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Ambient lighting and Bose are optional features. This is Nikki Glaser from the Nikki Glaser Podcast. On a more serious note, I'm still thinking about that commercial with Tom Brady and Snoop Dogg hating on each other. Because when you listen to the reasons for hating someone or something, you realize just how stupid they really are. There is too much hate in this country and it's got to stop. So join us at iHeart and standing up to it. If you see hate, speak up, call it out. And you can learn more by following at What's Up With Hate.
This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culturesis with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Have you ever felt that uneasy anxiety when the 4 p.m. hour strikes? The creeping meal-related distress that happens when you don't quite feel prepared? You know, dinner dread? Let's get rid of that unpleasant feeling forever with one word, Stouffer's. No matter what happens, you'll have a dinner plan that everyone loves with Stouffer's. Some chicken enchiladas or a cheesy chicken and broccoli pasta bake is always welcome, whether it is plan A or plan D. Delicious. Not gonna lie, I eat the lasagna once a week.
And that's a fact. When the clock strikes dinner, think Stouffer's. Shop now for family favorites. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. Up next, a story from a listener, Michael Williams. Michael is the author of The Boys of Milo, a collection of stories from those who served in Vietnam from his small hometown of 764 in Iowa. And our show is heard on WHO, the great I heart stick in the middle of this country in Des Moines, Iowa.
Today, he shares the story of someone close to him, one of his best friends. Take it away, Michael. You'll find no statistics on the crime rate in Milo. Milo employed no policemen, and our biggest fear was that some lady witnessed some wrongdoing and would call her mother.
That's who dealt out the punishment, our parents. We had just one phone in the house and our connection was a party line. I remember our phone number had just three digits, 6-1-J. No dial-up, no phone number, 6-1-J. No dial, no push button, and certainly no voice-activated calls. To make a call, I'd simply pick up the phone. I told the operator I wanted to talk to grandma.
She knew and made the connections. There were no street signs or house numbers. Keys were left in car ignition overnight. Residents didn't lock their doors.
Dogs didn't even bark because they knew your scent and would just run up, wag their tails, wanting a scratch of the ear. Everyone knew everyone, and that was good. Even the 1989 Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams touched on the wonderment of the ideal setting. In the movie, shoeless Joe Jackson emerged from the cornfield and then Joe asked, is this heaven?
To which Ray Kinsella, the character portrayed by Costner, answered, no, it's Iowa. Call it what you like, but for me, it was Utopia, or Heaven on Earth, or Shangri-La. It was all the goodness gathered in one place, and it was called Milo.
Heaven on Earth. There was a kid from Milo who lived about two city blocks directly west of me. I knew him well, I knew him well, oh so very well. As preteens, we were both members of our local Boy Scout Troop 136.
He delivered the daily newspaper to the north side of Milo where I handled the south side paper out. In high school, he was the wingback on the football team while I played halfback. We ran together on the school track team as the opening and final leg of the mile relay.
We rolled corn silk cigarettes and then smoked them in the secrecy of his garage. We'd get into fistfights, and then afterwards we'd either stay overnight at his house or mine. We were more than real good friends. Dan was almost like a brother, but no, he wasn't my brother. Dan was my uncle. He was less than a year older than I was, so we grew up together.
I stood up with him as the best man when he first got married, and he was my choice as my groom when I got married. However, that didn't happen because in August 1969, Dan became just one of already 543,000 troops in Vietnam. Dan found himself at Camp Coryell. As he stepped into the company's orderly room so that his presence there would be documented, he heard two Huey helicopters lift off. As the orderly room sergeant introduced himself and began to process Dan into Camp Coryell, a huge explosion interrupted their conversation.
Come on Reeves, he says, time to get your feet wet. Dan and the sergeant ran outside and jumped into a jeep. As they raced towards the downed Huey, they saw that it had just cleared the base perimeter fence and crashed into, of all places, a church. When they pulled up near the church, Dan saw the door gunner and the crew chief as they jumped away from the Huey.
They hadn't been airborne long enough to even snap on their safety harness, and they jumped out immediately upon impact. The jeep came to a stop about 20 yards in front of the church. A Vietnamese man hurriedly ran front of the Christ site with the door gunner's M60 machine gun balanced over his shoulders. He stumbled several times as he kept the 23-pound weapon in a tight grip by the barrel as he headed for the nearby village. The sergeant spoke as he spoke as if in conversation with himself. That no good son of a gun stealing our weapon. Stop, stop, I said, he shouted. Then he pulled out his.45 caliber handgun and fired four shots at the fleeing man. He turned to Dan and said, go get that machine gun, he won't be doing that anymore. Dan was still seated in the passenger seat of the jeep, glassy eyed at what had just witnessed. Dan stuttered slightly and asked, holy crap, man, why did you? And before it could even finish the sentence, the sergeant piped in, welcome to Nam, Reeves.
It's just another day in this armed pet of a hellhole country. Once settled in his duty station, Dan became the gun guy for the 155th Assault Helicopter Company, Falcon Gun Platoon. There were about 250 to 300 troops assigned to Camp Coryell, which is a small air base that sported a few Air Force Cessna 172s, T-4s, Mescaleros, as observation aircraft and about 40 UH-1H Huey helicopters. A good portion of those choppers were armed gunships that flew patrol every day. Others were called slicks and ferried troops in and out of combat zones or served as medevac extrication helicopters. The Vietcong assaulted Camp Coryell on a regular basis with mortar rounds.
Several days per week during the early morning hours, the base would get hit. Dan said, for almost a year, I slept with one eye open and never got a full night's rest. It didn't take a medical degree in psychotherapy for me to understand why Dan slept with a loaded pistol in his bed for years after the war ended.
It freaked his wife out. But like many Vietnam veterans, Dan fought the war over and over and over again. And you've been listening to a listener, Michael Williams, tell the story of Dan Reeves, his best friend and his uncle. And this isn't just a best friend. We are lucky if we have a person like this in our life that we're not married to.
I mean, we want to be married to our best friend, but that extra friend who you've done life with your whole life like this, very rare, very beautiful. And everything changes when his best friend ends up in the 155th assault helicopter company in Vietnam. When we come back, more of the story of Dan Reeves as told by his best friend, Michael Williams, here on Our American Stories. This is Lee Habib, host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show, we tell stories of history, faith, business, love, loss, and your stories. Send us your story, small or large, to our email OAS at OurAmericanStories.com.
That's OAS at OurAmericanStories.com. We'd love to hear them and put them on the air. Our audience loves them too. You know, when the world gets a little crazy and everything is moving too fast, don't you just wish you could get away from all of it for a while? Well, that's exactly what the all-new 2025 Nissan Murano can do for you. And to be clear, you don't even have to go anywhere. The Murano is the getaway.
It was designed from the ground up to be a refuge from the daily grind. I mean, it has a Bose premium sound system, which can play your favorite, most relaxing music. And there's nothing like a world class audio system to just transport you to a better head space. Then there's the Murano's massaging leather appointed seats. Yeah, massaging seats. Talk about melting away your stress. So could getting stuck in traffic become your happy place? I don't know. It sounds like it could in the all-new Murano. You should probably check one out for yourself. You got to drive the all-new 2025 Nissan Murano today.
Bose and massaging leather appointed seats are optional features. This is Nikki Glaser from the Nikki Glaser podcast. On a more serious note, I'm still thinking about that commercial with Tom Brady and Snoop Dogg hating on each other. Because when you listen to the reasons for hating someone or something, you realize just how stupid they really are. There is too much hate in this country and it's got to stop. So join us at iHeart and standing up to it. If you see hate, speak up, call it out.
And you can learn more by following at What's Up With Hate. Hey, it's Amy Brown from The Bobby Bones Show. Join me in supporting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for a chance to win a trip to meet Megan Maroney at the 2025 iHeart Country Festival in Austin, Texas on May 3rd hosted by Bobby Bones. We're going to hook you up with tickets, flights, hotel, food credits, and a meet and greet with Megan Maroney. Take action now to support St. Jude and help cure childhood cancer. And you're going to be entered for a chance to win.
Visit iHeartCountryTrip.com to learn more. Hi, it's Jenny Garth. We all know the importance of taking care of our physical and mental health. But what about our sexual health? I've been there feeling totally stuck when it comes to my libido. That's why I started taking Addi.
And let me tell you, I've seen firsthand what a difference it can make in how you feel. Addi is the only FDA approved pill clinically proven to help certain premenopausal women have more interest in sex, have more satisfying sex, and lower the stress from low libido. Addi has helped hundreds of thousands of women get their drive back, including me. Talk to your doctor or visit ADDYI.com to learn more about Addi, the little pink pill.
Individual results may vary. Addi, or flibanserin, is for premenopausal women with acquired generalized hypoactive sexual desire disorder, HSDD, who have not had problems with low sexual desire in the past, who have had low sexual desire no matter the type of sexual activity, the situation, or the sexual partner. This low sexual desire is troubling to them and is not due to a medical or mental health problem, problems in the relationship, or medicine, or other drug use. Addi is not for use in children, men, or to enhance sexual performance. Your risk of severe low blood pressure and fainting is increased if you drink one to two standard alcoholic drinks close in time to your Addi dose. Wait at least two hours after drinking before taking Addi at bedtime. This risk increases if you take certain prescriptions, OTC, or herbal medications, or have liver problems, and can happen when you take Addi without alcohol or other medicines. Do not take if you're allergic to any of Addi's ingredients. Allergic reaction may include hives, itching, or trouble breathing. Sometimes serious sleepiness can occur.
Common side effects include dizziness, nausea, tiredness, difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, and dry mouth. See full PI and medication guide, including boxed warning, at addi.com slash PI. Addi.
Visit addii.com to learn more about Addi. And we return to Our American Stories and with the story of Dan Reeves as told by his nephew and best friend, Michael Williams. When we last left off, Dan had been drafted and found himself in the jungles of Vietnam.
Let's return to the story. Two months had passed at Camp Coryell, and a familiar face showed up. A guy by the name of Rigoberto Rodriguez, who went to gun school with Dan back in Maryland, greeted him. He was in the same aircraft, armament, and repair course, the two faces behind Dan. They were buddies back in the States.
They went to class together, socialized after class, had a few beers and pizza on occasion. Dan's wife Carolyn and Rodriguez's wife Tina even hung out together when the guys were in class. Rigoberto, Dan called him Rigo, was a soldier of slight build, maybe 150 pounds. That didn't concern Dan.
What did bother him was how naive he seemed to be in the midst of so much peril. Like a big brother, Dan took him under his wing and gave him instructions. Not about gun repair, but common sense survival tactics. When on guard duty, never turn your back on the perimeter wire. Never fall asleep when on watch. Always have your weapon within reach. Always be cognizant of the closest bunker. Keep your eyes open and think. Think about what if this, what if that? How am I going to react? Where am I going to go if things go south quickly?
Always. Two days later, another mortar attack. Dan grabbed his carbine and scrambled through the bunker with explosion on both sides of the compound.
It was no relay race on the high school track team. It was a run for his life. He dove into the bunker and cowered down as the mortars continued. Suddenly, Rigo shows up, the last man in. Dan said, what took you so long to get here? You're a dead man if you pussyfoot your way here.
Remember that. I got caught up in my sleeping bag. What? Your stupid sleeping bag held you up?
You have no time to waste screwing around with a stupid sleeping bag zipper. And humbly, Rigo mumbled, okay, okay. Three days passed. It was two o'clock in the morning. The familiar thud noise filled the air, and then another, and then another. Boom. Boom.
Boom. The explosions pounded the camp. Dan began a sprint from his hooch to the nearest bunker. As he ran, he saw his buddy Rodriguez already near the bunker. Rodriguez had been assigned his first guard duty that very night. Stationed outside the bunker, as Dan approached, he saw him on a cot outside the bunker, struggling to fully get out of his zipped-up sleeping bag.
He had been asleep again. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he kicked free and dove headfirst into the sandbag entryway of the bunker, just as a moor exploded some 10 yards away. Only his upper torso safely made it into the entryway. Blood was everywhere.
Rigo was hit and hit by the and hit bad. As Dan related, I picked him up to put him on the stretcher. I got one arm under his shoulder. My other arm reached below his hips.
I couldn't pick him up. His hips and legs were like a jackrabbit that had been shot at close range of the shotgun, just mangled and masked something terrible. Rigo had been in Vietnam seven days. The mortar stop, thoughts raced through Dan's mind. He thought of his wife's buddy, Tina, back in Maryland, and then he remembered an envelope that Rigo gave him the first day they met at Camp Carril. He told Dan, if anything happens to me, send this letter to my wife.
My God, Dan thought. Dan jogged down to the flight line just as the medevac helicopter lifted off with Rigo on board. The medics were still there. Dan asked, is he going to make it? The senior medic shook his head and said, he's alive when they took off.
If they can get him to the field hospital quickly, he has a chance. He's lost a lot of blood. The other medic looked at Dan and said, you're hit too, buddy.
Let's go over to the camp dispensary. Dan's adrenaline was still pumping. He reached to his side and fell for any wounds. He said, I don't think I'm hit. You're soaked in blood, soldier. It's dripping all over your shorts.
Let me walk you over for a quick checkup. He wasn't hit. His GI issued boxer shorts were totally saturated, dripping with the blood of his buddy, Rodriguez. Months later, while still in Vietnam, Dan received a letter from Rigo's wife.
He was in a wheelchair as a result of his injuries, unable to walk. He would be that way for the rest of his life. Dan told me, I don't know how many times a flashback of that night awoke me from my sleep over the last 40 years. I thought maybe there was something I could do to change the outcome. It haunts me. It's a reality. I can't escape this burn in my brain.
No 21 year old kid should ever carry. Daily, the choppers returned for missions, taking on more ammo and fuel before immediately heading back out. The turn time was relatively short and there was a constant hurriedness on the ground. The chopper served as a lifeline to the troops in the field and any time not in the air was time wasted. Dan checked the mini guns for any maintenance problems and reloaded both ammo bins with 2,000 rounds of the 7.62 cartridges as well as 2,000 rounds for the M60 machine gun used by the door gunners.
It was just another ordinary day in Vietnam, or one could say. As Dan approached one particular inbound gun ship, he noticed the door gunner slump forward. As he got closer, it became obvious that he was injured. Shot in the elbow, hit by ground fire.
No condition to go airborne anytime soon. Dan refilled the ammo boxes, checked the guns and was ready for liftoff again. The pilot turned to Dan and yelled, hey Reeves, get in. I need a door gunner. The only guy available who knows how to operate that M60. Hurry, there's guys in trouble.
We need to get there quickly. Without so much as giving the second thought, Dan jumped on board. Once again, airborne however, he began to think to himself, nobody knows I'm on this aircraft as a door gunner other than the pilot.
I'm not qualified for flight duty. What in the heck am I doing? As they made their initial approach, Dan's eyes widened. It looked as though tiny black ants were running up the mountain right into the open field. He leaned out the door, pointed the M60 machine gun down and began firing.
And so it went for 30 minutes. On the backside, Dan peered down and could not believe his eyes. There were more Viet Cong coming from the timberline rushing up the mountains, but to his disbelief, the VC stopped for a second, then picked up the weapon from a dead VC who had been killed. Those soldiers were going into battle and not everyone was armed. They had waited for a comrade to get killed, then advanced and retrieved their weapon to fight on.
Holy crap, Batman, Dan thought. As Huey made a final pass, Dan saw out the corner of his eye, a group of about four or five Viet Cong soldiers that ran into a small thicket of bamboo trees that still offered some cover. He radioed the trailing gunship about their location. Two rockets fired simultaneously from each side of the Huey so as not to throw the gunship off balance.
No doubt one rocket would have been enough, but either way, the entire thicket was obliterated. When they landed back at Camp Coryell, the first duty of the day was to, again, service the guns. Dan's muscles were taut and his heart pumped as he had just finished another quarter mile run on the first leg of a mile relay back in high school. The pilot, a warrant officer who himself looked as though he too was right out of high school and yet to get his first shave walk past Dan said, hell of a nice job, Reeves.
Glad to have you on board. A few days past, thoughts flashed through Dan's mind. What happened earlier in the week was dangerous. That wasn't what he signed up for, but admittedly it provided a tremendous rush. Dan was in country for less than six months and decided to volunteer for flight duty as a shotgun rider. Not every day, however, just part-time would be a better fit.
Just being harm's way two or three days per week would be good enough. As the saying went, the lifespan of a door gunner in Vietnam was about five minutes. And we're listening to a listener of this show, Michael Williams, share the story of his friend, best friend and uncle, Dan Reeves and his service in Vietnam. And we learned that Dan had a friend named Rigo Rodriguez in Vietnam for only seven days. And what happens is his friend is, well, injured beyond repair, alive but paralyzed for the rest of his life and sent back home. And those are the costs of war.
When we come back, more of Michael Williams' story about his pal and uncle, Dan Reeves, here on Our American Stories. You know, when the world gets a little crazy and everything is moving too fast, don't you just wish you could get away from all of it for a while? Well, that's exactly what the all new 2025 Nissan Murano can do for you. And to be clear, you don't even have to go anywhere. The Murano is the getaway.
It was designed from the ground up to be a refuge from the daily grind. I mean, it has a Bose premium sound system which can play your favorite most relaxing music. And there's nothing like a world class audio system to just transport you to a better headspace. Then there's the Murano's massaging leather appointed seats. Yeah, massaging seats. Talk about melting away your stress. So could getting stuck in traffic become your happy place? I don't know. It sounds like it could in the all new Murano. You should probably check one out for yourself. You got to drive the all new 2025 Nissan Murano today.
Bose and massaging leather appointed seats are optional features. This is Nikki Glaser from the Nikki Glaser podcast. On a more serious note, I'm still thinking about that commercial with Tom Brady and Snoop Dogg hating on each other. Because when you listen to the reasons for hating someone or something, you realize just how stupid they really are. There is too much hate in this country and it's got to stop. So join us at I Heart and standing up to it. If you see hate, speak up, call it out.
And you can learn more by following at What's Up With Hate. Hey, it's Amy Brown from the Bobby Bone Show. Join me in supporting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for a chance to win a trip to meet Megan Muroni at the 2025 I Heart Country Festival in Austin, Texas, on May 3, hosted by Bobby Bones. We're going to hook you up with tickets, flights, hotel, food credits and a meet and greet with Megan Muroni. Take action now to support St. Jude and help cure childhood cancer, and you're going to be entered for a chance to win.
Visit IHeartCountryTrip.com to learn more. Hi, it's Jenny Garth. We all know the importance of taking care of our physical and mental health. But what about our sexual health? I've been there, feeling totally stuck when it comes to my libido. That's why I started taking Addi.
And let me tell you, I've seen firsthand what a difference it can make in how you feel. Addi is the only FDA approved pill clinically proven to help certain premenopausal women have more interest in sex, have more satisfying sex and lower the stress from low libido. Addi has helped hundreds of thousands of women get their drive back, including me. Talk to your doctor or visit ADDYI.com to learn more about Addi, the little pink pill.
Individual results may vary. Addi or flibanserin is for premenopausal women with acquired generalized hypoactive sexual desire disorder, HSDD, who have not had problems with low sexual desire in the past, who have had low sexual desire no matter the type of sexual activity, the situation or the sexual partner. This low sexual desire is troubling to them and is not due to a medical or mental health problem, problems in the relationship or medicine or other drug use. Addi is not for use in children, men or to enhance sexual performance. Your risk of severe low blood pressure and fainting is increased if you drink one to two standard alcoholic drinks close in time to your Addi dose. Wait at least two hours after drinking before taking Addi at bedtime. This risk increases if you take certain prescriptions, OTC or herbal medications or have liver problems and can happen when you take Addi without alcohol or other medicines. Do not take if you're allergic to any of Addi's ingredients. Allergic reaction may include hives, itching or trouble breathing. Sometimes serious sleepiness can occur.
Common side effects include dizziness, nausea, tiredness, difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep and dry mouth. See full P.I. and medication guide including boxed warning at Addi.com slash P.I. Addi.
Visit A D D Y I.com to learn more about Addi. And we return to our American stories and with the story of Dan Reeves as told by his nephew and best friend Michael Williams, author of The Boys of Milo. When we last left off, Dan had by circumstance become a door gunner on a Huey helicopter and had decided that he changed his career path to be more in the line of danger. He was seeking a rush and more. It was the early morning of 1970. Dan awoke at 6 a.m sharp from a night that was free of mortar attacks. He reached up and cranked the volume knob on his single speaker Sony radio that hung by a bungee cord suspended against a plywood bowl near his cot. Good morning Vietnam it shouted to him. Yes, he preferred that wake-up call to the traditional reverently common at stateside military installations. And no, he didn't jump out of his cot and salute and stand at attention. Dan headed to the small mess hall, grabbed a quick cup of coffee, loaded it up with sugar, piled some powdered eggs on a slice of toast, and topped it off with some ketchup and a dash or two of hot sauce. He ate while he walked to the gunship parked on the am2 matting on the airfield. What he didn't know then was that today would be no ordinary day.
Indeed, it would not. On the headset, the pilot told the crew that they were headed for coordinates about 30 clicks to the south where some ground troops needed air cover before crossing the coast. Where some ground troops needed air cover before crossing a river to an area where some VC had been reported by a T-41 Mescalero the day before. They flew unaccompanied and if all went as planned, the grunts would successfully cross the river and the chopper would be back at Camp Coryell in slightly more than an hour. About 10 minutes into the flight and before the altitude safety threshold of 3,000 feet, trouble began.
Zoop, zoop, zoop. Four rounds of small arms fire hit the aircraft. The crew chief shouted over the headset. Anyone see where that came from?
I think it came from our two or three o'clock position. You see anything? Dan yelled, I see smoke. We're hit.
I think they got the transmission. Oh crap, I'm starting to lose it. We're going down.
Hang on. Dan stuck his head out the door. He looked down and saw nothing. Nothing but trees. Nowhere a spot for a hard landing. If they fell into the treetops, the helicopter would flip and most likely explode.
His heart pounded as if we're about to jump out of a chest. I see a spot in small clearing below. Over there, over there. For god sakes man, it's no bigger than a picnic table. Can you make it? It's all we got.
It's all we got. Dear Jesus, help me get this bird down, the pilot begged. He glanced at his gauges and the rate of descent was slightly over 700 feet per minute and increasing. Hold on, hold on baby, as he talked to the Huey. Brace, brace. The tail of the gunship clipped a branch of hopia trees about 40 feet in the air and tipped sharply forward, but the Huey dropped straight down and hit the ground with a huge stud.
Jesus put them on the picnic table. Moans and groans filled the flight deck. Dan unfastened his monkey harness. He was bruised but uninjured. Hey, hey, let's get the hell out of here. He jumped out of the side door and looked back for the three others to follow.
Nobody moved. The pilot appeared to have a broken back. The co-pilot had a broken leg and the crew chief suffered a broken arm and some rib injuries.
Dan did a quick triage assessment. He first helped the crew chief with the broken arm and the ribs out of the Huey and told him to make his way into the jungle. He went to the rotor head and tried to grab the pilot and pull him out, but he screamed out in agony. I can't move. I can't move at all. He went to the other side and asked the co-pilot if he could walk.
I don't think so. My legs broke pretty bad. Dan eased him out, threw the co-pilot's left arm over his shoulder and together they limped into the jungle where the crew chief had stopped some 20 yards into a thick wooded area. Dan spoke out loud. How am I going to get that pilot? I can't even touch him and he shouts out in pain. The crew chief told him, leave him in the seat. Take the whole seat out of the chopper. Dan went back to the downed chopper. Dan easily found the release pin for the pilot seat. The pilot cried out in pain again.
Damn it, you're going to have to suck it up. You're either going to burn to death if this thing catches on fire or the VC will find you and shoot you. With one steady lift, Dan raised the seat with the pilot still harnessed in and carried him to where the other two men awaited. Dan's mind raced a thousand miles an hour. Our goose is cooked. I've got three guys here who need medical help. The radio's out. Nobody knows we're here and I expect the VC will ping us a visit soon. The co-pilot chimed in. I let command post know on the radio that we were going down before we crashed. They know we're out here somewhere.
Dan said, let's pray they find us soon. Hours went by. Night set in.
Nothing. He sat next to the pilot with the.45 handgun cocked, ready to fire. His hand shook like that of an old man. Scared was not the right word to describe the emotions that night. There were no words, no words to even remotely express the fear generated with each heartbeat.
I don't think I blinked once. I just stared off into the jungle looking for any sort of movement or sign that the VC were coming. Was today the day that he and the other three would meet their maker?
Hopefully not. Jesus found them a landing spot, put them on the ground alive. They all quietly prayed, dear God, please help us.
Several more hours passed and it was total darkness. The pilot's injury seemed to worsen. His bones increased and became louder and more frequent. Dan put his hands over the pilot's mouth to keep him quiet, knowing that the noise would give away the position. I damn near suffocated the guy that night.
He moaned almost with every breath and I had to shut him up. Then the crew chief mentioned, I think there's some morphine in the medical kit that's still in the Huey. If he had some of that, it might keep him more comfortable. Dan thought about it for a few minutes. Was it worth the trip back to Huey and would his movement give away the position? The things kept on as they had been.
The pilot's moaning would do that anyway. Like a snake slithering toward an unsuspecting prey, Dan quietly crawled by the light of the moon and made his way to the downed Huey. He grabbed the medical kit and again crawled back to their hiding place. He popped the cover on the small canvas bag. What the heck? Nothing but bandages, rotten, stinking, no good bandages.
The drug users at Camp Coryell had ransacked the medical kit and stole the morphine for their drug habit. So they waited for daylight, fingers crossed, hammer cocked, eyes wide open, and the pilot continued to moan. Oh Lord, hear our prayers. As the early light of dawn creeped in, a heavy fog surrounded them. Suddenly, Dan whispered, did you hear that? Did you hear that? There's something out there.
Everyone's sense of sight and sound peaked instantly. Yeah, I heard it. It's over there. The crew chief pointed his good arm in the direction of the helicopter.
Here they come. Dan's heart jumped in his throat. The guy pulled out an orange placard. Yes, an orange placard. For sure, it was an orange placard. Dan jumped up and yelled, hey, hey, we're over here, we're over here. He turned to the helicopter crew behind him and shouted, there are guys, they're here for us.
The orange placard was the color code used for identification purposes, exactly an instance such as this. The colors rotated from day to day and Dan knew that today was orange, his new favorite color. The GI walked toward Dan. When he got closer, Dan saw he was a Green Beret and looked as big as a linebacker on a professional football team.
For certain, a welcome sight. We'll get you guys out of here in no time, the Green Beret told him. We have a couple of choppers in route to lift you guys out of here. I'm okay, Dan said. I don't need a medevac, just some clean underwear.
Last night was kind of iffy. And you're listening to Michael Williams, author of The Boys of Milo, tell the story of his best friend and uncle, Dan Reeves. The story continues here on Our American Stories. You know, when the world gets a little crazy and everything is moving too fast, don't you just wish you could get away from all of it for a while? Well, that's exactly what the all new 2025 Nissan Murano can do for you. And to be clear, you don't even have to go anywhere. The Murano is the getaway.
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Visit addi.com to learn more about Addi. And we return to our American stories in the final portion of our story on Dan Reeves. Telling the story is Michael Williams, Dan's nephew and best friend. When we last left off, Dan had survived a harrowing night in the jungle after his UE helicopter crashed.
Let's return to the story. Word filtered down that Camp Coryell could possibly be the target of attack by North Vietnamese regulars. As a result, the base was put on high alert. Dan got the call that put him on one of the guard towers for an overnight watch. Staying focused and scanning the horizon for unusual movement was difficult.
Boring might be a better word, but in the words of a battle-seasoned veteran, nothing was a good thing. Suddenly, Dan saw movement running towards the building that housed the base generator. Three figures raced closer and closer. Dan released the safety on his M14, drew his weapon down and fired off three quick rounds. He dropped one North Vietnamese regular just yards from the generator building.
The other two ran inside. Within seconds, the base alarm sounded. Then the mortars began to fall.
The third mortar exploded right at the base of the tower and splintered one leg of the guard tower. Gradually, under the weight of the sandbags, the tower began to tip and in slow motion fell downward. Dan jumped as it fell and when it hit the ground, he rolled like a paratrooper on a bad jump. As he looked up, he saw the canine handlers turn their dogs loose and sent them into the generator building. They didn't bark, they didn't growl, and within a minute the two dogs exited the building and ran to their handlers. Blood dripped from their mouths. Dan got up and asked, did they get them? You betcha they did fire back one of the handlers. They ripped out their throats before they knew what happened.
All this happened within five minutes. As if an afterthought, Dan remembered the two other GIs that were in the guard towers with him when it fell. He hadn't seen or heard from them since that last mortar hit. He limped over to the downed tower and shouted out. There was no answer. Sure enough, two bodies were buried in the busted boards and sandbags. The sandbags had turned into hardened cement after months and months of exposure to the elements.
They crushed the two who failed to jump upon impact on the 30-foot fall to the ground. Several days passed, Dan's mind raced as if he thought, what would be next? Would they be back in greater force? There wasn't a whole lot of regular infantry assigned to Camp Coryell to provide a fighting force. Most of the few hundred guys there were pilots, mechanics, armament repair, cooks, fabrication people, and assortment of support personnel.
However, when the alarm sounded, all grabbed their small arms weapons and did what soldiers do in times of war, improvise. The next few days, Dan spent on a scavenger hunt as he lined up various items needed for his special project. He ventured down to the flight line and tossed his idea out to the guys who worked on the T-41 Mescaleros. Sure enough, they were on board with his brainstorm and made available what items he needed. Then back to the fab shop with a rough sketch drawn on paper of what he needed welded together.
Parts here, parts there, and in a short time his idea became reality. The final product was a spare minigun from one of the Huey gunships which mounted on a swivel and placed the tropic tripod about four feet high. It took five guys to put this new high-powered, jerry-rigged weapon into place. Two guys carried the minigun, one guy carried the batteries, one guy carried the 7.62 ammunition, and the fifth guy carried the tripod. The minigun fired 2,000 rounds a minute and had some serious kick. With the tripod to withstand the fierce punishment from the gun's recoil was yet to be answered. A couple of weeks had passed and Dan almost forgot about his tripod mounted minigun. It had yet to be baptized by fire and remained inside the gun shop. And while at the chow hall, keeping his intake of saltpeter at acceptable levels, one of the guys from the fab shop quizzed him, have you got your gun ready to go? I think so, but I haven't fired it in the field yet. Well, the latest briefing from the commander said we might be in line for another assault on Camp Coryell. Did you hear that? Well, let's set it up for the day after Mar and see how it goes.
Deuteronomy 20 16 through 17 says, but in the cities of these people that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction. That very night, chaos broke out at Camp Coryell. Within five minutes, the crew had the gun in place. Two flares fired off in the distance lit up the sky. Dan got his first clear view of what was coming.
Dozens and dozens of North Vietnamese troop race toward Camp Coryell, approaching the concertina wire that surrounded the camp. Dan knelt frozen behind the tripod in disbelief for the sight. The fab sergeant firmly wrapped him on the helmet with the end of the screw bar and shouted, kill him Reeves, kill him now. Dan fought for words to come out of his mouth, but his first attempts with nothing but a mere whisper. He took a deep breath and with a guttural shout, yelled, everyone down, everyone down now. Dan made one pass from right to left across the field of fire with a minigun. Another pass from left to right followed and then back again the other direction. 4,000 rounds fired in a little more than two minutes and then all was quiet.
Not a sound anywhere. Within a couple of hours, the sun slowly creeped into the sky, giving first glimpse of the field of fire. Everyone squinted, peering out of their bunkers into the perimeter wire. There were bodies everywhere, stretched out for about a hundred yards clear back to the grove of rubber trees. The South Vietnamese dragged bodies off the wire and into a pile for removal.
Dan stopped counting bodies at 70. As they worked their way further out into the rubber trees, the muffled sound of a.45 caliber pistol popped and then another and a few minutes later yet another. There were wounded North Vietnamese regulars who had taken refuge among the rubber trees.
The South Vietnamese took no prisoners. There was no mercy. About an hour later in the early morning before the heat became too stifling, three deuce and a half trucks arrived and the South Vietnamese army regulars began loading corpses for disposal.
Yeah, three truckloads of dead bodies. Before the last truck pulled away, the base commander came down to the area just outside the bunker. What the blankety blank, he barked. Who's responsible for this?
Nobody said a word, but instead all eyes turned towards Dan. Matthew 25 verse 21 says, well done good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things.
I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness. Specialist 5 Dan Rhee is discharged from active duty on March 28, 1971. The effects of his fighting in the war honored him for nearly 50 years after the war. Dan retired as a printing press operator and lived in Hartford, Iowa, and would often call me when stressed about one thing or another. In his words, you want to go to the rifle range and decompress. Guns had been a part of his life for well over 50 years. From the time we were old enough to go rabbit hunting alone and tromp the brush and scare up a few cottontails, guns became a fixation for him, bolstered by his expertise in repairing them and his time in the military. We'd regularly hop in his car and head to Banner pits rifle range and fire off a few hundred rounds.
Despite our failing eyesight, we still joked with each other who had the better aim. I talked with him multiple times during our short rise together about what was on his mind. I knew Dan had been receiving counseling for some time from the veterans hospital as well as medication to keep him on an even keel. However, as well as I knew Dapper Dan, I never dreamed in a million years how the stress not awaited him over the years. Dan left Vietnam in 1970, but like so many other young men who served there, Vietnam never left him. Nearly 50 years after he left Bami to it, the war finally ended for him on June 22nd, 2019, when he took his own life with a handgun. I don't think of Dan as just another statistic of the war, but yet he was.
In Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony speaks of the death of Caesar. He said, the evil that men do live after them, but the good is oft interred with their bones. Thus, the evil of war that Dan experienced is easily remembered, but let us not forget the good that he brought forth. And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Monty Montgomery. A special thanks to Michael Williams for telling such a bold, beautiful story about his friend, his uncle, Dan Reeves, and what a story it was. And in 1970, he was released from Vietnam, but Vietnam was never released from him.
It never left him. In June of 2019, Dan would take his life with a handgun, as regrettably and tragically, too many of our soldiers still do. The story of Dan Reeves here on Our American Stories. The Unshakeables podcast is kicking off season two with an episode you won't want to miss. Join host Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business, as he welcomes a very special guest, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon. Hear about the challenges facing small businesses and some of the uh-oh moments Jamie has overcome.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. Member FDIC. Copyright 2025.
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