This content chronicles the extraordinary and almost unbelievable life of Robert Howard, a U.S. Army Green Beret whose career was defined by extreme bravery, resilience, and an unparalleled ability to survive and excel in the most dangerous combat situations.
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Normally I don't like dealing in
absolutes. However, I am extremely
confident in saying that this is the
most gangster supply sergeant of all time.
time.
Today we're talking about Robert Howard,
the most decorated green beret in US
history. He started off his military
career as a mechanic, then became a
parachute rigger, then became a supply
sergeant. After being shot in the face
and surviving in Vietnam, he then
volunteered to go out with MV SOG
whenever they needed an extra guy or a
strap hanger despite having no Green
Beret or special forces training.
Despite his initial lack of training, he
rapidly went from the extra guy they
brought along to help carry the radio to
the man they specifically requested to
come and help on their most dangerous
missions. Having been shot in the face,
blown up, and severely wounded multiple
times on multiple occasions, he is quite
literally the human embodiment of the
Terminator and has been written up for
the Medal of Honor on three separate
occasions and awarded at once because
that's legally the amount of times he
could earn it. In addition to that, he
has been awarded two distinguished
service crosses, the silver star, the
defense superior service medal, four
legions of merit, four bronze stars with
V device, and eight purple hearts. And
we're going to get into it right after a
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All right, our story begins on July
11th, 1939 when Robert Howard is born in
Opaikica, Alabama. When he's four years
old, his dad is drafted to go off and
fight in World War II in the Pacific.
And when dad comes back, he suffers from
what I can only describe as undiagnosed
PTSD and has a crippling alcohol
problem. From there, dad works at the
local cab company for the rest of
Robert's childhood, and he grows up dirt
poor in Opalikica, Alabama with his dad,
his mom, his grandmother, and his six
younger siblings. The only early
childhood memory that he ever talks
about was when he was young, he finally
got a new pair of shoes, which was a big
deal for a poor kid in the 1940s and
five high school bullies were trying to
take his shoes. And for the first week,
they would chase him from the bus all
the way to his house, but he would
always outrun him and never get caught.
And got to keep his shoes.
>> That boy sure is a running fool.
>> After seeing this, his grandmother
pulled him aside and said, "Robert, you
don't run away from your problems. You
run towards them." The very next day, he
comes back home from school beat up, but
he still had his shoes. From here,
Robert continues to grow up, and he is
pretty much a brick [ __ ] house of a
young man, being 6' tall, 170 lb,
extremely athletic, and good at sports.
Despite that, he drops out of high
school to help his family make money and
goes to work with dad at the cab
company. When he's 17 years old, he gets
his GED and then wants to enlist in the
military. Dad is furious, doesn't want
his son to enlist. Wants him to go off,
get a normal job, lead a normal life.
Robert basically just comes to him. He's
like, "Look, I'm 17. I need your
signature to let me go join the
military, but I'm going to do it in a
year anyways if you say no, so you might
as well just let me do it now." Dad
agrees, signs the paperwork. Robert
ships off to basic training. Crushes
basic, crushes AIT, no problem
whatsoever. ends up getting stationed at
Fort Hood, and he is a mechanic because
of his experience at the cab company.
Now, that sounds all good and fine, but
this isn't what Robert wanted. Robert
grew up watching propaganda from World
War II and the Korean War. He wanted to
go off and become a paratrooper, and now
he's stuck inside the motorpool doing
maintenance on a bunch of military
vehicles. This is just it's not what he
wanted, but he's trapped. There's
nothing he can do. So, he basically just
lives it up. He's, you know, a lower
enlisted private than a specialist. He's
partying. He's drinking too much. He's
going out with his friends. He's not
really doing anything to advance his
military career. After a couple of years
of doing that, his reinlistment is
starting to come up and his sergeant
pulls him aside and is like, "Hey, look,
if you want to stay in the army, you got
to get your [ __ ] together and actually
start doing stuff to advance your
career, otherwise they're going to kick
you out." So that's exactly what he
does. He gets real straight laced, quits
drinking so much, quits partying so
much, goes out into town, finds a nice
girl by the name of Tina. They wind up
getting married from here. He turns into
an excellent soldier. Then when that
reinlistment time finally comes, they
want to keep him in. So he says, "You
know, I'll reinlist for another 6 years,
but I want it put in my contract that
you're going to send me off to be a
paratrooper." They agree. He gets sent
off to Fort Bragg, attached to the 101st
Airborne. Goes through a paratrooper
school. Passes through that no problem.
Gets his jump wings, becomes a parachute
rigger and a supply sergeant with the
101st Airborne. From here, his wife Tina
ends up getting pregnant and he is
shortly after that sent over to France
for 2 years straight. Comes back home
and meets his daughter for the first
time when she's 18 months old. He is
then home for about 45 minutes before
getting sent off to Vietnam.
>> This is whole other country. As they
make their approach into theater, he is
informed that they are going to be
making an amphibious landing. He's
pumped. He wants to go into combat. This
has been his whole thing. In his brain,
he's thinking D-Day, storming the beach
at Normandy, enemy gunfire. This is
going to be awesome. Action hero type
stuff. As they approach, he's informed,
oh, it's actually a secured beach. This
is just the fastest way to get everybody
>> I bet they shrimp balls in these water.
>> So, not the excitement he was looking
for, but whatever. They pull up in the
Higgins boat. They drop the hatch door.
He's told that they're on the beach. He
steps off full of all of his gear, 120
lbs worth of [ __ ] He then sinks 12 feet
to the ocean floor and almost drowns.
From here, it's 6 weeks of just moving
closer and closer towards combat, and
it's just a giant nothing burger.
Nothing ever happens. They're just
driving the trucks closer, marching,
getting to where the actual combat is.
As you get closer, things start to
escalate. Sometimes there's, you know,
incoming mortars. Sometimes there's
enemy sniper fire. But really, it's just
kind of boring. Nothing ever happens.
never sees any bad guys, nothing. And
then one day they get ambushed. Nobody
was expecting it. It's a giant cluster
[ __ ] His officer in charge is kind of
like panicking. Doesn't know what to do.
He's froze up, not giving any orders.
Howard runs up to him and is like, "What
are we doing? What's the plan?" Guy
doesn't have anything, so he's just
like, "Point to a spot on the map you
want me to defend. I'll go defend it."
Gives Howard a location. Howard grabs
some guys and sets off to defend that
perimeter. Once he gets to his position,
he starts setting up the perimeter,
getting his guys set up with fields of
fire. And while he's doing that, he
winds up getting shot in the face with
an AK-47 right in the cheek, passes
through his mouth, knocks out a bunch of
his teeth, and he wakes up in the
hospital. And wouldn't you know it, the
guy in the bed next to him is actually
his buddy from airborne school that
apparently has went on to become a
special forces Green Beret. They wind up
hanging out the entire time while
they're both recovering in the hospital.
Then one day, Green Beret guy is getting
ready to leave. His colonel comes to
pick him up and he recommends to the
colonel like, "Hey, this is my buddy
Robert Howard. We could use a guy like
him out in the field." And the colonel's
like, "Is that so? you think you want to
do this? And Robert Howard is like,
"Yeah, anything to get me into the
action." And he just kind of nods and
walks off.
Howard has to spend a little bit more
time in the hospital recovering. Once
he's fully recovered, he basically
forgot that conversation even happened.
Shifts back off to his unit with the
101st. Gets there and his commanding
officer is like, "Howard, there's a
chopper waiting for you. They got to
take you somewhere." And he's like,
"What? Where?" He's like, "I have no
idea. Apparently, it's special forces
and it's top secret. They're not telling
me [ __ ] just to tell you to get on the
chopper. So he gets on the helicopter
that flies him to Saigon to the Military
Assistance Command of Vietnam, aka MACV.
While he is there, he is offered the
opportunity to assist the Studies and
Observations Group, a top secret
military unit that responds directly to
the White House and the Joint Chiefs of
Staff that the government will not admit
even exists for decades afterwards. From
here, he is told that this is strictly
voluntary. He does not have to do this,
but if he does want to, he'll be
operating inside of foreign countries,
Laos and Cambodia, two places America is
not supposed to be.
>> Also heard we're in [ __ ] Cambodia
right now.
>> Cambodia, man. You're kidding me.
>> Because of that, on these missions, he
will be going behind enemy lines with
nothing that identifies him as an
American soldier. And if he is killed or
captured, which there is a high
likelihood of, the American government
will sweep it under the rug and say they
know nothing about it. Now, I can only
assume hearing this, Robert is like,
"Okay, so let me get this straight. You
want me, a supply sergeant, to go out
with the Green Beretss in a country
we're not supposed to be in in the most
dangerous combat that you have with a
super high casualty rate with no Green
Beret training whatsoever. And the
American government is like, "Yeah,
that's exactly it." And you know, if you
survive for like 6 months, we'll send
you back home to America and then you
can get your Green Beret and we'll get
you the training then after you've
already done the job. To which Robert is like,
like,
>> Fast forward. Robert shows up to a SOG
forward operational base and he is blown
away because it is not like any other
military operation he has ever seen.
Robert is straight laced, clean shaven,
right uniform, right place, right time.
And everybody else on this operational
base is just walking around in whatever
clothes they want. They've got beards,
they've got ponytails. Don't look like
the military professional that he's ever
seen. Yet, these are the best operators
America has to offer. Despite eventually
going on to become one of these guys, he
never really gives up his clean shaven
straight laced appearance. Which, you
know what, to be fair, [ __ ] look at
him. If I look like that, I wouldn't
give up my clean shaven look either.
Okay, look at his jawline. Homie could
get in a katana fight with that jawline
and probably win. Sorry. Anyways, from
here, he spends the next 6 months being
the supply sergeant on the forward
operational base and operating as a
strap hanger. Strap hanger is just the
term for like, hey, we've got a group of
SOG guys going out. They need an extra
volunteer to help carry the radio and
just do what they're told. Robert starts
doing a ton of that. And to be honest,
during this period of time, we don't
have many specifics outside of that for
multiple reasons. Everything's top
secret. A lot of the MAC VOG documents
were destroyed after Vietnam and Robert
never kept a personal journal. In fact,
the only reason we have stories on
Robert Howard at all is because they had
to document what he did to earn his
medals. Everything outside of that that
he did is lost to time. So, we don't
really know what happened over this
6-mon span. However, we do know that he
was in combat because during this
period, he was awarded the combat
infantry badge. From here, he goes back
home and he goes through the entire
Green Beret training pipeline through
1966 through 1967. And by the end of
1967, he is awarded his Green Beret.
From here, he gets sent back out to
Vietnam, still operating as part of SOG.
He is sent to SOG Ford operational base
2, which is right at a triber area
between Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. So,
they can go into both those countries
fairly quickly and fairly easily
whenever needed. He is still operating
as a supply sergeant and he is not
attached to an actual SOG team. So he is
still operating as a strap hanger
whenever they need somebody. Initially
he struggles to get the opportunity to
actually go out with the SOG team
because well they're going out behind
enemy lines on an extremely dangerous
mission. Nobody wants to bring the
[ __ ] new guy for his first time,
right? Well, somebody finally takes a
chance on him. He proves himself. He
starts strap hanging all the time. And
from here he goes from the [ __ ] new
guy to the guy that everybody
specifically requests because he's
ferocious on the battlefield. and he
comes up with, we'll say, innovative
solutions to problems. On one occasion,
he was strap hanging for a SOG team and
they were going to go behind enemy lines
for 19 days straight and plot out safe
paths for downed pilots to take to get
back into Vietnam and get to safety. The
problem was that by this point in time,
the North Vietnamese had become aware of
SOG's operations and they were actually
sending teams out to be counter
reconnaissance. So whenever they saw
helicopters coming into country, they
would have scouts in the area and they
would just trail the SOG operatives so
that they knew everything SOG knew.
Obviously for a mission where you're
trying to chart a safe path for a downed
pilot, you don't want the enemy knowing
where these safe paths are. So they
needed to figure out a way how to get
rid of this counter reconnaissance unit.
So they called up the supply sergeant.
He then proceeds to take an old foot
locker. You know that big trunk that
sits at the foot of your bed when you're
in the military that you put all your
stuff in and lock it with a padlock. He
takes one of those, paints it bright
red, fills it with 80 lb of TNT, ball
bearings, nails, all kinds of [ __ ] and
then rigs it up to explode on a 5-minute
timer. They fly in on the helicopters,
get dropped off in this country, grab
this red foot locker, throw it out the
helicopter, and then run off into the
wood line, leaving the foot locker. Now,
to the enemy, if there is an enemy out
there that's surveilling them, this
looks like they were in such a hurry
that they either forgot their supplies
or they were in such a hurry, they
didn't want to be bogged down and have
to carry them. So they go out, they run
into the wood line, they're laying down
watching this chest. Sure enough, an
entire squad of NVA counter
reconnaissance comes up and they start
investigating this Foot Locker trying to
pry it open. Foot Locker obviously
explodes. Counter recon guys are now
gone. Robert Howard said that it blew
On another occasion, he was part of a
hatchet force, which is a team that was
actually supposed to go out and engage
the enemy. And he thought it would be a
good idea to run up next to a troop
transport truck full of NBA soldiers. He
then rigged up a claymore to explode and
hucked it in the back before diving in
the ditch and blowing up the entire
truck. One of the SOG team leaders that
he strap hung for consistently later
described him as, and I quote, "I never
saw him show any fear whatsoever. He'd
do anything you wanted him to do.
Dude was literally the Terminator.
>> I'm a cybernetic organism living tissue
>> All right. Late October 1967, Howard
volunteers to strap hang for a recon
mission. Super straightforward mission.
There's a river. Next to that river,
there's a trail that the NVA is well
known for using. Military intelligence
figures there's got to be a
communication line strung right along
that trail so they can communicate. They
want them to go in super sneaky, attach
something onto this wire so they're
going to be able to listen to all their
communications and then get out. So they
go out on this mission, everything's
going great. They make it to where this
river is. They're looking for the
communication wire and they come up on
an enormous enemy cache of supplies,
food, there's a thousand rounds of
recoilless rocket ammunition, and a ton
of small arms ammo. They figure they got
to do something about this, but they're
a small recon element. They're not going
to be able to take this out by
themselves. So they radio back into
headquarters. Headquarters agrees they
need to get rid of it. So they send in
an entire hatchet force, which is like
30 to 60 guys that are meant to actually
engage the enemy. They go, they link up
with the hatchet force. They bring them
to the cache. And while they're making
their way to this enemy cash, they get
ambushed. A concealed enemy machine gun
position unconceals itself, starts
opening fire on Howard and all of his
men. Howard dons his plot armor and
rushes the machine gun nest by himself,
gets to the mouth of it, and drops all
four men inside of this nest. While that
was happening, another enemy machine gun
nest unconcealed itself, unbeknownst to
Howard. And as soon as he clears the
first one, he blacks out.
He got lit up by that second machine gun
nest. And when he comes to, he's shot
through his left shoulder. He's got a
broken clavicle, and he's got blood all
over his face. He was just shot in the
face again. In hindsight, he thinks it
was a ricochet because it didn't
penetrate his actual skull. Regardless,
he's not doing that great. So, he lays
there and waits for the medic to come
help him out. No, I'm just kidding. He
starts crawling towards the other enemy
machine gun nest after being shot and he
starts making his way there and then he
starts taking fairly accurate fire from
an enemy marksman off in the distance.
Grabs his car 15, returns fire, kills
that guy, continues crawling to the
enemy machine gun nest, gets right up to
the mouth of it, and hits it with a grenade.
grenade.
>> From here, he runs back to his men,
makes it to cover, and they start
getting lit up by that first machine gun
nest all over again. of more bad guys
have spawned from the jungle and manned
this gun all over again. Made a mistake,
left the machine gun operable. Not about
to make that mistake again. Looks to one
of his men, says, "Give me that rocket
launcher." Hands Bob the rocket
launcher. Bob pops up out of the ditch,
fires a rocket launcher directly at this
nest, blows the entire thing up. From
here, the hatchet force and everybody
else moves in. They burn all the food.
They blow up all the ammunition. They
xfill. They get extracted by helicopter.
Bob gets sent off to the hospital. Bob
gets patched up at the hospital, gets
out of the hospital, goes gets in a
helicopter. They fly him to Mac Visog
headquarters with one other guy that was
there that apparently did exceptional
things in the battle as well. And they
go into a meeting with General West
Morland, the four-star general that is
in command of all of SOG. West Morland
then sits him down, tells him that that
was one of the biggest enemy caches
they've ever found, and that this
mission was an enormous success, and
both of them performed incredibly, and
basically does like the Godfather Mafia
move of like, I owe you one. What do you
guys want? First guy tells General West
Morland he wants to get commissioned as
an officer and go off to flight school
because he wants to be a pilot. General
West Morland's like, "Done." Turns to
Howard. What do you want? Robert Howard
looks him right in the eye and says, "I
just want to continue my combat duty.
>> From here, Bob gets back to SOB2,
continues his duties as a supply
sergeant, and the base commander informs
him that he has written him up for the
Medal of Honor. He would not wind up
getting awarded it, though. it would get
downgraded to a distinguished service
cross. Second week of December, they
think they know where a battalion
headquarters is for the NVA. They want
to send in a big team and take them out.
Basically, they're going to send in a
team, get eyes on headquarters, call in
an accurate air strike, blow the entire
thing up. That being said, they're
expecting heavy contact. Going to be a
super dangerous mission, call in the
supply sergeant. So, they go in, they
get inserted miles and miles from where
they think this headquarters actually is
because they want to be able to sneak up
through the jungle. As soon as the
helicopters touch down, they get
ambushed. During this ambush, Bob ends
up getting shot through the right
shoulder and getting his forearm sliced
up from shrapnel. Despite that, they
fight off this ambush and Bob refuses to
get extracted. According to him, it
wasn't that bad, and he didn't want to
be the reason they ended the mission. I
am a machine.
>> From here, mind you, after being shot
and hit with shrapnel and getting
attacked by an ambush, they then proceed
to walk 2 days through the jungle to get
to where they think this battalion
headquarters is. So Bob and the other
nine guys in this 10-man element make it
to where they think it's at. The
headquarters is there. They start
observing. They're looking around.
They're seeing what's going on. They're
watching everybody, you know, getting
intel. And they come to the realization,
this isn't one battalion. It's two. It
is now 1,000 versus 10. But that's okay.
It's not a big deal. They're not trying
to engage the enemy in a 10 versus 1,000
battle. They're just there to call in
the air strike, which is exactly what
they do. They call in the air strike.
Bunch of enemy soldiers take off running
into the woodline, abandoning their HQ.
They blow the HQ all to [ __ ] At which
point the air strike is done and Bob's
looking around like they [ __ ] missed
some. So Bob goes in there, brings the
other nine guys with him and they burn
down all the rest of the buildings and
tents and blow up the rest of the
supplies. Then they hight tail it out of
there. As they're headed back to the
extraction point, they run into a bunch
of the soldiers that had abandoned their
HQ and they adopt a defensive position,
get in the huge firefight. Over the
course of this firefight, Howard and
other estimates say somewhere between 30
and 40 NVA were killed. Helicopters show
up to pick them up. Everybody starts
boarding the plane and wouldn't you know
it, Bob aka the only guy that's been
[ __ ] shot and blown up is the last
one to get on the helicopter. A few days
later on December 10th, Bob would be
awarded the Bronze Star with V device
From here, Bob gets patched up, goes
back to being supply sergeant on SOB2,
continues going out on strap hanger
missions. Like I said earlier, we don't
really know the details of every single
mission because all the documents were
destroyed and we only know the accounts
of the missions where he earned a major
medal. The next of which would come on
May 14th, 1968. He goes out on a
mission. They wind up getting ambushed.
During the battle, Bob gets shot in the
left shoulder, the right leg, and he
gets blown up and has shrapnel all over
him. Despite that, none of it pierces
the plot armor. He continues to fight
through the ambush. After the ambush is
over, he gets medevaced and sent back to
the field hospital. His wounds are too
serious for the field hospital, so they
have to send him to Japan to a
specialized hospital against his will.
He recovers in Japan until he's stable
enough for the flight back home to
America. He is then sent to Fort Bragg.
While in Fort Bragg recovering, his wife
comes up from Texas with his daughters
and they're living in temporary housing.
And one day, he gets notified that he
has to come to some awards ceremony.
Some fancy general's given out a bunch
of awards to a bunch of people that have
earned him. So he tells his wife like,
"Hey, we got to go to this award
ceremony." And she's like, "Oh, did you
are you getting an award?" and he's
like, "Yeah, I'm getting an award or two
or whatever." So, they show up to this
award ceremony. The general's calling
people up, giving out awards, and like
if you've never been to a military award
ceremony, if you get an award, they read
the entire citation for why you're
awarded the award. They give it to you,
shake hands, salute, yada yada. Robert
Howard's turn rolls around. He goes up
there in front of the general, and the
general then has to award and read the
citation for three purple hearts, three
army accommodation medals, a bronze star
with V device, and a distinguished
service cross. It's all back to back to back.
back.
>> Oh, is that it?
>> It's like a 45minute affair of a general
just reading to a crowd of people the
stories of Bob basically being the main
character. And the entire time
presumably his wife and daughters are
sitting in the crowd like I had no idea
He is back at SOB2 and he is no longer a
strap hanger and supply sergeant. He is
a full-fledged SOG infantry guy and he's
going to be leading teams. By November
10th, a SOG team goes out on a mission.
They end up getting pinned down and are
not able to get extracted. The best
estimates is this is not conventional
NBA forces. This is some type of special
unit that has been brought in to go
toe-to-toe with SOG and they need to go
in there with a bunch of more guys and
finish the job. This mission would go on
to become known as SLAM 7 when a massive
SOG force, 115 men, all go in to help
recover this team. So, the choppers come
in and they're taking fire in the
landing zone immediately. Howard jumps
out of the helicopter when it's still 15
ft above the ground and starts returning
fire, killing two enemies immediately.
They continue fighting through this
ambush. They make their way to the SOG
recon team and it's a scene out of a
horror movie. All of the members of this
recon team have been executed. Every one
of these guys was severely wounded in
battle and then they were executed by
being shot in the head by the NVA. While
other men are still engaging the enemy,
Howard and some of the other leaders on
the ground are examining the bodies.
They're going to recover the bodies and
Howard notices that one of the men's
eyes is tracking him even though he's
been shot in the head in addition to
having 19 other gunshot wounds. They
call the helicopters back in. They start
coming in. They're loading up the bodies
and all the wounded men. The helicopters
are taken off and one of the helicopters
ends up getting shot down by massive
anti-aircraft guns. Their best guess is
that it's an anti-aircraft setup on the
back of a halftrack. So then they go,
they rescue those guys, get them out of
there, and then they call in for orders
like, "Hey, there's heavy anti-aircraft
guns. What do you want us to do?"
thinking they're still going to get
extracted. The whole point of coming out
here was to recover the men or the
bodies of the men. That's what they've
done. Time to leave. Chain of command
says, "You need to take out the
anti-aircraft guns. You don't know where
it came from. Go find them and take them
out. Son of a bitch."
>> Okay, this just turned into an overnight
operation. They bed down for the night.
They get ambushed in the middle of the
night with grenades and mortars, one of
which peppers Howard's entire backside
with shrapnel. Howard then calls in air
support, orders his men to only return
fire with 40mm grenade launchers because
that's not going to give off a muzzle
flash, giving the enemy their position.
Air strike comes in, the NVA leaves,
they're cool for the rest of the night.
The next day, this massive element of
about a 100 men now is still moving,
looking for these anti-aircraft guns.
And the entire time they're just
thinking like, "This is too big of an
element. We're too far behind enemy
lines. This is a horrible idea." Day
after that, they're completely out of
supplies. They need food. They need
water. They need more ammunition. None
of these guys were planning on this
being a multi-day operation. So, they
call in a supply drop. They get the
supplies. They got food. They got water.
They got ammo. The only problem is
they're behind enemy lines. And now the
enemy has a general idea where they're
at because they saw the supply drop.
They get surrounded by the NVA. They
have to hunker down. A massive firefight
ensues. And they have to call for
extraction or they're all going to die.
Helicopters start showing up. They're
getting the wounded on board first.
They're starting to get some guys out of
there. And then like the third
helicopter gets shot down and now they
have to go rescue those guys, too. So
Howard leads a team and they go rescue
the crew from the down chopper. Get them
back while they're still loading
choppers and getting people out of here.
Remember, they got a hundred guys and
you can only fit so many on a
helicopter. They're trying to coordinate
the choppers landing in between waves of
NBA attack. That way the choppers aren't
getting shot down while they're in this
massive firefight. And as time passes,
it starts to get dark out and they're
going to have to be out there overnight.
Howard and the remaining men on the
ground are basically stuck there
fighting all night long. However, they
get a ton of air support. They've got
A-10 Sky Raiders dropping napal. They
even get a C-47 spooky gunship, which is
a predecessor to the AC-130. Literally a
cargo plane that a bunch of grunts just
cut the sides out of and mounted
artillery and miniguns that just circles
around them, mowing down anything that
tries to get near them all night long.
During this night, Howard gets hit with
another grenade and has more shrapnel
inside of him, which he's pretty much
>> I am Iron Man.
>> Finally, morning comes around. It's
foggy as [ __ ] out. The battle's died
down. It's really looking like they're
going to make it out of this alive. And
through the fog, there's two silhouettes
coming towards them with their hands in
the air. And it's two NVA soldiers.
Howard and the commanding officer both
yell, "Don't shoot." Because if they're
surrendering, we want to take them in
for intel. Because very few NVA soldiers
have been captured to gain intel.
Unfortunately, with this massive SOG
element, there was a large contingency
of indigenous people that were fighting
alongside SOG, and those guys did not
listen and shot both of them
immediately. At this point, Howard's
pissed. The commanding officer's pissed
off and they're just like, "Fuck."
They're waiting on the choppers to come
and after a couple minutes, another
silhouette comes walking forward with
his hands up. It's another NVA trying to
surrender and before anybody can react,
Howard jumps up and sprints at the guy
and literally picks him off the ground,
throws him down, makes sure he doesn't
have anything on him, and then carries
him back into their position. From here,
they get extracted, they make it out.
Howard actually has to go to a bigger
hospital because the little aid station
on their FOB isn't big enough to handle
his injuries. So, he gets sent off to
the hospital. While he's there, he finds
out that that is only one of three NVA
that have been captured by SOG in years.
And the intel that they gained from him
led to nine successful bombings of NVA
bases. For this, he was again written up
for the Medal of Honor, but it was
downgraded to a Silver Star and a Purple
Heart. While at this hospital on a
larger base, Bob Howard decided to do
Bob Howard stuff, and he didn't like the
food in the hospital. So, in his
hospital pajamas, he leaves the hospital
and just goes to a normal chow hall.
While he's at this chow hall, two
Vietnamese on a moped pull up and throw
a grenade into the crowd of soldiers.
Everybody freaks out. Everybody's
diving. Nobody knows what to do. The MP
that's standing there with a gun, cuz
he's the only guy with a gun right now,
is just like locked up, not knowing what
to do. Howard in his hospital pajamas,
grabs the M16 from the MP, gets down in
a prone position, shoots the passenger
off the moped, causing the driver to
crash, and then chases down the moped,
confronts the driver. They get into an
altercation, and he shoots that guy,
too. He then walks back to the chow
hall, hands the rifle back to the MP,
and finishes his lunch.
So Howard recovers, gets back to SOB2,
starts going out on missions again. His
next big mission is to go out and
recover a SOG operative that is MIA from
a previous mission. So they go in with
helicopters, and as soon as the
helicopters come out, they start getting
lit up by enemy gunfire. It's an ambush.
They are using this guy as bait. Howard
ends up making it out of the helicopter.
He estimates that there was probably two
platoon launching this ambush. In the
first opening seconds, eight NBA
soldiers got killed. In the opening
minutes of this battle, Howard gets hit
with a enemy grenade. Up close, it
launches him 10 ft down a hill and he is
now unconscious. When he finally comes
to, he wakes up and he sees red. Not
like he sees red, he's angry, and he
just drank a Monster energy drink and
his name's Kyle and he sees a bunch of
drywall red. No, like that's the only
thing he sees is the color red. And for
a minute, he freaks out thinking he's
been blinded. He still hears gunshots
and explosions going off all around him.
All hell's breaking loose. He has no
idea how long he's been unconscious. He
starts wiping his eyes and they're just
caked with blood. He's bleeding all over
the place. And his vision starts finally
coming back. He reaches for his gun.
It's been blown up by the grenade. It's
completely worthless. He goes to stand
up. He can't. He shattered one of his
ankles. So, he is now behind enemy lines
in the middle of a gunfight, blown up,
can't walk, and has no gun. And then he
hears screaming and smells burning
flesh. All the rest of the men that
aren't injured have made their way into
the woodline off of the landing zone.
And there is now an NVA soldier that is
going to all of the wounded men, mostly
indigenous guys and Robert Howard. And
he is walking up to them with a
flamethrower and burning them alive. At
this point, Howard knows he's [ __ ]
He's about to get burned alive. So, he
starts digging around for anything he
has on him that's going to be helpful.
He ends up finding a frag grenade. His
hands are so messed up, he can't really
use his fingers yet with a lot of
dexterity. So, he's fighting, trying to
get his fingers in, and he manages to
pull the pen on this grenade, and he's
holding the spoon down, and he figures,
you know, I'll blow myself up rather
than get cooked. But he waits. He's in
some tall grass. Maybe this guy isn't
going to see him, and he's not going to
have to blow himself up. So, that's what
he does. He just waits there, holding
this grenade spoon down so it doesn't
blow up. He's got the pin in the other
hand in case he gets lucky, he shove
that back in, and it's all good. And he
waits and he waits and eventually the
flamethrower walks up right in front of
him. And he is right there. And him and
the flamethrower lock eyes and the
flamethrower sees that Howard's holding
a grenade and that dude's got a
flamethrower attached to his [ __ ]
back. If Howard lets it go, Howard's
taking this guy with him and he knows
it. And Howard with his dark veteran
sense of humor, all he can think to
himself is, "Fucking gotcha." And this
flamethrower and Howard are just looking
at each other right in the eyes.
Howard's got this big [ __ ] eatating grin
on his face like, "I'm going to take you
with me." And eventually the
flamethrower just kind of nods and
starts to step backwards. And as soon as
that happens, the SOG guys in the
treeine see the flamethrower and start
shooting at him and he takes off running
into the treeine. Howard throws the
grenade after him. Has no idea if he hit
the guy or not. Turns around and starts
crawling towards his men. And the crazy
part in his head, he wasn't thinking, "I
need to get to my guys to get help for
me." In his head, he was thinking, "I
got to get to my guys. They need my
help." Which is the most main character
energy [ __ ] ever. On his way there, he
comes across his lieutenant who's alive,
but in worse shape than he is, really
shot up. And he gets his web gear off,
throws that next to him, and starts
rendering first aid. And then an enemy
bullet hits the LT's web gear, and
detonates the ammunition inside of it,
launching Howard and the LT all over
again. He loses consciousness.
He comes to, crawls back over to the
lieutenant, and starts dragging him
towards the men. Finally gets to his
group of guys. It's not everybody.
There's only eight guys there, plus
Howard and the LT. Everybody else is
scattered out throughout the
battlefield. Howard takes the LT's
radio, starts calling in air strikes,
tells one of the men to hand him a gun.
They toss him a 1911, not wanting to
give up their own rifle. >> Demomizer.
>> Demomizer.
>> That's what I'm talking about. Noisy cricket.
cricket.
>> As he's calling in these air strikes, a
squad of MVA charge their position with
bayonets, wanting to take him alive.
Howard ends up shooting three. His men
take out the rest. Howard's still on the
radio. They're sending in gunships. As
the gunships are approaching, one of the
indigenous fighters that's with him ends
up taking a bullet to a smoke grenade on
his web gear. Freaks out, throws that
off of him, and over the radio, Howard
hears, "Where are you in relation to
that purple smoke?" And Howard's looking
at this in front of him is just like,
"That's us." As the gunships arrive, the
battle kind of dies down a little bit.
Howard takes a moment to set up an
actual perimeter, directing his men's
fields of fire, and he's sending runners
out to other small groups of SOG guys
that got separated, and he gets
everybody on the ground consolidated. He
now has about 30 men. From here, Howard
asks the medic how his lieutenants
doing. The medic says he's doing
everything he can, but he doesn't think
he's going to make it. To which Howard
replies, and I quote, "Make him make
it." Howard then brings in all the abled
body men that he has, has him
consolidate ammunition, and then pretty
much just tells him how it is. We're not
moving anymore. We're going to stay
right here. You're going to fight or
you're going to die, and if you try to
run, I will shoot you myself.
>> Everyone fights, no one quits. If you
don't do your job, I'll shoot you. He
then directs his men where to place
claymores and asks his men if anybody
has strobe lights. Collects all the
strobe lights that they have and crawls
around their perimeter and places the
strobe lights in place before crawling
back to the center to man the radio.
Once back at the radio, he tells
headquarters that his perimeter is
marked and they need to shoot pretty
much everywhere that isn't inside of
this triangle. They tell him the Huey
gunships are 15 minutes out. He doesn't
have 15 minutes. The NVA just launched
another major attack. The only thing
they have right now is a Cessna01 Bird
Dog circling overhead. Mostly there to
help coordinate air strikes, but it does
have four white phosphorus rockets on
board. It's not a lot, but it's better
than nothing. Robert tells them exactly
where to fire these rockets. They fly
by, fire the four white phosphorus
rockets, and repel this wave of the
attack. The 01 Bird Dog pilot then
radios down to Robert. That's all we've
got. To which Robert replies, "You got
an M16 up there?" And they're like,
"Yeah." He goes, "Fly by and drop it
off. I need one." So now at least he's
got a gun and he's got to survive
another 10 minutes before the Huey
gunships get there. NBA launches another
attack. This time they're trying to come
through a creek bed. Robert directs his
men to use 40mm grenades and just start
lobbing them into this creek bed and
repels that way of the attack. The next
wave comes. This time they're coming
towards the same place that Robert had
all of his men place all the claymores.
They let them get up close, detonate the
claymores, repel that wave. Finally, the
Huey gunship show up, but it's getting
dark out. They can't see much. So Howard
has to direct their fire from the radio
on the ground. And this goes on for
hours. When the Hueies run out of fuel
and ammunition, they get cycled out with
a moon beam gunship. And when that runs
out of fuel and ammunition, they bring
in F3 Phantoms. They are just cycling
out whatever aircraft they have to get
Howard the fire support that he needs.
And the entire time he is on the ground
directing their fire. He is quite
literally like an orchestra conductor
guiding a symphony of destruction all
around him. And this goes on for 4 hours
before Howard gets word that Hueies are
on their way to come extract him. The
first Huey shows up. They get it loaded
up with wounded, dead, and indigenous
fighters. Howard, even though he's
injured, refuses to leave the combat
zone. First Huey takes off. Second Huey
lands, more men get loaded on that Huey.
Again, Howard refuses to leave. He is
the highest ranking man on the ground,
and he is going to be the last one out.
After the second Huey leaves, it is now
just Howard, two other SOG guys, and two
indigenous fighters. As the third and
final Huey pulls up, they get the two
indigenous on board. One SOG guy hops in
the helicopter as Howard and the
remaining SOG guy get into an argument
right at the helicopter. Howard has just
seen the dead body of his lieutenant off
in the distance. He was originally
loaded on the first helicopter and
because he had passed, some of the
indigenous fighters decided they were
going to throw his corpse out of the
helicopter to lighten the load so the
helicopter could get out of there
faster. Robert Howard is not about to
leave his lieutenant out there. The
other SOG guy in the helicopter hops out
and the three of them go out, retrieve
his body, drag it back to the
helicopter, get him loaded up. The other
two SOG guys get loaded in the
helicopter and then pull Howard into the
From here, Howard is immediately shipped
off to a hospital in Saigon to be
treated for his injuries. The chain of
command then debriefs all of the
remaining men that they have, and pretty
much everybody has the same story. They
all would have died if it weren't for
the leadership of Robert Howard. The men
on the ground were credited with 25 to
50 kills, and the air strikes directed
by Robert Howard were credited with at
least 50, most likely more. For this,
Robert Howard is awarded a second
distinguished service cross and written
up for the Medal of Honor for a third
time. After the debriefs, a couple of
days go by. Nobody's really expecting to
see Robert Howard anytime soon, if ever
again. He might be going home for good
after the extent of his injuries. And
sure enough, like 4 days later, he shows
up in hospital pajamas to SOB2. He was
apparently satisfied with how much he
had recovered in 3 days and thought the
medics on SOB2 could handle the
remainder of his recovery. So, he went
awall from the hospital, hitched a ride
back to SOB2, and he's planning on going
back out on missions already. I know
I've already said this, but the dude is
literally the Terminator. He just he
>> I'm back.
>> The chain of command is like, "Look,
Bob, look, you're hurt. You're
recommended for the Medal of Honor.
You're not going out on missions. you're
going to be the training NCO and whoop
everybody else into shape because you
obviously know exactly what you're
doing. So he spends the rest of his
deployment being the training NCO for
all the SOG operatives going out on
missions. And apparently he was a
complete hard ass. He had all of his
guys out on the highway in cartoon
running to be in shape. And they're like
the the base has been attacked before.
We're going to get attacked while we're
out here jogging. This isn't a good
idea. Bob didn't really care. Didn't
listen. And then one time they take some
indirect sniper fire. Nobody got hurt.
And surely at this point, Bob's going to
reconsider. There's not going to be any
more jogging along the highway. Nah, Bob
just orders that they all start jogging
with loaded guns. Bob finishes up the
remainder of his deployment. Then he is
basically volunttold that he's going to
go off to become an officer. So he goes
back home to the States and has to go
through the officer's training course
with literally new guys fresh out of college.
>> You're out rule,
>> which is hilarious. Could you imagine
being some 23-year-old kid that's got a
four-year degree from college and now
you're in officer training school to be
an infantry officer and you're in the
same class as Bob [ __ ] Howard, the
Terminator who's got two distinguished
service crosses and like five purple
hearts at this point. Even worse, could
you imagine being this guy's instructor
tasked with teaching him how to be an
infantry officer? Obviously, he passes
officer candidate school with flying
colors. From here, they ship him off to
Ranger School, which is one of the
hardest programs in any military branch
ever. He basically walks through it
backwards and graduates as the
distinguished honor graduate, meaning he
was literally the best guy in the entire
class, which is super impressive
regardless. But it's absolutely insane
that Bob Howard was able to be the best
guy in the entire cycle of Ranger School
despite having been blown up, shot
multiple times, all the [ __ ] he's been
through, and he's like 30 years old, and
he's just smoking all these new
recruits. After that, he goes to some
other leadership school. Then they send
him off to jungle warfare school. of all
the schools he apparently needs to go
to. They send him to Jungle Warfare
School. After that, they send his ass
back to Vietnam to cartoon to SOB2. And
the crazy part, he's pumped. He wants to
get back and start going out on
missions. He gets there, he's told that
he's still waiting for the Medal of
Honor. They're not going to be sending
him out on missions. He's going to
resume his role as training all the new
guys. From here, he does a great job. He
knows when a guy's ready to lead the
team. He knows when a guy isn't. He's
training these guys, toughening them up,
getting them ready. Sometimes he takes
it a little bit too far. There was one
time he loaded shotgun shells with rock
salt and was shooting it at people. Um,
it was it was Vietnam. It was a
>> Won't complain. That's where I'll stay.
>> That's where I'll stay.
>> All right, my little patch of Brussels
sprouts. Uproot yourselves. Climb out
the pool. Get some rest. Tomorrow, lady,
we going to start the hot stuff. So, he
didn't get to go out on missions, but he
still did get to see some action because
multiple times while he was there, SOB2
was attacked and he got to help defend
it. On one of these occasions, he would
actually be shot in the heel during the
opening portion of the battle. Bob being
Bob doesn't really give a [ __ ] just
bounces right off his plot armor. He
starts directing men and leading the
defense of the compound. And as he's
doing his thing, some specialist comes
running up to him and is like, "Bob, you
got a phone call." And he's like,
"Motherfucker, I'm kind of busy right
now. We're defending the compound." And
he's like, "But it's General West
Morland." And he's like, "What does he
want? I mean, does he know that we're
under attack right now? What's the
deal?" He goes, "No, but he wants to
talk to you. You need to go talk to him
right now." So he's like, "Fuck." Okay.
So he like limps across the base, gets
over to the phone. Bob answers the
phone. He's like, "Hello." And General
West Morland's like, "Bob, how are you?"
And he's like, "I'm I'm good. My foot
kind of hurts. I'm a little bit busy.
What's up?" And he's like, "I just want
to call and congratulate you. You're
being awarded the Medal of Honor." And
he's like, "Oh, all right." And General
West Morland's like, "Yeah, I've got a
chopper on the way to pick you up right
now." From here, he pretty much gets
extracted on the spot, gets swept off to
Washington, DC, and gets awarded the
Medal of Honor by President Nixon. From
here, Robert Howard never returns to
Vietnam. He spent in total 40 months in
combat. Instead, he's given instructor
roles pretty much for the remainder of
his career. He trains airborne soldiers.
He trains infantry. He's an instructor
at Ranger School. All kinds of stuff.
And while he almost certainly does miss
going out and doing Robert Howard stuff,
he also appreciates the opportunity to
make up for lost time with his
daughters. as tough and as crazy and as
violent as he could be, he treated those
girls like little angels. And on one
occasion, one of the teachers at the
military school that they were attending
decided that he was going to take his
belt off and whip one of his daughters
for being loud and disrespectful in
class. Upon hearing this, Robert Howard
then instructed his daughter to get in
the car. They drove to the officer's
house on base. He walked up to the front
door, rang the doorbell, made his
daughter apologize to the officer for
being disruptive in class, and then sent
his daughter back to the car, and then
proceeded to beat the [ __ ] out of him on
his own porch. He then was stationed
down in Fort Lewis, where he was an
officer with the Second Ranger
Battalion, where he was known for
training extremely hard with his guys
and leading from the front. During a
field training exercise, they were going
to jump out of a plane simulating an
airborne mission, and then they were
going to pack their [ __ ] up and road
march 26 mi. Upon jumping out of the
plane, Robert Howard's shoot doesn't
open properly, and he hits the ground at
twice the speed he's supposed to. The
medics overseeing the LZ run up,
assuming that this guy is dead, only to
find Robert Howard packing up his chute.
He looks over at the medics and says,
"If this [ __ ] gets any harder, I'm going
to quit." He then proceeds to finish the
26 milei road march.
>> How you doing?
>> I'm back, [ __ ]
>> Okay, Robert Howard might be the biggest
badass I've ever covered, which is
saying an awful lot. I've never seen
plot armor this thick. It's absolutely
insane. He continues to serve in the
military in multiple roles until finally
retiring in 1992 after 36 years in
service at the rank of colonel. He would
then pass away at the age of 70 in 2009.
And that is a story of Robert Howard,
the most gangster supply sergeant of all
time, the most decorated Green Beret of
all time, and quite literally the human
embodiment of the Terminator. Thank you
for watching. Best way to support the
channel is go buy some merch over the
Oh, and then there was a story of when
his son-in-law asked permission to marry
one of his daughters and he said, and I
quote, "As I extended my hand to shake
his, it was the largest hand I had ever
seen in my entire life." He then
proceeded to tell me, "I know why you're
here, and you have my permission, but
know this. If you ever hurt my daughter,
I was down at the bottom of the hill and
there was a medic sergeant named Brown
who got shot up pretty bad. But he come
over to me and I said, "Is a lieutenant
still alive?" And he said, "Yes." He
says, "We've got him down." He said,
"I've got an IV in him, but I don't
think he's going to make it." I said,
"Make him make it." I said, "You keep
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