THE CONWAY FORD TALK LLAMA LODGE ORANGE HEART MEDAL CEREMONY at Vet Cafe Hour (2) 4/24/26

Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:17

Picking up your wake up with insights every weekday morning on talk at 94.5 106.7. Liz and A are live right now and on location on Talk at 94.5 106.7.

SPEAKER_04 0:34

All right, it is 707 on the Liz Callaway Show with Nick Summers. We're broadcasting live from the Veterans Cafe and Museum. We're trying something here. We're trying to interview Ken Gamble over the phone. Uh Ken, can you hear me? No, he can't. So I'm gonna put him on speakerphone, Nikki. Um, can you hear me now, Ken?

SPEAKER_03 0:54

I can hear you great right now.

SPEAKER_04 0:56

All right, excellent. All right, so I have you on Facebook Live. So if anybody wants to listen on Facebook Live, they can. But I also have you on the phone. So Ken is the founder of the Orange Heart Metal Foundation. This is such an honor to speak with you because you left me the most touching message after our very first one that we did uh four years ago. And uh I had I had accidentally had to uh unplanned had to put it on Facebook uh and you were able to watch the whole show on Facebook and uh you left me this unbelievable message that I played on the air the following day. So tell us a little bit about um why well tell us about your service and why you wanted to found this organization.

SPEAKER_03 1:44

Well, Liz, it it's a long drawn-out uh story, and I don't think we have time, but I'll I'll just uh kind of hit the high spots if that's okay with you.

SPEAKER_04 1:55

Sure, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 1:56

Well, I went into the service in 1962. Uh I went through boot camp at the Great Lakes. I went back to the Great Lakes for A electricians A School. A school is uh 16 weeks, five days a week, eight hours a day. And um it's it's equivalent to for a bachelor's degree more or less, because of uh eight hours a day, you know. Uh schooling is a is a lot of a lot of hard work. But to cram that into 16 weeks, well, I left there and I went to San Diego, supposed to catch my ship there. The ship was an LST and later on in Vietnam we figured out it was a long, slow target. But LST is a uh ship that the bow doors open. We go right up on the beach to offload. But uh I went aboard uh and actually when I got to San Diego, the ship wasn't there. I had to go to Oakland Shipyards and uh uh San Francisco up that way. I actually was at Montanoli Shipyard. It was going through a frame. They were getting it ready to go to Vietnam, which of course we didn't know. But that they uh did we see we went for sea trials and we ended up in uh Hawaii for six months.

unknown 3:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

And that was uh amphibious training, and we would load and unload and load and unload, we'd go to different islands of there in Hawaii, and uh we would uh go to different drills and we'd go to general quarters and we'd do all core sorts of stuff, and the whole ship's crew was still didn't know what in the world was going on.

SPEAKER_06 4:13

Oh my goodness, right.

SPEAKER_03 4:15

But after that six months we headed out on a Westpac cruise, which uh Westpac is uh Japan uh and uh uh Philippines and Vietnam. So we got to Vietnam and we went to a little island called Puqua Island. That island was inhabited by the BC.

unknown 4:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

And we were anchored within small arms far from that island. So there was a little tip of that island that was helped by the South Vietnamese, and it was called Anthoi. And all in the world there was a a little shack with some South Vietnamese junks, and we would go over there and we uh we take the uh LCVPs and that's a Higgins boat, we'd go over there and trade uh movies with them.

unknown 5:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

So we'd have something to do to break the monotony. Well there came that there there's an ar there was an article in the Washington Post that came out and it was about us.

SPEAKER_06 5:40

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

And and they uh back then we didn't have what we got today. It came in on on what we call memograph. Just the blue ink, which I've got a copy of it, but it's faded and you just barely can read it.

SPEAKER_06 5:57

Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

But it's it it it tells about us being there, how lonely we were, baby being away from home and all this, and how dangerous it was being right there at the VC. Well, before we left, uh we did an assault on that island and cleaned it out. There was no BC on it after that.

SPEAKER_06 6:18

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 6:18

But a uh we we counted 17 bodies, and I don't know how many they took with them because they was big at taking their bodies with them. But uh we left there, we we sat there, and the reason we were there, we was waiting for boats that we could support.

SPEAKER_06 6:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:41

And uh we finally got them. They were 82-foot Coast Guard cutters. So we worked what they called Operation Market Time, and what that was is we would send these boats out, we'd send four of them out at a time, and they would go up around and uh uh at go on up to the Delta, which at one point they would turn around and start coming back, and the other four would go out. We'd keep one in reserve in case one of them got blown out of the water. But uh if you do any research, you you just look at Operation Market Time, and you and what we were doing was we were uh searching for food, uh ammunition, guns, and what have you that the North was bringing down from Ho Chi Minh Trail through Cambodia, they would come out at Puqua Island, they would get a troller and they would come around and and go along the coastline up to the Delta and then go up the Delta and they would stash these their supplies in the tunnels. So our our job was to stop it.

SPEAKER_06 8:11

Right.

SPEAKER_03 8:11

Okay. So we did that for I don't know, two or three months. And then they we went to operation what they call game warden. Now Operation Game Warden at that point in time we took on two Huey helicopters and uh on our main deck. Now I know this sounds like I'm talking about a big ship, but our ship wasn't big at all. But we went and it took a very shallow draft, and it would go up the rivers, we we would go up the rivers, take supplies up, and started building the boat stations along the Delta where our boats could have a place to be without coming out and going back and all that. So we would take supplies, diesel fuel, uh food, budweiser, whatever we whatever we hauled, we would take it to the butt to the stations, and we would support the boats. And when I say support the boats, what we would do is we would send the small boats out, the PB, uh PBRs and the PCFs and and what have you, the WPBs and all of that is Navy jargon, but anybody in the military know what I'm talking about. But we would uh send the boats out when they would come under fire. We would send the choppers out, and the choppers would mortar the uh the uh longitude, latitude of wherever they sent sent in, to wherever the boat sent in. So that's what we did in the rivers. Uh we supported these boats and uh uh we I spent two tours over there. Went back for my third one, but I didn't serve on the third one. Uh that would have been uh TF 17. That would that was uh after Operation uh Game Warden. But the deal was while I was there I got extended involuntarily for four months because I was a senior electrician and I didn't have a uh relieve you know, relief. So in those four months we came back to San Diego and I and the ship was gonna get underway again and I had thirty-one days left. If you had thirty days left, you didn't have to go. But I had thirty-one.

SPEAKER_06 11:01

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_03 11:03

And I did not have a a a relief yet. So they made me ride that thing back to Vietnam. I went back, I got off the ship, stepped on a C-131, and flew back to San Francisco.

SPEAKER_06 11:21

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

Well, that's that's the military, I mean. But we did pick my relief up in Hawaii, okay? We stopped and got him, and he he tried to get me to stay in, ship over, or do whatever, because he did not want to serve on that ship.

unknown 11:41

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

But uh later on, as years went by, one of the guys I served with, the one that worked for me in the E-Gang, uh, come to see me, and I was asking him about Hansen. That that was his my relief thing.

SPEAKER_06 11:59

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 12:00

And he said, said, Oh man, he said, he turned out to be a heck of a guy. I said, uh, he was a fighter. Said he he whooped him two or three times. We we always had boxing matches with the Marines because we always had Marines on board. And the Navy and the Marines would have we'd we'd have boxing matches. Right. And uh Yeah, well Rich said he thought he would and he was a good fighter, brother. Rich uh I don't think he ever lost to a Marine, but he lost a hansom.

SPEAKER_04 12:38

So Ken, so once you once um, you know, you you came back to the uh you know civilian life, if you will, uh how what was that like?

SPEAKER_03 12:50

Well, I've gotta be quite honest with you, Liz.

SPEAKER_04 12:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:55

I don't remember the first 17 years that I got back.

SPEAKER_04 12:58

Wow. Can you explain that? Like what what do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_03 13:04

I mean that uh alcohol took its toll on me.

SPEAKER_04 13:07

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 13:08

And I just uh I mean I couldn't face reality. I couldn't I couldn't uh well I missed my kids growing up and that's the worst thing in the world that I could have done. And uh but uh my wife she put up with me and and uh she's with me today and uh I I just I don't know. Uh in 1983 I took all the liquor out of the house, threw it away. Wow and I have I haven't had a drink since 1983.

SPEAKER_04 13:49

What um what happened in your mind that made you do that? Like what was the epiphany that you had?

SPEAKER_03 13:59

Well, one thing is Rodriguez and I was sitting on the mess deck, we had to watch. And uh we were eating. Well it came down on the 1MC, that's that's the loudspeaker you might call it, uh, to secure the mess decks. They had a chopper coming in with wounded. And uh I looked at Rod, I said, Rod, if we don't eat, we won't get to eat. So we sat there and we were we we went ahead, you know, we didn't listen to them, we just went ahead and started started eating their meal and they brought these wounded in. They laid them on the t mystic tables and uh these guys were tore all to pieces. I mean they're in their insides were just laying out on the tables. Uh of course they did what they could do for 'em, but uh they did they couldn't save 'em. That and another time when we went in to Chulon, my C detail station was on the forecastle, on the uh uh controls of the forward anchor since I was an electrician. And uh that's right at the very tip of the ship. We went we went in, opened the bow doors, and we were unloading. And I'm I'm just up there looking around on the beach and I see my uncle. Now my uncle was not in the military. Oh he he was an engineer for Ingersoll Rand. And I hollered at him, I said, Hey Claude, and he he said, Hey Ken, he said, come down here, I want you to meet the general. I said, Uh uh I don't think I can. I'm on by C detail station. He said, Well, see if they let you. Well, I called in on the headphones and I said, My uncle's on the beach, uh, can I get permission to go ashore for just just to greet him? And they said, Yes. So I went down and and uh I hadn't seen Claude in several years. Well, the uh he introduced me to the general and all this, and we're looking over there. I was looking and I see this old old gentleman had a had a uh looked like a body in a wheelbarrow and he was rolling it up toward us.

SPEAKER_06 16:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 16:51

He came up and uh there was a uh a a teenage I I say she's teenage, I guess she was a teenage girl. Couldn't tell much about her because she I thought she had uh been in napalm. I thought she was burnt.

unknown 17:10

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

But she wasn't. The North Vietnamese had taken that little girl and skin skin her alive. And uh the general asked me, he said, You got a corpsman on this ship? And I said, Yes, sir. He said, Well, go get him.

unknown 17:31

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

So I ran across the tank deck to where Doc was, and I told him, I said, Doc, get your bag. I said, That there's somebody out there that you need to see.

unknown 17:41

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 17:43

Well, I couldn't go back. I could I couldn't stand to see it. I I I just couldn't do it. Wow so Doc Doc went out, and when he came back in, I said, What happened, Doc? What went on? And that's when he told me they had skinned her, and and uh I thought it was napalm, to be honest, because you know it just she just looked like she would burn up. But uh he says I couldn't do nothing, Ken. He said, the only thing I could do was give her morphine.

SPEAKER_04 18:15

Oh my gosh, Ken.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

So he said the well things things like that.

SPEAKER_04 18:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:21

Just bear it on my mind.

SPEAKER_04 18:23

I just couldn't I I can't even imagine. Uh just hearing the story is just so unbelievable.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

Well, I couldn't tell that story uh several years ago. I I I'd kept it all bottled up. I couldn't of course I went to uh uh therapy. I spent eight years in therapy and group therapy, and uh after that I was able to kind of come out of it a little bit. But like I said, in eighty three I poured all the alcohol out.

SPEAKER_04 18:59

Mm-hmm. And and what was that turning point for you? What it what had happened that you wanted to stop Well I was I was laying there in bed.

SPEAKER_03 19:09

I had been out the night before. I don't even remember how I got home. And my daughter came in and says, uh, Mama's leaving. I said, Well tell her I'll be here when she gets home. She said, No, she's got her soup cakes packed. I said, No, I ain't I no, uh no. So I got up and poured all the whiskey out, poured uh through the cigarettes in the trash can and I haven't smoked a cigarette or had a drink since 1983. I just quit cold turkey.

SPEAKER_04 19:46

Oh go ahead. I'm sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 19:48

Well she told me, she says I was fixing to go. She said if you hadn't have done what you did, I was leaving. And I it so I came awful close to ruining my life right there. But sixty-two years now we've been married.

SPEAKER_04 20:03

Oh my goodness, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 20:06

No, she's an amazing woman. She she is put up with me. But my my biggest regret is that I didn't get to see my kids grow up because I was stupid, you know, just I don't know. But but anyway, to answer your question, and I'm sorry it go around like that, but I was laying in the hospital. I had had problems with Agent Orange.

SPEAKER_04 20:34

Ken, can I just ask you to hold on to that story because we have to take a break right now when we come back? Sure. We're gonna give uh talk about how you pursued the Orange Heart Metal Foundation and everything that that uh led to that. So uh just stand by, okay? We'll be back in a moment. We're speaking with Ken Gamble, the uh founder of Orange Heart Metal, and uh he's in Tennessee. So uh we'll continue with him on the phone in just a few moments.

SPEAKER_08 21:02

The Liz Callaway Show with Nick Summers, broadcasting live at the Veterans Cafe and Museum with Conway Ford. First choice plumbing services and the Orange Heart Metal Foundation.

SPEAKER_04 21:13

Isn't it time to relax? Let's go to Elko.

SPEAKER_09 21:17

I wonder if they have clocks there. You know, LA it's probably not.

SPEAKER_04 21:21

There are no clocks at Elko.

SPEAKER_09 21:23

No, it's like a casino. You go in there and you have fun, they got game rooms. I agree with you. They have uh a game room there with all kinds of stuff. I mean, if you need stuff for your dart machine or dart board or maybe your shuffle board, I mean all the hard-to-find stuff, they got it right there. Plus up to $2,000 off billiard stables. It goes on for the entire month. That includes the outside outdoor ones, which you can you can have like uh I I call what is that stuff that they the fabric or whatever? It's like made for outdoors, you can have different colors. Yeah, it's made from that. No, I think it's made from that stuff. Okay, and you can get it to match whatever it is your outside decor is like to maybe match a patio stuff. Stuff, you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_04 22:01

Then you can put a topper on it. Sure. Make it a dining room table. Yes. Maybe you want, because you know, even the indoor ones, you could do that. Put dining room chairs around it, or you could even make it a ping pong table. There's so many things. So cool. Elcospaz.com.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

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SPEAKER_07 24:15

The Liz Callaway Show with Nick Summers.

SPEAKER_08 24:17

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SPEAKER_04 24:32

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SPEAKER_09 24:43

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SPEAKER_08 24:48

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SPEAKER_09 24:53

HTC presents the Liz Callaway Show with me, Nick Summers' seven-year itch party. Mark it down on your calendars Wednesday, May 6th at 5 30 p.m. Voodoo Brewing Company, Broadway at the Beach. Oh, it's free. Keep listening weekday mornings to get on our guest list. So come party with us.

SPEAKER_07 25:12

The Liz Callaway Show with Nick Summers.

SPEAKER_04 25:15

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SPEAKER_02 27:16

The Llama Lodge is now in order. Broadcasting live from the Veterans Cafe. It's Liz Callaway and Nick Summers right now on Talk 94.5 and 106.7.

SPEAKER_07 27:30

Talk for the entire Grand Strand.

SPEAKER_04 27:46

All right, here we are back on the air from the Veterans Cafe and Grill at 734. Um we are at the cafe and uh the Veterans Cafe and Museum here. The first 50 veterans are going to get treated to breakfast by First Choice Plumbing Services as we do our Conway Ford Talk Lama Lodge live and in person for the Orange Heart Metal Foundation, where Vietnam War veterans that have been impacted by Agent Orange are here to receive their Orange Heart Medals live on the air. And uh we'll have our first presentation in just a few moments. We were speaking with Robin Spence, uh she's the secretary of the Orange Heart Medal Foundation about her personal journey with the organization and and being a uh surviving spouse of a veteran who has received one and has gone through the um the one of the recognized ailments on the list. Now I did put that list of 19 conditions on our Facebook page, also the motorcycle ride uh that she talked about that is coming up. And the last segment we spoke with the founder, Ken Gamble, uh, told us his story. Uh it puts everything in perspective and really about why we're doing what we're doing. And uh Ken is still on the phone with us right now. Kevin, thank uh not Kevin, I'm sorry, Ken Gamble. Uh Ken, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. And we I would like to bring us now to the point where the Orange Heart Metal Foundation was established and why, and what has been your experience with Agent Orange? Uh any conditions or insight that you would like to share?

SPEAKER_03 29:29

Well, it was almost forty-five years before this deoxin showed its ugly face in me. But when it when it showed up, it showed up with a vengeance. I had uh cancer, I had forty six sessions of radiation.

unknown 29:50

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 29:51

I had two years of shots in the stomach. Uh that was one cancer. I of course, uh skin, basal cells, uh I've had them removed out of my head, I've had them removed off of my arms, my body. Uh just I I could tell you uh but like I told you at the beginning, we don't have time to hear all of my story, but uh I know when I got back and and we I had made enough freight that the Navy had to move me back to Tennessee. And uh so all I had to do was just put our clothes in the car and take off. But that first night we stayed somewhere, I think it was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, or somewhere like that, but we had gotten a hotel room and the next morning I was broke out all over.

SPEAKER_04 30:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 30:57

And I thought it was the sheets or something that they had washed the sheets in would give me a rash, you know. But we uh as we was driving across country, it finally quit itching and and uh calmed down and I never thought nothing else about it. But one day I was sitting at home and uh well I got up that morning and I was broke out from my head to my toes. Went to the hospital, they said I was allergic to something. So they started running tests, they couldn't find out anything I was allergic to. So they gave me some oatmeal uh stuff to do baths in and said good luck, you know. That's about that's about it. But anyway, all of those things were contributed to Agent Orange, and I didn't know it at the time, but as as life goes on, you you put two and two together, you know. I was uh in the hospital, I was I had internal bleeding and they put me in a room with another fellow and this fella was eat up with Agent Arng. And he was screaming to the top of his voice. He needed water. So nobody would nurses and nobody else would come in. So I took my water uh pitcher and just shoved it over to his bed and he said, I can't drink it. I said, Why I said, Hell you're hollering for water, what do you mean you can't drink it? He said, Because they're measuring it. I've got to have them to approve it. So I took my water back and I'm laying there and I'm looking at the ceiling and I I'm thinking to myself, Hell, I'm all right. It ain't nothing wrong with me. Internal bleeding, forty-six sessions of radiation. Well, uh that that's nothing compared to what this guy's going through. And uh I made my mind up. I said, you know, somebody needs to do something. Well, I knew we would never get a purple heart because that's an external wound.

SPEAKER_06 33:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 33:30

So so I thought, well, we're wounded. We we got wounded in Vietnam.

unknown 33:36

Right.

SPEAKER_03 33:36

We got internal wounds, internal instead of external. So that's I I sit in there and I just drawing out a metal and drew out the orange hard metal. I just sketched it out. Well the doc come in and I said, Doctor, you gotta get me out of here. I cannot spend a night here. I c I can't I can't I can't stand to listen to my brother over there suffering the way he's suffering. He says, Okay, let me see what I can do. So he came back and he said, Can he didn't say can, he said, Mr. Gamble says we we don't have another room. I said, Well then I'm leaving. He says, You can't do that. I said, You watch me. He says, Look, if I sign you out, will you swear to me that you'll be back in the morning? I said, Whatever it takes, Doc, but because I'm not gonna stay here because my PTSD is is acting up. I said, I want to grab that man and and run with him.

SPEAKER_06 34:49

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 34:51

So he let me go, and that started it. When I got home, I got on the computer, I perfected the metal, and that's what started it. And then I I got uh went and got a 501c3, went through the bureaucra bureaucracy, you know, and all that. Well, I I got a uh 501c three, but it was a private 501c three, which which meant I couldn't apply for grants or nothing else. I just, you know, blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_06 35:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 35:26

But but I didn't r you know, being dumb, I didn't recognize or realize what I was getting.

SPEAKER_06 35:32

Right.

SPEAKER_03 35:33

So for two or three years there that I we went under the orange heart metal um project. So uh when I realized what I had to change over to the foundation from a project to a foundation and that that created problems uh uh money and and uh bureaucracy and and everything else. But anyway, finally got it straightened out, cost about four thousand dollars, but but we were at that time we were getting donations and what have you, so we we were okay. Uh as of today, we started uh I started with the medal. Took me about six months to get somebody to make the medal for me. Most people most people wouldn't touch it. But anyway, I got it got it uh trademarked and and what have you, and and we started with the medals and started in August of uh let's see, was it 18? Yeah, I think it was 18. 2018 in August is when we got everything lined up and I got some medals. That year I sent out 300 medals. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 36:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

But everybody was uh suspicious of it because I didn't charge for it. And and you know, old Vietnam veterans ain't nothing free, babe, you know.

SPEAKER_06 37:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:08

But but anyway, after after that first year of listening to all that, uh they finally be you know, started accepting the fact that I was sending them out at no charge. Of course, every do every penny we got went right into buying metals. Uh our our board, myself, we're all volunteers, we do not get a paycheck, we're strictly volunteers, and every penny we get goes right back out to the veterans. Now, we have built a memorial in in Springfield, Tennessee, and it has cost us an arm and a leg, but we have paid for it. It it's there. We honor those veterans that are on that memorial every year at Vietnam Veterans Day, March 29th. Uh, we have a candlelit vigil on the day before, the night before, and everyone that's on that memorial, their name is read off.

unknown 38:14

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 38:15

And uh then we have our celebration the next the following day.

SPEAKER_04 38:20

And if it's uh how do you get your name or the name of a loved one on there?

SPEAKER_03 38:26

Okay, you go to the website, it's small letters, orangeheartmetal.org. When you go to the website, you'll see one side of the page says metal application. The other side of the page says Centon form. You just click on whichever one you want. If you want the metal, you click on it, you fill out the application, and hit submit, and it comes to my computer and I send the medal out. Okay. If if everything's okay. On the other side, you have to print off that form, and when you print off that form, you've got to fill it out and mail it in. Now we it costs a hundred and fifty dollar donation to get your name on the memorial.

SPEAKER_04 39:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 39:20

But that memorial has cost us over two hundred thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_04 39:24

Wow, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:26

So so we have to uh, you know, try try and get enough money to help us pay for it. But anyway.

SPEAKER_04 39:34

And there are trips that are organized, like bus trips to bring Vietnam War veterans there.

SPEAKER_03 39:41

South Carolina sends a bus load up every celebration. And uh we have a big time. We have a meet and greet the day before. And uh this year we had Dolly Parton and Elvis Presley.

SPEAKER_06 39:58

Oh.

unknown 40:00

Wait a minute.

SPEAKER_03 40:01

I had a hard time I had a hard time finding Elvis.

SPEAKER_09 40:07

Don't you just have to go to the local Burger King?

SPEAKER_03 40:12

But but they uh they were good impersonators, and we had a I think I think everybody really enjoyed it.

unknown 40:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:20

And we had Mr. Barbecue to cater it, so everything went off real good.

SPEAKER_04 40:26

Well, Ken, um just to wrap things up uh here with our conversation, and and we're speaking with Ken Gamble, the founder of the Orange Heart Metal Foundation. Tell us um the importance of doing things like this, this show being dedicated to the to the mission. What is the importance? What is the message, your final message here?

SPEAKER_03 40:48

Listen, you guys, if if you can get this message out, uh it helps thousands of veterans. It's not just local. It it it and that's just like our memorial. Our memorial. We we've got veterans on there from every state. From all fifty states. Uh we're not when we started this uh foundation, I wanted it for any Vietnam veteran that made it home. Unlike the one in DC, those guys may have made it home, but they weren't alive when they came. This one is for any Vietnam veteran that made it home and was living when they got here.

unknown 41:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 41:43

Now they may have passed away since. I know uh the ones that I served with on on that memorial. Every one of them that I served with has passed from Agent Orange.

unknown 41:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 41:57

I'm I'm one of the very few that is still kicking out here that was in our group. But uh it it's Agent Orange is something that our federal government doesn't like to talk about. I have got letters from the previous D.O.D. saying, no, we are not giving the Vietnam veterans any more medals. They have enough. And I've got that letter in writing.

SPEAKER_04 42:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 42:29

I haven't talked to Mr. Hed Seth yet, uh, and I'm not going to until we get this Iran situation solved.

unknown 42:38

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:40

Uh he even though he lives within eleven miles of where I live.

SPEAKER_04 42:45

Oh wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 42:47

But I I'm I'm just not gonna bother him with it until I until he gets uh done with what he's doing over there.

SPEAKER_04 42:55

Ken, uh we're just about out of time. Uh so I I want to say uh heartfelt thanks for sharing your story and you know the whole process. For those that are listening, you can go to orangeheartmetal.org.org. Okay. Uh orangeheartmetal.org, M-E-D-A-L. Thank you so much for your time and everything you've done here. Uh it's just been amazing. We appreciate it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 43:22

You're very welcome, Liz. And and is Nick with you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 43:26

Yes, sir. Well, hello, Nick. I I didn't want to interrupt, but I appreciate your stories and and and God bless you, sir.

SPEAKER_03 43:36

Well, now God bless you guys for doing what you're doing. You're getting the word out there, and that's that's what we need. Uh that's what we gotta have. And uh we have given 18,100 medals out thus far. And uh we're just gonna keep on. We just keep on digging. And also we have got the law that I put in the state. State of Tennessee, we've got it in twenty states now.

SPEAKER_04 44:04

Wow. So so we're going to and it's in South Carolina as well.

SPEAKER_03 44:08

It South Carolina, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_04 44:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 44:11

We've got it in Massachusetts. We've got it in uh West Virginia. We're working on in Virginia. We've got it in uh Indiana. Yeah. We got it in Texas. We got it in North South Dakota. You know, I could go on and on. I know you're out of time.

SPEAKER_04 44:29

We're out of time though, but thank you so much, Ken. Ken Gamble. Uh check out the entire website, orangeheartmetal.org. Thanks. Thank you so much, Ken. We appreciate it.