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Combat Story

Dr. Clyde Horn: Purple Heart Recipient | Vietnam Infantryman | Author | Psychotherapist

Combat Story

Ryan Fugit

History

4.81.3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2020

⏱️ 105 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Join our weekly Combat Check-In Newsletter (www.combatstory.com/newsletter) to get a short email from Ryan for people who love and support our veterans, service members, and their families. It has info on a significant event in military and/or intel history, a funny military joke, an update on a current event I'm following, something I'm doing that week in my life, a book I'm reading, a look at an upcoming interview, a reflection on a past episode and more! 

Dr. Clyde Horn is a former Army infantryman, Purple Heart recipient, and Vietnam Veteran. He served in the 199th Light Infantry Brigade near Saigon fighting in the Iron Triangle from 1967-1968 and supported US forces during the Tet Offensive.

After the military, he helped children suffering from trauma as a psychotherapist. Despite this work and his attention to other people's trauma, he didn't recognize his own PTSD until 2009. His compelling story of combat, helping others, getting help himself, and eventually returning to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, will ring true for many veterans.

He has since written two books PTSD in Pictures and Words and Veteran Guilt in Pictures and Words and uses art as part of his own treatment (ArtLifting).

4:20 - Signed up for the Army without telling anyone in the family.
5:30 - Advanced training in Fort Polk, LA, in "Tiger Land."
6:11 - The basics for any soldier: Don't volunteer for anything.
6:33 - Drill Instructors, existentialism, and pornography.
16:51 - The "Iron Triangle" bounded by the Saigon River (W), Tinh River (E), Phu Cuong (S) just north of Saigon.
19:15 - Assigned to 199th Light Infantry Brigade near Saigon in 1967. 199th Facebook Groups (link, link).
21:31 - Description of first combat patrol in Vietnam.
26:15 - Field rotation cycle. Hot chow, shower, bed with a roof over your head,
27:59 - Moved to Cam Ranh Bay to watch President Lyndon Johnson speak. Footage from the time.
29:46 - First experience in the jungle in a movement to contact was an "out of body experience." 'The beginning of anxiety sets in that stayed with me for the rest of my life.'
34:00 - First time in contact walking into an ambush.
41:21 - "I will survive" mantra. PTSD starts early during a traumatic incident. Rather than let my acute senses and reactions hurt me, how can they help me?
44:50 - Never saw a 'stone cold killer.' Go to Hollywood for that.
48:00 - "Hell on Earth" description of one of the hardest engagements when the 199th had two to three companies ambushed by an enemy regiment.
48:45 - Fire starts coming at us….
54:24 - Description of engagement in which Clyde earned the Purple Heart.
57:34 - Observing a Platoon Leader being overly cocky and the perils of that mindset.
1:01:06 - Using night vision in Vietnam with an amazing observation made thanks to the new tech.
1:06:07 - Good luck charm: a gold cross.
1:09:50 - Supporting defenses during the Tet Offensive.
1:14:00 - Returning from Vietnam to - of all places - Berkeley.
1:20:55 - After retiring from psychology, Clyde has a 'full blown' attack of PTSD.
1:29:07 - Finally visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial aka 'The Wall.'

Transcript

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0:00.0

Just a quick word from my sponsor and we'll get right back to this combat story.

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Download the Anchor app or go to anchor.fm to get started and now back to combat story.

0:37.7

And it was Hill.

0:40.2

We got choppers coming in with rockets and all this other stuff that's going on.

0:44.6

I'm about three feet away from one of my buddies and all of a sudden I hear this crack

0:51.3

and he had gotten shot right through the head, he falls backwards, his eyes are opening

0:56.2

for me straight up and I am just speechless.

1:04.1

I don't think anyone understands freedom like soldiers.

1:09.1

Welcome to Combat Story.

1:10.1

I'm Ryan Fugent and I serve Warzone Tours as an Army Attack helicopter pilot and CIA

1:14.6

officer over a 15-year career.

1:16.9

I'm fascinated by the experiences of the elite in combat.

1:20.4

On this show, I interview some of the best to understand what combat felt like on their

1:24.6

frontlines.

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