S1: Welcome in San Diego , it's Jade Hindman. On today's show , a new podcast explores the story of a Vietnam vet. Hear from the creator of Reconnaissance Man. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. Earlier on our show , we heard about the role San Diego service members are playing near Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. Well , a new podcast looks at or actually looks to America's past , sharing the experiences of a veteran of the Vietnam War , which ended over 50 years ago. Ashley McLellan is the investigative journalist behind the podcast , as well as the main character's granddaughter. The podcast is called Reconnaissance Man. Here's a clip.
S2: That was our biggest concern was booby traps and they had some ingenious ways of doing it. Whether it was bamboo or metal didn't matter. Your own weight stabbed those things into. Then they tried to pull you out. They couldn't. They tunneled down under the town like a honeycomb. They said there was 100 miles of tunnels under there. So at night. Bing , bing. Someone's shooting at them from inside the camp.
S1: I'm joined now by Ashley McLean. Ashley , welcome to Midday Edition.
S3: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to see this finally reach the public. Yes.
S1: Yes. Well , we can't wait to hear more about it. I mean , tell us more about your grandfather , James Steel , and his experience in Vietnam. Yeah.
S3: Yeah. So , as mentioned , I was an investigative journalist in San Diego for several years. I used to work at the Union Tribune and Voice of San Diego , and then I had kids and stopped working full time for a while. But I grew up hearing , you know , kind of sporadic accounts from my grandfather , James Steele. He was a United States Marine back , you know. A while ago , he graduated high school in 1954 , in Kimball , Nebraska. He enlisted that same year and then , you know , went on to serve and become a force reconnaissance Marine , which is sort of the elite , you know , team trained to do the submarine work , the parachute work. You know , the toughest of the tough. And but I had never really , you know , heard his story in order. But I knew it was fascinating. And he is an amazing storyteller. You know , you sit with him and he's still with us. He's 89 now. Um , he lives in Lake Forest , California , in Orange County , where where most of the family is still based. But , you know , I finally had time on my hands in 2023 to sit down and begin to try to capture his story. And we sat and it was pretty simple. I had two iPhones propped up on a on a pile of books in his kitchen table and said , grandpa , let's talk on the record. Um , are you are you open to this ? And he was thrilled and had a lot to say. And it turns out , you know , he had a 30 year , um , Marine Corps career. He was a member of the original First Force reconnaissance team based out of Camp Pendleton. So he was on the team that started off as the amphibious , you know , reconnaissance team. And they added the parachute skills as well.
S1: And tell me about that , because he was part of of the marine reconnaissance team at the time.
S3: So he was describing to me even their training exercises. This is again before Vietnam. Uh , they're training off the coast of Point Loma. Um , you know , the shores. They're in their rubber boats trying to practice for these , you know , intense landings that they would , you know , potentially face abroad. And just the trainings were lethal sometimes he said , you know , there would be , you know , waves crashing into the rocks. And , you know , it was basically impossible to land , but no one said , stop. So we tried. And , you know , they lost men doing those exercises. He said. Even a couple of , um , men , they had to use dynamite to kind of blow their bodies out of the rocks. And I'm like , this is before Vietnam , so you're traumatized before you even leave. Wow. Uh , but you know that they certainly had to toughen up quickly. Um , but , yeah , he he comes back to Camp Pendleton multiple times in his career , as well as El Toro. What was El Toro marine base in Orange County , which was decommissioned later. But , um. Yeah , San Diego has a special place in his heart. He did boot camp here. Uh , but , you know , he was sort of disappointed. He said when he landed in San Diego , he enlisted , you know , hoping to be , you know , in the sand hills and the woods. And he's like , I'm next to the airport in San Diego. Like.
S4:
S1: I mean , tell me this because he did three tours of duty in Vietnam and during that time he lost his brother who died there in Vietnam.
S3: I mean , and this his service as a Force Recon Marine , he was on the front lines as he said , you know , he didn't join the Marines to become a bean counter. Like I wanted to be there doing the hard stuff. And so , uh , we we detail the loss of his brother in episode four , because in total , there's nine episodes that are coming down the pipe. Um , but in episode four , he does lose his brother. He's , uh , asked to escort the body home. Just finding his body. This is , like , at the height of the 1969 attacks , there were 68 and 69 was the most brutal part of the war. And so he had to to be just so tough. Um , and then later , you know , kind of deprogram that toughness in order to become the grandfather that I know and love , who is who is , you know.
S4: Affable and a jokester.
S3: Um , but yeah , the conditions he experienced both knowing loved ones who died , seeing friends die right in front of him. Um , you have to , to harden. Um , and he said there's actually a point. He says , you know , he he hardened a bit too much , but also it helped save him. It helped him , you know , endure all the craziness that they did encounter over there year after year , as he did go back each and every time. So , yeah. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. What made you want to tell this story ? Yeah.
S3: So I mean , if you , you know , if you stick with us through the whole thing , there are so many twists and turns. There are so many close calls. Um , and his perspective is really interesting. And I think more than anything , I kind of wanted to better both for my family's sake. But then it kind of became something of interest to the broader public , I believe. You know , it's a window into these 30 years of U.S. history that does cover , you know , a good portion of the Cold War from the 50s to the 80s. There is so much history packed in there. And a lot of it's , you know , about finding the communists and these battles that popped up in the Dominican Republic and in Cuba and in Vietnam. And , you know , what was it like for an infantryman during those years ? What what did they even know about the broader , you know , global factors at play ? And of course , as we know , this this project , which has been years in the making , is now finally landing. You know , right as we're back at war and we're even talking about Cuba again. Like it's just crazy , the turn of events. But I think there's something really special about the human experience , right ? Like , you know , artificial intelligence can bring us so far , but we need to sit and listen to these stories while while these folks are still with us and , and understand both what it took to be the soldier and marine he needed to be and men like him. Um , what we're asking of them and also , just again , his particular story was so unique and special. Um , I knew that even early on and was eager to kind of share it with the world.
S1: I mean , let me ask you this , because next Thursday , I believe April 30th marks the 51st anniversary of the fall of Saigon.
S3: Obviously , Vietnam was not a success. They , you know , 58,000 US soldiers died. More than 3 million had been sent to the region in total. And , you know , at that time and following the trajectory and educating myself about the war and watching the , you know , ten hour Ken Burns documentary on it to try to catch , catch myself back up to speed. But , uh , you know , the Vietnamization process that , you know , the US tries to hand the battle back to the South Vietnamese before leaving. And at this point , there's protests in the United States , right ? He describes being he was at home by the time Saigon fell. But he's like , oh my gosh. Like it was just devastating , right ? They had all these beautiful positions , as he says , that are being handed back. And there he goes on to really praise a lot of the South Vietnamese soldiers there and those that were , you know , the sort of elite troops for their , um , you know , uh , missions. But , you know , the best ones were sent into the various situations and just , you know , were massacred and slaughtered. And he's just like , ah , that was just horrible. And obviously the Vietnamization process didn't work right. The northerners came in , the communists won. They took over the whole country. But as he said , even with the protests over the years and people started questioning , you know , should the United States have even been there and gotten involved ? He never questioned. And he also never dealt with survivor's guilt , which I know a lot of servicemen do. He just said , you know , I never dealt with that. You know , if it's your time to go , it's your time to go. And , you know , lucky for me and my family , it wasn't his time to go. Although , again , he did lose a sibling and so many others were lost. And so it's it's quite the tale. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. Well , you mentioned survivor's guilt and you know , we know so much more today about the psychological impacts of war than we did in the past. What was your grandfather's experience navigating the the overall trauma of war ? Right.
S3: So again , he , he while he was in the thick of it , it sounds like he sort of was able to compartmentalize and just sort of put it away on a shelf. Right. Like I'll deal with that later. But as he came home , you know , PTSD , post-traumatic stress did did rear its ugly head. In fact , one of the more traumatic incidents when he was abroad in Vietnam , was in an explosion that he witnessed right behind it. It's like a small track vehicle. He said , look like a baby tank. It was freshly refueled. It explodes. And , you know , literally body pieces are thrown everywhere of his fellow , you know , comrades. And so they have to spend the next day and a half picking up body pieces and trying to figure out which man is which and putting tarps of , you know , pieces. And , and he's like , at that time I didn't struggle. You know , other men were falling apart on the scene , and he just kind of , okay , I'm just going to do it and harden up. Well , years later , he's home in Lake Forest , California , and he sees a SUV , um , driving , and a manhole cover explodes and , like , shoots the van , you know , up into the air. And he suddenly has a flashback of this auto explosion , and it's so disorienting. He literally is transported back , and he says he could smell it. He could hear it. He could hit his sense of time gets warped. Um , he for a while could not sit in the front passenger seat facing forward. He had to sit sideways because he was so traumatized by it. So I think the lesson there that I took was , you know , you can certainly harden yourself to , to endure the worst of the worst , um , and the and the brutality of war. But at some point it will probably come up and and your body remembers , your mind does remember. And he had to come to terms with that. He did eventually go to counseling , uh , to , to work through that because it you know , those memories were there , whether he dealt with them on the spot or years later.
S1: They were delayed. Yeah.
S5:
S3: Because , you know , normally you don't get years to work on a. Project.
S5: Project.
S3: And normally you don't get access to , you know , buckets and buckets of photos and documents and , you know , digging through the garage and the back bedroom. It was a treasure hunt for myself and some relatives that were able to help. Shout out to all the relatives that helped me gather this stuff together and scan it. But yeah , I did treat it in some ways like a normal source in the sense that , you know , we sat down and it was like , grandpa , let's be on the record to the extent you want to share whatever you want to share. And then if you ever want to go off the record , you just tell me , you know , and we'll turn off our mic and you can share a private story , and then we'll go back on the record. And then I've had him listen to all them. And you know , I'm like , okay , you know , I'm not a military person originally. So I'm like , did I get this right ? Did I get this wrong ? And he had some feedback for me , and we made some tweaks to get it to be as accurate as possible. And so yeah , it's been a beautiful labor of love. Um , so many hours poured into it. The Marine Reconnaissance Foundation gave a little bit of support , which has helped. Um , they're going to be doing a showing with Combat Story this Friday on Camp Pendleton's base for people that are a part of the recon challenge. Super excited about that. It'll be released this Sunday on their Combat Story channels on YouTube , Spotify , Apple Podcasts. Um , but yeah , they're helping me visualize it as well with actual archival footage and photos of my grandpa and family. And it's been an amazing process. Wow.
S1: Wow. Well , we will have information on where you can watch this. Or listen to this podcast at KPBS. It's a fascinating story and so important to share these experiences. I've been speaking with Ashley McGlone , creator of the podcast Reconnaissance Man. Ashley , thank you so much.
S3: Thank you.
S1: That's our show for today.
S6: I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
