Inside MAC-V SOG: The Green Beret Who Ran the Most Classified Missions of the Vietnam War | Ep. 289 | Pt. 1

Mike Drop

Mike Ritland

News, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Politics

4.9 • 6.5K Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2026

⏱️ 109 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My guest today is a man who existed in the shadows of one of the most classified units in American military history — a Vietnam-era Green Beret named Travis Mills who helped build the legendary MACV-SOG one-zero school, ran recon deep into Laos when we "weren't there," got shot multiple times during one of the deadliest single-night attacks ever to hit Army Special Forces, and lived to sit across from me and tell the whole story. This is the kind of conversation that reminds you what the word "operator" actually means before it became a hashtag. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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0:23.1	My whole deal in this whole exercise was to be in special forces.
0:28.2	The one thing that a lot of people don't understand
0:32.3	that, you know, the special forces is just right, right, shoot them up a bunch. The real, real mission of special forces is just, rot, right, shoot them up bunch.
0:38.3	The real, real mission of special forces is training, training other armies, going in and creating
0:48.4	an insurgency and training that insurgent group.
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1:02.2	That's the number one thing.
1:05.1	So Vietnam era Green Bray selection,
1:07.5	what was the hardest thing about it for you
1:09.9	and what surprised you the most?
1:11.6	It was pretty intense because...
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	...

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