The Smallest Green Beret Who Fought Like a Giant | Captain Richard J Flaherty – Vietnam 1968 D
(76) The Smallest Green Beret Who Fought Like a Giant | Captain Richard J Flaherty – Vietnam 1968 – YouTube
Transcripts:
I’m not a hero, but I did have the honor to fight next to a few. Captain Richard J. Flatty. Photo December 1968, Vietnam. At 4’9 in, 97 lb green beret. Captain Richard Flatty is believed to be the smallest special forces soldier to ever serve in the US military. Here’s an excerpt from the book in the recon platoon chapter.
I asked Richard, “Were you ever afraid of getting killed?” No, not really. I just always had this feeling that I wasn’t going to die over there. Although, there was this one time. I came real close to buying the farm when I almost drowned. River crossing. I guessed. No, in a rice patty. I thought the water was only a foot or two deep in a rice patty.
Yeah, usually it is, but this was during a typhoon. I believe it was Typhoon Bess. 1968 LZ Mongoose. I was in charge of recon platoon echo company I think around September of ‘ 68 and we were operating out of an area we called LZ Mongoose. We were out in the field setting up an ambush. It was already raining pretty hard when we got hit with these huge bands of rain from a typhoon.
And I’m not talking heavy rain. I’m literally talking about buckets of water pouring down on us. It must have been high tide because the storm surge pushed the ocean miles inshore to where we were operating. The rice patty couldn’t have been more than 150 yd long, but once that typhoon hit, it took us hours to cross it.
Recon was a small unit, so we’d bring as much ammo as we could carry. Sometimes we’d be humping over 70 lb of ammo and equipment on our backs. The water in that patty must have been over 5 ft high because I was completely underwater once it hit. One minute I was slogging in waist high water, the next I was trapped underwater for at least 30 seconds.
I couldn’t get the equipment off of me. Fast enough, everything was just muddy and black. One of my guys must have seen me go under, reached down, and pulled me up. Otherwise, I would have drowned. I was for sure a goner. Two of my guys, old Dove and Jerry Austin, had to take turns carrying me on their backs for most of that walk till we made it onto this tiny little island.
I also remember that night because I’ll do shot some NVA who were also trying to save themselves and get up on our little island. One of those soldiers was carrying all these plans and maps that detailed an upcoming sneak attack on one of our bases. It was really a big score to recover that much intelligence and it definitely saved a lot of lives.
