve got to send you back to the hospital because you may have broken a bone but it doesnt appear to be no life threatening wound. I want to be back here soon at night, this night. And they did. They looked at me and said no broken bones, they put a better wrap on it. I was back in command. Mission was tohe take people doin and go through again, this time not being ambushed in the middle before its dark, do some dismounted patrols throughout the area where the north vietnamese were. I put out three patrols, all infantry guys. I was the only ranger in the company, cavalry troop. I said, i think i am supposed to be at lease in one of these patrols, to make sure that things dont go bad. I am making guys jump up and down, make sure they dont make noise with their gear, everybody has their faces blackened. We are doing ranger stuff. So at that point in time a helicopter comes in and two guys from cbs news jump out, wearing hawaiian shirts. One of them has this big camera on his shoulder, and i said what do you want . He said, we want to go with you on a patrol. I said i dont think so. The Public Affairs officer if the Division Said yeah, you got to let them do that, captain. Guys from cbs news, Walter Cronkite, you remember him . You got to let them come with you but just make sure theyre protected. I said all right. Here is what i want you to do. You be here, cameraman, you be farther back. I dont want to hear a word from you. Take the pictures you need to take. If you need to talk to me, whisper to me, but we are going down there and i dont know what we are going to find. So we go down and we are actually walking in a streambed because you dont walk on trails. There were trails because thats where the north vietnamese had been and we are following chinese wire and i have with me a north vietnamese defector called a kit carson scout. We come to a bend in the streambed and he said, careful, could be ambush around the side. So i said, ok. He said, maybe you put men up on the hill. I pointed to one of the machine gunners and his assistant. I said, you guys, climb out. Go up there and tell me when you are ready. We are going to go around the hill. If we start taking fire, i want you to blow away anything that does that. These guys start climbing up the hill. The cameraman in the hawaiian shirt says hold on, i didnt get that, as loud as he could. I turned around and i said, get that guy up here. He came up. I said what did you just do . He said i had to get the shot. The guys were climbing i said did i tell you to keep quiet or not . He said yes, you did but i have a job to do too. I said if you do that one more time, i personly will shoot you and it wont be pleasant. It will be pless ants for me but it wont be pleasant for you. At the end of this patrol, we had found mountains of north vietnamese equipment, lots of blood trails, lots of ammunition, lots of weapons. My guys are Walking Around smiling and picking up a. K. s and s. K. S. s and north vietnamese pistols. We are doing kind of a battlefield check and the guy from cbs news is talking to his camera, he says these soldiers are tired and theyre hungry and theyve been out here for months on end and they dont know why theyre here. They dont know i said, cut the camera off. What are you talking about . Look around. These guys are delighted at what we just did. All it took was a couple of casualties up on the hill. Look what we did to the north vietnamese army. He said captain, you dont understand. If i want this to show up on cbs news, Walter Cronkite does not want the American Army to look good. So i have to say the stuff that i am saying at the end even though i may or may not believe it. My dad, he was still on active duty. He wasnt on active duty, he saw that on cbs news. He got in touch with me by going to the pentagon and reaching me by radio and said, this is big sweet six, do you know who i am . My dad. I said yes, i do. He said, what the hell is going on with your unit . It looks like theyre about to mutiny. I said dad, that was cbs news. Here was the battle count. 300 of those guys got killed. I lost one solier killed and five soldiers wounded and i was slightly wounded. He said are you ok . I said i am fine. But dont believe anything that you see on cbs news. That goes back to what you were talking about with your professor. Col. Carlson oh, yeah. All the dead guys were in north vietnamese uniforms. All these were north vietnamese ammo and equipment. Yeah, so there wasnt any question about who it was and what uniform they were wearing. Ok, so thats the story about how you got wounded. Col. Carlson that was how i got wounded the first time. How about the second time . Col. Carlson the second time was the next day. My goodness. Col. Carlson next day we were told to pull out and go join up with the 35 cavalry. For a new mission. And so i got all my guys together but we had vehicles that were the major was the guy in charge, the operations officer. The carpenter from west point was the commander of the cavalry at that time. I dont remember his first name. Carpenter, he was the lonesome ant. Two guys that really know what theyre doing. On the way out of our battle position, i did not leave with my track because although i believe the commander should lead from the front they should not be the very first vehicle. The target is too so i rode on the back of a tank. I had an extra radio with me so i could communicate with the 35 battalion headquarters. I was the one, two, three i was the third vehicle in line. We had three tanks. Was on the third vehicle. The north vietnamese detonated a mine under my tank. They saw there was an extra guy riding on the top. And so all i remember the bomb i was told later was a 250 pound air force bomb that had not exploded. They turned it into an i. E. D. And command detonated it. They blew my tank to shreds. Here is what i was told afterwards. I flew up in the air about 30 feet and i landed on my back, and there was blood coming out of every or fiss of my body orifice of my body, places i didnt know blood could come out of. I was unconscious. Nick was flying in a helicopter above the battle, watching all of this, and he saw that i was down. He didnt know who i was at the time. Nick never knew me but i knew him. He landed his helicopter and they loaded me in within three minutes of my actually being blown up. They took me to bravo med, third marine division. I woke up on an compra table with a roundeyed nurse cleaning me up from places i didnt think she was supposed to be cleaning me up from. The doctor came over and he said something to me, and all i could hear was he said, oh, he cant hear anything. So he wrote a note. He said your back is not broken, but youll pay for this in future years. Future years are here, and so now i cant walk more than about a mile before i because i now have scoliosis, a crooked spine. I said, where did i get that from . You cant get into west point with scoliosis. Its a disqualifying effect. Disqualifying, whatever it is. They said, you probably got it when you got blown up. Of course, my ears are pretty clear where this came from, and on any rate, i continued and finished a 30year career with hearing aids and with a bad back, and i am now being nicely compensated by the veterans administration. So i was wounded twice in two days. By the way, i did not get a second purple heart because no medic ever treated me and my unit. They put me onboard, they took me to bravo med. The marine corps destroyed all their medical records five years ago. Wow. Col. Carlson all the vietnam medical records, gone. So they have no proof that i was wounded in their facility because they didnt admit me. They said we put this guy on a jeep and took him back to he will have to be on bed rest for three weeks and cant hear anything. So i was out of command and taken down to nancy, laying in bed when my troop came back in, i said put me in my jeep and take me to the gate. They came back in, i stood up as best i could and saluted them. Wow. I bet they were glad to see you. Col. Carlson they were glad to see i was Still Standing up. I was glad to see that too. But i couldnt hear anything for a long period of time until i got hearing aids. What happened to the rest of the crew on that tank . Col. Carlson the platoon sergeant was wounded. He stayed inside the vehicle. He received shrapnel wounds. The driver was medevacked, not on the same helicopter i was, but he was badly wounded. He was medevacked. I dont think anything happened to the gun he or loader. Other than that, it was just me. My rule was you dont lead from the rear. They got to see if we are going through minefields, they got to see me up in front somewhere because i need to take the risk to show them its worth taking. Right. Wow. What did you do after the army . After you retired, you retired as a colonel, what did you do . Col. Carlson i got a call one day. I was professor of strategy at the National War College. So you are teaching not just army guys, army, navy, air force, marine, coast guard, f. B. I. , Treasury Department and civilians who also go to the National War College. So i was one of their professors of strategy. I am one of the guys who took them to gettysburg and talked about the leadership less sops of gettysburg. The air force guys said what would have happened if we had a b52 . Wouldnt that have made a difference . Yeah, thanks, colonel. Thanks for your comment. But i am really i really enjoyed that job. But then i got a call one day from jack jacobs, medal of honor winner. I said how did you get ahold of me . I used to work there, too. Look at the plaque. I said where where you now . He said i am in london working for Bankers Trust company. I said what do you do . I make a lot of money and have a lot of fun. I said, ok, so what can i do to help you . He said, i have these 14yearolds who run this bank who know nothing about leadership. I said they need to read infantry attacks, one of the great lessons from world war i, but i cant find it here except in a rare book room in lon do and they want 250 pounds for it. Could you check around the war college and see if somebody had a copy of rommels infantry attack and would be willing to sell it to me for something less than 600 or whatever it was in pounds. I said sure, i would be happy to. I look around and there are three people who had a copy, none of whom were willing to part with it. I went to the pentagon, someone i knew in the pentagon for many years who ran the bookstore. She said, rommels infantry attacks, published in 1962. I said yes, it is. Do you have a copy of it . She said, i dont think so but lets look in the storeroom. She took a flashlight and took me up to the storeroom on the top floor of the pentagon. It was one of those Indiana Jones storerooms. All this stuff is in there. She said, you wait here. I will go see. About 15 minutes later, she came back with a hard copy of infantry attacks, 1952. I said how much am i going to have to pay for this . She said, i have no idea. There is no bar code on it. Lets go down and check. She went down and went on her computer. She said 4. 50. So i put it in an 18 fedex envelope and sent it to jack. He called me up a couple date later and said i dont know how you did that, man, but theyve asked me who is this guy and how can we get him to come and work for us . I said, work for who . Bankers trust. I said, jack, i am still in the army. He said, retire. Its time to retire. I said, well, i dont have a resume. Get a resume by tomorrow and send it over here. They want to hire you. They want to see the resume. They called me up and said we would like to extend this offer to you. I said, ok. I will do that. I took off my uniform, retired in a fort meyer ceremony. My kids and wife were able to attend. I went back and my brother called. He said, when you took off your uniform for the last time and were hanging it up, did you sit there and think about all that meant to you, what all those ribbons stood for and all the stuff you have hanging on your uniform . I said, gunnar i really didnt have time to think about anything. I was packing to go to new york the next day. I had to be in new york the next day. The bank gave me an apartment in new york. I stayed there for four months, learning the ropes, had to learn how to be a broker dealer, get my license and all that, i did all that. Then my boss says, pack your stuff. We are going to london tomorrow. I said, how long are we going to stay . He said doesnt matter, we only take hangup bags. I packed as much stuff as i could fit and went to london, didnt come back for a year. Wow. Col. Carlson but in london, i said, what am i supposed to do here . I didnt bring enough shirts. He said, arent we paying you enough . Go to saville row, buy expensive ties, start looking like a banker. The first rule of banking is if you want peoples money you have to look like you dont need it. I did all of that. I spent a lot of money doing it but they were paying me a lot of money and a lot of bonuses as well. So one night in london, he said, ken, we are going to have dinner with Thompson Electronics tonight, the c. F. O. And c. E. O. And we have a lot of they have a lot of money with us. So we are doing it tonight and i want you to meet me at heathrow in about three hours. I said where are we doing this . In paris of course. We got picked up by a limousine, went down to a four star restaurant, i think there are two of them in the world, on the left bank. Came in and sat down with these guys. They brought the wine list and i knew my way around a german wine list. I had been in europe for six years. So my boss says,my boss says, os force and i said what do you want . Lets start with the champagne and some red and white for the main course and something for the end and some cigars. I had learned enough about wine lists. Youked somebody how do do this . 847 page wine list. First of all, do not order the cheapest wine. Thebout three quarters of way up the price list and look for things you recognize. I did. I started recognizing stuff. And ed all these winds winds wines. This french guy says youve got yourself a winner. After a few minutes, one of them said, isnt that dr. Henry kissinger . I looked over and said, it is. Would you like to meet him . They said, you know him . Said, i would be so honored. You mayver and said, remember me when you came to visit the school of military studies. What are you doing . I said, i am a banker. He said, congratulations. Here with Thomson Electronics and they would like to meet you. He said, absolutely not. He said, i will come to them. He pulls over and a sure chair and sits down and chats for the better part of 510 minutes and signed their menus and tells them how lucky they are to be able to deal with the guy the integrity of a former military officer. My boss is drooling. At the india of this, the bill ,ame, 15 at the end of this the bill came, 1500. With sharing my visa card my wife and i had to call for longdistance and say, i just put 1500 on the visa card. On the way out, i said, am i going to get in trouble . He said, you are not in kansas anymore. Banking world now. We spend money like this all the time. You missede thing while you were trying to figure out how to sign your name. They gave us an envelope. Take a look inside. They gave us another 100 million to manage for them. Your 1500 is going to be lost in the rounding errors but you will get a big bonus for introducing them to Henry Kissinger and for ordering in french from the list. I said, i am not in kansas anymore. Experiences. Eat eventually, they dissolved my. Ivision they got rid of their international investment. I went to work for a company investments, a Mutual Fund Company in pennsylvania. I had a tour tory coast to coast i had a territory coast to coast. My job was to sell them the idea of working alongside sei which would invest their money for them. I did that for a few years and then, i was in this car accident. I got hit from a truck from behind. I had a rental buick. Came out and said, are you ok . I could not feel anything on the left side of my body. There was a fire station across the street and they came out and took me to the hospital and i stayed for about a week and went back to business. I could no longer lift my bag above my head to put it in the overhead bin. I was taking lots of drugs for the pain. Finally, they said they had to let me go. I said, fine because i had two disability policies and i was also receiving Workers Compensation and the guy in the truck had insurance. I had underinsured motorist coverage so i ended up with a lot of money out of that accident here it was fully retired at that time. That accident. I was fully retired at that time. Patientbecame a cancer and i survived that and it is now 2015 and im still talking. Im talking to you people. That is an incredible story. Did any of the things you learned that west point or at the army help you in your business . Absolutely. You better be honest. A lot of people in business are less than honest. You need to tell people the downside as well as the upside. If you only told him the upside, when things go wrong, they will never do business with you again. I made sure my clients understood dont react to every single move of the market. If weve got you out of balance, were going to get you back into balance. We are trying to look out for your investments not from our perspective. Of everybody. T i had lots of money under management but nobody ever said, we are not comfortable because i was the guy they were talking to. The integrity with the military. Absolutely. And the ability to take charge when you need to end the ability to see the difference between right and wrong to see the ability to see the difference between right and wrong. This is been a fabulous interview. Has there been anything i have not asked you . What does west point mean to you . I lead a group of 26 classmates. To helpcome up 14 times teach the professional military ethic to cadets, called the cadet Character Development program. We were the last guys who got to talk to them. The opportunity to come back to west point and give back for all that west point has given to us, is amazing. Every time i do this, i take pictures of the class and i publish them in the newsletter and people say, that looks like a reunion. Now, i have a much larger group. We have got almost 30 people who come up or at their own expense. To try tomportant pass on the values that weve tried to live for almost 50 years. I cannot tell you how much west point means to me, both having been a good at and being on the faculty and having an opportunity to talk to cadets. Even as we approach our 50th year, people will ask me, where is west point . I will say it is 55 miles north of new york city and it is 75 years ago where it theres tradition it is 75 years ago. Theres tradition there. There are people who care about each other. They know theyre going to be leaders of character. This is the place to do it. It is the finest Leadership School in the military. Ranger school is a close second. That puts you through the ringer to show you what you can do. , when i first showed up in my cavalry troop, the first question is, does this captain know anything . They looked at my uniform and said, this guy knows what he is doing. It starts by coming to west point. I was thinking when they were making fun of ben carson for saying i got a full scholarship. Nighta funeral the other and there were 35 people at the funeral. And said, 50 years ago, i had a full scholarship. That cracked them up. They all got it. It is one of the moments of my life is to walk through here. What is the best view at west point . I say, in the rearview mirror. Once i knew all the things i knew, i wanted to go out and do it. Thats why i wanted to go to berlin and was happy to go to vietnam. I would have extended in vietnam had i not been wounded. Surviving all the stuff i have survived since then. That is my story and i am sticking to it. Thank you so much. Announcer youre watching American History tv, 40 eight hours of programming on American History every weekend on cspan3. All us on twitter at cspan history for information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest news. Cities tour takes American History tv on the road to feature the history of cities across america. Here is a recent program. Brooks a ozarkian is someone from the ozarks. When youre dealing with identity, certainly a person who is a native, is more likely to identify themselves as an ozarker