American Legion Magazine interview with Oliver North — Transcript

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1. 0:05service was expected all my brothers
2. 0:07served i've got an army brother a navy
3. 0:09brother
4. 0:10a sister american air force guy all of
5. 0:12our uncles
6. 0:14were veterans of world war ii or korea
7. 0:16or both and of course our dad was a hero
8. 0:19that kind of experienced growing up
9. 0:21where everybody knew a hero from a
10. 0:24previous war so that experience of
11. 0:26growing up in that kind of an
12. 0:28environment where you had those with
13. 0:30experience in the military the military
14. 0:32was not looked upon as a bad thing
15. 0:34until quite frankly the war i was in in
16. 0:36the 60s that's where war and service in
17. 0:39our military became a terrible thing it
18. 0:42was protested i put in the application
19. 0:45from the marine reserves to go to the
20. 0:46naval academy the great thing about the
21. 0:48boxing program at the naval academy was
22. 0:50emerson smith jack dempsey's boxing
23. 0:53coach what emerson smith did was to
24. 0:55indoctrinate us in how to defend
25. 0:57yourself and how to attack using
26. 0:5916-ounce gloves and i had gear jim webb
27. 1:01was a is a good boxer i like to think
28. 1:03that the reason i won is i worked harder
29. 1:05at it
30. 1:06could take a punch perhaps a little bit
31. 1:08better and he kept dropping his left
32. 1:10and that gave me a chance to get him
33. 1:12with that right
34. 1:14vietnam war bill 410 first platoon
35. 1:17commander bill haskell badly wounded
36. 1:19bill and i were at one point the only
37. 1:21lieutenants on the officers left in that
38. 1:23rifle company and so we were very close
39. 1:25the most vivid recollection i have of
40. 1:28that day
41. 1:29isn't the things that i did it was what
42. 1:30one of my young marines said and it took
43. 1:33us about six hours to get to the top of
44. 1:35that hill a lot of killed and wounded
45. 1:37one of the young marines pierre siroy
46. 1:39who called him frenchie of course and
47. 1:40frenchie said you should have seen my
48. 1:43lieutenant
49. 1:46you know i they they gave me a medal for
50. 1:48that day
51. 1:49i didn't deserve the medal the guys who
52. 1:51went up that hill
53. 1:53with me
54. 1:54deserved the medal
55. 1:56the idea that someone would say
56. 1:59my lieutenant not the lieutenant or not
57. 2:01lieutenant north or blue as the nickname
58. 2:04went but my lieutenant
59. 2:06means as much to me as anything that
60. 2:07ever happened to me in a marine corps
61. 2:11that's the way every lieutenant want to
62. 2:13be
63. 2:14that doesn't mean that
64. 2:16they like you but they love you and they
65. 2:18respect you
66. 2:20and they would go with you through hell
67. 2:22itself and
68. 2:23that's why we ended up taking that hill
69. 2:26you have said that you assumed you were
70. 2:27acting on the
71. 2:29authority of the president
72. 2:31i don't doubt your word sir
73. 2:34but we have no evidence of his approval
74. 2:37it was a very polarizing time in america
75. 2:39even without what came to be called iran
76. 2:41contra everybody knew what was happening
77. 2:43was wrong should not have taken place
78. 2:46and it was grossly unfair
79. 2:48to try to
80. 2:49take one marine lieutenant colonel and
81. 2:52pin the wrath of congress on one person
82. 2:54and so this particular event
83. 2:56crystallized a lot of that angst
84. 2:59particularly with the media the pundits
85. 3:00and the politicians on one side you have
86. 3:02the american people on the other and if
87. 3:04they picked me to go and try to indict
88. 3:06ronald reagan they picked the wrong guy
89. 3:09because i understood what the word
90. 3:10semper fidelis really meant
91. 3:13and i was not going to be ashamed to say
92. 3:15so
93. 3:16and so
94. 3:17the outcome was a whole lot different
95. 3:18than a lot of people expected it to be
96. 3:21my classmates at the naval academy
97. 3:22started the north defense trust it was
98. 3:24managed by a marine lieutenant general
99. 3:26retired and
100. 3:27had broner's
101. 3:29ed broners and i took
102. 3:30what was left from that donated some of
103. 3:33it to the naval academy chapel and
104. 3:35started freedom alliance
105. 3:39we've been at war longer than we've ever
106. 3:41been at war before it's the most combat
107. 3:43experienced military we've ever had in
108. 3:45history
109. 3:46what we need to i think do a better job
110. 3:48of and freedom alliance is working on
111. 3:50this kind of thing particularly our
112. 3:51wounded veterans is taking that military
113. 3:54mos and finding the civilian counterpart
114. 3:56to it if hr people in companies today
115. 3:59when they have two people show up for a
116. 4:01job they look at one who's a high school
117. 4:03graduate one who's come out of four
118. 4:04years in the military they'll take the
119. 4:06high school graduate for the job because
120. 4:08they don't want to worry about the
121. 4:09problems that this person might have had
122. 4:11all of those things come out of that
123. 4:13military experience and yet they'll take
124. 4:15the unproven high school graduate over
125. 4:18the military veteran it's outrageous
126. 4:20they've been responsible for the lives
127. 4:21and safety of other people and very
128. 4:23often millions of dollars worth of
129. 4:24equipment those kinds of things are
130. 4:27invaluable to an employer
131. 4:29american legion posts around the country
132. 4:31will bring a guy in and say look we
133. 4:33understand you're a veteran you're a
134. 4:34veteran you're a veteran i'm a veteran
135. 4:36let's deal with some of these issues
136. 4:38there are people out there there are
137. 4:40homeless vets there are people out there
138. 4:41are going to need
139. 4:42long-term help in many ways
140. 4:45there's also millions of people who have
141. 4:47come out of this war who make great
142. 4:49employees for any company in the planet
143. 4:51and they can be very very productive
144. 4:53people if you just give them a chance