Episode 545 Don Eggspuehler Combat Letters and Life Lessons Transcript

This transcript is from episode 545 with guest Don Eggspuehler.

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Sometimes the memories from our time overseas fade a little bit, but hopefully the lessons that we’ve learned never do. For some veterans, that’s the sound of aircraft overhead that takes ’em back. For others, it may just be the quiet moments that stick with them. Don Eggspuehler. Our guest today knows.

[00:00:22] That feeling all too well. Uh, as a marine aviator in Vietnam, he wrote letters home to his mom. They were honest, funny, and full of life. In the middle, middle of a war. Decades later, he discovered those same letters and helped him rediscover what mattered most and reminded him how important it is to share our stories while we still can.

[00:00:46] His reflections on service loss and resilience. Speak to anyone who’s ever struggled to make sense of what came after coming back home. Before we get into the story though, um. I want to [00:01:00] take a moment to raise awareness for something that’s really important to our community. The Global War On Terrorism Memorial Foundation.

[00:01:07] This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism. This memorial will serve as both a tribute to those who served and as a way to ensure that their sacrifices are remembered and recognized for generations to come.

[00:01:28] If you want to learn more or find out how you can, uh, support their mission, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now let’s get into to today’s story.

[00:01:38]

[00:01:51] Scott DeLuzio: Hey, Don, welcome to the show. I’m really glad to have you here.

[00:01:56] Don Eggspuehler: Oh, thank you for having me.

[00:01:58] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, you bet. Hey, [00:02:00] so before we kind of jump into this conversation, we’re gonna, we’re gonna talk a little bit about your, your experiences and, and things like that. But tell us about your, a little bit, about your yourself, a little bit about your background. Just for the listeners maybe who aren’t familiar with you and you know, maybe would like to know a little bit about you before we, we dive into the conversation.

[00:02:16] Don Eggspuehler: Okay. Well, my name is Don Eggspuehler and I grew up in a small town in Iowa called Iowa Falls, Iowa. And I was there all the way through high school. Then I went to the Ohio State University for college and, I got my draft notice on the day I graduated from Ohio State. So I had a pilot’s license and a degree.

[00:02:38] So I thought, well, I might be able to get into a flying program in the military. And that happened with the Marine Corps and I thought the war had been going on for about 10 years at this point. I thought with a couple years of flight school and a squadron that I. Probably would miss the war. But unfortunately I was sent overseas to [00:03:00] Japan and then our whole air group was moved into a jungle in Thailand and we flew missions into Vietnam in the last year of the war. Primarily night missions and day bombing missions in the DMZ area. My mom told me when I graduated that she said you better write me. Letters. Letters and send lots of pictures. And so I did, and you know, it was after I was back about six years after I was back in the States that I asked her, I said, mom, did you save any of those old letters? And she says, oh yeah, I’ve got ’em all. And they’re in a box up in the attic and I’m gonna reread ’em again someday. And I said, no, you’re not. Let me take those back to Dallas and reread them myself. And I did and I put ’em in chronological order. Most of ’em were handwritten, so they were kind of hard to read.

[00:03:50] So I retyped the best parts of each letter and put ’em in a book for my mom for a Christmas present. And she loved it. She absolutely [00:04:00] loved going back through all the stories and pictures and so forth.

[00:04:03] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:04:04] Don Eggspuehler: She died the next year from cancer. And so the book just sat in my closet for 45 years and I got it out last year and I thought, you know, maybe this is something that Vietnam veterans, Afghanistan veterans, or even people who haven’t been in the military, would enjoy reading about bootcamp, flight school and going into combat. And so I published it and really gotten some great response. It’s it’s really caught on because it’s very authentic. I tried to keep it light and humorous. And so, I think there was a lot of funny stories besides being in a real serious situation.

[00:04:41] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. And, and

[00:04:42] sometimes even in those, those real serious situations, you, you can find yourself appreciating some of the humor of, of the, the situations, right? Like I sometimes, you know, people call it like a dark humor or something like that, but there, there’s funny moments that that can happen even in those, those dark situations you [00:05:00] know, situations like combat or whatever.

[00:05:01] And you know, even even things that you, you think at in the time, it’s like, this is the worst. Possible scenario, but looking back on it, especially all these years later, you might be able to laugh at some of the things that that took place. And I’m, I’m sure, I’m sure that’s what some of the readers might get out of it, you know, just by you know, reading some of that, they might be able to appreciate some of the humor, I mean, removing themselves from, from the situation obviously.

[00:05:23] But, it, it’s, it’s nice to be able to see the perspective of one soldier, one marine, one airman, one, you know what, whatever branch of service you were in to see from that one person’s perspective. What was this war about? I mean, we can read about the war in history books, and we can read about.

[00:05:43] Individual battles, individual things. But what was, what was, you know, April 7th of, you know, whatever year, what was that like for you on that day? What, what was the, the, the hard stuff that you were doing or, or maybe even the funny stuff that, that happened, or, or what were those things that, [00:06:00] that actually happened for you?

[00:06:01] And so that kind of helps paint a picture of like, what was, what was the war actually like from, from one person’s perspective, right.

[00:06:09] Don Eggspuehler: Well, I think from, from an aviator’s perspective, at least, we were trained to do our job. And

[00:06:16] I think one of my biggest problems I had about Vietnam in general was a lot of guys graduated from high school and the next thing they knew. They were carrying a rifle in the jungle and had no real training or experience on what they were sent to do.

[00:06:30] And I think that was what I had a real problem about the war and a bitterness afterwards. But for us, we were trained. We went through flight school together, we formed a bond that is unlike almost any other bond you’re ever gonna form in your life going into battle with these guys and depending on lots of other people to do your mission. And, I think for me, probably the most you know, we started off doing day bomb mission missions where we’d roll in at 12,000 feet and [00:07:00] hit a, a smoke target that a, a, a forward air controller put down on the ground and roll in on a 45 degree angle and, and. Drop our bombs a few at a time on targets like that in the daytime, and that was, that was something we had really practiced a lot.

[00:07:18] And so it wasn’t that scary. But I think the, the hardest part for me was the very first night mission. Because we had the capability in the A six jet to track moving targets on the ground. It was called A MTI or automatic Moving Target Indicator, and this is, we’re going into North Vietnam at night with no radio contact with anybody. So you’re

[00:07:42] all on your own and if you get shot down again, there’s nobody to talk to. You’re just, you went down somewhere and didn’t come back. And that was probably the scariest moments because. They really learned that we were going up and down the roads, stopping the, [00:08:00] the convoys coming down from the north, bringing supplies and ammunition to the south. And so when they heard us go over at first, they used to just shoot at us, but we were long past them by then. But later on they learned, oh, that’s an airplane going down the. Road here. I’m gonna radio up the road about five miles and tell all my buddies to start shooting bullets in the air. And that’s exactly how they shot down a lot of our planes at night because we couldn’t see that coming.

[00:08:28] It wasn’t like a Sam missile where we got all kinds of warning. It was, it was just bullets in the air and you’re flying through a curtain of bullets. So

[00:08:36] again, it was those were probably the scariest moments. But when you got back. Everybody else in the squadron was going through the same thing. We would party, we would talk about it. Hug each other and say, we got through another day and we’d have to go do the same thing the next day.

[00:08:56] And so somehow you find the strength [00:09:00] and the courage to go do that every day. And I hope that came through in the letters to mom because I was trying to be honest with her about what we were going through, but also show her the, the great side of the other guys in the squadron and how they helped

[00:09:16] Scott DeLuzio: You know,

[00:09:17] I, I know from my, my own experience and other people that I, I’ve talked to other people that I served with that. Oftentimes when, when you either write home or call home, however you get to communicate back with home. You know, I was in Afghanistan obviously technology had changed. So there was, there was email and, and Facebook and things like that at, at that point, which, you know, obviously you guys didn’t have in, in Vietnam.

[00:09:39] But you know, there were, there, there were other means of communication. But I think regardless of the, the method of communicating a lot of times guys will. Want to kind of shield their, their loved ones back home from some of the realities of the things that they’ve experienced, the, the gruesome nature of war, the, the death and destruction and all the things that, that [00:10:00] go, come along with war to, I don’t know, maybe just protect them from even knowing that some of these things even happened.

[00:10:06] But it sounds like you kind of took a different approach, like kind of like you wanted to be honest and open about. All these things that were, were happening. Is that, that kind of the, the approach that you took?

[00:10:16] Don Eggspuehler: I think so again, as when you’re flying in an airplane and you’re dropping bombs, you don’t really see a lot of the gory details that were happening on the ground. And that’s where I think a lot of the guys that were in the infantry, the Marines. That were out down there fighting and watching their best buddy get blown away right next to them. That’s, that’s a lot tougher than being in a cockpit. But again, when we lost, we lost nine guys seven in our squadron were shot down and never came back. And, you know that still you’ve been through so much with these guys and when they don’t come back, you go through a lot of the same stages of grief and PTSD, and [00:11:00] I think it hits a lot of us later on after we come back and a lot of us came back very bitter about the war that why did we go do this and lose over 55,000 guys? We just

[00:11:13] walked away from it, and then we walked away after we’d really had them pretty well beat because we’d been bombing Hanoi solid for about six months and we’ve been bombing all over North Vietnam for that last six months of the war. And they finally said, okay, we’ll go to the Peace Talks and release the POWs.

[00:11:33] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:33] Don Eggspuehler: then we walked away and they just came in and invaded and took it over in a few months. So I think a lot of us had a really bitter feeling about that war in particular, and I’m sure you did in Afghanistan, being there

[00:11:47] for over 20 years and not really getting to accomplish what we set out to do.

[00:11:53] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. I, I was just gonna say that the, that there’s so many parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan. The way, the way that [00:12:00] we withdrew, the way that the country. Kind of

[00:12:03] the, the direction that it went after, after we left. And almost seemed like, was it even worth it? You know, you start to question, you know, all, all the lives that were lost, all the, the, the money that was spent, all the, the families that were torn apart, all the, the things that, that took place all the, all the people who came back broken in one way or another, whether it’s mentally or physically, all these things that, that, that happen to people.

[00:12:27] Was it all worth it if at the end of the day. Didn’t really change anything in, in these, these places. And uh, gosh, you know, I, I, I saw the parallels as we were going through the Afghanistan withdrawal. They, they even had some pictures of, of like the helicopter leaving Vietnam, like the last American, you know, troops like leaving Vietnam and the last American troops leaving, leaving Afghanistan.

[00:12:51] It was like very similar just the way that the two went down. And I don’t know, to me it just. I don’t know. At, at the [00:13:00] time, I, I was feeling optimistic, like maybe we lit a fire in the people of Afghanistan that maybe they’re gonna fight back and maybe they’ll, they’ll up some, some, you know, arms and, and fight back against the Taliban and they’ll take over their country on their own.

[00:13:14] I. That, that was maybe just blind op optimism or something. I don’t know what it was, but all these years later now looking back on it, that didn’t happen. And I realize now that’s not going to happen. You know, what, whatever happened happened and, you know, it is what it is now. But you know, we look, look back on it and it’s a it, it almost seems like, was it even worth it?

[00:13:34] You know, and, and you start to, to

[00:13:36] raise those questions. Right. Was that kind of your feeling too?

[00:13:38] Don Eggspuehler: Oh, no question about it.

[00:13:40] And I was very disheartened when I saw the Taliban and everybody just laying down their rifles in Afghanistan and just. Deserting all the equipment and all the training that we’d given them for years and years to,

[00:13:52] to defend themselves. And they just, they just gave up and, and that really happened with the South Vietnamese as well. They just gave up to [00:14:00] the NVA and let ’em take over. And

[00:14:03] again, a lot of the things that our country was so worried about that. All of Southeast Asia will become communist. It doesn’t happen, you know? So

[00:14:13] again, the whole reason for us being there really didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

[00:14:19] And, and it’s exactly the same thing in Afghanistan and Iraq

[00:14:23] and a lot of the other wars we’ve been involved in. We’re kind of in the same boat right now in the Middle East.

[00:14:29] We can’t solve their problems that been going on there. Again, we can try, we can try to help them find a way out and a peace plan somehow. But putting in a whole bunch of troops is just not gonna do it.

[00:14:42] Scott DeLuzio: Right. Yeah. And I, I think one of the, the lessons that I, I’ve taken away from just my experience in Afghanistan and, and seeing how all these other wars have kind of played out is that, you know, if we’re gonna go send troops someplace. It better. [00:15:00] Damn well be worth it. And it, what? We better have an objective, a, a goal that we’re, we’re fighting for.

[00:15:06] And once that objective is, is achieved, get the hell out of there. Let’s, let’s not stick around and drag this out to be another 20 year war. Or, or, or even longer, God forbid. You know, let’s, let’s go in with an objective. Let’s be surgical about it. Let’s get the, the mission done and let’s leave and, and.

[00:15:25] Continue on with our happy lives, you know, let’s, let’s not spend any more time or energy or resources. You know, and for whatever reason we, we spent way too much time in places like Afghanistan, even Vietnam you know, and, and these things. Unfortunately, they, they, um, it just seems like history has a way, funny way of repeating itself.

[00:15:43] And I don’t know if it’s financially motivated, politically motivated, whatever it is, it just continues to repeat itself, right?

[00:15:52] Don Eggspuehler: Yeah,

[00:15:52] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:15:53] Don Eggspuehler: so, what do you do if you’re in the military? You do what you’re told to do. You’re

[00:15:57] told what the mission is, and you go do your [00:16:00] job. I think another thing that a, a lot of Vietnam veterans weren’t really very appreciated when we got back home

[00:16:06] and like nothing like the World War ii. Guys got when they came home. And I think the same thing is true of the Ahan Afghanistan veterans. It just seems that the people today just don’t really appreciate what they go through and and don’t appreciate their service to the

[00:16:22] Scott DeLuzio: You know, I, I, I will say that, yeah, no, I, I will say though that I, I agree that I don’t think they have an appreciation for what, what goes on, like in Afghanistan, Iraq, or other, other places like that, because they haven’t experienced it as far as that goes. But I will say that. I’ve, you know, I, I wasn’t around for, you know, like in, in your time in Vietnam era to experience this myself, but from stories that I’ve heard from other Vietnam vets coming home, they wouldn’t even wear their uniforms out in, in public because they were afraid of getting, you know, assaulted or.

[00:16:59] [00:17:00] You know, being called names or all sorts of other things like that. Whereas for us, I remember coming back home from Afghanistan landing in, in the airport in, in Atlanta, and there were hundreds of supporters there with signs and flags and all these things, you know, supporting and, and, and really appre being appreciative of, you know, the fact that.

[00:17:21] That we were there serving and, and protecting and, you know, whatever it is that, that they were, you know, kind of appreciative of they were there celebrating that. And, and that to me was like a, a night and day difference between the stories that I’ve heard from folks like, like you who

[00:17:34] were in Vietnam, where you didn’t.

[00:17:35] You wouldn’t have expected anything like that. Like if, if anyone

[00:17:39] came and even gave you a handshake, that would’ve probably blown your mind. And, and, you know, so that, that was, was probably the biggest difference that I’ve seen between the, the two the two wars is that you know, you, you guys, you guys were getting spit on and, you know, called names and, and even assaulted and, and things like that.

[00:17:58] And, and we had nothing [00:18:00] like that. You know, to, no,

[00:18:01] Don Eggspuehler: I am glad to hear that. I’m

[00:18:02] glad to hear that you guys got a good welcome home because you really deserved it And

[00:18:07] Scott DeLuzio: you,

[00:18:07] Don Eggspuehler: God.

[00:18:08] Well, people learned, I guess, a little bit after

[00:18:10] Vietnam, but they didn’t treat us very well, so

[00:18:15] Scott DeLuzio: No, they, they, they, most certainly did not. And you know, I want, I wanna get back to this, to this book. You started talking about the book a little bit and, and some, the letters that you wrote and, and everything. And kind of like what, what triggered that in your head to to turn this into something more than just.

[00:18:30] A stack of letters that that mom kept in a closet.

[00:18:34] Don Eggspuehler: Well, that, that’s a great question and. You know, I’ve, I’ve written some other books on, called Life Lessons Learned in Grade School. My, my first wife died from a brain tumor at age 46, so I, I wrote a memoir, a family memoir about how our kids became caregivers for her that last year of her life. And so. I, I have really always been kind of drawn to stories of the family. We [00:19:00] had a real big family. I was the oldest of five kids, and back in Iowa there wasn’t a whole lot to do as far as entertainment. So I got to know my grandfather really well, and he told me stories about when he was growing up as a little boy, 60 years before me, and, and, i, I’ve always loved those stories ’cause I learned so much from my parents and from my grandparents and passing those stories down to future generations. That’s been kind of what my whole motivation has been is that my kids and grandchildren and so forth, well maybe understand what Vietnam was like and well maybe understand and, and I’ve had even women that, that never were, had any interest in the military.

[00:19:39] Read the book and say. Wow. I didn’t realize Marine bootcamp and flight school and then going into combat was anything like this. So it was, they learned from it and that’s that’s heartwarming to me that somebody can learn from somebody else’s experiences and maybe learn some good life lessons or [00:20:00] learn. You know that life doesn’t always go the way we want it to go, and we don’t have a lot of control sometimes when bad things happen in your life, and it’s really how you react to bad things happening that you learn

[00:20:13] and you learn to deal with grief, you learn to live with failures as well. Your life means something if you have a few failures and you learn from those failures.

[00:20:27] And that’s what growing up is all about. Life lessons learned in, I’m just now releasing life lessons learned in junior high because those stories were different than grade school. And it’s different lessons that you’re learning at that point in your life. And that’s a real tough time for most kids.

[00:20:44] ’cause they’re going through puberty and they’re becoming adults, but they’re not really adults yet and they’re not kids anymore. And. Giving those stories of what I went through as a kid in junior high, in a small town in Iowa, I think will help people deal [00:21:00] with some of those issues that they face themselves. And hopefully older people like myself will pass those stories down to their grandchildren if, if they’re reminded of a story from one my stories. So that’s, that’s my motivation. I.

[00:21:15] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And when you share stories like that you, you know, if, if you were to just keep all the, those stories, the, the, the conversations that you had with your grandfather, the, the stories from Vietnam, the stories from grade school, junior high, all the, all these stories you know, e even, you know, other just family stories, things.

[00:21:35] Happened in, in your, your family, you said you’re, you’re one of five, so obviously there’s there’s a lot of family dynamic going on just within your, your own household. But, you know, I gotta imagine there’s, there’s probably other extended family and stuff too that, that you, you interacted with, and there’s probably lots of stories that go on there.

[00:21:51] If you just kept that all to yourself at some point in, in the future. All those stories will, will die with you. And they’ll, [00:22:00] they’ll go away and no one will know anything more about those those situations. The time in Vietnam, the your, your time in in school and all, all these other stories that. Quite frankly, they’re, they’re valuable.

[00:22:11] I mean, you, you went through something, you know, difficult. Like, let’s, let’s just say bootcamp. You know, bootcamp is not for everybody, right? And not everyone’s gonna have the same success story necessarily. But you. I’m sure you learn something of, you know, resilience and you know, things like that.

[00:22:28] Through going through that, that difficult like a lot of other soldiers and marines and, and folks who, who go through that, that type of transformation, if you will what they, they learned from that, you can now pass it down to somebody else and what a shame would that be if all those lessons just disappeared.

[00:22:45] All in, you know, blink of an eye and you know, it, it’s great that these, these. Are these lessons are, are written down someplace now that will, will out outlive you. It’ll outlive me, it’ll outlive, you know, your grandkids. They’re there [00:23:00] now for years and years to come. And it’s, it’s just a great way to be able to share these lessons for future generations.

[00:23:07] To be able to not only understand the history of, of what happened, which is important, but also the, the lessons like yeah, sure. You, you. Tried something, you probably failed at something and, and you had to bounce back and try to figure it out. And, and if you can help somebody else, I don’t wanna say shortcut or fast forward through it, but you know, if you can help someone else figure out how to figure out the, whatever the problem is, then, then that, that’s a win for, for everybody.

[00:23:32] And so, you know, the, these kind of stories I think are just amazing in that regard.

[00:23:38] Don Eggspuehler: Yeah. And, and again, I think a lot of people have problem, a problem with putting down their thoughts on paper writing something out. And that’s always been very easy for me,

[00:23:48] although it does take a, a process to, to get the thoughts down, then edit them and make every sentence count and, and really, make the story fairly short, but it has a [00:24:00] beginning, a middle, and an end, and it has some sort of resolution or lesson that you learn from that story. But I, I got into audio books here about a year ago also, and three of my books are now on audio books and ’cause a lot of people my age can’t read that well anymore.

[00:24:15] Even if they have Kindle, they, they have a hard time. Reading a book, but they can lesson and they can still learn lessons and pass lessons down to their children and grandchildren no matter what age they are. So

[00:24:27] it’s been, it’s been a real enlightening experience for me to get to narrate these books and to write the books in the first place.

[00:24:35] And that’s what I’ve spent my whole retirement doing is, is writing the last 15 years. I’m publishing my sixth book now and if, if anybody has interest in any of my books the best way to find them, they’re on Amazon, but you can go to life lessons books.net. That’s my website and it has all my books and a biography about me. And you can just click one button and it’ll [00:25:00] take you right to Amazon to that page and you can buy the audio book or. Paperback or the ebook on Kindle. And if, if, if they have interest, that’s, that’s the easiest way to find my.

[00:25:17] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, no, absolutely. And, and I’ll, I’ll definitely have that link in the show notes for the listeners to, to check that out so they can then click through, check out, you know, your, your current books and maybe even any future books that you might have you know, coming down, down the line. I don’t know if there’s any, any more that you have in, in the back of your head that, that you might want to get out there.

[00:25:34] But you know, I’m sure, I’m sure there are more lessons life lessons ’cause you know, there’s, yeah, of course you, you’re learning things in, in grade school, you’re learning things in junior high. You probably, you learn stuff in Vietnam, you learn stuff in, in bootcamp, you learn stuff. You know, even after the military I, I gotta imagine there’s, there’s you know, probably even some lessons about transitioning from the military back into civilian life.

[00:25:56] Because that’s something I, I think a lot of. A lot of veterans [00:26:00] struggle with when they, when they get

[00:26:01] out, Sometimes they don’t even realize that it’s gonna be as difficult as it is to reintegrate back into society. And then, you know, who, who are you after that uniform comes off? And, and so, you know, was that, was that a, you know, a struggle for you coming out of, of the military?

[00:26:16] Was that that’s something that you, you kind of found difficult or, or were you able to kind of transition rather smoothly?

[00:26:22] Don Eggspuehler: I didn’t have any problem transitioning into professional life because back then if you had a college degree and military. Background, a lot of companies were interested in you and I had some computer software background, so I went into computer software sales and I didn’t really have a hard time converting into business. What I did have a hard time with was, again, thinking about the buddies that I lost and their families. And that they’d never be the same, like you said earlier. And I did deal with some PTSD and that actually happened years later after I was back. And I got some [00:27:00] counseling when my wife passed away at age 46, I went to some grief, uh uh. Recovery groups at two different churches that were amazingly helpful. Just to, just to commiserate with other people that are going through the same thing you are. So for any veterans or people that are dealing with PTSD if you haven’t gotten some one-on-one counseling or gone to a recovery group of some sort, I would really strongly recommend that.

[00:27:25] ’cause it was very helpful to me to avoid depression and going downhill when you really don’t need to. All you need to do is really kind of understand what your emotions you’re going through and how to deal with those emotions. And I I felt it was extremely beneficial for me to go through a lot of the just talking to people and

[00:27:47] getting it off your chest. And then once you’ve got that done. It was very, it’s a big relief to go on with your life and say, you know, I’m pretty lucky all in all that I got through this and that [00:28:00] I have wonderful family and brothers and sisters and children and grandchildren in this part of my life. Something that

[00:28:09] a lot of the guys didn’t get,

[00:28:11] Scott DeLuzio: Sure, sure. And, and I think one of the, the things that has. Me to, to kind of put things into perspective every, every once in a while is you know, whenever you’re having a hard day, whenever you’re having a, a difficult time, you might be going through a difficult situation. Maybe like in your case the loss of your wife or you know, other, other difficult situation that people may be going through is that no matter what you’ve gone through, no matter how old you are you have survived a hundred percent of the difficult times in your life up until this point.

[00:28:39] You can keep going. Like you, you, all those things that you look back on, those are challenges that were, they, they were difficult things to go through, but you survived. You got through all of those things and you

[00:28:49] guess what? You can, you can do that again tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.

[00:28:53] You know, it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a hard thing to, it wrap your head around sometimes when you’re in the middle of it, but it’s. Crap. I, [00:29:00] I did a lot. I I got through a lot of, of really difficult things, but, but you know, it, it’s, it’s not because you, you just threw in the towel and gave up and said, you know what?

[00:29:10] I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna talk to anybody. I’m not gonna get any kind of help. I’m not, I’m just gonna sit here and just fester in my own. Misery. It, it’s not because of that. It’s because you, you, you got up and you did something and, and you, like in your case, you went to these groups and they, they were helpful.

[00:29:24] You know, and so, you know everybody else who’s out there. If, if you’re just sitting there and wondering why you’re not getting better, just because you’re doing the same thing that you did the, the, the day before. Well that’s why, because you’re doing the same thing and it didn’t, it’s not changing anything.

[00:29:39] You have to try something new. And, and in your case, these groups worked and you know, coming from a time where. You know, PTSD and you know, the, the therapy options that, that are available now, were not readily available when you were getting back from Vietnam. You know, not, not the way they are now, at least.

[00:29:57] And, and, and it was, it was probably even more, [00:30:00] more or less frowned upon. You know, it was, it was looked at, maybe, maybe not frowned upon, but maybe looked at in a negative light. You know, for anyone who did go and get. Help through some sort of therapy or whatever. You know, it, it was just a different connotation, different time back then.

[00:30:13] And, and so when you, when you. Took that step to go do it to go talk to somebody or, or go to these groups that, that had to be a, um, maybe even a difficult decision to make to, to say, I, I need to go do this. Because, you know, in the back of your head, you might be worried about, what are other people gonna say about me?

[00:30:33] What are, what are other people gonna think? Or, or whatever, you know? And that, that fortunately, is less of a concern. Now it’s, I’m sure it still exists in, in some, some respects, but you know, it. Back then, it was much more of a stigma as associated with it. Right.

[00:30:49] Don Eggspuehler: Right.

[00:30:51] And and I think even something like what you’re doing now, Scott, with, with your podcast, and this is a therapeutic thing for a lot of people to listen to [00:31:00] others and what they’ve gone through. And I, I, I applaud you for doing this. This is your way. It’s similar to me writing books of giving back, and I, I really do.

[00:31:08] I enjoy your podcast a.

[00:31:11] Scott DeLuzio: I appreciate that. Yeah. And you know, e even, even looking at it from my point of view, it’s beneficial for me to be able to sit here and have this conversation with you and, and all the other guests that I’ve had because you’re sharing your experiences of, of the things that you did. I’ve never flown in.

[00:31:27] In jets over Vietnam dropping bombs or, or anything like that. So I have no idea what that’s, what that’s like. I’ve been on the ground in Afghanistan as an infantryman so I know what that’s like, but I, I don’t know what you went through and what you experienced or what, you know, a sailor aboard a ship has, has experienced, or you know, other, other people in dif different jobs in different countries or different wars.

[00:31:49] I don’t know what any of them. Did or what their day-to-day was like. But getting to sit here and hear your story or hear other people’s stories is kind of beneficial for me because I, I get to I get to [00:32:00] kind of understand a little bit about what you guys had, had gone through, you know, and it, it, it.

[00:32:05] It’s good. And, and having, honestly, anytime you get to have a conversation with another veteran it, it is just regardless of, of the war that they fought in or whatever or even if they didn’t fight in a war, just another veteran. There’s just that little bit of understanding where there’s that common ground and, and you can just jump into a conversation.

[00:32:23] I mean, you know, we a lot of very often on this podcast. I have not spoken to the guest prior to maybe five minutes before hitting record. And you know, we, at the end of the conversation, we, it’s almost as if we’ve known each other for years because we just have such great conversations, you know, and so it’s beneficial in, in that respect, you know, for me.

[00:32:43] But hopefully, like you said, for the listeners as well, can, can kind of take something away from these things and, and maybe even. Open up their, their minds to the possibility that, hey, if you go and talk to other veterans, this might be beneficial for you too. So you’re not just sitting there passively

[00:32:58] listening. You can [00:33:00] actually engage in the conversation and be a part of it and share your perspective. Share what you experienced, share all of those things with somebody else. And maybe that’s the, the piece of the story that helps somebody else on, on their own path to recovery or whatever you, you might wanna call it.

[00:33:15] Right.

[00:33:16] Don Eggspuehler: I totally agree. I really

[00:33:19] do. It’s, it’s so helpful, I think to. To talk about talk, well, really everything whether it’s the service or just your life in general, or, you know, probably stay away from politics because never gonna change people’s minds really about politics.

[00:33:37] But other than that, I, I really I’m an open book and love to talk about it with people.

[00:33:42] If, if I can be of help to anybody and and that’s. I, how I’ve done it was just writing books and,

[00:33:49] and you’ve done it through podcasts and other people do it in recovery groups or as you know, ministers to lots and lots of people in a [00:34:00] congregation.

[00:34:00] It’s just a matter of sharing what you know and what’s been helpful to you in your life, and it might be helpful to somebody else in ways you don’t even know.

[00:34:09] Scott DeLuzio: For, for anyone who’s, who might be out there listening, who is hearing kind of your, your side of things and is thinking to themselves like, I, I have a story inside of me. I have something that, that can be. Pretty good in a book format. I just don’t know where to start. Do you have any advice for, for folks who, who might have a story inside of them that, that needs to get out, needs to be shared with the world, where do they get started?

[00:34:32] Don Eggspuehler: I think my process is first of all, just get your thoughts down on paper, just rough thoughts as often as you can. And something I do with my iPhone is if I think of something and I don’t have time to write it down, I’ll just make a note to myself in the notes. App that I can come back to later and listen to it and say, oh yeah, that was what I wanted to get down on paper. Once you have an outline kind of down of the story I think it’s good to then [00:35:00] run this by some other people, loved ones the people that might be interested in this story and how you can delve down deeper into the detail and especially into the emotions that you’re going through at the time. That’s something I always try to do is put the reader right there. Where it was happening. Make, so they can relate to what you’re

[00:35:20] going through and the more detail you can get about the emotions you’re going through, the better. And then you know, there’s usually always a crisis point, and then you go a downward spiral.

[00:35:32] Somehow you climb out of that, and that’s a successful story. It has a lesson, it has a meaning to you, so it’ll have meaning to other people. And you don’t have to be a great writer. You really don’t. If you just talk to people in a regular voice it may not be a bestselling book, but it might be a real important book for your children on your

[00:35:53] grandchildren. Especially if you have pictures and you can really take them back to that moment.[00:36:00]

[00:36:00] I think that’s the, the joy of it for me, reading stories to my grandchildren is, is a lot of fun, especially if they’re my stories, because they can start to relate to their grandfather better. I don’t know if that would help anybody, but just be yourself and, and try to continually go back and edit the, and.

[00:36:26] Scott DeLuzio: I, I, I agree. You know, when, when I wrote my, my book I, I started off just like you said, just rough notes, just. Ideas places, things that happened time periods and, and things like that. Just real rough draft kind of thing. And then you know, you start organizing it in, in one way or another.

[00:36:46] And then, then you realize, oh, I don’t like the way it, it’s organized. Let’s, let’s kinda rearrange things a little bit. And it’s, it’s, you keep just refining it until eventually you get to something that you’re, you’re looking at. It’s like, oh my gosh, I actually have a book here. And you know, eventually that, that, that process just.[00:37:00]

[00:37:00] Kind of continues and until you get something you know, worthwhile to, to put out there and, and, and publish. But I, I think. for, for those who, those people who are out there, it’s like, oh, I’m not a great writer or whatever. If any of my high school English teachers knew that I wrote a book, they’d probably have a heart attack.

[00:37:15] So, so, I, I’ve avoided sending a copy of a book back to my my high school. ’cause I didn’t, I don’t want to be, I don’t want to have that on my conscience. But you know, for, for anyone out there, like I was not a great student in English. I wrote a book and I’ve, I’ve gotten good reviews for, for it.

[00:37:32] And, you know, it’s not like I you know, am, am. You know, any spectacular writer or anything like that. But to your point, you just write naturally. You know, the way, the way that you would speak to someone perhaps is, is maybe the way you can write the book. And, and that

[00:37:46] I think would be a little bit more relatable to somebody.

[00:37:49] You know, especially

[00:37:49] when you’re telling a personal story. It the way you would, you would talk about it. You know, if, just sit down, like you said, sit down with a, a voice recorder on, you know, the app on your phone and, and just record stuff and [00:38:00] the way you say it, I mean, that’s probably a pretty good way to put it into words.

[00:38:04] And, and a lot of these voice

[00:38:05] recorders now can transcribe it for you too, so that way you can just copy and paste the text into a, you know, your, your, your document that you’re working on. And, and you, you, you’re 90% of the way there. I mean, you might need to do some editing. Sure. But you know, you got most of it done just by.

[00:38:19] Speaking it out loud, and, and so you don’t really have to be a great writer. Just get something out there. And I, I think that’s, that’s important for folks to, to understand, right?

[00:38:29] Don Eggspuehler: exactly.

[00:38:31] Yeah. You know, I was lucky in that my mom saved all those letters,

[00:38:35] otherwise I wouldn’t have remembered a 10th of that stuff that happened. But the interesting about the letters is. They’re, they’re so authentic and, and I didn’t change ’em. I didn’t change ’em years later and, you know, I wasn’t a great writer at the age of 25, but it was. it it was from the heart. It was the love I was sharing with them and, and I was talking [00:39:00] about the missions, but also talking about the funny things behind the scenes.

[00:39:03] And I would never remember a little but to have it all right there captured that she saved all those letters and tapes and pictures. I had a book and so that was just a natural thing for me to transcribe it and, and give it back to her as a Christmas present.

[00:39:20] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:39:21] Don Eggspuehler: That was one of the best gifts I ever gave her. And so that’s what I would tell other people. Your memories are the best thing you could ever give your children and grandchildren of good times and bad times. Whatever things you learned in your life and so many people in retirement age, they had plenty of time to. Put those stories down. And so that’s what I try to do whenever I’m speaking to any groups or whatever, is try to think of some great stories, funny things that happened to you, and put those down and just get started.

[00:39:56] And you’ll be surprised how many stories there are [00:40:00] that you can go back to and you can say, wow, that changed my life at that

[00:40:04] moment. That

[00:40:05] one thing just changed my life. And

[00:40:07] so you never know.

[00:40:10] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And one, one other thing I I noticed when I was going through the process too, is as, as you’re writing your, your brain kind of is, works a little bit faster than, than you can actually write. And so your brain has time to go, go off and. Wander off and think of other things.

[00:40:25] And you, you, in my case anyways, I started, you know, remembering things that I had completely forgotten about until I started writing. And that just kind of jogged the memory. And so like you said, there’s, there’s lots of stories right now. You might think to yourself, oh, maybe I have a story or two, you know, maybe here or there.

[00:40:43] But as you’re writing them, it’ll, you’ll re, it’ll unlock, you’ll start remembering other things that. Maybe are related, maybe not necessarily related, but maybe took place in a similar time period that you might be be writing about. And it just unlocks those things that you now are, are [00:41:00] open up to sharing you know, new things, new experiences that you weren’t originally planning on doing.

[00:41:05] But here they are. They popped in your head for a reason. So get ’em out there too, right?

[00:41:11] Don Eggspuehler: Exactly.

[00:41:12] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. So.

[00:41:13] Don Eggspuehler: Totally agree. That’s, that’s been my philosophy from the beginning. And you know, it’s funny ’cause I was just back from my 60th high school reunion back in Iowa Falls just a couple weeks ago. And talking with the friends I grew up with from kindergarten through high school, we all went through. Experiences of riding our bikes and going out and trying to find something interesting to do and getting into trouble and, you know, having to face the consequences of not thinking things through.

[00:41:44] And they love going back through those stories. And then that triggers their mind on a story that they had that was very similar and that they can tell their grandkids.

[00:41:52] And so again, it’s, it’s an ongoing kind of life. Lessons that we all keep going through. I, [00:42:00] I’ve thought about writing life lessons learned after I’ve retired because my goodness, so many things, you keep learning as you get older and you never had to think, you never had time to think about a lot of this stuff when you’re busy working at a job and raising kids and you’re so busy with all these things going on. And that’s the beauty of, of retirement is I’ve had the time to sit back and reflect. Put it down on paper and make it available to people. So that’s been my mission for the last 15 years.

[00:42:32] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. And, and that’s a, again, important regardless of if, whether it’s lessons from grade school lessons, post-retirement lessons, anywhere throughout life. You know, we all have experiences that. We can share and we can help other folks out. And it just makes sense, you know, if, if you are so inclined to put your experiences out there, your experiences are gonna be different from mine and mine are gonna be different from the next guys and, and things like that.

[00:42:57] But you know, when, when you take your perspective then you [00:43:00] take somebody else’s perspective and, and, and you kind meld them together, eventually you’re gonna start seeing some common themes kind of bubbling to the surface. And it’s like, maybe those are the things I need to start paying attention to.

[00:43:10] And, and those are the things I need to do you know, in my own life. And you know. Maybe that helps you know, get someone through those, those difficult times that they might be struggling with. so, So,

[00:43:20] this is, this has been great. I mean, I, I think your, your stories that, that you’re, you’re sharing all these the different books from that, that you’ve shared with all these different lessons and different experiences that you’ve had.

[00:43:30] Again, not only are they important for your family, but they’re important for other folks to pick up and read and, and get your perspective on. What you did as you know, an aviator in Vietnam and what you did you know, as a kid growing up and what you did you know, all these things are, are important to be able to pass on and share on to future generations.

[00:43:52] And so, now, like I said earlier, I will have the link to your website, the, the life lessons books.net in, in the show [00:44:00] notes for the listeners to check out so they can. Get these lessons, they can, they can digest some of these, these tidbits and, and if nothing else, maybe that inspires somebody to share their own stories and, and put their own you know, you know, stuff out there.

[00:44:14] And you know, hopefully, hopefully that is the case because, you know, the more stories we have out there you know. I think the better off all of us can be and the more lessons that, that were learned that we can share some of these lessons. You know, I think, I think that just helps everybody out.

[00:44:26] So, so I do appreciate you, you coming on the, the show, Don to, to share your experiences and, and talk a little bit about your your, your books and your writing and, and you know, but especially your, your time in Vietnam and, and the the stuff that you did over there. I, I, I do wanna thank you for, for the, the service that you, you did over there and also not enough people who.

[00:44:47] Our Vietnam veterans got the welcome home that they deserve, like we talk about. So I also wanna say welcome home. I know it’s, I know it’s a

[00:44:53] little belated, but but, but it’s, it’s definitely appreciated you know, from, from this side of the, the, the screen. Anyways [00:45:00] you know, definitely appreciated and, and we want to thank you for, for your service.

[00:45:02] So appreciate it.

[00:45:04] Don Eggspuehler: thank you so much Scott, and thank you for your service. And what is the book that you wrote? I would love to read it.

[00:45:10] Scott DeLuzio: Oh yeah, sure. So it, yeah, I, I mentioned it and I, you know, I didn’t even give any information about the book. You know, I’m, I’m like the worst salesperson for, for my own book. But yeah, the book is called certain. The book’s called Surviving Son, and it’s it’s just a story really about my time in Afghanistan.

[00:45:26] My younger brother, he was, he was also deployed to Afghanistan and, and unfortunately he was killed in action. So it’s about our, our kind of growing up, how we got into the military, how we, how we deployed, and you know, how how dealing with, how we dealt with life after after coming back home and after he didn’t come home.

[00:45:43] So, you know, it’s, it’s a got, got some ups and downs. Definitely. Tried to make it funny in, in appropriate places. There, there’s some, some things that’ll, that’ll, that’ll definitely get you laughing. But you know, there’s also some you know, important you know, serious things that, that take place in, in the book as [00:46:00] well.

[00:46:00] Obviously, and you know, I, I tried to write it in, in such a way that you kind of get to know who we were. You know, back at that time and that way you can kind of feel a little bit about of what we felt you know, during, during that time period. And you know, I’ve, I’ve heard from some people that, you know, made ’em laugh, made ’em cry, and everything in between.

[00:46:18] So, you know, so yeah, again, the book is surviving Son that, that I wrote. But you know, we’ll we’ll maybe include a link to that in the show notes as well. But we’ll definitely go check out life lessons books.net for, for all of Don’s books and and we’ll, we’ll get that out there for the listeners.

[00:46:33] Don Eggspuehler: Okay. Outstanding. Thank you

[00:46:36] again for having me on, Scott. It really was a, a wonderful conversation.

[00:46:40] Scott DeLuzio: Absolutely. Thanks so much, John.