And fought in the same Army Infantry unit. In our year of war, Daniel Bolger recounts their journeys from Middle America to vietnam at the right of the war and home again. As we observe the 50th anniversary of the war, we are privileged to hear from these two eyewitnesses. The author, daniel p. Bolger, served in the u. S. Army for 35 years, retiring as a lieutenant general. He commanded troops in afghanistan and iraq. Earning five bronze star medals. One for valor and the combat action badge. He is a contributing editor for Army Magazine and the author of eight other books. He currently teaches history at North Carolina state university. Chuck hagle has long served our country. He was the secretary of defense from 2013 to 2015, and before that a u. S. Senator from his home state nebraska. During the the vietnam war he served in combat and earned two purple hearts, the combat infantryman badge and the vietnamese cross of gallantry. After graduating from the university of nebraska at omaha he worked as a Congressional Staff assistant, cofounded vanguard cellular and begin the became the president and chief executive officer of the uso. He is the author of america, our next chapter. Tom hagel was born and raised in nebraska as well. In combat he earned three purple hearts, the bronze star with a v for va lor and the combat infantryman branch badge. He graduated from the university of nebraskao ma and and the university of Nebraska School of law. After working as a public defender in nebraska, he taught law at Temple University and then joined the university of dayton, retiring as a full professor. In addition, he serves as an acting judge for the Municipal Court in dayton, ohio. He is the author of two books and numerous articles on legal subjects. Please welcome Daniel Bolger, chuck hagel and tom hagel. Thanks very much for that kind introduction, and thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for coming out on this rainy election day to spend some time talking with the hagel brothers. To my right, chuck hagel and to his right, brother tom. I would like to the ask both of these gentlemen, 50 years ago, november 7, 1967, where were you . 1967 . Right, 1967. I cant remember that far back. We were in california at fort ord. There you go. And i was getting ready to leave to go to fort dixon, new jersey because i had orders to go to germany, and you were finishing. Right. We were in advanced infantry training and i followed chuck all the way through. I was about, what, four weeks, six weeks behind you in the training cycle, both in basic training and infantry training. Where did you do basic training . In el paso, both of us. Hot. Like the desert. Fort bliss, there is a reason everyone calls it bliss. Everyone is happy. So by november, 67, as you mentioned, you finished yours and you had orders to germany and the cold war was going on, ladies and gentlemen. So what there was a substantial force in germany, but the vietnam war was also going on. Did you ever go to germany . No. I got to fort dix, new jersey in late november and as the bus was getting ready to pick up 10 of us to take us to germany and we were the first class of the red eye missile gun, which was the first shoulder fired heatseeking missile in our arsenal. It was designed to bring down low flying jets coming in, migs, from the soviet union and through the pass in germany. I decided if i was going to be in the army and i was going to serve my country at a time we were at war, then i wanted to go to vietnam. I went down and tom will tell his story, but he did the same thing and i said, i am private hagel, here are my orders to germany. I volunteered to go to vietnam. I recall vividly in the orderly room there was a stunned silence and they put me in the back of the room and said, son, come back here. They brought a chaplain in, and they brought, i think, a Security Officer in, because immediately they thought something was very suspicious. I was running away from a crime or something was wrong. Eventually i stayed there for two weeks, and got new orders to go to vietnam. Went back home for a few days, and then went to california and processed out to vietnam. And then about four weeks later, i ended up in fort dix, new jersey. I remember writing from the airport riding from the airport in a 2. 5 ton army truck. It was freezing, deep snow, and i remember driving by the px. I saw this poor guy, and this was about midnight poor guy walking, had a little trail around the px, keep in mind this is new jersey, United States, not exactly a lot of enemy around, with a rifle, which im sure was empty, Walking Around the px, in his little trail, and i remember an outdoor light glaring on him. I was thinking, my god, i cannot do that i was supposed to go to germany as well and i have a thing about cold weather to begin with, but i could not do that. Our group were told we were going to spend about six months living out in the black forest running maneuvers in the snow in germany, and then go to vietnam. Which turned out i ran into a couple of my friends who did go over and i ran into them in vietnam. They were just getting over there. So i went and volunteered to go too. They did not call any security people or chaplains for me. They were happy to do that. Keep in mind, i am, what, 18 years old, Something Like that. I got it in my head, i remember seeing a movie about brothers, if you have two brothers or more than two brothers in a combat zone, you can only have one there and the rest go to a noncombat unit. So i thought well, you know, ill go over and chuck can come back. They said, yeah, no problem. Just get ahold of the red cross when you get there. Keep in mind, i am 18 and do not know anything. So i went over there, i landed and i went to the Assignment Center where they divvy up the troops to the different units and i said, where is the red cross . They pointed to some tent somewhere, and i walked in, after all, my name is tom hagel and you probably know all about this. Who are you . Obviously, it did not work so we both ended up there. To follow on that, both the hagel brothers were draftees, but in each of your case, it wasnt it wasnt the standard draft where you just get the note and you report in. When you both were contacted by the draft board, what action did you take . I was called home. I had been to three colleges, not an academic career to me emulated at that point. And so the director of selective service, and had been the director during the world war ii, so shed been there a long time. The draft board in platte county, nebraska said we will give you six months to go back to school and then we will have to take you because the levy was coming down, it was the big build up. We had over half a million troops in vietnam when i got there, and they built it even bigger. I said, i think it is a waste of time. Certainly for any respectable education institution, for me to go back. I am not going back. Im not going to get anything out of it. How soon can i leave . I will volunteer for the draft, but i want to go right now. They looked at each other and they said, well, there is actually a business leaving in two weeks. I said, put me on it. I signed up there and that was it. You were still in high school, right . Yeah. I took my physical and got my draft notice while i was in high school, and i got my same letter, and they said well, well send you, i think it was in september, and i was not going to sit around all summer with that hanging on my hips. I said, i will go now, and i was in the army five days after high school. I mention that just because, you often hear people say, well, the army in vietnam was a draft army, which is true, and the army today is a volunteer army, also true. But here you have two volunteers. There was one other opportunity you both got. If you want to comment what happened when your potential was recognized and you were recommended for officer candidate school. Both hagels have that opportunity. Well, i will give you my take on it. Tom had the same thing. You will hear his story. I was not particularly interested in it, because it meant another year, and i was not sure that i wanted to take another year. That would be three years. The other thing that kept going through my mind was the fact that our dad was in world war ii, and the south pacific, tailgunner, b25 bomber and spent quite a bit of time there, and he was enlisted and came out a technical sergeant. I dont know if maybe there was some romanticism about our dad or his service or being a sergeant, but i think that subconsciously affected me, too. But i think the main thing for me was i didnt want to commit to that third year, i did not know how that was all going to work. So i said, no. When i was offered it keep in mind, once again i am 18 years old, not too bright, and i am sitting there, thinking i learned very quickly that officers had a lot better life to lead than being an enlisted man, especially the low private e1 that i was at the time. They explained to me it is a 52week program. So i was think, okay by the way, both of us had to go through advanced infantry training to be able to go to and then go into officers candidate school. So no matter how it shook down, we would both be trained as infran trimen, which is fine. So i was thinking, basic training lasts so long, advanced infantry training lasts so long, and it is a year in officer candidate school. And i had it figured out, well, if i do that, by the time i get out of officer candidate school, i will only have six months left, i said, this is not a bad deal. So i went along with it until i finished infantry training, and they got the group together to take off for, i think it was, fort benning, and they said we want to go over this one more time, keep in mind, the 52 weeks does not count for the two years youre already in for. So i said, forget it. I refused to go. It was probably in everybodys best interests. So two brothers who both volunteered for the army, kol untiervolunteered again for infantry. Tom, at one point, they did not want to put you in the infantry. Chuck mentioned a red eye gunner, which was a specialty after that time, but tom, i thought, after the initial screening they actually recommended you for another specialty . I cant remember that. I have seen your records, i believe it was cook. Yes. No, what that was i had had a ton of jobs. I spent more of my life as a teenager working than i did in high school. If you saw my record, you would understand why. But one of the jobs i had was pizza maker, cook, things like that. And when i refused to go to officer candidate school, they did not know what to do with me. Because my orders were already cut. So they sent me back to the Training Unit and made me a cook for about a month, and then cut me new orders for germany. The rest is history. As they say. Culinary arts. Culinary arts. I can still keep about 20 eggs going at one time without burning any of them. There you go. Impressive. Your comment about working. One thing you should note, the hagel brothers were raised in nebraska, which is almost the exact Geographical Center of the continental United States, and raised out in the sand hills, which is a very rural area, and you both of you guys worked from a very young age. Chuck was 9 and i was 7 when we got our first job at a Grocery Store sacking potatoes, onions, all of this is manual, of course, a 10point bag, 2 cents a pound, and that was big money back then. I think i mentioned this to tom, you know how the Social Security system works, for most you get an annual review of how much you paid in and when you started paying in, and i was looking at mine the other day, and i started paying into Social Security when i was 8 years old. When i was 8 years old. And i remember the job. It was at a drivein next to the Grocery Store in nebraska as a car hop. I had to take a little box, because i was not tall enough to get to the window, and i had to stand on the box to take the orders. I always look back on that as to why would they take Social Security out, because i think i probably only made enough money to buy a hot dog, and that was it. But anyway, that is when i started paying. So we worked all that is when i started paying, but as tom said, we worked all of our lives. It would have helped you, certainly. Both of these gentlemen arrived in vietnam. Chuck got there in december. Tom got there, as mentioned, in january. Initially, you were both in the same division. The ninth infantry division. That is a big organization, ladies and gentlemen, 20,000 troops. But not the same unit, not the same battalion or company. Right. Initially. Yeah. And thats a tom and i still dont understand all of that, how that happened, because, as you say, he was north within colonel pattons cav, and i was with 2nd 42nd. And we tried to put in for transfer to see if we could get together. We talked at least a couple of times on the phone, but one day, tom appeared in our unit, which is still kind of a mysterious they were going to send me somewhere south to be somewhere around. And of course one of the intervening events was kind of important. That was not within a few days after tom arrived in country, the largest enemy offensive of the war broke out on january 31, 1968, the tet offensive. Both of you gentlemen were involved in that, right . Yes, i got there, i landed december 4, 1967, and he was, what, january 30 . That, as you said, was a defining time for that war, for the optics of it, for the casualties. Those who have had an opportunity to look at ken burns magnificent documentary and get some historical reflection of what really happened on that, its still being debated and so on. But that really did define, i think, our service in vietnam, tom, and it defined everything. Absolutely. And it defined the war. The turning point in america in every way. The rest of your time, particularly in public service, you kept a picture from that. What was that picture . Tom knows about this. Tom was not with me at the time that this happened. When i was in the senate, and i think you met him, tom, i got a letter one day from a retired army colonel in wisconsin, who i remembered the name, and i couldnt put it all together. But it was a very nice letter, and it said, senator, i do not know if you remember this or remember me, but i was a lieutenant in the same company not the same platoon and we were a mechanized unit, armored personnel carriers, we were the first in the headquarters that morning in the village. He said, i took a picture with my little brownie insta mattic camera, behind your truck of the ammo dump in long binh, which was the largest in the world, blowing up. I would like to come by sometime and show it to you. We had a long conversation, and he gave me an 8x10 picture. This little brownie camera picture. It looked like an atomic bomb going off, it was astounding, and he autographed it for me, and i kept it on the wall the rest of the time in the senate. I had it in my office at gallup as well. Its a reminder, which tom and i have discussed many times about again the significance of tet. And the scale of destruction. All of this, ladies and gentlemen, for chuck hagels unit at the time, they were in and around the city of saigon, the largest city in south vietnam, and the capital. Sometimes they call it ho chi minh city. Thats its post war name, but the People Living there still call it saigon, from what i can gather. How about you . I was in long binh in a replacement unit, and they came in and said how many of you have infantry sos, and collected us and put us on the perimeter, so we worked involved in trying to keep them out of it was a huge base. After a couple dais, thats when i got orders to go up to the dmz, and up there was just as crazy. Most people, if you watched the ken burns special or are family with vietnam, served, or know someone who did, the north would be right next to the socalled demilitarized zone. All of the regular troops, the best troops, filtered down through that area. The marines had a lot of forces up in that area as well. We worked with the marines. It was a tank unit. So major fighting at that time was occurring where tom hagels unit was, in places youve probably heard about. The full area was all under attack during that period. So you mentioned you both put in a request to serve together. Whatever happened with the red cross idea that if you can get in country, theyd send chuck home . Believe me, they never got back to me. [laughter] shockingly enough. This is one thing that can help when you are an author and decades later you can dig up the actual paperwork. Here is what i found there is not only a regulation in the department of defense that said secretary of defense hagel would know about, but it is also a United States law passed after world war ii. Some of you all have seen the movie the fighting sullivans, or heard of the five Sullivan Brothers from iowa. In world war ii they all enlisted in the navy and served together on the uss juneau, and the uss juneau was torpedoed by the japanese during a night out. Many of the crew were lost, and all five of the Sullivan Brothers. It was so devastating for the Sullivan Family and by the way, the navy named a destroyer, the sullivans. There is a destroyer today called the sullivan. They have been memorialize ed throughout the history. There was a movie called the sullivans. But Lawmakers Said hey, we so they passed a law, locally known as the sullivans rule, and it says that two close family members cannot serve together in a combat zone involuntarily. That last part is the key part. Because both hagel brothers had asked to serve with each other. Guess what the sergeants and officers said . Does the sullivan rule apply . Nope. Set that aside. I didnt know that. Yes, because you volunteered to do it. I might add, ladies and gentlemen, what was really unusual about chuck and tom, they didnt just serve with each other in the outfit, they were in the same rifle platoon with about 30 to 40 soldiers all together at the same time. So they really served closely. Next to each other. When your brother showed up, what did you think . Well, i was concerned when we were out on a search and destroy