Major James Capers Jr.
Appearances
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I used to run the martial arts program for a long time, you know, for different folks that want to, how to kill people.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
No, I had lost my wife, my son. I was living in California, and the general called me, look at his name now, and told me they were coming up with a program And they were looking for names to submit. And he said, everybody kind of feel like maybe you would be the first one.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Back in those days, everybody, you know... After World War, I joined in 56, but World War II was over and Korea, we were still digging out of Korea. That happened in 54 and I joined in 56. And I had learned quite a bit. We had television there in Baltimore. I had never seen a television before. So we had television and we saw these military guys on TV and they were recruiting back in those days.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And I said, well, I don't know much about it, but they flew me from California where I was living to, I think I was in, flew me to Tampa. It might've been Tampa. I don't know. They flew me to Tampa. And Admiral Olsen was a SEAL one time. And he's still a SEAL. He's still a Marine. He's a nice guy. He picked me to give me the first one. I didn't get the medal at first. They had to make this.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Then they sent it to me in the mail. Then the Marines, this is the Vietnam medal right here. And this is the Commando medal, the Raider medal. So that's the stuff all presented to me. And sometimes I forget to wear it. I don't wear it all the time, but I thought I'd wear it for your show.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
He was a musician. You know, he played the piano, the flute, the melodica, the organ.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Oh, yeah. All that? Yeah, he played in church. But he had other disabilities. He couldn't do what I'm doing now as far as hold a conversation. Wonderful child. Wonderful child. We used to sit and hug each other before he went to bed. And, you know, a lovable child. And one night he knocked on my door, our door. He said, dad, I got a headache. He said I had a stomach ache. I said, okay, son.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
So went to the hospital. Doctor says, well, You know, there's not a whole lot we can do, so I brought him back the first night. And then the second night, it got worse, so I took him back to the hospital. And they said, well, you know, we don't see much we can do with a stomach ache. Damn. So I took him back home. Then I took him back the third night. He said, for me now, I'm having a problem.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And they had him laid down on the table and he died right there. They let my son die. You see, I'm not a bad guy. I was angry. My son is gone now. They had me in a little chapel there. The pastor come in. My wife was sick, and she wasn't there. So I'm standing there, and I don't know what to do. On one way, I'm feeling one way. I'm angry. My child's lying there dead.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
and they're telling me they're sorry. The demons did come home that night. I told them, oh, you need to leave me alone now. My wife is coming. I'll be all right. Just leave me alone now. And then everybody tried to tell me this, that. And it got to the point where I You know, didn't lose control, but they didn't know who they were dealing with. I got to kill them all.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I thought about that, but God stepped in. He says, no, you don't. No, you don't. My wife finally showed up and I met her at the car and she came to see our child. Then we walked down this hall together, and we've been walking down that hall together for a long time, the reason I never remarried. I can appreciate a pretty girl, but Dottie was special. A military wife, but we got through that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Seemed like the next day, Dottie dies of cancer. Now I'm thinking, how do I pull this off now? The human being, I'm sure you had stress, but now I'm in a place where I don't need to be. I made a plan to kill the doctor. I called one of my friends in Arizona And he was going to help me blow up the gas station as a decoy. Policemen and firemen would be there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And when a doctor come out of the hospital, I was going to kill him. With my knife. I was going to kill him with my knife. What stopped you? God stopped me. How? I'm not good enough to tell you how God works. I'm not that good. But I know that I pulled off the operation. My men was ready to go. They were volunteers. Team from Arizona were here in Jacksonville.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
We were gonna blow a couple of gas stations. And you know, that's the easiest stuff. I'm sure you and I do that stuff. I got to, you know, divert the police force there, you know, the fire department Then when the doctor come out of his office, I was going to be parked. I was going to grab him. I was going to cut his throat. That's what I do.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
You had to join or they would draft you. So if you didn't join, somebody would come by and then when you turned 18, yeah, you had to join some military group. And I saw the Marine uniform on TV, and I saw some of the recruiters. I mean, that looks pretty good. I'll go ahead and join the Marines. So we did. My old buddy, we joined in June of 1956.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
But I'll probably mention that kind of stuff too much in your interview, but God stepped in and I came home. I was home and my pastor came over to the house. It was about 3 o'clock in the morning. Dottie wasn't crying. I didn't know why, but Dottie wasn't crying. I was crying, but I think Dottie had to be tough for me. She believed in God too. We always went to church.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
You know, we built the church one time. My troops and I built the church from the ground up. Stole the wood. I hate to say it that way, but we got to some place. We stole some old wood, got it built. Dottie was the first lady. And I had a chaplain that wasn't too far. He was helping with it. and my son played the piano in church.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Dottie was the first lady, and we sang every Sunday, and my chaplain prayed. And it wasn't a big church, but we enjoyed that so much. And some of the guys who had been in trouble, and back in those days, we had some serious issues, and they'd come every Sunday. and they enjoyed it so much.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Some sort of a relief, I guess, by the commanding officer sitting with him in church, and his wife is singing, and his son is playing the piano, and my buddy, the chaplain. It was such a wonderful thing to see. Nothing to do with anything else but the human spirit. We want the art of God, and we want to build a place And I'm sure you can relate to that in the Bible terms.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
But years later, I went back to that area. I went to see if that church was still, it was a little, about this size, I guess it is. I went back there and I parked my car and I looked around, I said, well, I think it was over here. I started walking over there, and a young Marine came out, just came over and says, hey, sir, are you all right?
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I said, yes, and there used to be a church about this area over here. He said, no, sir, not that I know of, but I'll help you look. So he's walking along with me. He said, where you come from, sir? I said, well, I live in the area, but I used to be stationed here, and there was a church over here that we built. and I just thought I would visit it. He said, no, sir, there's no church here.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And I've been here for a while and I've never seen or heard of a church. You wouldn't be lying to me, would you, son? He said, no, sir, I never, Marines never lie. Yeah, okay. I got in my car and I drove home. Dottie and Gary were still alive.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Sometimes it's hard for me to differentiate the timing, because we're blessed with good years, and I've been blessed with good years, but my memory is not all that good, which you'll probably see with this interview. I don't remember everything like I should, but then again, I offer the excuse of being 87 years old now. You're doing just fine. Thank you, sir. Appreciate that. Appreciate that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Well, I live by myself and I don't talk to a lot of people. I have guys come see me. Matter of fact, on the way up here, a friend of mine, a three-star general, He come to the house to see me. And he's probably going to be the commandant of the Marine Corps one day. Nice young man. I was his guest speaker at a Marine Corps ball one time. So they called me out when they need me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I put my tuxedo on and tried to hold my stomach in. I saw him the other day. But now we're passing the torch. Young people like yourself and the others, they give me a chance to say some things. And I appreciate that. I don't know if I can tell you in sequence because you never ask an 87-year-old man to say something in sequence because I'm going to be all over the place.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Well, some are gone now, and I thought I'd honor them by establishing a nonprofit organization. And I had some volunteers. Nobody's paid to do certain things or to raise money. Well... Donnie was there. We started for Gary, but Donnie was still alive. And we started this thing, and we'd bring people in, friends in, raise money for a nonprofit.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
World War II, all the newspapers, we were patriotic. Love that flag. And we have to go protect it. We were taught that. And I really couldn't wait to protect my country. That was my thought process as a young man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
You know, there were a lot of homeless people in our town, too many homeless people. So now we got to feed them. And we did that. We moved some to my home. They brought the homeless in and Dottie cooked for them, washed their clothes, trying to help, just like I had been helped. But you don't forget those things.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
When that white family took me in and washed my clothes and gave me clothes and fed me, put me down at night so I could sleep and stood watch over me as a black man, you don't forget those things. It's a noble example of what America is, what it should be, and what it is, not the way it always is.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Sometimes they donated money. If somebody wanted to donate money, where would they donate? We have a website. And Kenyatta happens to be the president of it. He's the young man that came with me. He happens to be the president of the organization.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
They could do it. I knew you had a good heart. I knew you just weren't a mean guy. I knew that. It would help us because when the virus hit us, folks lost jobs and McDonald's closed. And I remember when a couple of my guys came to my house and said, Major, we lost a McDonald's here. I said, well, yeah, that's who had a couple of children, didn't have a job, and her rent was due.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
She was going to get evicted. So, man, they brought her to the house. Nice young lady. I says, how much do you need? She said, well, I need about $2,000. I didn't discuss it. Gave her $2,000 on the spot. I have been homeless. Not intentionally. My folks didn't want to give me away, but they thought it would be better with this family and they took me in.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
But at any rate, the foundation has done good. We've had We have a young lady named Ashley Casado. She did the documentary for us. I don't know if you've ever seen that, the documentary. And other folks have jumped in to try to help to raise money for the homeless. Not for me. The government gives me a check every month. They pay me a lot of money for the Purple Hearts.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I have a lot, but I have five Purple Hearts. I can only get three here. I got so many down times. When I got to the hospital, they found holes that I hadn't been, they hadn't told me about. Back of my legs. And I said, what the hell that happened? But there's so many firefights and you're wounded, but you don't go to the hospital. The corpsman patches you up. No, you're not gonna.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
You need to be there with your troops. Always with your troops. I did that. I'm an 87-year-old man, and I'm telling stories that happened years ago. Nobody gives a damn anymore. Only 2% of our country joins the military.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Been a little tough. And he told me I was coming on your show. I kept calling you Ryan Shaw. They said, no, no, no. Remember now, you know, he's important. He has so many people listening to him. Don't screw it up.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Are we done? We're done. You told me you'd be here till six o'clock.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
That was peacetime, correct? Well, I joined the military in 56.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And I went to war in 56.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I got out of boot camp, and they sent me to Suez Canal. The Egyptians had closed the Suez Canal. And so Eisenhower was our president. And he said, you know, we're not going to put up with that. He was a wartime president. So we sent the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines over there, and we got it done.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
We didn't land, but just the appearance of that battalion coming in with the American flag, and they opened it back up again. I went back in 1957 when the Syrians started a war. We went back, and we didn't have to land to chase the Syrians. We just went back as a show of force. And in 58, I went back and we landed in Beirut.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
The Egyptians had closed the Suez Canal and our job was to get it back open again. That was 58 when we actually, the Syrians and the Lebanese started a big war. And, of course, Eisenhower was still president. He was president until Kennedy come in. And so we went there again. We landed, and we fought in the mountains and fought the snipers and all of the things that was happening at that time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Thank you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
The airport, yeah.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
You know, I mean, I was a Marine. It wasn't a problem for me. We landed. We evacuated the airport. We took the civilians out, you know, the embassies that were there. We got them out. But we had 1,000 Marines, though. And I was a squad leader, you know. I was in charge of some troops and I had to get it done. I was an NCO now. And dying for me wasn't that big of a deal.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I'd been trained by guys that fought in Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima. You know, coming through as a young man. So that's what we were trained to do. You're going to fight. And we went up to the mountains with the old M1s, threw a lot of hand grenades. We learned to make parapets and dig foxholes and eat terrible rations. It was a hard tour of duty for us, but we all got a nice letter from Eisenhower.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
You know, thanking us. And then we got one from our commandant thanking us. Did a good job.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
A few months. You were there for a few months? A few months. Wasn't that long.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Yeah. We had to go into the mountains, and that's where they were. And some of them had come across from Syria. You have to understand how that stuff was back in those days. No one liked us, the Syrians, but they took our money and the things that we brought over there. Now, we came in on ships. They didn't fly us in.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
The other guys that came in from Germany, Army group came in from Germany, and they sort of gave us some relief, but they could fight. They had been in Germany since World War II, So this is 1958. They came in and relieved us. And we were tired, though. We'd been fighting in those mountains day and night. And I had my first experiences of killing a human being. Didn't really bother me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I didn't feel any real... It didn't bother you? Killing a human being. I had my first experiences with killing a human being.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
In the mountains, up on top of the mountains, they had buildings up there. And they had their hideouts and things up there. So my job was to go up there and clear it out with my squad. And I hit a small building and a couple of the guys tried to run out and I shot and killed both of them. I didn't feel anything. No remorse. And then when we were hit at night in the mountains, we fought them off.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
So never lost a battle. In 20 years of my experience in the Marine Corps, I was never defeated. No one ever defeated me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Well, we were there for a six-month cruise. And after we fought in Lebanon, They put us aboard ships and they sent us back. Took us 30 days to get home. You know, it was enlightening. And then when we were told we were going home, we got home. And part of that was my high school sweetheart which I had fallen madly in love with, Dottie Capress. We were married 50 years. I still love her today.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Never remarried. That's my son back there. But at any rate, I'm sorry.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Oh yeah, that was good. Came home from Lebanon. I was an NCO. I wanted to see my mom, but I wanted to see, you know, my wife. And with my wife, my girlfriend, I'd been in love with Dottie Capers. Never loved a woman other than Dottie Capers. And we weren't married at that time, but I called on her. It was a whirlwind type of thing. And this was 1958, December, so along there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
We went into the Caribbean for a while. Had to do some work down there. We had some thugs and whatever. So we had to go do that. and the Syrian thing popped up all in this area. I don't know if I got the timing right. It was a long time ago. But 59 come around and my three years was up. I could either stay in the Marine Corps or I could get out now and go home.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
But going home wasn't much of an attraction now. I've been with some of the finest military guys in the world. I'd fought with them. I'd shed blood with them. I wanted to stay with them. But I saw Dottie, and I decided to stay with the Marine Corps. I reenlisted. How did you meet Dottie? She was my high school sweetheart. You met her in high school? I met her in high school.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
The first time I saw her, I was in love. She was walking by. I was with a group of other guys, and I saw she had on a yellow dress. And I looked at her, couldn't believe it. I went home and I told my mom. I said, Ma, guess what? I saw this girl today. And she said, sit down, son. We'll talk. We'll talk. But I loved her so much. And every chance I got to see her, in the halls of the school there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
It was Carver High School. And I'd try to find a way to sneak around to see her. And sometimes in the hallway, I had the nerve to stop her. And I talked to her and fell in love. And when I held her hand, When she was dying, she winked at me. She was dying of cancer. I was holding her hand. We'd been married 50 years. But that was her. Strong woman.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Thank you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Military wives, you know, back during that time, you know, they got it done. Because we were gone a lot. I did 14 years overseas. I fought two wars. Include the thing in the Middle East.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
June of 1959. I reenlisted. And they paid me a lot of money. Wasn't much. And today, as we look at it, they say that was no money at all. But that was great for me because I was a military guy. I didn't need a whole lot of money. At the time, though, when I joined, I was sending my parents monies. That's what we all did. We had allotments.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And, you know, because I just appreciated what they'd done for me, you know, coming from the South and all that. And they were not really educated folks. We were farmers, basically. But I did well, married Donnie. We went to California. I hooked up with First Force Recon Company.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I will tell you, I loved Dottie Caperson the first time I saw her. We went through hell. We raised a blind child, our first child, Gary, was born blind and special needs. He played the flute, the melodica, the organ, piano. But he had other difficult things. And after we were married, when we were married, then the military didn't have schooling for him, for my son. Wonderful child.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I loved him so much. I was holding his hand when he closed his eyes. He died of appendicitis. It seemed like the next day my wife died of cancer. And the demons come home.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
She kicked me out once. She kicked you out? Kicked me out once.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Yeah, I went out with the guys and stayed overnight and I didn't call her. I came home, I used to wear cowboy hats, you know, back in the old, that was one of the things I wore for cowboy boots like I have on now and I wore cowboy hats. So she took my cowboy hat and threw it out. Then went over and stomped on it. So I knew that I was in trouble. She let me come back in.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I lived there early years, and then my father was put on the chain gang. This is back in the old days, 30s.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
But she was such a sweetheart. I remember when we were a snake bidder, she was out feeding the fish. We had a fish pond. She was out there feeding the fish with her hand. A snake come up and bit her on the hand. This takes away from your, what are you talking about there, dog? It's telling you about that time She didn't panic. She's scared of snakes. Bit her on the finger.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
So she come in and said, sweetheart, I've been bit by a snake. High panic. But I did the first aid. We had to get down to the emergency room. So we went there, but the snake was not poisonous. And one of my troops who lived next door, he went and killed the snake and brought it down to the hospital. And they looked at it. It was not poisonous.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
But just the whole idea of her demeanor at that time, you know, I think I would have, I've been struck close by snakes. never got hit by a poisonous snake, but I've been around, you know, pythons and all this other stuff in Southeast Asia. But I'm just saying about Dottie, she's so brave, got her taken care of. But we went through a lot of challenges together.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I got sent overseas for 15 months as a Marine Pathfinder back in the old days. And I had to send her home, put her on a train and send her back to Baltimore with my child. And I was gone for that period of time. Interesting world back then, as far as Marines are concerned. And the army guys too, you know, which we did work a lot with and the SEALs were just coming on board.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
The chain gang is when they took mostly African-Americans and put them out and they did hard labor. It was sort of a, I don't know, I wasn't born back then. but mostly black individuals was put on this chain gang. Tough living, they took away from their families. My father was on this chain gang, but some way he got away and went to Baltimore, Maryland, and I had gotten sick.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
So they came on board and was 70, 61. Did you work with the SEALs? Yeah. How was that? It was good because they were young guys. They were UDT guys at first, and then they wanted to move beyond the high water line. See, we wore scuba. That's what I did for my time in the military. I did dive masters and combat swims, and I did all of that. But the SEALs were new guys. They were...
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
on a water demolition team, but they moved them from swimming. Then they went beyond the high water line, which meant that they could go out and blow shit up. Pardon my language. They were good. They were young. And we had a lot of Marines went over to the SEALs.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Yeah. Oh, yeah. A lot of the SEALs were Marines.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Oh, yeah. I knew a lot of them. A lot of the scenes, I worked with them in Vietnam. You know, of course, I was an old guy. You know, I was 29 years old. I was the dive master and, you know, I did all that because I'd been in for a while and I was good at it. I did.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
That's what they tell me. I joined up, and to join Force Recon at that time, you had to be almost a Superman.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I'd heard about it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Guys had told me about it, and it had a newspaper there. It was the Scout newspaper in California, and it had an article on them. The guy jumping out of airplanes and swimming and diving. I thought this was pretty cool. I'd been in the grunts for three years, so I went down and took the test. They kicked the hell out of me. These guys were nuts. Damn. You think SEAL training got to be pretty good?
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
You know, we didn't have a whole lot of these guys. And I passed, of course. Well, actually, I didn't pass. They said I didn't pass. They said, well, come back on Monday. This was Friday I took the test. I said, you didn't make it. come back on Monday and take it again. Okay, showed up on Monday, took it again. They said, put him in, you know, they took me in to see the first sergeant.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Then I had to go see the captain and the captain was in his office and he had a hand grenade on his windowsill. I saw it, I'd seen hand grenades before. And he said something dumb like, what would you do with this hand grenade? I said, I'd throw it out the window. With the window, I was sitting, the window was open. And this guy jumped up, grabbed the hand grenade and pulled the pin.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
It was a joke. They wanted to see if I was going to run. No, I went through all this hell to get here now. You're not going to make me run out of this office there. But that's a little induction type stuff. I did three years there. Went overseas with the Marine Pathfinders.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Well, they sent you to jump school and all types of programs. You had a platoon, had a team, and out on the West Coast, it was crazy. PT every day. During the day, I was married at that time, but now you had to live in the barracks. And for as long as I can remember, we were swimming. running and diving and all kinds of stuff they created. The SEALs hadn't come on yet. This was 1961, 1960.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
So I went to jump school in 1960. That was separate. Then when I come back, I went through the recon indoctrination. And I was a pretty good kid. I could handle myself. They were tough. We had guys from World War II in there. Not many, but, you know, they were new guys. We had some Army in there. We had some SEALs, not SEALs, but UDT guys. And the corpsmen were SEALs, were... Navy.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Right, yeah, Navy guys, yeah. But First Force was my indoctrination into Special Operation.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Well, we didn't graduate from the training. They just put you in a platoon. You go through all indoctrination, which is the stuff now that jungle warfare and mine clearing and all kind of stuff we went through. We didn't have a battalion. It was one company. And the folks that ran that company, pretty tough guys. And they only took the best guys, the toughest guys. Huge guys.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I don't know where they got those guys from. I mean, really, when I saw those guys, and they could fight. We had a fight, but a lot of them were overrated, I thought. They came hot dogs. And I came there for a serious tour of duty. So I got in a little trouble. Some of the guys thought, well, I'm a black guy, so let's give this black guy a hard time. Didn't work that way.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Before he left, he gave me to a white family. This was the family that, you know, they were all farmers out in this area. And they took me in and brought me back to health. And today they're trying to find descendants of that family.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Because they're black. How? I was the only black guy there. What would they do? Well, one time after some horrendous program, I was tired. And I was in the squad bay. And I laid down in this bed. And the guys came by with this cross and put a rebel flag on me. And... You know, this stuff. And they laughed about it. And I saw it. And I got up, cleaned myself up, let it go.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
You know, indoctrination. They thought they were going to scare me. No, you don't scare Jim Capers. I'd worked too hard, you know, to get there. And by that time, I had a wife and a child. And, of course, they paid you. 55, when listed, 55 bucks for jump pay. And I became an officer. It went up to $110. I don't know what they do now, but it was extra pay. So it was an incentive.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And I enjoyed the tour, but a lot of racism back in those days. I mean, those things that I saw, And it bothered me, but it didn't deter me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I wanted to go. You wanted to go. Yeah, I was at the, when I come back from First Force, They sent me back to the East Coast to train troops in something we call ITR. They learned to do those types of things in the field. So I had that type of work to do. I was a Sergeant E-5 at the time. And I stayed there for a few months and Force Recon was looking for volunteers.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I had been in First Force, did that job okay. Now, Vietnam guys were bleeding and the casualty list was high. And when I got to Fort Meade, I was on, what, I don't know what they call it, hardship. I had a blind child at home. So the commandant of the Marine Corps said that you don't have to go to combat because you've got a blind son and a young wife.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
So I went to, didn't have to go to Vietnam, but I saw the casualty list. I saw the news cycles every night. I watched it. And all those young men were dying. I saw the clips And I'm at home at night. And then they put me on something called a Fort Meade guard. It was a ceremonial unit. We went out to Fort Meade, which is where the Star Spangled Banner was written. So I had a little group.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Probably about four.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
We marched out there every Thursday, marched out there and twirled rifles and carried the flag around. And we had a band with us. The band played and we marched. And at night when we come home, I had to watch young guys carrying the flag in Vietnam. and bringing the dead Marines home and soldiers home and airmen home. And one day I asked Dottie, she said, I know what you're thinking.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Well, there were days when I thought I could remember a female. who obviously would feed me and care for me. And in my memory, she looked like a blonde lady. I could remember a female with blonde hair. And so that's all I really remember, except I was cared for. But at some point, I was given back to my family once I'd been cured. Back in those days, we had a lot of childhood diseases.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I know what you're thinking. I said, how do you know what I'm thinking? You don't know what I'm thinking. She said, yes, I do know what you're thinking. I see the news also. I know your training. I've been there with you. I know it's time for you to go. And if you choose to go to Vietnam, Gary and I will be here when you come back."
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And my adjutant and another officer, a couple of days later, came to my house, lived on the base, Army base. And they came to my house and said, We know you volunteered to go back to Vietnam, or to go to Vietnam. I hadn't been before. And I just wanted to talk to your wife about it. My wife said, you don't need to talk to me. If you don't need something to eat or drink, your night's over.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Your night's over. He's my husband. I'm American too. I'm a citizen too. I'll be here when he comes back. And he will come back. And gentlemen, your night's over. And one officer said, well, Mr. Capers, we just want to let you know that he doesn't have to go. You know, the commandant's got him on a hold. She said, I'm his wife. I gave birth to his child. And I'll be here. They left.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I got orders to go to Vietnam. And... joined the force recon, and that was hard. Third force was made up of first force and second force. Anybody else we can get, they had the qualifications. Now, I'd been in first force, so I'm good to go. So my job was to train the other guys coming in. I'd already been to jumping. I went to scuba school again. Went to Coronado, I think it was.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Four-week course. It was hard, but I was honor graduate.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
You know, they worked us hard. We swam a lot. We did a lot of water work, you know. And I enjoyed it, you know, because I swam my ass off in first force.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Well, I did that. And at the end of the course, one of my guys was going, we had 19 rings that was in the class, and we were all going to Vietnam. So one of my kids did make the distance swim. You know, before you graduate, you got to make that distance with them. And they don't give you any slack on that. And he was a little bit late. So the chief says, hey Sarge, we can't graduate him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I said, chief, come on now. How long have we known each other? He said, yeah, I know, but he didn't make the time swim. So he can't graduate. He'd been through everything else. I said, chief, he used to be a pretty good man, but now you're, you're not. I said some other words, but he was my friend. I said, tell you what I'll do. If you let me do this again, I will swim with him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I will take the last, this is the last part of the course. And so I, he said, yeah, okay. All right, all right, all right. And I said, I thought you really were a candy ass, chief. But you made the right decision. I got in the water and swam. I don't know how far it was. I'd already made my swim. I'm good. Now I'm doing a second swim with him. And it wore me out.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
We got about 100 meters from where we needed to be. My leg cramped up. I didn't give up. And at the end, he was tired. I'm trying to hold on to him. I'm trying to deal with the cramp and all that. But we got through there together. Crossed the line together. Damn. Oh, yeah. I did that. And over the years, he still thanks me for that. No shit. Went to war and he survived.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Didn't get a scratch on him. Tom Nicholson. Tom Nicholson.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
We lost a lot of young American, black Americans from those diseases at that time. And I was given back to my family, completely cured or healed. And then my mother died. my sister and two brothers and myself, at some point at night, a vehicle showed up at our shack. That's where we lived back in those days. And we picked cotton, crop tobacco, the rural South.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I needed to carry as many men as I could, and I didn't want to have him come back. So I swam with him. That's documented. But that was Jim Capers. I'm in command. I was platoon sergeant. That's a hell of a leader. Well, did that most of my career. Got shot to hell some of the times. Did you ever get wounded? No. Wonderful. That's great. That is really great.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
After all the hell you've been through, you know, I'm glad you came home safe and you got a family and you got a great program. They tell me that you have one of the most, I've heard your program.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I don't know that time as much. When did you come on anyway? What year?
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I'd gone to California after my wife and my son passed. I moved to California. I lost touch with a lot of things. But what I've heard about your show and what I was told to listen to it, you know, I figured you were another candy ass seal at first, but I found out that you weren't.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I've seen a few of those in my life. Go ahead. Let me interrupt you. Go ahead.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Well, the other part of it was I had to get one of my other guys to the finish line also so they wouldn't drop him. Another one? No, I did that just the one time with my other sergeant. It wasn't two of them, just one.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And then we came back to Camp Lejeune. Then we started training for Vietnam. Some of the guys had to go to jump school and I had taken the swim guys there. But we had to go through the mine program. We went to the jungles down in Panama. We went through almost six months of training. Wow. Yeah. And then they put us on a bus at night and sent us to Norfolk.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I went through three times. I went through with the force guys. I went through when I was commanding officer with the grunts. Actually, just two times I went through. And it was hard. I was the captain at the time, and trying to motivate the guys, and I took this chicken, grabbed the chicken, I stretched him out and bit his neck, I bit his head off.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And I threw him out there, and the blood was all over me and all over him, and the guy's going, yeah, yeah, yeah. Motivating. You know, we would, we had one of my trainers, we were in a training part of the program in the jungles and the instructor said, you guys take it easy now. All of us was at the recon guys, we were all in the bleachers and the instructor
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
reached down in his boot and pulled out this snake and bit his head off and threw him out in the sand. Now, I bit the chicken off, head off, but that was just show for my guys. Had a lot of new guys and we're trying to let them know that the old man can get it done. No, you need to fear me because I will kill you. There were troops, I couldn't do that, but you're trying to scare them a little bit.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Sure, you've been through that. But we went through almost six months of training. Then we finally deployed in April of 1966. And they took us to, I forget where they took us, with all of our equipment, dive stuff, swim stuff. And we went over to, on ship, we went over I think we went straight into Vietnam, into Da Nang, and started setting up camp. And I started operating, and it was bloody.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And a vehicle showed up and we end up in Baltimore. and i was probably five or six or something like that nobody really knows there's no records there's no records of my being born i don't have a birth certificate wow that's the rural south back in those days and i finally got to baltimore and Started in school.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
The mission was to go behind enemy lines and kill those son of a bitches.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
That was my mission. That's what we did.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
If you killed them, KIA, if you wounded them, we didn't really know if you wounded them or not. A lot of them were wounded, and they crawled away. You see the blood trails. But if you were KIA, they gave you credit for it. And we killed a lot of them.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Well, actually, the camp was already built. There was guys there when we came in, and they had a mess all set up and all that, so we just had to get our stuff together. We went through some phases, and we launched from a place called Fubai. That was already built. And we took off in area number five, because they had all these pieces of Vietnam in different areas. And I got area number five.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And it was loaded with a lot of NBs, whatever those guys were. The Viet Cong, the NVA soldiers, a lot of them were there and they'd been there for a while and the Vietnamese soldiers couldn't get them out. And a lot of the Vietnamese soldiers were cowards. They didn't want to fight.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
They didn't want to fight, no. They'd been there for all these years and the North Vietnamese come in and wiped them out. So now we got to go in and fight the Vietnamese, the North Vietnamese. There was a border, 16th parallel, and the NVA came across the 16th parallel, which is set, you know, since the earlier wars in Southeast Asia.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And they came across and was coming all the way down in South Vietnam. And we were supposed to stop them. There were a lot of things, you know, a part of that. We had to set up ambushes. We went into their camps. We ambushed them at night. There are a lot of individual stories about that. I ran 50 missions. All of them wasn't from Fubai. I went into Khe Sanh. I went into Phu Loc.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I went into Da Nang. All my guys. And we lost guys along the way. But I went from staff sergeant We lost our three officers the first three months. Wow. Gone. So I went from staff sergeant to second lieutenant. Never spent a day in OCS or basic school, officers training.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Yeah, we did a lot of those. We set up.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Oh yeah, you'd go out for five days or so, mostly four days though, because if you're working hard as we did, and had the kind of combat that we had, we had guys that was injured, Maybe not gunshot wounds, but it was hard terrain. Through the jungles and trying to avoid the damn snakes. And I had one guy named Miller, he got bit twice by a snake.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And I had to send him down to Da Nang for treatment. Went down there and damn it, the guy got bit again when we brought him back to Khe Sanh. He got hit real bad when we had that last mission at Phu Loc. All of us fought for four days, day and night. But go ahead, go ahead.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
The first mission... We made three combat dives. We came on in a ship and they want to make sure that the ship had not been, they hadn't placed mines on the bottom of the ship. So I took down the divers and the ship was almost 3,000 feet. And we went down with scuba gear. We didn't have any trousers on. We just wore the jackets and had the, the oxygen and all of that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And we went, there was a regular scuba dive and we had to check and see that there was no mines on the ship, on the bottom of the ship. Didn't run into any, but we saw the, they had something that, I don't know what the hell it was, but fire was coming out of it. And we had to avoid that
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Sure. A lot of kids were like that. Had these bags on your shoulder, and you're out there picking cotton. Now, you had adults out there that would go along with you, but everybody worked. You couldn't stay home unless you were six, something like that. I picked a lot of cotton and learned to crop tobacco and slop the hogs and all the rural work. Everybody worked. Wow. There was no downtime.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
You know, the fire was coming out of the—had it in the bottom of the ship, and we were trying to get around that, because I wanted to check the whole ship. And one instant thing had happened. We got there, had pretty air, no problem with that, and we got to the end, and— They had these tiger sharks. See, the Army was supposed to tell the Navy, hey, you're here now.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Or the Navy was supposed to tell the Army, we're here now. And that's, don't feed the sharks or the fish because we're going to be in the water. We've got divers in the water. Holy shit. Well, it didn't work that way. Somehow, the tiger sharks showed up. I'm finishing up my dive now. And have you ever seen a tiger shark? up close, they're voracious.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And they were feeding the stuff that the garbage that the army had dropped there at the base there. So I had one man, his buddy line, you all in buddy lines, of course. And I had 10 men or nine men and myself and his buddy line came loose and he was drifting out to where the sharks were feeding. Now, as a leader, you have to make a decision. That's what leaders do. They can't sit on it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I made a decision right here, right now. I unhooked my buddy line and swam out there and got him. You don't let him die. You go out there and you bring him back. Brought him back. He's alive. He passed away a few years ago. But that's what I did. No honors, no medals, it wasn't that. You save a life, because those sharks would have eaten them up. I've seen tiger sharks before.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
No honors, but the decision you make when you're a leader, you make that decision right here, right now. You don't think about it. That's what you do, and I've done that so many times.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Well, we had to do the dive missions. I did. We came in. We had to clear the ship. And we—well, when we got in country, that was early on. It wasn't the first mission we went on. But we lost a man—hold on. that lost a man, and we had to go down and bring his body up. And while we were down there, we found out there was over a couple hundred rounds of ammunition down there buried in the mud.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
So we brought the kids. Wasn't much in the kids' body, you know. They'd eaten them up pretty good. So we brought up what was left and then we decided to go back down and get those rounds because the NVA would take those rounds and they could use explosives with them. They had them buried there, over 200 rounds. So we went back down and we pulled up every one of them.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Oh, yeah. Yeah, we had the Songbo River. And they had not just sharks, but they had the Sang Bo River was a major river where the ships come down, not ships, but boats that come down there. And the Vietnamese, they washed in the river a little bit. There were families around there. But that wasn't my concern. We wanted to get that boy's body up. And we did it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And then we found those rounds, we had to get those up now. Then what to do with it? EOD came in and they took the rounds. They took the rounds. I didn't lose any men on that one. Didn't lose a man. But it was a hell of an experience. Once we got to Da Nang, we anchored on the ship. And we went down and did some other water work. We did a lot of water work as recon swimmers and divers.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Because the grunts were not divers. When they had a problem, you know, they had to call us. I did a lot of that stuff. I was an officer by that time. No, I really wasn't. I was a staff sergeant. I didn't get a commission until later on. But the first ground missions we went on, we had to go up in the mountains or go in the jungles and hunt down the bad guys.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Yeah, it was like an old Ford, like a 29 Ford or something like that, one of the old vehicles, thrown into the car and we took off.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And that's the first time they gave us the dogs, gave us the war dogs. And I had two of them on my first mission. And then Argo and King couldn't get along, so I kept King. King was killed later on in the full out. Good dog, tough dog would kill you. I had him in a big case, a big cage, because you couldn't let him out of the cage. And I had a dog handler assigned to him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And of course I can handle King. We all trained with him. And he would kill the enemy soldier, grab him by the throat, groin, whatever. He killed two in Fulak. Boy, he got killed. First missions on the ground, Said we had recon zones, and we dropped in by helicopter.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
We were supposed to parachute in, but the jungles were kind of crazy, and we don't want to get separated, especially if you're going in at night. Some of those were probably done, but I didn't want to take my guys in by parachute. And we had all this stuff there, but I decided to take the helicopters, put us in, and we can drop maybe 10 feet.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
on the ground in the jungle, and we stayed out for a while. Then they come and pick us up by helicopter, and we would have the helicopter land maybe two positions, because I didn't want the NVA to know where we were. So he would drop in here, drop in there, and we were supposed to be at one place. And they knew where we were coming in. We radioed them, so we're going to be here.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
But sometime we would drop a flare over here. We did what we could so the enemy wouldn't know that we're going to be picked up here and jump in on us.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Yeah. Yeah. We did that all of our missions and never got caught. But we did a lot of those missions until the first part of it coming in on ground, they put us in with First Force. They were already there. And we became part of First Force. And we fought with them. And then we did work with them and then they sent us south.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And Colonel Waller had a battalion there, and he was our first CO when we were training back in the States. He was CO of Recon Battalion, and so they put us in with him. And they fed us and took care of the things like that. And we stayed with them the whole time. First force stayed with First Recon Battalion the same time, all the time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Well, my father wasn't there. He was in Baltimore. It was apparently the range for another group to take us to Baltimore. So we got in the vehicle, and next thing I know, we were in Baltimore as a child. Those are my memories. Back in the old days, you couldn't eat at restaurants. You know, you couldn't go into the facilities, bathrooms, things like that. You had black and you had white.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Yeah, he did order it, and the CIA handled it. We had one North Vietnamese was in the camp, and he was a young guy, and they thought he wasn't treating the Americans hard enough. So they put him in the penalty chamber, and he escaped. CIA picked him up and brought him to me, or brought him to our headquarters from Division. And I took him in. His name was Lap.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
He was 18 years old, and he was a soldier. He slept in my tent with me. He didn't speak much English, didn't speak English. But I talked to him. And he had a tent, a rack in my tent with me. Good kid. Would have been an American kid. Would have done well. But he was a warrior now. He'd been trained, you know, by the North Vietnamese to kill or to harm Americans or treat them bad, and he didn't.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
So I've got him now. And he wasn't a bad kid. He would do what I asked him to do. I'd take him to the chow. I'd sit at night with him. And I showed him a picture of my wife. So she sent me pictures. And he would go, he'd smile, you know.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I was asleep, I woke up, I knew something was wrong. And I looked over and Lap was gone. You know, oh shit, so I grabbed my pistol and went looking for him. I saw him, grabbed him, said, Lap, what the fuck are you doing out here? He says, I need to go to the bathroom. I said, what? I'm gonna shoot you right now, you know? Because I was worried that,
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
The guards in the camp, if they saw anybody moving at night that weren't supposed to be moving, they thought they were, you know, enemy soldier. Because they would try to infiltrate our bases or steal stuff. You know, you couldn't tell the difference, right? But I grabbed Lap and I brought him back to my tent.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And I said, Lap, you know, if you got to go to the bathroom, I don't care what time it is, you wake me up, I'll take you there. Because one of these, you know, roving sentries, they'll catch you out there and they won't know the difference. But I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. So he got to be like a son to me. I kept him there for all of the training. And we had to train him for this mission.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Oh yeah, we had the shooting, the shooting and the language stuff and all that. Finally, we got it done and they decided that the mission was a go. Then they said, no, we're not going. Eventually, we went. We were supposed to jump in and we worked on jumping in. We still had our parachutes and all that stuff, which we brought with us. Then the weather got bad.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I said, no, no, we're not going to jump. I was going to be the jump master, of course, because I'm jump master trained and all that. Went in by helicopter and it was a big operation. The SEALs, they did some recon somewhere. The CIA, they didn't do any water work, you know. But we did the water work, checked the rivers, and then it was time to go. So we flew in by helicopter, and we landed.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And the first night, we stayed on a hill watching the area out there. We could see the fishermen, and we could see the guys out in the rice paddies, but we stayed quiet. And then the next day we got off the hill and moved toward the camp and avoiding anybody that might've been out there. Third day we hit the camp, killed the first two guards. And my job was to kill
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And so these were things my mother told me how difficult it was for her as a female. And there'd been a lot of books written on this subject, you know, how African-Americans made that transition, but almost slavery. It was not slavery, of course. We know that that was over. but the remnants were still there. We were treated like slaves.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
the sentry with my knife, that was, I'm the knife guy, you know. So I was good at that, so they had me scheduled to kill the first two guards of the sentry with my knife. But didn't get that far, because everything blew up. All of a sudden, everybody was shooting. God damn it. How am I going to find out what, well, they told us what they thought the POWs was in the tent.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
The sentries here, the POWs here, and they were something over there. So my job was to kill these guys, get in there and get the POWs out, five or six of them, POWs. And I got to where I thought they should be, nobody there. So I'm pissed. And one of my guys saw two guys coming toward the camp, and he shot those two. And then I'm pissed now. Everything's happening, and no POWs.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
So I said, if I could blow it up, we blew the whole base up. Blew those places where they held American soldiers, where they held them. And I'm going, this camp will not hold another American Marine or soldier. We burned it. Yeah, we burned it. But I didn't get the POWs. And that was hard on us. We trained for so hard and for so long. And now we're going home without the POWs. Damn it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
You know, we had a captain in charge, you know, I was a lieutenant, I believe. But he was in charge of, he's dead now, but he was a coward. He said he didn't belong in recon for what we did. He failed scuba. You know, he wasn't very good. He could run and all that, but he couldn't do the field stuff. I think he ran maybe two missions and the POW thing. He got the Silver Star for that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
He got the Silver Star. He wrote it up himself. Oh, man. Got it through. When I got hit one time, he never come to see me. He never come to see me, never asked how I was doing. He was out for himself. He wanted to be the general's aide. He didn't get that, so he ended up in forced recon. And... He wasn't a bad guy, but he shouldn't have been there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Yeah. I killed a man up in, well, one of them I killed. We were at Quezon, which is a bloody military base. And we had some troops up there, not many. But I was doing a mission. It started off as a recon mission. But now we're thinking that these guys are coming in to Khe Sanh to reinforce whatever they had there. And they had the base surrounded.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
So I'm looking to see what I can do to get some of these guys out of there. And I run up on some soldiers and I killed the first three. Shot them with my M16. And then I... looked over, and I saw another NVA looking out that way, and I got him by his mouth, and I pushed, ripped him, and I stuck my knife down in my cartridge belt. I killed him. Blood was all over the place. He wiggled a little bit.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And there were a lot of pieces to that that I saw and I remembered. But when I got to Baltimore, they put me in school. As a child, I had no birth certificate, so nobody really knew who I was. And the first James Capers Jr. passed away, so they renamed me James Capers Jr. But there was always some feeling that I was reincarnating my older brother. But no, I had no birth certificate.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
He fell. Didn't move. And I saw the other one. Looked back and I shot him. Boom, boom. I got criticized for shooting him in the back. They're running. They're running. I killed both of them. I killed them all. I cut his throat. I killed as many as I could. Killed a lot of enemy soldiers. But it's up close, you know, we have seven or eight men.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And you were out in the jungle, you know, most of that time. And we used to run those trails at night looking for them. We'd catch them cooking. You could smell the food. We threw a damn grenade in there. But unfortunately, we stopped. Might have been children in there. I had a heart. Wasn't a very, wasn't a very big heart. But yeah, they tried to, tried to kill me once. When they, I was,
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
black marine and they had some other stuff for me they put out a reward for me this is what i was told by intel they said that if you kill me you would get a cow and you'd get a two weeks in hanoi and then it would come close to killing me they couldn't do it not a lot of black force reconnaissance marines out there huh no not in those days no 50s, 60s.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
A lot of these guys, we all know they come from maybe cities and didn't have swimming pools that these kids could go through. There's a lot of social stuff that goes on with that. But a lot of the guys didn't try hard enough. I tried hard enough because I wanted to be there. I knew I could do it. You know, so...
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Oh, it didn't bother me. Folks have been looking after me all of my life. You know, they tried to kill me when I was in Hong Kong. I went there on R&R. I mean, I knew it was set up. They brought this girl to my room. She knocked on the door, and I was on the phone talking to my wife. I was waiting on the call.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
because you had another server to get through to the States and all that, and I'm waiting, and she come to my room. She could either capture me or kill me, and nobody would really care, another American, especially being black. But no, don't fall for that. And the time, Well, there was a lot of times people tried to kill me. I mean, even in Hong Kong, they tried to kill me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And they tried to kill me in Hawaii. Tried to kill my wife and my son.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I have a long history. I had just come back from a year in Europe. And when I was in Hamburg, they tried to kill me. They missed. when they tried to kill my wife and my son, we had gotten a three-year tour in Hawaii. So Dottie and I and Gary, we went to Hawaii. Year goes by, you know, we're doing those. She won first place in the hula contest and we're having a great time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
You know, I'm enjoying it and met a lot of Hawaiian friends and I was out of combat because most people don't know what happened to me in Germany. But at any rate, one day my general called me, and he said, Captain, sit down. I was the captain then. I said, yes, sir. I figured, oh, shit, I've done something wrong now. General's calling me in. He said, I'm sending you home.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I said, well, General, I just got here. We're enjoying this tour. He said, yeah, I know, but... The plan is for, I didn't want to mention the name, to kill your wife and your son. We've confirmed it. And so to keep you out of harm's way, I'm sending you and your family home. And you go home and you talk to your wife and you tell her that you no longer will be in Hawaii. Went home.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Dottie's a trooper now. You got to understand who Dottie is. You would have loved her, because she was a real trooper. I said, sweetheart, something come up. She said, uh-oh, why is it something always comes up when you want to tell me something I don't want to hear? I said, well, sweetheart, I just saw the general, and he told me that we're in trouble, and they...
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
figured out that you and Gary are gonna be shot on Saturday morning at 10 o'clock. And they were supposed to be there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
You don't need to know that. That's a long time ago. Tell me some of your stories and then I'll tell you mine. No, it wasn't a good idea for her to stay in Hawaii. Well, you were a SEAL, right? That's right. So you're a tough guy. You can handle all this stuff. We'll get around to it. I went back and told the general that my wife don't want to go home. She wants to stay here.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Years later, we tried to find something out. But that was a problem that I had. And even today, I got two birth dates, the 25th of August and the 27th of August. Nobody knows how that happened.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
This is the first time in a long time we've been together. And, you know, the war was kind of hard on me. He said, yeah, Captain, I know all about that. He said, I know what happened to you in Hong Kong and And I know about them two people you killed by the way. I said, no, I didn't kill those people, General. He said, yes, you did. I know that. I'm lying.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
But that was something that happened a long time ago. It was supposed to be secret. But he's a general. He's got sources.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
No. This was in Hong Kong I'm talking about.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
That was a long time ago. I thought we were talking about my wife and my son. But he told me that he knew about the people that killed in Hong Kong.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
They tried to kill me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
They tried to set me up. This is Hong Kong now we're talking about. They come to my room. Well, they sent this girl to my room. Pretty girl. I had a wife at home.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
It's good to be here.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
British was our allies. Sean, there's so many things. They diagnosed me with PTSD, and they also declared me insane. I'm an old guy now, and I have trouble dealing with some of these issues. And I know who you are and what you've done, and I appreciate it. And I'm doing the best I can to do this piece with you. But a lot of it, you know, was not known through these channels.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Right on.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And when I was in Hong Kong, I was on R&R. But they tried to kill me. If they left me alone, I wouldn't have bothered them. But they didn't leave me alone. And I had to realize who they were messing with. So I did kill them. And I killed a lot more. And that's what you want to talk about. But a lot of this stuff, you know, it runs together. The timing, that was, I'm 87 years old.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Well, it was a euphoria. I loved it. Buildings and schools and restaurants, of course, wasn't designed for folks like us coming from the South. We didn't know anything, basically. We had to learn the system there in Baltimore. And went to school, did well, graduated high school there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I'm going to be 88 this year. I spent 14 years overseas. I fought two wars. I have 19 holes that I bled from. Both my legs have been broken. Right now I got six pieces of metal in my body. Two of my thighs and down on my lower legs were broken. I got a piece of metal in my left leg. My right leg is shorter than my left leg. I got scars all over me. I can't hardly walk.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
That's why I didn't stand when you come in. No disrespect.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
B-57, excuse me. It crashed in the mountains. And I was told, I know it was nuclear equipped. In other words, you could carry a nuclear bomb on it. And I didn't know if they had a bomb on it or not. But we were supposed to parachute in. Left that alone. Didn't want to drop into an area like that. I've been in jumps where the area was smoked. So we landed on top of the mountain, helicopter.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
We dropped in about 10 feet. We dropped in. It was a heavy landing. We had our stuff with us. went down to the crash and wasn't much there. The Vietnamese had already been there by the time we got there. We had got in there at first, might have had a chance to see what's on this thing. But we found some goggles and we knew that somebody had had this aircraft.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
We brought some of the oxygen bottles back. I didn't find any bodies. We did look. But the story is we knew that there's no point looking any further because there's nobody here. The planes crashed and hit the mountain and the tail was separated from the body. And so I decided, okay, we need to go home now. This is enemy territory.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And the team brought them on it, so we went down the mountain and started home. But it started to rain, and I told them that I needed an extraction. cause we could see tracks on around. I figured there's some bad guys are out there. So I called for an extraction and they called back and says, no, we can't come and get you cause there's raiding and the choppers can't fly.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I said, well, I'll give you a day. I'll stay here for a day, roaming around. And then I either gotta stay here until you come get me or I gotta come home. And after all of that, I decided we're going home. And I got my team together in Lowell. And I, Dorosky was a very tall point man, still around today. I said, Dorosky, and I said, point man, take us home.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And for the next five days, we walked through enemy territory, went through two minefields, swam a river, wasn't captured. And we got hit in the last part of it. They opened fire, but that was all right. Not going to bother us because the Marines were coming from the other direction to pick us up.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
So we probably killed a bunch of them, but that didn't bother me because they weren't going to really attack us. And the truck showed up and picked us up and went home. And the colonel said, why don't you get something to eat? I wasn't hungry. Couldn't eat. I let my troops go to the mess hall. Then I had to go down to the colonel's office to see the CIA guy and debriefing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I'm sure you've been in a lot of those. But they debriefed me and I told them what I knew. I didn't find any bodies on the aircraft. And then the colonel said, why don't you go and take a nap? I was tired. I said, I don't know if I can sleep. I've been awake for four days, almost five days. I'm laying down, and my eyes had closed. And I couldn't get my eyes open. I had mud and dirt, cake.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Everything was in my eyes. I was laying there. I couldn't get my eyes open. I was moving my head. I was trying to get my, and I had to do this. My arms were so tired, I couldn't hardly reach my face. It was a hard, physical trip for us. And finally, I got my eyes open. And this young kid was standing there. He come in, said, Lieutenant, I got your mail for you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Well, not in Baltimore, but it was an all-black school. Everybody, teachers were blacks, students were black. So it was hard for me, coming from the South, it was certainly different from where I'd Bend into Baltimore. That street lights and automobiles and all those things that I never saw on the cotton fields in South Carolina. Interesting.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
No, the staff sergeant said, I got your mail for you. First different voice I've heard, because I knew my guy's voices, and he was different. And he shouldn't have been in my tent, because everybody knows you don't do that. But I had to learn to be a human being again. I had been in the jungle for so long, I was almost turning into that person. I could eat anything, fight anything.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
sleep in the water, those type of things. I had experience as I was making this from a peacetime Marine and being totally involved in this jungle thing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I did. Than you did? Yeah, when my time come to go out, I had about two and a half days in the rear. You get some regular chow, see the doc and all that. But I had a doc with me. It was uncomfortable. I felt better when I'm out there at watch. When I got my knife, I got my pistol, I got my rifle at the ready, and I knew I couldn't kill anything. I wasn't afraid. I had gotten past that stage.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I was only afraid for my men.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I'm all right. All right. Where have I been? I guess they took me back to Vietnam, huh? Damn. Took a little bit of a trip there, huh? Yeah. I'm all right.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Well, it took me a while because I was a country boy. They didn't readily accept me into the city. You know, I didn't know the language. You know, it took me a while to learn there were stores on each corner. And, you know, the school was different. The children there spoke differently than I spoke from the South. But I knew that I could do it. And I pressed on.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
For your TV audience, I wear these boots because I've got metal in my legs and it helps me out with stability. Yeah. It's pretty sharp-looking kicks.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Yeah, well, before Vietnam, I'd applied for a commission, They had a program that you could apply for and you'd go to OCS and basic school, you'd come out an officer. I applied for that, but I passed all of the tests. But they sent me a letter that said, considered but not selected. So I didn't get to go. The next year, my officers said, try again. So I did again and I didn't get selected.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
It was hard on African-American Marines during that time. We had very few officers in the Marine Corps. So they had the enlisted commissioning program. So I tried out, but I didn't make it. But then I guess later on, when they considered me for a battlefield commission, I mean, they just gave it to me. All the officers were dead. So they gave me the commission.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I had never gone to OCS or basic school. I had a high school education. I'd had some college, but I was proud of that. For my family, nobody in my family had ever graduated high school. And so this was good for them, proved that we could Be good citizens. My parents insisted on that. And you had to behave yourself. And I did all those things.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And then after I joined the Marines, like I mentioned, I did good. And then they decided to commission me. Took five minutes. Colonel called me in his office. And I signed the documents. raise my right hand and come out as second lieutenant.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Most of them. I can't say all of them did because the commanding officer of my unit when they were looking at this Medal of Honor for me. He said he'd rather die and go to hell before I would get the Medal of Honor. Why is that? He was a racist. He's gone now. He was in my unit. He was the captain in the unit. But he went to the POW camp with us, didn't fight. He was a coward.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
He failed school by school. I never saw him make a parachute jump. I don't even know whether he even went to jump school or not. Because I came in as a sergeant. Then I made staff sergeant there. Then I made officer there. But Ken Jordan was his name. And his goal was to be the general's aide. No.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Yeah. Wasn't a good man and he didn't like me. And, you know, I went through that as a NCO and as an officer, but, you know, I was okay with it because I was serving in the Marine Corps and I figured I'm good enough to get through. I'm good enough to do a good job. I didn't make a lot of rank, you know, I made it up to major. I probably could have gone further, but I chose to retire.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I've got almost 23 years. I was up for lieutenant colonel, which I'm sure would have made because of my background, my war background and other stuff I'd done. But when I retired, I bought a home in Jacksonville and My son was doing okay. My wife was doing all right. But I think my son had a big part of it, too. You know, I couldn't find a school for him and those types of things.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And, of course, he's blind, special needs. And so I had to deal with that. General told me that he's going to recommend me for a Lieutenant Colonel, which has been pretty good for me. I come in as a snuffie. And then I come home from work one day, just before I retired, and my wife Dottie was crying. Said, what's up? What's up, sweetheart? She said, Gary got assaulted in school.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
My son was blind, special needs. And the demons came home. So I had weapons in my trunk of my car. I was authorized to do that. So I said, well, this isn't going to work. I went down to the school, driving down to the school. There was a golf course on the left and some housing on the right. I was driving down. I hit a light. And I waited and waited.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And the more angry I got, I'm going to settle this. You're not going to assault my child. Demons had come home. Should have thought better. That light never changed. That one didn't change. So I turned around and come back home. God once again protected me. They have no idea what I have done. Had I got there and some kid's parents was there and, but anyway, God saved me again. And Gary was okay.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Well, I was happier. Color by skin took that away. We worked hard. And my father got a job. And us children, we were happy about that. He got a job in a steel mill. You know, World War II was there. I remember World War II, and he worked in a steel factory. I guess they built ships for the fleet back in those days, the Maryland Dry Dock Company.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I retired. The general came there that day. He tried to talk me out of it, but I think it was time. I was hurting all over, and I was CO of a force recon company. Wow. And had a big retirement for me on the parade field. Everybody come to see me. The Navy come to see me, and And I was a major coming from a cornfield in the cotton fields. Donnie was there. Gary was not there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
But it was the idea that all these people would come to see me retire. Good friends. I'd known since I was a teenager. And they gave me a couple medals. I don't know which one they gave me at that time. And the band was there and they played the music and the marching band was there. And the general gave me a medal and everybody applauded that Major Capers is going home now.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
The legendary Major Capers who gave it all. Then I brought up my XO. I introduced him as my relief, and then I waited around. I couldn't leave the battlefield, or not the battlefield, but the parade field, because I wanted to see all my guys. I told Dottie, I said, well, you know, maybe somebody else will come.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
The general had gone, the admiral had gone, and I was waiting for somebody to come up, one of my troops that I would say goodbye to. Nobody showed. So Dottie said, you know, sweetheart, maybe it's time for us to go home. I said, well, let's wait another minute or two. And nobody else came. I said, okay. She drove me home and took off my uniform and I never put it back on again. I have it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
in a sea bag somewhere in my shed. But those are the memories from beginning as a teenager, from the cotton fields to being awarded on a parade field with hundreds, probably thousands, because the divisions had their bands and said goodbye to me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Foe Lock?
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
All right. Not a pleasant thing to do, but let's go back to Foe Lock.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
That sort of confusion, Sean, because nobody really figured it out. except that was my last mission. That was the last one? Last mission.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Nine months, ten months, almost a year. But we did a lot of work with the Navy, you know, doing the ship bottom searches and the diving and the swimming and all that. One night I made a swim of 1,500 meters in enemy territory. to do some recon on the beaches and swam back 1500 meters. But Phu Loc was a different situation.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I was asked to go in there and the Vietnamese had a base on the reverse side of a long top hill. And okay. My last mission, because my time was up pretty much, and I was going to use the last month, I guess it was, doing some work for somebody, helping the new guys coming in. But I wasn't commanding officer of the unit. I was a platoon commander as a lieutenant.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
but I commanded most of the unit because I'd been around for a while and I was a little older. You know, some of the young officers, they would come in, wasn't qualified. They wanted the experience of being there, but, you know, that's not a place you go to get experience in the areas that we were in. But in Fulock, I got to Fulock,
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Going into Phu Loc, we stopped off at a place where we had some guys that lived in the villages with the South Vietnamese and they would be in the camps with them and they spoke Vietnamese and they would help the Vietnamese fight against the North Vietnamese Forget what they call those guys, but they were good. So I joined up with them. And well, actually I didn't get up there first.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I went into one place and we got shot out. I mean, just blasted all over the place. Chopper got hit, so we pulled out of there. We didn't land. I don't know how the hell they knew we were there coming in that place, landing zone. And the next one we got to, We weren't gonna quit, we were going in there. And they had these pieces of, had grenades on long poles that was set up with wire around them.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And he earned a pretty good living and was able to sustain us But when I became a little older, I sold newspapers and sold junk, did anything I could to add to the company, to the family.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And they had these grenades If you land in that area, the chopper would pull the pins on the grenades and they would blow from each side.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Yeah. So figured that out. We got the hell out of there. How did you guys see that in a helicopter? Training, I guess. We spent so much time in the damn jungles. And we saw it. And then the chopper went up. He just kept going up. And all of a sudden, he just dropped down with auto rotation, they called it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And he just turned it loose, come on down like that, then restarted about 200 feet off the ground, differently from where we were with those boogie traps. And we got to where we needed to be, and we started operating. We're angry. This is supposed to be our last mission now. I'm taking whatever I have left home, but most of them are gone. It was a hard, hard tour.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I was an enlisted man, now I'm in command. Jordan, who was in command at first, he got out of there. So Lieutenant Capers down gets the hard duties of taking the guys with me. I left one man back because he had a hernia, but he didn't want to stay back. He came to my tent and said, Lieutenant, I got to go, you know, you can't leave me behind. I said, no, Ski, you know, Dorosky was his name.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
So you've done a good job. You've been with me all the way. You fought a good war and you go home now and you have a happy life. Well, he was the only survivor that didn't get killed.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
and i loved him he's still alive you guys keep in touch yeah still alive i talked to him the other day yeah came to my wife's field my son's film we were they were both buried together my son but ski was there he was always there and i was i got hospitalized a couple years ago in wilmington And I woke up one morning, and guess who was standing there? Taraski. He says, hey, sir, I'm here.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
About seven.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
He was my point man. Point man. Loyal. It broke my heart to leave him behind in a full lock. But I made the right decision. Because the guy that took over, a guy named... You all right? Yeah. Okay. Nick DeGreek. I replaced Dorosky with Nick DeGreek, and I gave him an M60 machine gun. And it got down to the fact that when we used that M60, He blew up everything. He lost a leg. Nick the Greek did.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Then they stopped that because they had a law then that you had to be at least 12 years old as a child to work. But no, we did all hustling, whatever you could do. to do those types of things to add to the income of the family.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
The big man had 19-inch arms, and he used that M60 like it was nothing. Tough kid. But since the Roski wasn't there, he came to me and he said, Lieutenant, let me be a point man. I can do it. I said, you know, Nick, tough job. You know, I'm going to be up front. He said, yeah, but I can cover you. Somewhere along the line, I let Nick be the point man with the M60s.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And leading into that, a lot of things, of course, happened. Leading into that conversation with Nick, my war dog King was killed. How was the War Dog King killed? He was killed when explosions went off. There's one of them things that he killed two enemy soldiers. He's a big dog, trained to kill. We had to keep him in a cage.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
We lost a Marine. Didn't lose a man in full lock.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
No. Everybody survived except the dog. But we had other missions where we lost somebody. Okay. All of us experienced that. All the platoons and teams. We killed a bunch of people, and some of ours was wounded. Young Stanley... He was my point man with Dorosky. But he got shot and killed at Khe Sanh.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Well, he was with another team, and they went out on a mission, and they got hit, and a grenade came in. From what I'm told, a grenade came in, and he rolled on it, And the grenade blew him up. Everybody was wounded on that mission. But he was a young guy. I went to see his mother after the war. Because I wrote the usual letters, you know, today your son was killed, I'm sorry, and this and that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Mostly work, but yeah, you always find some kind of way to do something. Shoot marbles, and they don't know about marbles these days, but we did that, and we played all the games, basketball, which we didn't have there. the hoops and things, we had took baskets and put them up on a wall or something. And that was our net.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
That was hard to do. So I went to see his mother and I apologized to her. she accepted it, was okay. Then a few years later, his brother called me, but his brother, his mother and his brother had divorced and he was raised by his father. And so he wasn't there, but he did call me some years later to thank me, you know, and he never come to see me. But I did go see Scanlon's mother.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
He was hit bad. And at the time, what I was told, I was not in that area, that he jumped on a grenade. So I put him in for the marijuana. That was the right thing to do. And Jordan refused to send it forward. Kid's dead and he saved a lot of lives. Those M26s that we carried, you know, would kill at least two or three people. But he jumped and we knew that his sternum was crushed.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
So we knew that this grenade was under him. So, now that wasn't that full lock, that was a caisson. You were talking about full lock, right? A lot of firefights. Boy, that's a long part there. How do I simplify it?
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Thank you. After the POW raid, I went to Hong Kong for Four days. They tried to kill my ass in Hong Kong.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Yeah. So I come back. Do you know who tried to kill you? In Hong Kong? Thugs. You know, they knew that American Marines and soldiers was coming there for... I forget what the hell it was called now. R&R. R&R, yeah. And they had gang, you know, gang things set up. You know, we'd go to the clubs and sometime you found a dead Marine and the MPs, which is run by the British, would look into it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
But we had a water fight. We were still fighting in Vietnam. I come back and I heard Scanlon was killed. Yeah. Yeah, we had breakfast one morning. The colonel told me, he asked me, had I heard about the caisson? No, the Sergeant Major asked me, had I heard about the caisson? I said, no, Sergeant Major. He said, we had a lot of trouble up there. And he said, Scanlon was killed.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And everybody knew I loved Scanlon. He was like a son to me. Hard, freckled face, red hair, always smiling. And he was, after the war, he was coming to live with me for a while. So it was kind of personal when Scanlon got killed. Now they sent me to Quezon. I got there and I'm going back to Quezon, I guess it is. And ran some long range missions.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
We had to be, you know, we had to really be creative because they didn't provide anything from us for us. So we worked hard and I learned how to take care of myself because in a way it was kind of dangerous. You know, everybody carried knives and guns and things. Many days there were firefights. I mean, not like a military firefight, but pistols and...
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I mean, and walking and we came home with a python snake. 20-foot long, weighed almost 200 pounds. We put him in a big sack, brought him back, and we didn't cross the river with him because he was too heavy. So we left him on the side of the river and we swam across the river and went up the mountain where our base was. We left the snake there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
We got back and I told the pilots about the snake we had caught. He said, you ain't no snake that long. I said, well, give us a ride with your helicopter. We'll go down and get him. So we rode down with the helicopter and one of my swimmers jumped out. He landed on a big rock there. Swimmers jumped out, went on and got the snake. He was loose and we brought him back to the base
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And some of this stuff you've already read, I'm sure, but you've done your homework. But we put the snake in a excavation and he was lying there. And I think Sergeant Yerman said, well, we gotta get him something to eat. So he drove down to town and come back with a damn duck. And he tied the duck one leg and put the duck in the hole there with the snake.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Snake's lying in there, hadn't really moved. Duck's in there quacking. I said, you know, that duck looks tight, looks tough. He's going to kick the ass out of that snake in there. So everybody's laughing and them all that's beating up with feathers in it and the snake going to eat that duck.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Good afternoon. It's good to be here.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
So everybody's coming by to betting, you know, troops bet on any damn thing, you know, who's going to win this fight. The next day, we look in this hole, and the snake was dead as a doornail.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Laying out this, and the duck is crooking, perking around. Yeah, the ducks pecked that snake to death. And everybody was laughing. And they believed it for a while that the duck had pecked the snake. And it was an unbelievable story, but it was fun. And we took the snake and we gave it to the Montagnards, which was a Montagnard tribe. Used to help us with intel in the mountains there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
An older tribe called Montagnards. And... For them helping us, I gave them some of the meat from the snake. And we gave them the skin, some of them, and we cut the skin off and they made belts. And some of the troops made belts out of the skin from the snake. But they named him Gorma Powell, which was a popular TV program during that period of time. So they named the snake Gorma Powell.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
So they had fun with that name and the death of the snake. Okay, time to go back killing people. We'll kill them all this time. But we had the 324th B Division that had come across the 16th parallel, and they were going south. They're gonna chase the Americans out. But you know, Sean, you don't chase Marines out of anything. It just don't happen that way.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Even Iwo Jima and Okinawa, all those places that we fought in, and we always had corpsmen with us. There's some wonderful stories we have with the corpsmen. I got a SEAL corpsman, Doc Burwell, he's still alive. He was a good man, tough guy. And he used to hold a deep sea diving record. If you ever heard of Doc Burwell, but he served with us well. Good man, tough guy.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I don't want to get you out of your sequence there, but we were talking about Fulock.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Yeah, Fulock. That was my last mission. And we got into, we were supposed to destroy the base camp. The NVA had set up a base camp on the reverse side of the mountain. So I had to get in there to see how I can blow the hell out of that base camp. I run in some of the guards along the way and kill them. Finally saw, got to the top.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
It was a firefight. It was a firefight. All firefights. So trying to get in there, we didn't go in by helicopter. We walked in, fought our way in, because I had to see what's on the other side of that mountain. And I did blow it. I called in the Phantoms and they came in and blew the hell out of it. And they came on wiggling their wings.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
They'd come in again, just blew the hell out of it, dropping all kinds of ammunition. And then the helicopters helped us out, attack helicopters. We accomplished the mission. That base didn't operate anymore. Team broad-minded, you know, we had to fight our way there. And Fulock, no, that wasn't Fulock. That was another mission. But Fulock, we all got wounded. We actually walked in.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
We couldn't get the flight in because, like I said, they had booby traps and all that, so we actually walked in. And we linked up with a group that lived with them, a group of Marines that lived with them.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And we stayed with them for the evening. Then we left that night, and we walked into a territory. We're deadly. We went around. the rice paddies, and we went through, got to a graveyard, and a lot of firing was going on. Everybody was shooting with, you could see the tracers, tracers going. So I didn't want to walk into that, so I put my guys... in a graveyard, had the cement things there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
So we stayed there and watched the battle. So no, we're not gonna walk into that. So we spent the night there, a good bit of the night. And then when I thought I could get in to where I needed to go, I took off about maybe four to born. team broad-minded, and our dog, we took off.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And looking back on it, we linked up with some of the Marines that was already out there, linked up with them, and they'd had a hard time, and they were going to have a hard time I think it was 1-3 or something like that, but they had a hard time. And we just come in there, and we started to, you know, we got into firefights. I think we had seven damn firefights in those four days. Jeez. Bloody.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
We run out of ammunition the second day. And the chopper came in and brought some ammunition and grenades to us. On the last day, I think I threw 19 grenades. They hit us hard, we hit them hard. My dog killed some. I know how many I killed. You can't count it up, but they used to want to know how many WIAs that you kill. And nobody thought about that. You know, you're on full automatic.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
You got your M60. You got your M79. Everything you got, you're putting it out there. Because if you didn't, you could get overrun. But there was no chance they would overrun us. We were all wounded. And we had killed most of them. And now it's decision time. What do I do now?
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I thought, well, we knew that the choppers or the phantoms that blew up on the other side, they'd take care of that on the other side. So I don't know that I really want to do that. Because they might reinforcements from somewhere. This is their damn country. And they weren't very loyal. But we're loyal. We'll fight with the Army. We'll fight with the Navy.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
but we're not going to fight with the Vietnamese because we don't trust them, number one. Never did. But explosions was going off and I started firing and kept firing. I kept throwing hand grenades and sometimes they would hit a tree or something like that and bounce back on the ground And you'd have to make sure that if that thing went off, you were covered.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
So we finally had to make a decision to get out of there. And both my legs were broken. I was bleeding all over the place. We weren't going to quit. We weren't going to give up. We weren't going to be captured. So we finally got down to the helicopter and landed. There was two of them. One was circulating around. The other one landed.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I think you know that story, but I'll tell it for your audience. The helicopter landed, and I brought all my men in, and I was being helped by one of the troops. My dog's body, we brought the dog's body in, King. And then... I had a problem getting everybody on that 34, H-34, the small helicopter. Got all the bodies on, King's body on. But it was, I had nine men and a dog.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And the chopper, it was too light of a chopper to get me on board. So I told the crew chief, Get my men out of here. I'll make it. Find a way. He said, no, come on board. He grabbed me. There was noises going on. He grabbed me by my harness, pulled me on the helicopter, and the helicopter went up by 10 feet and crashed. Bam, I fell off, bleeding all over the place. But I could stand.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I had a broken leg. I was standing. But this is a battle. Your personal injuries don't count. He grabbed me again, pulled me on board. Now, I don't know. My corpsman had given me morphine. So I don't know if he went up another time or if we just went out of there. But he did take off, turned around, and I kept going. And one of the co-pilot was shot.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And the pilot started going home and it started to rain, lightning, and the chopper was wobbling a little bit. But we're talking about God. up in Quezon. I was on my knees one night after a young child was injured in one of them firefights at Quezon. So I picked the child up and run toward the aid station. By the time I got there,
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Charlie died in my arms, and I laid the child down when her arms was whole on to my arms. I couldn't hardly lay her down, but I laid her down, and she was dead. I went back to where I needed to be, and I saw my corpsman. I said, Doc, come here. He said, yes, sir. I said, uh, I'm gonna need you now. They'll be, I figured they'd be coming back in.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
We had this barbed wire, they still got my case on, this barbed wire. And we had it because they would come in at night. They'd throw grenades through that barbed wire. And so I told the corpsman, You stay with me. And the corpsman said, yes, sir. He came around and stood by my right. I was standing. And he said, Lieutenant, I'm a little tired, you know? I said, can I sit for a minute?
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I said, yeah, Doc, we got a few minutes. And then we heard those bugles. America and you die and all this other foolishness. Doc sat down. I said, Doc, they're coming now. Doc fell over dead. Died on his post. Damn. That's when I said damn. He didn't tell me he was wounded in a homeless chest. I didn't see it. Should have. Said, Doc, I called him over.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I didn't know he'd been wounded, but it's my fault. And over the years, I grieved about that. Still grieve about it. The boy sat down there and said, I'm just a little tired, sir. I'll be okay. Damn it. I'll be okay. Brave. Where you get such men from? Where did we get him from? A young sailor. I never knew his name. At least I don't remember his name.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Sat down, and when I said it's time to fight, he was gone. He would have fought. He had fought. I always thought about Doc, what he might have been, what he might become. He might have cured cancer. He might have done something for all of us. But then for me, the demons come home. Now you got to deal with Jim Capers, the warrior. I looked up in the sky that night and I prayed to God.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I said, God, I need help tonight. I need help. The little girl I tried to save was gone. The warrior corpsman was gone. And I was on my knees. I'm looking up in the sky. I said, God, I need you. Please help me. I'm praying. God didn't say, it's going to be okay, son. But when I needed it, God saved my life at another part, which I'll tell you later on, which confirms my belief in God.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I wouldn't be here today if God hadn't answered my prayer. He didn't ask it when I was on my knees praying, but God answers prayers when He needs to answer them. He'll talk to you then. He doesn't do things when you want them done. He does things when He wants them done. I've been through the God thing. Trust me. I know what God is. And I'll see him again. I'll see my wife and my son.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
God's got me. Kept me alive all this time. This summer I'll be 88 years old.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
God showed up in... Bulak. He always showed up when he went to show up. Maybe not for me, but other men that would have died and artillery came in that I didn't know was coming. But God showed up when I was coming out of Fulak. When the chopper was flying us back to Ahmed, it was raining, it was a rough night. We'd been out there, and it started to go down.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I was sitting in the doorway, and my wounded guys were holding on to me. And the guys in the background were lying down. They were crying and moaning because they had been wounded pretty seriously. Nick lost a leg and the whole bit. And I'm standing in the chopper. I was flying in. And they started going down. I don't know if it had been out of fuel. It was going down.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
It was kind of a nasty night. It was that night. And all of a sudden, the hand of God reached out and snapped it, caught that helicopter, and kept it flying. I'm told it had no fuel and not enough fuel. But when I asked God, God said, now I'll show you that I am God. I'll give you my hand, and he kept the helicopter flying. Everybody on that helicopter lived.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Those are stories that are real, because all the men on board saw the same thing. We were going down. Behind the helm is a helicopter going down. All of a sudden, God grabbed it and kept it flying. Then when they took it to the maintenance folks, they said they had no gas. They said it shouldn't have flown. And I'm told they took it to some place, it never flown again. God can do amazing things.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I'm 87 now. I'll turn 88 this year. What a blessing. What a blessing. I know about God. I also prayed when my son was dying in the hospital. I was standing by his side And he closed his eyes. I couldn't save him. I prayed to God. I wanted a miracle. And he died in my arms. But here's what I had to finally see, that my son is not blind. God has him now. He's in the bosom of God.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
My wife does not have cancer now. God has healed both of them. They're happy. They're sitting at the right hand of God, and they're waiting on me. And I don't know if God will allow a guy like me, who hadn't been a nice guy, but I want to believe that he'll forgive me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
He didn't just save the helicopter. He saved all of us. There were human beings on that helicopter. I don't know if they had prayed like I prayed, but when I was in Quezon, I asked God to, you know, show me a miracle. Hit me with a bolt of lightning. But he didn't. But when that chopper was going down, like I said, God reached out with his mighty hand and kept it flying.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
In spite of the rain and light and everything else that was going on, I know it was going down because I saw the blood all over the place. It's full of blood. Has everybody been wounded?
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
You're right. They took it out of service and they said it should have been flown that night. I don't know. But I can only say that God... Saved us when we needed to be saved. I've had other cases when I prayed. I prayed for my son. It didn't work, but then God has him now. And my wife died of cancer after 50 years of marriage. I'll see her again.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Do I think about dying? No, not really. Because I've got friends like you that keep me going. No, I'm all right. I have serious PTSD, so they tell me. I have nightmares. The battlefields come back to me. I live alone in my home, but I have friends that come to see me. The government provides a nurse to see me. And old friends come over and help me. Because I can't get around very well anymore.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I don't drive. No. I've had problems. Obviously sleeping, the demons comes home. I don't know if you know what PTSD is, but I'm not a doctor, but I know that I've had trouble with it. And it takes a lot of people to give me a hand these days. I still got a piece of wire in this leg and metal in my lower legs and in my thighs. I had a heart attack.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I've had surgery and, you know, the doctor's doing what they can to keep an older guy alive. They gave me Purple Hearts and now I understand they're trying to give me the Melovinum. Won't bring my men back.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Well, that's what they're telling me. There's a list of 47 senators and congressmen who sent a letter to the president asking him to give me the Medal of Honor. Now, he's a busy man, president, so I don't know whether he'll get around to that or even if he wants to get around to it. I got nominated in 67 when my general come to see me after Fulop and kissed me on the head, forehead.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And there were folks who, I was full of morphine. I don't really know what happened there, but what folks told me, but that he had planned to give me the mail of honor or recommend me, Congress gives that or the president gives that, he got killed in a helicopter crash.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
So I left and went home and did the family thing and didn't think about it much until a young general named General James Williams used to be one of my platoon sergeants, platoon commanders rather, He was now a two-star general. And he'd heard all these stories from at my reunions, talked to guys that said, well, Major Capers did this. Major Capers did that. Wasn't sympathy, but they were there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And Williams, as he come through, a young man, He decided to call me back to duty. And that's what he did. And he recommended me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
One man that I know of, his name was Henry Stanton. Huge young man, black kid. He was my M79 man. He'd run out of ammunition. I was on an explosion, hit me and hit him, and I would lean up back against a tree or something. And I reached around, I was holding Stanton, and I reached around to take the dog tags off of another Marine that I was holding. Well, Stanton I was holding, yeah.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
I was holding Stanton, I reached around to take his dog tags off. And he looked up to me and he said, Lieutenant, I don't think we're gonna make it this time. You know, he'd been hit and lost a kidney and his blood all over the place. He's bleeding out of his mouth, some out of his nose. I said, no, we're gonna make it. You hold on, son, you hold on.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
One of the bravest things I ever heard, he said, hand me a rifle. I can still fight. After all this explosion and whatever, I said, just hand me a rifle, sir. I can still fight. That's a man. That's a patriot. That's a Marine. I can still fight. And I said, I'm going to get you out of here, son. And everything just, you know. Went to hell, but he lives. He's still alive.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Mm-hmm. I called him and told him that it looked like they wanted to give me the Medal of Honor. He said, oh, hell, so they should have done that 50 years ago. I said, I understand, but this is what they're telling me now. And I got sent a letter that had all the, if you saw that or not, the signatures of all the senators and congressmen. I didn't know most of those guys.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
But Bull and the team, they've been pulling the strings. General Williams and all of the ones that have done it. I'm proud. I never thought about the marijuana. I thought about my troops. When they gave me a Silver Star, I figured, oh, gee, that's, Somebody's pulling strings. I never thought I did anything. I did my job.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Like I did when that shark was going to eat the hell out of one of my team members. That's what you do. Sure, you've done it or you're trained to do it. Uh, uh, Joroski is still alive, but he wasn't on the FULOC mission. He had a hernia and I sent him back to aid station. He pissed about he wanted to go. I put Nick in at Ski's place. Nick lost a leg. Nick was a big man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
19-inch arms, 50-inch chest. He carried an M60 like nothing. When he got hit, I heard him screaming. Part of my language, you MFs, I want to, you know, he was just firing with his M, which is a large weapon. But he got hit and he kept fighting. Stanton kept fighting. They all kept fighting. There was no quitting team, broad-minded. Just my dog. Miller is gone now. Crapo is gone now, you know.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Those types of things were dangerous, and we kept away from that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Sergeant Yerman is gone now. And a few years ago, they put me in a hospital. Didn't look good for me. But God knows I don't worry about it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
Well, there was nothing to that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
No, not really.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
They tried to get me on full time. I had done this stuff in Vietnam. I did the CIA thing there in Vietnam. And I'd help them when I was, this is not Vietnam, but when I was, Seal Force Recon, some of the guys that were about to deploy, I'd bring them down to Camp Lejeune so they could go to the Jump Masters course or Repelling or whatever it was. I'd do that for them.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
First weapon I had was when I joined boot camp in 1956.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And, of course, in Vietnam I did that thing and in Europe. But they're a good group. They were a lot of young guys. I did the FBI stuff. FBI gave me two Thompson submachine guns when I retired. You know, I got a young man now. He retired as a two-star in the CIA. I trained a lot of those guys. But as far as operating, my operating operations were not very good.
Shawn Ryan Show
#180 Major James Capers Jr. - Vietnam Marine Commando Silver Star Recipient
And that's not what I'm just supposed to say. There's a lot of stuff that I was involved in. Yeah. And you should probably have done the same things. Not me. Because of what I look like, number one. And the way they're set up to operate. And the FBI, I tried to help out there. put them through a jump program and jump master program and martial arts.