Welcome to Sawcast number 24, and I want to thank it's always Jocco Willink

productions for making this possible in conjunction with Saw Chronicles. Today we're

rejoined by Pat Watkins, and we're going to start with August 23rd 1968, which

was a day of a tragic day for Special Forces history where 16 green

berets were killed in one night battle at FOB 4 in Denang at the time, and I'm

going to read a couple of sections from on the ground about that night, and then

we'll go right to Pat Watkins with his personal involvement that night, and it

was a night, it was no moon, and it was after midnight, after some people had

done some drinking, and the NBA sappers had planned this attack for over a year,

and they came through the wire, they were in the base, and then they lost the

attack, and that night Pat was up in the, in the residential barracks, in the

transit barracks, so you're up there with Pigpen, AKH, Joe Collins.

And Parks was there too, Spirer. Until he left to go back down the house 22, left me

with a 45. So that night you had gone back to the transit barracks, and then

reading from the book, when the first aerial flares ignited over FOB 4 compound,

Pat Watkins and Sergeant Joe Collins hit the floor of the transient barracks amid

the rattle of gunfire, and inexperienced first lieutenant stood looking out a

window. The lieutenant silhouette made a perfect target. A high explosion erupted

just outside the barracks, not a lieutenant on his ass. He sat there in shock,

clutching his right arm where a piece of strappin'le had gals a nasty wound. As

common moved to dress the lieutenant's wounds, another massive explosion

rocked the building. So hard that the light fixtures fell from the ceiling.

...