Excellence Will Be Tolerated with Al Lipphardt

Today he is a huge part of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and he's here to tell us his story of joining the army, serving in combat, and how he continues to serve today and fight for the greater good.

out of office in August of twenty twenty five. So that's the role that I'm in right now and anticipating the next several years.

the State of Louisiana after my Pat Paul's passing. As you all know, that's my bested interest or at least the tip of the spear of my best at interest to help the VFW in any way I can, which you know a lot more in detail about that, but it's definitely close to my heart and soul because it's ingrained in my DNA by default.

a veteran. But we're different. We're are veterans of Foreign Wars, meaning that not only did we raise our hand, we all took the same oath, but when it came time to deploy, when we were told we were going to war, we went. So when I find someone that's in the Veterans of Foreign Wars, I have absolutely no doubt of their courage because they accepted the challenge, they went to war.

up through my junior year. And one of the things that my coach did, and he was a championship coach, I told him I wanted to go to college and what were my chances of getting a football scholarship, and he said, I'll just be very frank with you, they're probably zip. I was a starter my junior year, but I was just another football player. But when the coach told me, al, you probably should go find a job, it was very hurtful. Now I also found that I

wasn't really college material. That was really not on my radar.

infantry guy. He had a field commission. He got out of the military as a colonel. I was very young. I probably was six or seven years old the last time I saw him in uniform. He also was a Korean War veteran. I'll tell you he was the epitome to me of strength, of conviction, of courage. A three or four Silver Star recipient. I think he had the Distinguished Service Cross. He was what we would refer to

as a badass. So when the war came about, I decided that fortunately we had my family knew people that were in the Selective Service offices, and the word got back to my parents that my number was coming up. I didn't want to be drafted. I wanted to enlist so that I could get when I wanted. And that was the first time in life that I realized be careful what you asked for, because it might come true. Because of what I asked for, I absolutely hated when

I got into the service. I thought, I'm going to I'm going to go into the service, so I want to learn skill that I can transition into business when I get out. Because I had no intention of making a career of the military. I was assigned as a clerk typist, and so I sat at the desk and I did with clink click because they drove me crazy. I don't want to do this. While I was in basic training, I really enjoyed that. Again, I'm a football player,

I'd like contact. So as I was going across the bars, as you swing to go to chow, and if you fall, you go back and get in the back of the line and start all over again. And after about the third time of that, I went, I got to get this master. It was building up strength. It certainly was building up character. Because my hands were blistered, they were bleeding.

I was still punching through my drill. Sergeants had been watching this and they came up and they said, loopart, your determination, your commitment to see this through to excel. We think you're a leader. You may not know this, but people in your platoon are watching you and they're following your lead, and so we think it would be good for you to go to Officer Candidate school. And so in June of sixty six, I went to Fort Benning, Georgia,

to the home of the Infantry. The Infantry School. The Infantry school motto was follow me, and I felt right at home going through tactics, learning all those things that it needed to learn to be a leader of warriors, and I took right to that. Was very proud to do that. There were a lot of good things that came out of that. I learned much about myself. We also had to have a social aspect, because, as Jake knows, when your commission the President declares you to be a gentleman,

you're an officer and a gentleman. That's what that commission represents. So we had to learn some social skills rather than just beat each other up. We did have to learn those social skills, so we had a social a quarter, and of course we were restricted to base, so we had to have a date, so you couldn't go downtown and get a rented date if you catch my draft. Fortunately one of the nursing schools in Columbus, those students would come and serve as our dates, so it was

blind dates. The very first one, I was sitting next to a fellow candidate. This girl starts walking down the steps. I looked at her, and I looked to the guy, and I said that's my future wife. He went your kid now, I'm telling you she's it. That turned out to be my date. That date happened to turn out to be my wife, Carol. She was my date at the three other socials. That was from about August, right as we graduated in December, in the car at a light,

I proposed marriage to Carol and she accepted well. I graduated from OCS on the sixteenth of December of nineteen sixty six. We were married February the twenty fourth of nineteen sixty seven. We remain married today, so we're pretty sure it's going to work. So left Ohio to go to Vietnam in June of nineteen sixty seven. Young Infantry

Officer Green as Green could be. I'm in Vietnam now, and there's a couple of movies that I've seen that are very good examples of at least my experiences in combat. I think there's probably three movies that mean the most to me. The first movie that comes to mind is Saving Private Ryan. It's those scenes in Normandy where they're coming off of the LSTs and getting into the water to take the beach. Everything in combat moves in slow motion. All hell is breaking loose, but when you're in there,

time is just moves slowly. The second one that I related to was the movie Platoon. When the movie starts, you see this soldier in very clean pressed fatigues. His boots are shined, and he's, hey, I'm here. I'm not mad at anybody. I know. I'm here. It's all okay. I have a mission. And then we're going to do the mission. But I'm not angry. So we're out. We're clearing a road. Now. I'm a platoon leader. So we're clearing this road of mines. This is up in i

Coourt in the northernmost part Vietnam of South Vietnam. We're clearing this road and this shot rings out, and so I'm looking around where'd the shot come from? Because I want to return fire. This guy laying on the ground, it's pulling my passlots. He keeps yelling at me to get down, Get down, get down. What he said to me was when somebody's firing, when you hear shot, you're supposed to get on the ground first. Then you can look around, but get down. Because you're a target. You

make the rest of us a target. Lesson learned got up after we had eliminated the sniper, and I realized at that point that somebody's now shooting it. They've started to fight with me. So now I'm angry. When I got there at the beginning, I'm this nice, pleasant individual. I'm just here. But at that point, now I realized somebody's trying to kill us, and that's not acceptable, and so I became hardened very quickly because we're going through.

We were air assaulted up to further north in Icres, which is that area that's the northernmost part of the combat zone, and there's a way that you deploy. Early movies showed helicopters landing and you're getting off. That's not how you do it. You're going to get off that helicopter when you air assault. You can get off on the way down, or you can get off on the way up. But either way you're going to get off. The key is get off when it gets as close to the ground as it's going to get, which is

about six feet. We were about twenty five clicks southwest of d Nag. Now I'm in a warzone. We're not looking for guerrillas anymore. We're looking for regular North Vietnamese Army, and so it came to November nineteen sixty seven. At this particular time, intelligence came in that intercepted a radio signal that was very unusual because only units of regimental size or division size had radios. So there was a large element near us. And so we were being deployed

and a search and destroyer mission for the enemy. So I was part of a delta company. I was a second platin leader. We got online, we started to move up this small hill. It had a hedgerow up at the top, and so as we were movie first PLATOWO was on the left and I think the fourth platoon was in the middle and I was the second platoon. I had the right flank. As we were moving up, there was a shot and it was to my left. The company commander said, all right, everybody start shifting left

and continue to sweep. So we did. Then more shots rang out, and more urgently he said, okay, move left. So we did well. When we got about fifteen yards from the hedgerow, the hedgerow opened fire. I didn't realize at the time, but on the initial volley ten of my men went down. They were wounded. Four of them were killed immediately, one was killed later. The one that

was killed later was standing next to me. But as Jake does, when you get into an ambush, there's only one way out of an ambush, and that's to not stay there. You have to fight your way through it. And that's what we did. We just charged. We broke the ambush that battle that started on Thanksgiving Day, And I've got a picture that I've posted a couple of

times that shows the time before. I'm sitting with my squad leaders and my platoon sergeant, my radio operator, and my medic and we're going over my plan for the way we're going to conduct this suite. We are a unit, and yes I'm the platoon leader, but they've got more time than I do in this so I'm going to run my plan by them and for them to pick at it, and if there's something wrong, let me know.

My mission was not to win a war. I was responsible for the lives of these men, so that was my goal was to protect them as much as I possibly could. I did not know their names. If I did know their names, it was only their first name. I knew probably only a handful by name because I did not want to know them because I knew what I was going to have to do, going to have to send them in harm's way. I did not want that to be an obstruction to either one of us.

That battle started November the twenty third, nineteen sixty seven. It it ended November the twenty seventh, nineteen sixty seven. For four days we engaged the second MBA Division of the third Regiment of the North Vietnamese Art. It truly was a shit show because it is so chaotic in battle, with the gunfire, with explosions, with all that is going on, It truly is chaos. And you rely on your training. This is not a time where a true thought process

takes place. You simply react to the training that you had and you hope that you were trained to be the best that you could be, and we were. As we took the heel, there was a bunker on top, and we were approaching that bunker, and as we did, shots came out. I'd seen the bunker, We were all aware that the bunker was there, and I had just said to this individual, whose name was Rodney Lowman, I told him to move. At that moment, he went to the ground. They were shot in the head. We returned fire.

We got support because there was an NBA soldier in there who would not give up, and so we were able to outflank him, get around him and throw a hangernad in and kill him. Fast forward. Now there were a number of other battles. The Tet Offensive of nineteen sixty eight took place in January, beginning in January, and again it was Hellasia's fighting. It was it was war. There was nothing gorilla about it. It was large units fighting large units. I will tell you that we never

lost a battle. Some of the battles were very costly. My recollection is I began Thanksgiving with twenty four men. On the twenty seventh of November, I had six men. Now I was wounded superficially, but I didn't have to be evacuated. The last movie that reminded me of Vietnam was We were Soldiers Once in Young the Battle of the Idragon Valley, which happened to be several years earlier, in sixty five, because what I saw on that screen was what I went through on Thanksgiving Day of nineteen

sixty seven. When people ask me about my experience of Vietnam, it's hard for me to explain, because if you weren't there, you don't understand it. I can describe it, but it's not the same. There's a couple things missing. If we were soldiers once in young could have recreated the smells of death, the smells of blood, the smells of flesh that are burning, that would have been real. That's what

people don't get. They also don't get the adrenaline. There is no greater feeling than being alive at the end of a firefight. When you talk about collisions and you talk about combat, there is only one winner, and that's the person that's alive. That has stuck with me forever, and it will stick with me. I didn't realize that I had PTSD when I got back from Vietnam the

second time, which was seventy one. I was stationed in Washington, d C. I had a reserve commission and I got the word that I was going to be released from active duty or there was a reduction in force. So ended the reserves for three years, and after the third year, I went up to the colonel. I was a company commander. I told the colonel I needed to see him, and he said, this is on I drew a weekend. He said, what do you need and I said, well, sir, I'm

here to tell you that I quit. He quit, Captain, you can't quit and I said, oh, Sir, I can't. He said, you've got an obligation. I said, no, sir, I've been here three years. I have fulfilled my obligation. And he said, clipart, that's fourteen years. Why would you throw fourteen years away? And I was in suiting clothes and I said, sir, you see this purple heart. I always wore my purple heart. And I said, I wear this for me. It reminds me how short life is.

Life changes in the blink of an eye. And I said, sir, I have to tell you every month when I come here and drill, we do the same thing. I've been doing the same thing for three years. I am not benefiting the unit, and Sir, the unit's not benefiting me. So I think it's best if we just part as friends right now. He said, Okay, wasn't the best financial decision I ever made, but mentally it was a good decision.

So I'm home after the two tours and I leave the reserves, and I'm floundering looking for myself, and I learned that I work well with others, I just don't work well for others. I need to be independent. I have principles, I have ethics, and I make demands of myself. So I became an entrepreneur. And one of the things I did was I opened a frame shop and I opened it at Fort McPherson, and I found myself back with troops again because that's what I had been looking

for in the eighties. I joined Rotary, and Rotary is the world's finest as far as I'm concerned, and I still am a Rotarian, the finest service organization. It's an international organization. People who are members of Rotary have high ethical standards. I was looking for camaraderie and what I joined Rotor was all men, so I had that camaraderie. It was a placement for the military. Still didn't have the discipline, but that's okay. I was self disciplined. But it got me to Fort Mack and it got me

back to troops again. Not only troops, but it got me back to leadership because I interfaced with the commanding general from Forces Command four stars. There were like twenty six stars at Fort McPherson. I got to know them all, and as they rotated and got to meet new ones. I opened a store in two thousand and then two thousand and one came, Yeah, I want to enlist. So I'm talking to the garrison commander. He said, so did you enlist? And I said no, I already tried. And

he laughed and I said, where are you laughing? He said, you tried. I said, yeah, I did. I could still shoot. I wanted to get back in. I wanted to contribute to the war. And the way I got into VFW was they hooked me in by telling me they were going to form a new post and they were looking for members. And I was a framer and my friend member Bilia, So why don't you bring some of your and maybe you get some business. And again I'm a businessman,

so I said, okay. Well I got to this meeting and Holy Toledo, it was like I've known these people all my life. We're speaking the same language, we have the same mentality, we have the same feelings. So I thought, you know what, I think I want to be part of this. In two thousand and two, I became a member of the Veterans of foreign wars, without a doubt, my medics saved my life, and Vietnam, the veterans of foreign wars saved my life. Here, it did not realize

that I had post traumatic stress. But I became a workaholic. I didn't do drugs, I did not do alcohol. I worked all the time. I mean from sunrise to sunset and beyond, I would work. I didn't realize that was my coping mechanism. Well, when you get a little old, you get time on your hands. When you get time on your hands, you start with zig ziggler. A motivator is fond of calling just thinking thinking. He calls to do a check up from the neck up. And when

I did that, I realized I have issues. The VA tells me that I had anger issues, and so I went to therapy and part of the therapy was immersion therapy where I had to relive the moment. Hardest thing I've ever done, I think in my life, was to take me back to November the twenty third, nineteen sixty seven, and when I was when we were taping it and he had me, my psychologist had me in the moment. He suddenly said, what did you just say? And I said, I have no clue. I'm just doing what you asked

me to do. And he said, no, what did you just say. I said, I don't know. He said, let's play the tape back. So he played the tape back, and what I said was I started Thanksgiving Day with twenty four men. At the end of the battle, I had six men left. I had one man killed. Rodney is who I remember in the records. Later I saw the names of the other men that were killed that day. He said, you think you had that man killed? And I said no, I don't. He said, why'd you say it?

I said, it's just the way I said it. I just said I had one man kunt and he said, no, you think that's your fault.

Rodney was just a casualty of the war. After some more sessions with that, I realized for over forty years I carried Rodney Lieutman with me when Carol and I would go to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, d C. I would go to Rodney's panel, Banel thirty three West and I would find his name and I would talk to Rodney. Later in the therapy. I asked a psychologist. I said, I said, Okay, if i go to the wall and tell Rodney I'm not carrying him anymore, he

can rest at peace. And he said it would be good if you could do that. And I've done that. I still go to the wall every opportunity that I get, because the names of all five men that were in my unit that were killed are all on that same panel, So I go visit each one of them when i'm there. But I do it out of respect, out of honor, because that's what I do with the veterans of foreign wars.

The veterans of foreign wars is my therapy. It's the way I give back for those that have given the ultimate sacrifice, but everyone that has done the uniform and been to battle. VFW was formed over one hundred years ago for two purposes. One was to care for the veteran, their surviving spouse and orphaned children. And the second thing is to advocate on their behalf in the halls of Congress. We still take care of the veterans. That is our

primary function. By taking care of the veteran includes camaraderie, It includes that fellowship, that bond that we all share. Doesn't matter where you were, who you were, what branch you were, if you've experienced combat, we are one and the same, and we understand each other, know that we can depend upon each other and that advocating Congress. When we were formed in eighteen ninety nine, we were formed

by veterans of the Spanish American War. And why because Congress did not keep their promises to those veterans, and they haven't been doing it ever since. The only way they do it is when we make demands, not requests. The first GI Bill, the Montgomery Bill, that was passed because of the veterans' foreign wars. There are other vs. Yes,

there are. We're combat veterans, we're warriors. As I like to say, as an infantry, I know how to break things, and if you want something broken, you can call me. I'll help you break it. Our relationship with Congress needs to be one of respect, that needs to be one of mutual benefit. But they have a responsibility to care for us, because it's just like workmen's comp in the

civilian world. If you get heard on the job, you got workmen's cop In the military, if your service connected with your injury, the government has an obligation to take care of as long as you live, not for a week, or not for a month, or not for a couple of years. Our injuries belonged to them and they must provide that care. And so that's what we do, and we do a very good job of it.

they've gotten. Fact, it is one hundred percent and your generation's dedication to making sure that the American people understand the price of freedom and really stepping up to support Jake's era and those to come.

medication for you. So what are you talking about? She said, Oh, you have issues? I said really, She said yeah, So come to find out those issues were anger issues, which I never knew I had. Carol could tell you that I had them, and that's the biggest thing that's come out of this. If my shirt wasn't tucked in exactly right, I could fly off the hand. I'd be unbearable for three days. And it just to realize where my anger was coming from, and that anger was from survivor's guilt.

I didn't know I had it. I didn't realize that I carried Rodney's death with me. But the way I said it indicated that I felt it. And when when that was said and when that was cleared, when I was able to understand it, I got it, and it was it was the monkey was off of my back. I've continued with therapy. I'll talk to my prapist maybe every six months. As you and I know, there is a monster in here, and I want to make sure that the monster remains contained and I don't see I

don't see anything happening to let the monster out. But just in knowing that I've got somebody to talk to, somebody who understands where I'm coming from is I don't consider it therapy. It's just talking to somebody else who understands. And so that's why I do that. And I appreciate the VA allowing me to continue that relationship.

keeping that love alive. Perhaps the most key character attribute that I've found in myself is my demand for integrity. Integrity is the foundation of everything else that we do. When I shake your hand, that's an agreement that can't be broken by me, and if the other party breaks it, shame on him. Because we're done. There are no do overs. There are second chances, but probably not with me. I like to say, there's no quit in me when I'm done serving, and it'll be when I take my last breath,

then you could close the box. But until then, long as I can take a breath, I have something to contribute, no doubt.

blessing to others, we are also blessed. So I'm very proud to be.

to let that go. That's going to drive you crazy. What are you talking about. There's no way that you're ever going to repay that. I said, of that crazy, I'm not stupid. I get it, but that doesn't stop me from trying. And that's all I want to do is try. I want to be able to look in the mirror. I used to do this on a daily basis back in my younger days, when I'd wake up in the morning and I'd go to the mirror after I said, Lord, thank you for your blessings. I'm here

again today. May everything I do bring glory an honor to your name. And then I would look in the mirror and I'd say, all, be the best that you can be today. And at night before I went to bed, I would ask al, were you the best that you could be today? And if I wasn't, I had to tell myself you're a little short here. You need to step that up. It kept me grounded.

drastic understatement. It's an absolute honor.