The First Black Special Forces General | Remo Butler | Ep. 358

Special Operations Cobert Spiona The Team House with your hosts Jack Murphy and David Park. Hey everyone, this is episode three and fifty eight of The Team House. I'm Jack here with Dave and our guest on tonight's show is retired General Remo Butler. Remo had a extensive career in special Forces. He was the first black special Forces general. He started off his career in conventional forces, served with three seven down in Panama more than once, and then

Thanks, Jack appreciated.

So your origin story, Remo, tell us about Egypt, Mississippi and growing up as a young.

Man Egypt, Mississippi. I was born in Egypt, Mississippi. Most people have never heard of Egypt, Mississippi. It's about forty miles south of Tuffelow. When I was a young child growing up there, there used to be a blinking yellow light. And the last time I went back, that blinking yellow light had been replaced by four lane highway, so there's no sign or anything that says you're now entering Egypt.

Mississippi, and so I'm picturing a small town, rural town in my mind.

It's not a town, it's a rural area, a bunch of houses out there. I think there was a gas station across the street by the blinking light.

That's all I mean.

We're talking real, live, honest to god, small town America.

And so it sounds like you grew up around like a lot of like cousins, brothers and things like that, running around the wilderness over there.

Well, that's kind of true.

I left Egypt when I was about five years old, and I told earlier about me and my cousin were talking and my wife and my son asked me about my past, and one of the things, one of the vivid memories I have is we used to have hog killings once a year every fall, and my grandparents had big farm and they had hogs, cows, pigs, everything, and all the families, the cousins, uncles, aunts, everybody would get together now I was a kid back then, so us kids,

They butchered themselves and put it in the smokehouse, and that was the meat for the winner. Wow, And you know, it was good.

And I remember when I was little, I was about three years old, my grandmother had this butcher knife. To me, it looked like it was about three feet long. In reality, it probably was a six eight inches. And my Grandmama would give me that butcher knife and she'd tell me, she said, baby, go out to the smokehouse and cut Grandma a piece of lean and she would use that

And you were a third generation soldier, right. Tell us about your dad and grandpa.

Yeah, well, in reality, my father was my stepfather, okay, and his father was in the military. His father was an E eight retired as an EA, and my father was in They lived in Texas and during those days there was not.

Much for black people to do in Texas.

And he told me all the stories about him washing dishes and working in the arena during wrestling matches and so forth and so on. And he was in the military, and he was very proud to be in the military.

He was a medic.

And I asked him, I said, Dad, why did you become a medic? He said, I always wanted to be a doctor, he said, but my family couldn't afford send me to school. So you know, I did the next best thing. I joined the military. And his brother, who was smart, joined the Air Force. And you know, he taught me things as the father does. You know, you

And so as you get older and you become a teenager and you're going through high school, are you already thinking about the military at this time point?

No, father's thing. From my mind. Vietnam was going on, remember, Yeah, so military was father's thing.

From my mind. The biggest thing that happened to me when I was a senior, junior or a senior. West Point was making all the military acatsm We're making an effort to be more inclusive. So they were going out looking for students that met all the criteria, had the grades, who could get in. Well, I did, and one of my faculty members or what do you call the mom, the principal or somebody from the school recommended me. So they came and they talked to me, and I was

I said, yep. He said you won't like west Point.

I said really, He said no, he said, you're not the kind of guy that goes to West Point.

Stick with regular college.

I went to my room, man, I took the coat and tie off, went to school. My other two friends were there wearing their coats and ties and they said, hey, man, and I said, I'm not going.

What do you mean?

I said, well, you know, my father told me that he didn't think I was cut out for West Point. And they were like, oh okay, and one of them sided he wasn't going the other one. The only way he had to go to college was going to West Point, and he went to West Point and he became a West Point officer. And at the end of the day, I can say this, my father made the right decision telling me.

That that it wouldn't have been a good fit for you.

Yeah. Yeah, you know, back in those days they did a lot of hazing.

Yeah, and I wasn't the one to sit around and take that.

And so what school did you end up going to?

I went to Austin p State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. Yeah, yeah, and you know, it's great and I had the privilege of going there, And this is one of the things that helped me more than anything. When I got there, Austin t had been integrated for two years, two years, and I remember when I checked in the dorm, it kind of amazed me. How you know, all the black guys, We got black roommates. And one of the guys told me,

And I remember the football program.

The coach he was adamantly against it, but you know he was forced, but he would only have X number of blacks on his team.

And you know that lasted for a couple of years.

And then as time passed and those old people left died, whatever they happened to him, the school.

Became more normal.

And I said it helped me more than anything in my career, because one minorities were a minority. We probably were five percent of the population when I went. So consequently, what do you do You meet people, You get out of your comfort zone, You stretch out, you meet people, you know. And I had to look up one time because I was starting to talk blackness here, and you know, so you had to do that. And uh, you know, I had some great friends, learned to drink moonshine with them,

So we all left, and I went what happened?

He said, all right, then he didn't want you in there because he was black. But those guys who were part of the team that I was on circled around me and would not let that stand. And that teaches you a lot about people, and that affects your judgment on people in the future. So, like I said, it

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Nineteen seventy four.

And your first assignment was South Korea Field Artillery view.

Ye tell him Korea first and fifteen Field Artillery one O.

Five tell us about what that first army experience was like.

It was the worst experience of my life, no, seriously. I got there and it was one of those times when they had a bunch of new lieutenants. I think it was three or four new lieutenants came in for and they sent us to the units and I got put in my battery, and you know it doesn't take long you've all been in the military. After a while, everybody understands what the real pecan order is. Who's good,

I was clueless.

So we went through and I think I took on about three or four things that they had failed. And I did business the only way I knew how, the way my father had taught me. I know, I didn't know what was going on. I know I didn't understand the military, but I'm gonna find out. So I did into a program. I as I say, I did a deep dive into security, physical security, arms, room, security.

Maintenance, all that stuff, and I learned it.

I learned it so well I became the de facto battalion expert on it.

So units would have problems, they'd call me in.

So it was time.

After two or three months, we had a reinspection and.

Out of all those things that we had failed, all those things we had failed, I had two minor deficiencies in the next one, you know, So I felt good about that.

Oh, everybody's pat me on the back here, Hey, you know you do this? Sure that?

And uh later sixty days come up we got Oh we are now. I remember, we're all new lieutenants, you know, we're all friends so we get out o ours in the orderly room and we all run out back behind the ority room pull out our oars. So my buddy Mark, the West Pointer, I pulls out his and he got a ninety something one ninety something whatever, but it was what he deserved. During that time, a couple more guys came out and they got what they deserved, and we had one guy who wasn't as good.

He got it.

No we are.

I opened mine up.

I mine was one point higher than the guy who was, so we just say, jacked up one point higher. So everybody's going out. I know this must be a mistake. It's got to be a mistake. But we're all lieutenants, you know, we don't know. So the West Point lieutenant says, hey, we need to talk to the XO because this is obviously a mistake. So he went and got with the XO, and the XO came over and he looked at He said, ah, boss made a mistake. This is a mistake. You need

Yeah?

Yeah, Now remember now, I'm a second lieutenant.

I've been in the army maybe three months.

So I didn't know what to do.

So there was a black captain there, and this was the time when black officers did not like to talk to younger black officers because they were afraid of what people would say. He called me in. He talked to me, said listen. He said, I knew this was going to happen. You know, if you had worked for me, this is what I would have given you. Blah blah blah. I said, okay, but basically I can't help you. Hey, I understood that. You know, he had a career. Well, there was a

Rooms and the physical security squared away from the battalion.

So one day I'm out helicopter lands and during those days of helicopter landing was a big deal. So I got a guy came by and said, sir, the colonel wants to see you.

Okay.

So I go up and the tank commander's there with the PARTI commander and he says, I got this he O complaint and he asked me about it. So I told him just like I told you, and he said, well, I talked to several losters here and they all speak very highly of you and your knowledge. I said, well, that's good, he said, So what I'm going to do is I'm going to get you out of here. I'm going to take you down to I believe it was Camp Davis at that time. I said why, He said,

Number one.

I don't run from anybody. It's not my nature. I said, I know what I've done, and I know what I can do. I want to stay here because I'm not going to run. And he looked at me, you know, and he gave me that look.

Like he's dumb.

That's a little big and you know, he said, well, he said, if you stay, I can't protect you. I said, I understand that, I said, but I'm willing to take that chance. And I'll tell you this is what really really got me the good. One of the good things about it. Some of my commander's friends pulled me to the side and said, listen, we know what happened to you, and he's going to try to get you back, and if you make a mistake, he's going to crush it. But we're going to help you not make any mistakes.

So I accepted it.

But thanks to Captain Brady, he told me how to do to reclaim with the OR. And this guy told me something. He said, I based that on Oer's last year, and the points were down much lower. So I put that in my paperwork and it's still up there. I'm sure that's public record now. And the Army said, okay, based on what he told you and this Oer, we're gonna put we're gonna stamp on this that this is based on an average of whatever of one point thirty and so it overall, it didn't hurt me, but it

And after that experience, you joined special Forces in nineteen seventy seven.

YEP, I went to Fort Hood, Texas.

I was full of finished with field artillery because I figured, you know, this is a racist, and I'm sure there are other racists in field artilleries.

I went out.

So I went to Fort Hood, Texas. And it's probably the best move I ever made, because I had a battalion commander who was just tremendous.

I had a company commander who was super.

And you know, they liked me, and the battalion commander had already designated me that I was going to be one of his company commanders.

And you know, it was all great.

We all had a good time and I had, you know, great lieutenants I was serving with, and it was just a great unit. First of the fifth cav Fordahead, Texas, just a great unit. And we've got a new company commander and guess what it was Special Forces in Vietnam. And he was made from the same mold as these other two special Forces captains were. And I admired and respected him. And one day we're talking and he says to me, said, Remo, He said, you're the kind of

I'm like, oh my god, what did I do? So I go in I see him.

I say, hey, sir, how you doing? And he takes the forty went eighty seven and he holds it up like this and he says, Remo, what the hell is this bullshit about you going to Special Forces. Yes, sir?

Why well, you know, sir, I met some guys special Forces.

You know. He takes that Fortin's seven in front of me, tears it up, and he says, Remo, you're a good officer. I'm gonna make you a company commander. You don't need this bullshit. Special Forces will ruin your career. What do I say? Yes, sir? So I went back and I saw my company commander and I told him what happened, and he went ooh. He says, okay, this is what we're gonna do. He knows what he said we are going to do. He said, I got a friend that

And back during that time frame in nineteen seventy seven, what was the Special Forces I don't recall they even called it the Qualification course at that time, but what was that training pipeline like at the.

Time it was it was called the Q course. The first part of it was extremely physical. In fact, during the first part of it, phase one, as they called it back then, I lost about twenty pounds. I mean, you know, we were out humping. You were humping that big heavy rucksack all through Camp McCall, the UII Forest, and there was not a swamp that I was not intimately familiar with. And when you did land navigation, he had to cross the swamp going out and across the

I said, what's what's wrong?

He said nothing.

He said, I just made a decision.

I said, what's that. He said, Tomorrow morning, when it's light, I'm gonna find the first road and I'm gonna sit on the side of the road until they picked me up.

And that's the kind of course it was.

It if you didn't want to go to SF, you thought you wanted to be SF, that course told you that you didn't want to go SF. And at that course, i'll tell you Colonel Charles Beckworth was in charge. Lieutenant Colonel Ola Mys was his deputy, and we had Major Big Budge Williams there. And let me tell you what, those guys didn't let you slide through.

You earned it.

And in phase two was what we call the classroom phase, and that's where you're learning all about special Forces. And Phase through was Robin Sage. And of course when we graduated, they told us, they said, listen, you don't know act about Special Forces right now?

Yeah you got a bereat. Yeah you're going to an assignment.

So getting in your mind that you don't know Jack, when you get there, your first team is gonna make you a Special Forces officer. And I left there, went to thirty to seventeen Panama, and I had the best team, sergeant you could possibly get, a guy named Ray Maxby. And when I walked into the team room, the guys were sitting around as about three o'clock he told them he said, y'all go get a cup of coffee. Now, Remember I'm coming from the conventional Army. We didn't do

Well, to me, that seemed like a no brainer.

I looked at him. I said, Sartain magazine. I said, good, the team Sergeant, I want you to continue doing what you're doing and teach me.

And he said all right. The rest of the guys came over.

He introduced me to him and told him he said, this is our new lieutenant and we're gonna make sure he's the best lieutenant in the unit. Time passed and This is when we had our teps, remember our tips, and we'd had several ur teps. And he was there with me, and we have an our TEP coming up. And I look up and Sartain magazine is getting ready to go on leave. So I said, Magaby, I said, said our tep, and you're getting ready to go and leave.

I love that your team sergeant was yelling at you and Vietnamese.

Yeah they all you know, all those guys in Vietnamese Vietnam vets. Yeah. Yeah. And when I first went to my first unit, I remember there was one guy there who had spent seven tours in Vietnam. Most of the guys on my team had spent multiple tours in Vietnam.

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So I mean three seven down in Panama, I mean everyone I speak to kind of describes it as this sort of like glorious paradise, the best time of their life. What was your experience like that down there as you kind of ingratiated yourself with your team and you know, you start coming through the right it was.

It was great. It was for me, it was a learning experience.

But it was a great learning experience because they believe in working hard and as some of the guys the team said, and party in heart.

And they put the work in. I mean they put the serious work in.

But when they were off duty, they enjoyed Panama because how often do you get to go to a paradise?

Yeah?

Yeah, And the thing about it then, your team was your de facto family. I knew every guy on my team, I knew his wife, and I knew their kids, and they knew my wife, and they knew my kids. Every weekend we usually did something as a team together, whether it was go to the beach, meet at somebody's house, to cook out fish, whatever, but it was a team effort. And I think that's one of the things that Special Forces has lost over time, is that a team family.

Any other I mean before we move on to the next thing, any particular experiences down in Panama, I mean, nineteen seventy seven is a little bit before the counter Narcos stuff, I think. Yeah, so it was more counter Marxism that you were focused on, right.

Well, it was we worked with the PDFP Pataman and Defense Force back then. We sent some mptts to different places, but mostly it was it was in local training.

We did working with the PDF.

Yeah.

And so a couple of years later, nineteen eighty, you're off to Fort Benning, right, What did you do there?

I went to an advanced course, spent a year in the advanced course, and when I left, it was time for me to have a company command, and they sent me to a unit called ITG After Training Group. And everything that I had read or knew about the military then was that to have you needed to have a T O and E company command.

This was TDA company command.

And I will say this, I had never seen so many black commanders as I had when I was out working with the with the training group after training group and the basic training unit there. I'm not saying it was an accident. I'm not saying it wasn't an accident, but that's the way it happened.

I was very fortunate.

I met a guy there who was my commander named Sid Shack. Now yeah, yeah, concentration camps ever and the best leader I've.

Ever encountered in my life. Wow.

So we got there and you know, he didn't say much, he just kind of walked around and looked, but he identified me as as one of the players even and his wife took it upon themselves to start mentoring me and my wife for the future. And I commanded and I did good job for him, and I was rewarded my o RS and so forth, and it was time for me to leave, and I could have went to Fort Benning to the as they call it, bedroom four, had one of those soft jobs there, air conditioned. He

I'd like you to stay on and be my motor officer.

And I was kind of like, uh, be out here in Harmony Church as a motor officer or Building four. And I said, okay, sir. He said, now, I know you don't know anything about vehicles. He said, but I'm gonna send you to the motor officer school. And he said, Now, in saying that, he said, I'm probably going back to Fort Bragg. They're starting used to sock there, and I'm going to be the first chief of staff and I'll get you back. I was sold, I'm going. I said, okay,

Had a motor sergeant.

And this was back in nineteen eighty two and I still communicate with this guy today, Master Sergeant Bill Frinch, great guy. I mean, he taught me everything you wanted to know about a wheel vehicle or a track vehicle because he knew it and he was a great guy. Well, I did it finished, and right about the time I'm finishing my tour, I get orders for Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and that's where I went.

And guess who I was working for.

So that's what around nineteen eighty four that you're back to Special Forces. Yeah, yep, And so where did mister shatt now set you up?

I worked for him.

He had me there and I set up a He had a conference, a commander's conference, and of course he naturally set me back to Fort Betting to prepare the commander's conference for it. So I did the commander's conference. All the commanders came and if you have to have.

To prepare commander's conference, it's not fun.

But anyway I did it. Went back to Fort Bragg and about the time I was there, I got moved to First Battalion, seven Special Forces Group as the three, and we were getting ready to start this program where

This is when you know, the Seventh Group is getting involved in like the contral Wars down in Central America.

Yes, it was.

I'd love to pick your brain a little bit. I mean, what was your impression of that conflict and sort of the special Forces mission down there.

Well, let me I'm trying to phrase this the right way because, as you know, a lot of that stuff is still classified. I would just say this, We were influential in the training of the Contrasts, but not only the Contrasts. We were influential in the training of the Honduran military because the Honduran military served as a blocking force to keep the Contrasts out of Honduras and out of the Salvadors.

And we also worked with the.

Salvadorian army and and you know, at that time there were a lot of gorillas forces going on down there, so we were teaching them, you know, gorilla warfare, how to beat them. Yeah, it wasn't hard for us, but for them, coming from the culture that they came from, it was it was it was difficult, but uh, I think at.

The end of the day, we did a we did a pretty good job.

I and then you you took command. You went back down to the C three seven right, No, oh.

No, I took over. Uh Charlie company two two seven?

Ah? Okay, okay, yeah, Charlie two seven cool.

So tell us about your company commander time in SF.

That was me.

I was company commander.

Yeah.

And and this this was Fort Bragg rather than Panama, right, yeah, and and so I imagine it was more of this preparing, you know what, like you're saying every six weeks for these missions down to hundreds we were doing.

We were doing a lot of missions in Central and South America during that time, and we were always always busy going somewhere, getting ready to go somewhere. And the guys love it when that EPI soldier is traveling on MTT or TDY. He's happy. He's just happy. And we enjoyed it. Had a great unit, and we did a lot of a lot of different things.

Care to describe any remo, H.

It's all right, I guess I could say this one. Sure. I was the first one I think to work with my company was the first one to work with the concress.

That must have been a pretty interesting experience to you know, your team, you know, Americans and probably some Latinos on your team. I imagine a Seventh Group.

And it was different back then because.

We all supposed to spokes a little bit Spanish, and traditionally we would take you know, we have a bunch of Latinos from Seventh Group. You know, we had Mexicans and Puerto Ricans and Cubans and everybody was there. So their job was also to teach us Spanish. And I remember we went there and we worked with them one time for about six seven six months I think, and we came back and we had to take Spanish tests and everybody's expecting our Spanish to be off the charts.

Yeah, not Spain Spanish.

Not Castiano.

Yeah. I And then nineteen eighty eight, you get positioned J three at a Special Operations Command South.

At Sock South, as I did.

Yeah, I was fortunate because my third IT time commander Colonel Chuck Fry Oh yeah, the commander. Yeah, so when I went down there, and it was like old Home Week again, and I went in and held that position.

He was a zero five. He came in and I became his deputy three.

And this is sort of like in the run up to Operation just Class right, Yes, it was. Can you talk to us about like the situation in Panela, the terry rating.

The situation was going down, and I guess we weren't really getting a lot of good solid guidance. And when that guy got killed that night, uh, you know that was the first thing he got killed.

Are you talking about the checkpoint that there's a soldier that got killed.

Yeah, people started to wake up and take notice. So from that, we had meetings with all of the players and it was decided upon that we needed to do something. So at that point in time, we started working on Operation Blue Spoon as it was called, and that was the invasion of Pantama, and we planned for it, rehearsed for it, planned for it, rehearsed for it, and finally executed it. And you know, it's hard to say, but it came off pretty flawless.

There were some mistakes, some accidents, but you know, it was a good plan and it worked.

What was your experience like on D Day and H hour when all that went down?

During that period of time I was working with, I was moved to another mission unit and we worked out of a Howard out of Howard Air Force Base, out of one of the hangars, and you know, so I'm working with professional guys and we're doing our jobs and monitoring the situation and mitigating risks best we can.

I mean that I think that was the largest airborne operation we did since World War Two for sure.

I mean we had eighty second airbo jump rangers jumped.

In and you know, obviously Manuel Noriego was removed removed from power. And what was sort of the aftermath on your end after.

Well, you know, and I'll say it's one of the things we didn't do real well was planned for the after Uh So you get a lot of people kind of running around doing their own things, and uh it was a time where we used civil affairs and syops and they came in and they helped tamp down the protests. And figured out the right message to send to the Panamanium. You know that one thing about it I got to take because it's kind of humorous. Yeah, plan, it doesn't

It's backward.

So the helicopters that are flying up there loaded for bear would be going in hot, but we wanted them going in cold. So what they had to do we had to launch a helicopter from Howard Air Force Base flying at mock One because we couldn't get como with the guys. So this helicopter had the mock one to get within range of the helicopters and tell them, hey, don't go in hot, don't go in hot. It's all taken care of. Yeah, but those things happened. It's called the fog of war. But we handled it.

Yeah, deconfliction. And then we get to what was it about nineteen ninety one? You did some instructor time.

Yeah.

I was trying to get back to Fort Bragg because you know, I consider myself an action guy. I wanted to do where the action was. And I went to Fort Bragg and I saw some old friends of mine there and they said, oh, yeah, we can use it. Well, Branch said no. And Branch was punishing me because I was supposed to go on a fellowship so I think Harvard or something for one of those schools, and I didn't want to go, so I did something else. I

It was great.

I'll tell you why it was great, because it gave me time to decompressed for a year. Remember I'd been burning the camera at both ends sure for years. So now I got a chance to decompress, go to the gym, lift some weights, hang out, drink a beer or two or some scotch. And it was good. It didn't realize it, but it was a blessing in disguise.

Was it around this time? Maybe it was a little a few years prior that Special Forces became a branch for officers.

Nineteen eighty seven or eighty five, we became a branch.

Okay, So did that impact your career at all about getting moved in and out of Special Forces?

Yes, it did.

It made it better because I didn't have to worry about going to the infetry side.

I stayed with Special Forces and it didn't hurt me.

Oh, I say. And so the next stop for you was commanding first Battalion, seventh Special Forces Group.

Yep.

What was your battalion command?

Like? Oh man, it was tremendous. I had some great officers working around me. I had a good team leaders. In fact, I'll tell you who one of my team leaders was. His last name is Fetton, Brian Fenton YEP. And you know, back in those days, you know, we identified brand Brian as a go getter and immediately, you know, he did his team time and what did you do the good guys once they finished their team time, you

And operationally, I'd be curious to ask you. You know, now had the operational environment in South and Central America changed for Seventh Group from you know, you started off in the seventies into the eighties and now we're in the early to mid nineties.

We had gotten what we call Mission Creek. We had went from doing some local training too. We were actually working counter drug up in Columbia, uh Ecuador, Peru, all those places you know. We had we had camps set up, our guys were working empt T MTTs, working with DEA and.

We were tremendously busy.

We were always busy and it was good because it kept it kept the guys were on edge.

Yeah, and it gave him something to do too. I mean, there wasn't there wasn't a lot happening at that time other than the Gulf War.

It was kicking up Honduras, Nicodagua. We had people in Costa Rica, all over Central and South America. We had teams.

They kept you guys busy. How did so how did you kind of round out your command time at first Battalion? How did that wrap up?

God?

I wish I could tell you. I don't remember, but we had we were having we had it. We were doing stuff and we were having fun and doing it. And I couldn't tell you the last mission that we did, but we did something, I believe you.

And uh. From there, they put you up as the chief of Staff at Special Forces Command.

Oh god, yeah, that was before I went to the War College.

Yeah, okay. And so was s F Command relatively new at this time or had it been around.

It was time? Yeah?

Yeah, no, we just became a branch.

So tell us a little bit about s F Command and and kind of like how it was going through that growing experience at the time.

It was, as you say, a growing experience. Everybody was trying to find their lane. Remember this was the first time this was ever done, so everybody's trying to find their lane. And the big part was how much control did s F command want to exert on the groups? You know that s F command, you know, was the next level up from the group commands. So how did they exercise their command without trying to take over?

Right?

How did they end up delineating that?

Like?

Who what those lanes are?

Well, you know, it came out pretty good. They delineated it with the help of the command sergeant majors and some of the general officers that were there, and they kind of laid out, Okay, these guys should do this, and this group should do this, and they put you they put everyone in the lane, and sometimes it worked out perfectly. Other times you had to make changes. So their flexibility was the key.

I And you know, also I should ask you, because this is sort of a I think a bit of a theme through your career from point A to point B, how are you seeing the army itself change? Where you know, integration was kind of new and well I shouldn't say that in the army integration wasn't new, but some of these things you know, black soldiers coming into some of these higher officer positions. Was it more of a new thing? How were you seeing the army change?

Well, the army.

Was changing a little bit because when I was in Fort Bragg, I was there serving with it at the time when I was a group commander, there were two black brigade commanders in the eighty second and but the costcom commander was black. So yeah, but in ASSEEF, remember we've never had a lot of black officers.

In this.

And then you were off to the Command and Staff College, no college college, I'm sorry, yeah, yeah.

And where was that at Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

How'd you like it out there?

It was okay, It just got cold and loved snow

What was that another kind of like period of rest for you and your family a bit? Yeah, yeah, because after that they had you as the UH the Swick Commander, the Special Warfare Center commander.

Before that, I went to UH eighteen the Airborn Corps for about six seven months as the so CORD Special Ops Coordination also okay eighteen the Airborn Corps.

Some of the exercises and so forth.

So now you're kind of getting to see like the big machine and how it really works.

Yeah, and I was. I was already on the the six command list, so I was just kind of waiting for, you know, my command to come out.

And so Swick commander, what was that like nine ten nineties seven.

Or eight nineteen ninety eight ninety eight.

There were some interesting things happening at Swick at that time too that you guys were like, well, so far it had already been stood up. Cephalics started to come around towards the tail end of that time, maybe, But what was going on our training wise and SF at that time? How were you seeing that change?

Well, it was a it was a transitional period. And I'll tell you why. You know, in SF we have what I call the keepers of the tab. I went for the last hard Q course. Those guys and we were getting soldiers were different. We weren't getting as many combat arms guys come in there, and we were getting you know, quartermasters, medics. Whatever.

You take an infantry guy, put him on land AV.

Course, it could probably do it. You take a quartermaster guy or a medican, put him on a land AV course might be a little harder. For him.

So we had to look at how we were training.

And you know, General Tagne used to tell me, should eh, you know, you're in charge of training, you know how to train.

Figure it out.

So we started looking at some of the things we did during training, and one of the ones that we looked at was land navigation. Why didn't we have such a huge land navigation failure? Well, when you got guys who don't land navigate regular it's hard to teach them. But again, I'm gonna ask you this question, because you were an SF guy, how often did you go out in the middle of the woods looking for a stick?

I mean not often.

Yeah, that wasn't a mission, but that's what we had these students trying to do, go out in the middle of that swamp and find.

A stick, if it makes sense.

Well, I had some good old retired sergeant majors that like to talk to me, and you know when of them said to me said, you know, sir, I spent there's so many of years in SF. I bet eight tours in Vietnam. I've never had to find us in the middle of the woods. He didn't say it that nicely, but that's what he meant. So we looked at what

So that's how we kind of looked at that.

And we always had to be thinking of innovative ways to train because you know, you keep doing it the same way over and over again. All you do do the same thing over and over again. So we looked at things out of modernized training, how to update training. And I was very fortunate because, like a sweak at that time, we had a lot of retired sergeant majors working there for me, and let me tell you, those guys were not shy about giving you advice.

Were any any other major training changes that you recall from that time frame, there was one swim test.

Remember I told you when the guy called me up, he said can you swim? I said, yeah, Well we were. I'd go to the to the first day of training and there'd be five six hundred guys there and some of the guys looked like they were born and raised inside a gym, and they knocked out the PT tests.

Well, a lot of guys didn knock it out, so they were already gone.

And these guys, like I said, look like they were born in a gym, and they put them in the pool and you know where they went straight to the bottom. Yeah. So me and my sergeant major looked at it and talked about it. He said, you know what is You know a lot of these guys would be good as soldiers. Now the majority of them were minorities because and we said, yeah,

We came up with a concept.

If you make it through selection, and we didn't flunk you for the swim test, and you made it through selection, which we were only like a forty percent pass rate. Remember, that we will bring you back two or three weeks early, teach you how to swim. Once you learn how to swim, you start like everybody else. You get in the pool, you do that one hundred meters swim. And it wasn't

Have been gone right now, they were here.

Now, when you talk to people about a split eighteen, that's six guys. In the macro sense, that's not many. But when you're talking about an a team and each company got six teams, and you got two teams or three quarter strength and one team less, Yeah, those six people make a difference.

Yeah, out of curiosity, you know, because there's always been talk about whether.

The swim test was intentionally like racist.

If the point was, like, you do you believe that the swim test is a functional.

Part of what I'm gonna go back to the first story I told them about sarga major in Panama who said, when.

They were looking for us up guys, all they wanted you.

To do was people squeeze that trigger right right, you know, And there were several of those when I went to third of the seventh in Panama. We had several guys who couldn't swim, and they mostly retired as command sard Majors in Special Forces. So I think that answers the question. Yeah.

Yeah, and from there you became the deputy at USUSAK.

Yeah.

How did you like that job?

It's a it's a good thing about it.

I worked for General Tagney and out look, you know General tag he's a great guy, and he's a funny guy to people wouldn't realize, but he's.

A funny guy. And yeah, I was there, put in my time.

And learned a lot. And you know, one thing General Tagan was good about. He called me over and he said, hey, well come in here, Yes, sir, I'm supposed to go to this event tonight. Yes, sir, you're going. But you know, working with General Tagan was fun for me, and he was a great guy. He was a great mentor and I just enjoyed working for him.

But the job itself, you didn't really like the staff office aspect.

You know, find to find a combat arms officer who's a war fighter who likes staff job.

Yeah, absolutely, and so but by this time around this timeframe. Are you also getting looked at to pin Astaron.

When I became it's chief of staff, I was already on the list.

Okay, yeah I did.

I you know, yeah, tell us how that came about, because I mean, as you mentioned, you were the first black special courses general.

You know, like I said, I always took the hard jobs. Somebody told me that take the hard jobs. I always took the hard jobs. And my resume stood on its own and all I said, you know, somebody gives me a fair chance. Who knows even saying that. I didn't believe that, because number one, I had a mustache, and you know, people would talk to me about John. I said,

That was it for me.

Your your your dad, who's a retired sergeant.

Majors, a retired command sard maker.

Yeah about about what your did your dad join the army?

God, I couldn't tell you. I was in the ear early fifties, I.

Think, yea, yeah. I mean that's such a tremendous amount of change that the entire country, much much less the army went through during that time. F Rahim I okay. And so the position you did take, you know, you became the commander of Special Operations Command South right. Uh,

It was a tremendous experience because one South America, Central America belonged to me. We had troops almost in every country, and I used the opportunity to go and visit talk to them, meet all the ambassadors, and I established a pot with all the ambassadors I met, you know, some of them became personal friends. And then there was the ambassador to Columbia, Columbia, Ambassador Patterson. She was a great lady.

Yeah, she's nice.

When the airplane got shot down and the people were taking his hostage, it was during Black History Month and I was in I want to.

Say, El Paso giving a speech.

And me and my aide were on the plane and he says to me, he said, sir, he said, this is what happened in from Columbia, and the ambassador wants to talk to you. We're on a plane. I said, okay, well, you know, tell them to let her know. I'll call her when I get the Puerto Rico. And I said, okay, So we fly back to Puerto Rico and I arrived late and they ambushed me. My unit was there, SOX South was there, my staff was there, and they said sir, we got to see one thirty on the runway waiting

And I worked with.

The General of Spina who became the commander of the Columbian military. These were some great people, and our job was not to take over the mission, but to assist them in doing the mission. And that's what we did. And of course, a couple of years later came to Fruition. They rescued everybody, but the Columbian military was tremendous to work for the people there were tremendous and I just totally enjoyed working with that group, and then Bastard Patterson at the embassy.

I mean, there's not enough I can say about her.

Just to clarify for our viewers. You know, Remo, you're talking about the four American contractors. They had a counter narco mission, you know, taking pictures of the drug plants, and they got shot down by fark crash landed, and the pilot, Yes, the pilot was executed on the ground and the others were taken hostage.

Right, that's correct.

About about how long was it after the crash that you guys got boots on the ground About a day, yeah, because it was it was out in bad, bad guy land too.

Right, Yeah, definitely was.

Yeah, And anything else you recall from those like kind of like there must have been some frantic days, you know, busy days, long days as you guys were trying to get up to speed and try to identify what happened.

All the days were frank. They started early and they ended up late. And the issue is this, you have Americans, but they're in a sovereign country of Columbia. How do you go to get them back without trying to take over Columbia? So it was a political game, sure, And like I said, you learn to work with people. You assisted where you could, and when they said okay, we got this. You had to be smart and back off, but observe what was going on.

That was the challenge of that mission. Anything else happened while you were the SOX South commander that you'd like to talk about.

I spent three years there as commander of SOX South and we did a lot of things there. One of the things that I really liked was when we did combinas with the Argentinians.

Oh yeah, yeah, it was.

Great and we had six or seven different countries working with us, and you know, it was a great opportunity for them to know us and for us to know them. And you know, different years later, I'd be traveling through South or Central America and I'd always have somebody come up to me and say mein about You don't remember me, but I was this when you were there at Cabanas, and you know that's always good.

Anything else from SOX South.

No, it was just it's a great time.

So tell us a little bit about retirement. You went all the way off to General. How did how did retirement come about? And how did how did how did you feel about that? Personally?

I was the chief of staff of so COME. I had the pleasure work for General Brown and Admiral Olson. So it was good. But having spent all that time in SF, having over three hundred jumps, having carried a heavy rucksack for many, many years, my body was breaking down.

At that time. I had five knee surgeries. General Brown had this thing.

Once a month he would do a unit run about three miles and as the chief of staff, you know, my job was to be on the unit run and finish up front. And I like to lead from the front because that's where leaders are in the front. But every time we do that, for the next week, I'd be in my office, I sing my knees, I sing everything, take taking a tiler and all. And my body was wearing that. And you know, I spoke to General Brown about it, and he you know, oh you got it.

But then I thought about my body and I said, you know.

What if I did it and I took it, that would be three more years that I'd be killing myself.

And I decided that I couldn't do it no more, and I.

Was going to retire, and Remo, I should point out, because we didn't talk about it earlier, that like you were a big time gym guy at the back in the day, and I've like met guys who were like a Navy seal in the nineteen eighties, and like they will mention your name like, oh yeah, Remo Butler could bench press four hundred pounds, like yeah.

And in fact, you know, in Puerto Rico, I had I had a seal patune with me and one of the things I used to do was once a month, them guys would do this crazy run and crazy swim and I was right there with them, and let me tell you, I do it and I sucked pond water for the next week. So anyway, when it got to so calm, you know, the same thing was happening, and you know, I decided, I said, you know what, I can't.

But and that's.

Fine, But what about what I want? What about me? What about my health? So I retired and a week I.

Retired and took trumb And to leave.

I was in I was in Kuwait working for Haliburton, and I stayed there and I came back at the end of June to have my official retirement ceremony at SOCOM. And I went back and I spent the next two and a half years in a rock working for At that time, Halliburton was changed over the KBR and you know, it just found me and Niche and the contractor side.

Of the world.

Are you working like logistics?

That's all that's all Haliburton was and KVR logistics. And I used to tell people from the moment you wake up in the morning and go in the bathroom and use the bathroom to the time you turn your light off at night.

Everything that has touched you during the day is came from KBR.

All the meals you've eaten, yep, the gas you've used, the air conditioner that you have, the fans, electricity, everything. We provided everything.

And you did that for you said two or three years.

Two and a half years, two and a half years.

And then what did you get into after that?

Oh man, I left there, left KBR well, No, before I left KBR, I did that. I came back to the States and they made me the business development guy at here in Tampa. I finished that up, and I think I went to work for a company called sc It's a security company. I worked with them for about a year year and a half.

And then I worked for Honeywell for a little while.

Then I went back to SOOC and I just worked for a lot of different companies in the Mid East and the US, consulting and so forth. And I enjoyed it because it gives you a different perspective.

What was that perspective as opposed to being an army officer?

Well, from being a general, you know, everything is catered to you, but when you go out as a consultant, everything.

Is not catered to you, and you have to do the nug work yourself.

And the other part was this, the biggest one was this, when you get out of SF, SFF people are different. If you tell an SF guy, I want you to put a code of paint on that building for me, when you come back, that building is going to have three codes of paint on it, new windows, new doors, et cetera. You tell a civilian guy, I want you to put a code of paint on that building, you might get a code of paint and you have to learn who you have to watch out for what they're

Was the transition difficult from you know, retiring No, and uh, real quick though.

I want to ask because you know, one you mentioned sort of you know, you're you're enlisted personnel really kind of you know, teaching you and inducing you up and also your fellow uscers and sometimes even sending your officers with the camaraderie, the mentorship and things like that, and you know, and that is something that's very different I think.

In the military.

Often in the civilian world, but also in the military, Like I was never an SF, but in range of battalion you would have like young lieutenants come in and some of them are like, I'm here to make my career right. My first too, are as mypl So they would drive and drive and drive without listening to the.

Platoon of servant whatever.

And then there were other ones who you knew were really on your side, and it was often like somebody had to pull these officers aside and say, look, these guys will make you look good if you help them, but if you come down on them all the time, what you think you're doing is actually going to be

Yes, I have. And I used to tell my team leaders when they came in for their team leader briefing, I said, listen, but you don't know jack about SS And of course they'd look at you with that shock look on their face, and I say, your team's sergeant, and I tell him what their team certain was he.

Has this experience and I'd read it that for him.

And he's done this, this and this, and this guy, the ops sergeant has done this, this, and this, your warrant officer has done So what you need to do is you need to stop thinking you're in charge and listen to what they say.

Now, sometimes they'll say stupid stuff, but you.

Got to be the mentor for that. You got to say we're not doing that. Or if you had a real bad question, come see me. I'll help you sort through it, or my sergeant major will. And you had to teach these guys that. There were a couple officers that I had to let go of because they had that attitude. One of them, if there was a Rambo knife out for sale, he bought it. We would go to the field and he'd have these special high tech hummahumma boots.

On that had to tread.

That was unique. And I one time I went out and the field and they were out there and I saw his bootprint and I followed them into their campsite.

So how'd you go? How'd you find this?

I said, you're stupid boots. That's a unique print. I've also seen officers. Unfortunately I knew them who did that. They are a team schargeant, I've got you, I'm in charge here, and a few months later you saw them signing out of the unit. Is there a way though that you know?

Because officers obviously, because they've done on tour with a regular unit where they are in charge a lot of times, and then they come to a unique place like SF where how do you get them aside? You know, how do you like a you know, sort of bring them on and say, look, you are the officer, like the responsibility and authority is ultimately with you, but but these guys know what they're doing and you can learn from that.

I'll tell you how I did it, just like you just said. You know, I want you know. I made sure they knew the qualifications that their team sergeant and some of the guys on their team had. Yeah, and I let them know, Hey, this guy's been doing this for thirty years. Yeah, you know, you've been in it for six months, right, you know, listen to him. He's going to tell you what to do, how to do it.

If you get.

Confused, come see me.

We're helping. Yeah that's awesome. Yeah, but you're but you're absolutely right.

I've seen officers who get there and they come in because they're gonna make their mark. All right, all you stupid NCOs you.

Don't know nothing.

I went to.

College and I'm gonna tell what we're right.

Yeah, and then what about the mentorship and the alliances, you know, because for you know, friends of that. You know, the officer who gave you the bad n c R for his friends to come to you and say, you know, they definitely were whether they were putting themselves professional at risk, they were certainly sort of putting themselves personally, the friendship

You know, that's a personal decision that everybody has to make. I've worked with guys who are extremely competitive, and they would tell me, oh, you did this, you did it for six weeks. I'm gonna take guys in. We're gonna do it for eight weeks. Okay, that's fine with me, you know, because it kills their people. You have to worry about your people. The thing about it is this, officers go to a team for one to two years, right and listen to you, guys are on the team for

So you've gotten into a number of different things in you know, retirement years. And you were telling me that you've been recognized for some of your work, kind of passing that on mentoring others. What are some of those endeavors you've gotten involved in?

Mostly mentoring is my biggest one. I feel that I've been successful. I feel that I have a lot of knowledge, and I take that knowledge and I try.

To spread it.

And especially even today, a lot of young officers call me because they've read the paper I wrote into work college and they thanked me.

This is sir.

You know, I want to thank you for writing that paper. You know I read it and saved my life centa, et cetera. That's what makes you feel good. You help someone become successful.

And do you want to tell us about black ops?

Yeah.

Black Ops was started by a gentleman named Ruben Ayala. And what he does is with Black Ops, he takes the soul the stories of black Special Forces rangers, Marine Force recon seals and Latinos and females, and he brings those stories to the forefront. And I'll give you an example. One of the guys I used to do work for me was a Sante raider.

And everybody knew it. Let's talk about it.

And I found out another guy I knew was also a Signe raider who's black, and nobody ever said anything about it. And I asked an old retired sergeant Major Graham. I said, hey, s Major, this guy's a sane raider. He said, yes, sir, you didn't know that. No, there are things people don't talk about. So what Black Ops does is tries to take these people and bring them

Strive for this.

Now that Black Ops, they say it's a platform created for the purpose of telling uncommon stories through film, podcasting, and documentaries.

And where can people find it?

I mean, if they search, you know, that's a very interesting story.

It's on YouTube type in black Ops they are looking at let me see something here.

They have a road show that they've done.

They've done one in Atlanta, they've done one in here in Tampa, They've done them in Ohio and other places. And they have this platform called black Ops dot tv.

It's a streaming platform that's that's dedicated to telling his stories.

Is there anything else that you've been working on that you'd like to tell folks.

About, yeah, being a better person, you know, when you've done everything that I've done. And being soldiers, especially Special Forces guys, we never want to admit that we have weaknesses, and we do. And the biggest thing you have to do is a Special Forces soldier, is say, you know what, I might need some help with this and get it.

And what shape or form did that take for you as a as a gentleman who's retired now.

And my wife, I always tell everybody, she's my heartbeat. My wife told me that I had PTSD and nobody ever else had ever said I had PTSD. My wife told me, And of course I was looking for that river in Egypt denial, and I wouldn't admit it. And finally I went to the you know, with her pushing, I went to the doctor and said, you know, I think I might have PTSD. And they did the little test and he came back, and you know what the

What were some of the therapies that worked for you to fix it?

The biggest one for me was my wife talking to her.

My wife wanted to be a psychologist at one point in time, but she left that and she took another route. And she's very, very intelligent. She's doing a lot of things now. She's one of the smartest humans that I know, smarter than me, even though she want to admit that. But she's the one, and she, as they say, she talked to me off that ladder several times, you know, And I think communication is her greatest asset.

And I'm happy. If it wasn't for her, I might.

Not be here.

I mean, remo, we've covered a lot here in a relatively short period of time, considering how extensive your career is. Is there anything else that like I left out or that you wish I asked that you'd like to talk about before we get going tonight.

I know, you know, I'm really hurt at my Ranger buddy never asked me if I have any experience with the Rangers.

Did you have experience with Rangers?

And I was the award winner in my Ranger course.

That's amazing.

I still got the conference.

Yeah. What what was your Ranger School number?

I don't know.

Yeah, I don't, come on, I was gonna. I was just gonna, you know, bust your balls if you went to the last hard class, which I imagine you did.

I did. It was nineteen seventy seven.

Yeah, that was probably the last hard class I was.

I left three seven in Panama to go to Ranger School, and all the r Eyes knew I was a Special Forces guy, so I was called special feces, special fools, you know, all those cute names.

That's funny.

So he's not a desert phase back then too, huh.

I did not go through the.

Desert paced all right, they got murdered.

Yeah, the other three phases of the city Florida phase and the Mountain phase, that was plenty.

Yeah for sure, Remo, were you still thinking about potentially writing a book?

I I'm not.

Only thinking about it. I am going to and I'll tell you why.

My son for Father's Day he gave me this little book Gosh, and he put a note on it and it said, Dad, you know, I really don't know much about what you did in the military and your life, and this book he gave me ask questions about you.

And I started writing and some of the stuff I was writing surprised me.

So at that point and oh yeah, by the way, my wife has told me I should write a book too, and several other people. So I've decided that I'm going to start writing a book that's fantastic.

Yeah, I think it's great record some of this history down.

Yeah, remo.

Where can people go to find you? I don't know if you're still consulting or not, but if they even want to they're interested in some of these like mentoring or speaking events. Where can people go to find you?

Uh?

Right here? They should.

They should show up at your house.

And and you know, I have my phone number.

No, no, you don't have to give that.

Don't give that out. But are you or email me?

Do you want to give out your email?

Like?

Are you okay with the public having that? I don't care, Okay, go ahead and let folks know where they can find you.

My email addresses are E.

M O B T hell the number eight at aol dot com.

Great, there you go. You can go talk to the man himself. Remo, thank you so much for doing this interview and speaking with us for a couple hours.

Hey, just my pleasure. Enjoyed it. It was great and you know, Rangers made the way.

Do we have any questions, Steve, Okay, no questions, We're all We're all good, okay, Remo, thank you man and have a good night. Take care.

Man.

Hey guys, it's Jack. I just want to talk to you for a moment about how you can support the show. If you've been watching it enjoying it, but you'd like to get a little bit more involved and help us continue to do this, you can check out our Patreon It is patreon dot com slash the Teamhouse, and for five dollars a month you can get access to all

Thank you.

M