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Veterans know how to lead. The lessons we learned in the military form the foundation for bigger successes in business, entrepreneurship and community.
Host John S Berry, CEO of Berry Law, served as an active-duty Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army, finishing his military career with two deployments and retiring as a Battalion Commander in the National Guard. Today, his veteran led team at Berry Law, helps their clients fight some of the most important battles of their lives. Leading successful teams in the courtroom, the boardroom, and beyond, veteran leadership drives the firm’s rapid growth and business excellence.
Whether building teams, synchronizing operations, or refining tactics, we share our experiences, good and bad, to help you survive, thrive and dominate.
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John S Berry Sr.: My mission was this I was going to provide legal assistance if I got shot at fine, if I got a general yell at me. That was his problem.
John S Berry Jr.: Welcome to the veteran led podcast, where we talk with leaders who use their military experiences to develop great organizations and continue to serve their communities. Today, we are honored to have Vietnam veteran and founder of Barry Law, John Stephens Barry Senior, as our guest. He was commissioned as an infantry officer and then later served in Vietnam as a JAG officer. During his service in 1968 and 1969, Barry was the chief defense counsel for Second Field Force in Vietnam, the largest court martial jurisdiction for American forces in Vietnam. During this time, he defended the commander of the Green Berets and other officers against murder and conspiracy charges in a trial famously known as the Green Beret Affair. Dad, we're honored to have you here today. Tell us a little bit about why you decided to become a military officer and your time in Vietnam.
John S Berry Sr.: Yes. Well, first of all, John, it is an honor and a pleasure to be here. And I want to tell you that, uh, when I set out in the pursuit of justice, which has always been a passion, uh, in my wildest dreams, I couldn't have imagined that I would have a son who was an airborne ranger and who had commanded a company in Iraq and who would reach out to assist veterans all over the country, actually all over the world. So I can't tell you how honored I am and pleased to be here. I grew up. Thinking that I would be a lawyer some day. My grandfather. Defended his own brother in a murder case successfully. And when I visit him in Beaver City, Nebraska, there was a little outbuilding and it had law books, and my brother had a little building, he said that was his carpenter shop. I said, this is my law office. I have never imagined any life other than the life of a lawyer, the life representing people in trouble. That has always been my goal. It has always been my passion. And so. There was no doubt that I would go to law school, and I enjoyed law school at northwestern. At law school is in Chicago. A little anecdote that might amuse some of your listeners. If I had a few bucks and the cards came to town, I'd take a train north to watch Stan Musial play against Ernie Banks.
John S Berry Sr.: If the Yanks came to town, I'd take a train south to watch Mickey Mantle play against Nellie Fox. So those were good days. And, uh, but the reason that I applied for active duty. I had been commissioned infantry, completed the infantry school and gone and pushed troops through basic training. I had been in the reserves. I've worn insignia of infantry, engineer, artillery, and I was the infantry liaison officer for an artillery battalion, and I begin to hear and read that in Vietnam there was a shortage of defence counsel, that sometimes there'd be a maybe a special court martial in which the prosecutor was a lawyer. The defence counsel was someone they pulled out of ranks. So I wrote a letter to the JAG school, said I fulfilled my military obligation. I will volunteer to go to Vietnam if I can be assigned as a permanent defense counsel. The JAG Corps accepted my offer. They sent me through a short course and put me on a plane. I arrived in Benoit in October of 1968. We had a kind of a a armored bus. If you would take us to the 80th Replacement Depot. Somebody came and picked me up and took me to the headquarters of two Field Force. At the outset, I had 80,000 soldiers. In my general court martial jurisdiction, and I was trying a lot of felonies. And I was succeeding, so I got requests from all over the country.
John S Berry Sr.: Up in I Corps down in the Delta. So I had cases with a first Infantry Division, the first Cavalry Division. The fifth Special Forces, the 199th Light Infantry Brigade, the 82nd Airborne Division. The ninth Division. And if I've left any out, and I'm sure I have, why I always enjoyed going. I went many places where no lawyer had been before. I remember particularly Fire Point, Saint Barbara. It was at the base of New Ibadan. That's Vietnamese for Black Virgin Mountain. The Viet Cong owned the mountain. It's full of tunnels. We owned the top, which was a signal operation, and all day long we were firing artillery into that mountain. Well, I went there because someone was charged with murder and we needed to have an article 32 hearing. But the article 32 officer wasn't there. So I got somebody and I said, make up a big sign that says the lawyer's in town. Now, one thing about the army, wherever they can get a bullet, they can get a typewriter. So they got me a clerk typist. And you should have seen the line kids wanting to write a will. Kids wanting to write a power of attorney. Kids wanting me to write back to a civilian lawyer and say, no, he's not going to waive his rights under the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act so that her his wife can get a divorce while he's over here.
John S Berry Sr.: You're not going to do a damn thing till he can get back and defend himself. That was how I lived. And it was all law, all the time now. I was in places where I was involved. In action. I was involved in actual combat in a number of places. A number of circumstances. Um. I joked about where I called it the orange pill and the white pill, because everywhere you had to take an orange pill for malaria on Thursdays. If you were out in the field, way out in the field because of the mosquitoes, you had to take a little white pill every day. So if I was in a place that there wasn't, uh, you weren't out in the woods. Weren't in the jungle. I called that orange pill duty. When I was out there, when you were getting eaten up by mosquitoes and had to take a white pill every night, I called that white pill. That's how I designated where I was and because I had permissive travel orders. I could get on any helicopter. I could get bumped by a major. And as it happened, I could get bumped by a by a journalist. But once a. I was getting bumped into. The journalist looked at me and he said, wait a minute, you're Captain Barry? And I said, that's right. And he said, well, I'm supposed to get on this chopper to cover your case, so I'm not going to get you bumped so I can go up there and you can't be there.
John S Berry Sr.: Another time, I was on a C-130. There were scout dogs who were doing what dogs do. There were a number of Vietnamese. Soldiers who were vomiting because they weren't used to flying in airplanes. And there was a whole bunch of. Duffle bags at the end. And this is a kind of a safe place to sit and. And the listed man said, would you like to sit here, sir? And I said, no, no, you go make yourself comfortable. And he said, sir, you're a lawyer. That JAG insignia meant something to them. They meant there was someone who would stand up for them. They meant it meant that there was someone. Who was not afraid to look. A guy with stars on his shoulders, right in the eye and back him down. And I did that more than once. I say that not. Not as some kind of self-praise. I say it because you've asked me about my mission, and my mission was this I was going to provide legal assistance if I got shot at fine. If I got a general yell at me, that was his problem. I actually went so far as to file a subpoena. For the president of the United States in federal court in Guam.
John S Berry Jr.: And at the time, the president was Richard Nixon. Yes.
John S Berry Sr.: Uh, and, uh, he didn't obey my subpoena on the one hand. On the other hand, uh, the charges did get dismissed. I'm getting ahead of myself, but I just want to say that. I when I lectured at the JAG school, someone said, well, aren't you afraid? Aren't you afraid that if you take this hard line approach, people will think you're a jerk? And I said, if you're afraid, get the hell out of the JAG Corps. Because there's no place for fear among trial lawyers. There's no room for it. There's no place for it. If you're going to call yourself a trial lawyer, then you will stand up for your client and you will face anybody and anything down. Now, I want to say something else. I volunteered for the job of foreign claims officer because we had a policy that for collateral damage, the people got paid. Now, it wasn't much. It was. I think if you lost a 15 year old kid, you'd give. They give you $55 a bag full of rice, a selenium certificate, and as I recall, a bag full of. Candy and cigarettes and I'd meet. I had a Tiger Scout translator and sit in the back of the Jeep. My driver had an M79 grenade launcher under his seat. My Tiger Scout had an M-16 and a lot of ammo. Anyway, he was my interpreter. Well, the first time I did that, I drank something.
John S Berry Sr.: I don't know what it was. You know, they offer you a drink, you take it. Somebody later told me it might have been absinthe, but my brain couldn't handle it. So my boss, Bob Jones, God rest his soul, he said, from now on, when you go into a village, you take a steel mermaid box. You fill it with beer and ice. You have your drink with a village chief, but you provide the drink. You don't ever drink that stuff again. And by the way, I once made the mistake of drinking some rice wine with some mountain yards in the Central Highlands. And I will say that I should have stayed with beer. I mean, that was the only safe thing. And then you'd leave that steel box and they'd use it as furniture. So it was kind of a nice thing. But, uh, meeting with grieving families who had lost someone, expressing my sympathy, I learned a few Vietnamese phrases. I, I only remember a few now, but I knew enough then to get by. Uh. So it was. I did not want to be a tourist in uniform. This was a war and I wanted to fight. And I am dealing with aggrieved people and I wanted to help out. Now I mention this because this desire to help carried over into my civilian practice. I had guys, people didn't even use the expression. Ptsd, but I knew they weren't right.
John S Berry Sr.: And they were in the middle of a divorce. They couldn't. They couldn't afford a lawyer and they didn't know what they were doing, so I represented them. I didn't charge him. I wasn't a wealthy man. I had a very small firm. At one time. It was just me and a young lady up front who was my typist and my bookkeeper and my receptionist. And she was married to a railroader, so she already had health insurance, so I didn't have to do that anyway. So I was not a wealthy man, but somebody who was a veteran who came in and was clearly suffering and didn't have the wherewithal. To get good assistance. Of course, I never turned them down. In order to do this and still make a living, I would come home and maybe you remember this. I'd come home, we'd play a little in the in the yard. We'd have our supper, we'd say prayers. The kids would go to bed. Then I'd go back down to the office. And the cops all knew that whoever was on patrolling, he'd pull in at midnight, knew there was a coffee pot on, sipped some coffee, use the restroom, gossip a little, and get back on his rounds because everybody knew that Barry was there with a pot of coffee at midnight. I had to do that in order to give, to both make a living and give free representation to the suffering veterans.
John S Berry Sr.: Who were not getting. And we have to be honest, the VA was not very generous. This was before they came down with a duty to assist. Now, of course, there was now a duty to assist, but in those days they'd say, well, if you can't fill out your form, your claim form, that's just too bad for you. So I'd help them fill out claim forms. Wouldn't use my name because you couldn't represent veterans. But back to the Civil War. You charge a veteran five bucks to represent him. You've committed a felony. But yeah, I'd help him a little bit. On the regional level, my name doesn't appear anywhere, but I don't think I ever turned down a suffering veteran. I don't think I ever did, and now I'm. Well, I'm 85. I became a lawyer. In 1965. So I've been doing this for a while and the passion is still there. But now I can enjoy vicariously seeing what you. What you. And what is now your law firm does for veterans. And it makes an old man's heart happy. You know, when I. When it comes time for me to make an accounting of myself. I go with a light heart. Because I know. That Barry Law. Continues to do the work. That I would have done. So I don't leave. I won't leave with my work unfinished. That's a great comfort.
John S Berry Jr.: Well, if we look back and I know if I go to the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims website, for most of our veterans, they're listening to understand that if they appeal their case up to the if they're denied disability benefits and they appeal it up through the federal system, it's going to at some point end up at the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, which has a website that where you can go back and look at all the cases and some of your cases back to 1998 are on their website. And so it's clear that there is a long history of you representing veterans. And I believe you've represented thousands of veterans in your time. And as you said, many of them pro bono. Once you got the case up to the federal court, there was EJ Equal Access to Justice Act fees and other ways that you could be compensated. But you did a lot of the work because you wanted to help your fellow veterans. And at the veteran led podcast here, one of the one of the great things that we have is we have a community of veterans who want to help each other. And you talked about the beginning of your practice when you it was just you and a secretary in the office, and you had to go back to work late at night to take care of your clients and do what was right. If you could share for some of the veterans, how did you continue to grow the business? Being a solo lawyer with one assistant and then growing it into a thriving practice?
John S Berry Sr.: There were a number of things that happened. The newspapers were different then. They were much thicker and everybody read newspapers. Seems like a strange thing now, but that was true. And I tried a lot of high profile cases. I tried cases, um. The Native American Rights Fund knew that I would represent them without compensation. The Civil Liberties Union knew that if someone had a constitutional problem, I'd go in without compensation. So how did the only way you could advertise advertising was illegal in those days, and people would get hauled up before the bar for doing it. And so that was my way of advertising, of trying them and trying them and trying them. I've been in situations where I was in a. Trying picking a jury in Omaha while I still had a jury out in Lincoln. I've been in that kind of a situation. Uh, but so what? You know, it isn't like anyone was shooting at me. That isn't as if it was stressful. It wasn't I. And as far as if I didn't always get paid well in Vietnam, I wasn't getting rich off that $65 a month combat pay either. So it's never been about. Money. But I have cast my bread upon the waters, and as it happens, I have been rewarded. And so. You know, looking back, and I got to brag a little bit. I have three sons. You are an airborne ranger. You led a platoon in Bosnia.
John S Berry Sr.: You commanded a company in Iraq. You had a battalion here in the National Guard. Retired as an oh five. Your brother Chris. He. He got the Air Force to send him through med school. He was a physician at the NATO hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, and also got out in the field. Your brother Rory. The Navy sent him through Stanford, and he, uh, was attached to the army in both Iraq and Afghanistan. You know, on my father's World War one Victory Medal, it says the war to end all wars. And that's what everyone believed. But Plato. Maybe the wisest of all philosophers said only the dead have seen the end of war. I think of what's happening now in Ukraine and in the Middle East. And I think of Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander of our forces during World War Two, who said peace is our only profession. Among us are fellow soldiers. And by the way, John, we're still soldiers. You don't stop being a soldier. And because I was attached to the third Marine Amphibious forces outside of Danang, of course I will be going to the marine birthday party on, uh, November 10th, and I will be sipping some port in the in the various toasts. Uh, you don't stop being a soldier. You don't stop being a sailor or an airman or marine. You don't stop being that you don't. Uh, someone told me a story about you that once you showed up, you were wearing a nice suit and tie and you were being rained on.
John S Berry Sr.: They said, where's your umbrella? You said officers don't carry umbrellas. Well, that's just kind of the way it is. There are things that stay with you. Uh, the sense of duty. The sense of honor. The sense of achievement and achievement on behalf of your country. These things stay with you. It's not on your dd214. You don't have an extra ribbon for it. But they stay with you and there is a pride. I can almost always. This is strange, but I can recognize people who have served. I just can, and there is something different. And I don't mean that everyone has to have been in war. People I know, people who have paid a terrible price for their service, who are not in war. I know that, and so do you. Uh. There's a thing. Okay? When the VA found me to be 100%, they said, well. We want you to talk to a shrink. And I said, I don't need to do that. And they said, well, you really ought to, just as now that we're doing this, this was a two hour thing. Halfway through it, he said, this is too hard on you. I'm finding you 70% disabled for PTSD in addition to everything else. And he said, I hope you'll talk to someone. Because he said. If you will. Meet the dragons during the day.
John S Berry Sr.: They won't come and get you in your sleep at night. That was his exact words. So I did talk to someone. And that's how I wrote my my most recent book, my fourth book, my book of poetry, Foot Soldier. And I encourage my fellow veterans, I know you don't want to talk about it. Some of you. Are in groups where people talk about PTSD experiences and others should not because it might trigger you. Some of you have talked on our triumphans thing we have that we celebrate you and you can tell your story and be filmed. Others choose not to. There are people who should talk to a psychiatrist or a psychologist. And there are other people, yes, who need hospitalization or various kinds of medicines. The point is. The thing is. You hear this again and again? My dad was in this war. But he never talked about it, and we knew better than to ever touch him unexpectedly, and we knew he'd have nightmares. Well, to my fellow veterans. Talk about it to someone. It might be your pastor or your priests. It to field force or our chaplain for a while was a rabbi. We called them all Padre, of course. So you can talk to your padre. Talk to someone. Talk to your veterans advocate, but if you talk about it during the day, it won't come and get you at night. And you won't have.
John S Berry Sr.: There's two kinds of war dreams I found. There's the Technicolor ones that are. Are not very nice at all. You wake up with night sweats. And then there's the black and white ones that are almost nostalgic. You're kind of back there and see an old friends. Of course, in the army. And I suppose the other branches. You never say goodbye. You might say. See you on the other side. And nobody knows what happens. I know a good friend of mine says, you go to Valhalla and eat boar meat and drink mead and. Fight all the time and not me. I'd find a comfortable place in a nice book, I suppose. But the point is. I'm 85 and. When I come to cross the river, whatever happens, I'll be ready for it. Nothing will happen that I can't handle. And I say this to my brothers and sisters in arms. You're in the same situation. You have faced problems. You face difficulties. You don't have to have been in war. Do not ever minimize your service. If you didn't get shot at, you doubtless had other stressors. And if these stressors are in any way impacting your life, whether by hypervigilance. Or in any other way. Uh. The VA may have something for you and it's worth exploring. And remember you earned it. The laborer is worthy of his wages. I throw out a few Bible quotes every now and then. It's my nature.
John S Berry Jr.: Well, that's, you know, getting back to your your success was it came from helping the veterans living your mission and doing it really well. You got the what we call now earned media. You couldn't pay for media back then. Lawyers couldn't advertise. But because you tried the big cases and you won the big cases, you were celebrated in the media. The media. Uh, what? Whether it was television or newspaper, people learned about you and you became legendary. And that's how you built a reputation. And we see today that a lot of a lot of people who wish they were legendary will advertise and make claims that that they're great. But the reality is eventually they never get to where they're going because their greatness is a mirage. They have not done the thing at the highest standard to get them the reward that they want. And you have done that through representing veterans through your stellar advocacy as a lawyer, and your reputation has carried you. And as you said, you didn't have much to start with, but you had a mission and you wanted to help veterans get all the benefits they earned. You wanted to help your clients get justice, and you had to work extremely hard to get it and make a lot of sacrifices. And you got there. And now you seem to be at peace with both the work that you've done, the results that you've got, and your own. Struggles or your own. I don't want to say demons, but your own difficulties in dealing with, uh, some of the residual problems from your from your service. And so it's all come full circle, and you've gone to the VA to get help. And you waited how long to get help?
John S Berry Sr.: Well, this is embarrassing because. Uh, no, I, I left Vietnam. I was there 668 to 69. Then I went back twice in 1970 under special orders. And, uh, I, I think I waited till three years ago before I was willing. Lorraine Castiel from Barry Lau came up and said, you have to sign this. And I couldn't resist her. You know, I. I want to say I appreciate anyone who. Who wants to help veterans. But I'm going to say something and I hope. I'm. I don't mean to offend anyone, but. Now that you can get paid for representing veterans, suddenly all kinds of people went in on it. We used to call them feather merchants because they acted as if they had a feather somewhere or other. We used to call them table waiters, people who have never worn the uniform all of a sudden say, yeah, we're big shot veterans, advocates. I want to praise you, I think of. The Department of Labor. United States Department of Labor gave you the platinum Award for hiring veterans. You're a veteran. I'm a veteran. But think of all the veterans we have. Think of all the Marines. Uh, I say Marines because they always seem to have a little better time with their. A bottle of port and a big Kate cake and a saber. And the oldest marine cuts the cake and gives the first, first piece to the youngest marine. I love the marine birthday parties. I wish the other services. I wish we all did it too.
John S Berry Jr.: Well, that's probably a hiring problem on my end. We have over 24 Marines on the team, and so our marine veterans, uh, our Marines outnumber our Army veterans. And of course, we still have a few Navy and a few Air Force veterans. But, uh, by far, uh, Barry Law, we have more Marines than any other branch, uh, serving here. And we always want to bring the veterans onto our team because we share the same values. I know that when I started working for the firm, we had several veterans that worked at Barry Law. Why did you decide to start hiring veterans to help you with this mission?
John S Berry Sr.: As I got involved, uh, there's a kind of empathy. It's a different thing representing veterans. And I've tried, as you know, I've tried death penalty cases. I've tried a number of murder cases. I've tried a lot of very serious cases and personal injury, divorce. Representing a veteran is a sacred trust. It is holy. And if you have someone who shares that sense of the sacredness of helping veterans, the sacredness of representing them, it really does have people go the extra mile. It really does have people who, uh. You know the old joke close enough for government work. That is a joke. But there are people who who really have that sense of duty. I'd like to think that of the troops that I pushed through basic training. That I gave some of them a few of them, some values that carried with them through their lifetime. I'd like to think that that happened. I hope I have I've certainly learned from a number of other people, and I hope that we have. Uh, there is there are a number of people in our firm who are not, uh, veteran or military affiliate, but they pick up the sense of, of pride in, in this outfit. It is now your outfit, Barry Law.
John S Berry Sr.: And there is a sense of pride and they present themselves with that sense of pride. I. You do that, you do it very well. You're. You learned a lot of leadership, and I think it's natural for you anyway. But you learned it and you, you got it. And it's with you. And, you know, a lot of things are contagious. Maybe measles, maybe small talk, who knows? But pride is contagious. Pride in your work is contagious. And if you get people who do not have that pride, who do not pick up on it, they don't last very long here. They just don't. Either you send them on their way or they don't simply can't take the intensity. Because this is a very intense place, because what we do. We crusade. We crusade for the rights of veterans. And. It when Douglas MacArthur. Retired. He quoted an old. Barracks ballad saying old soldiers never die. They just fade away. I think that. At some point, I suppose. I may start losing interest, but for the time being, if there's anything I can ever do for a fellow veteran, I will. For as long as I can, I'll hobble over there and get it done.
John S Berry Jr.: Well, and you certainly have done that now at 85 years old, still helping veterans and of course, a storied history not only from your service in Vietnam, but through decades of representing the less fortunate individuals, a people charged with crimes and winning the high profile cases. And here we are today. Uh, if you could share your successes with our veterans through the After Action review, I'm not sure if you had those in back in Vietnam called the After Action Review, where we would list what was supposed to happen in the mission. What happened? Give me three things that we should sustain and three things that we should improve. And we and we write it all down and we send it to the Army for, uh, the center, the Army center for lessons learned. And we and we try to, uh, memorialize those R's. But if you could, for our audience, let's do the act for action review. What are three positive leadership lessons that you learned in the military?
John S Berry Sr.: Okay, I'm going to give one person that gave me both a positive and a negative. His name was George Patton. His father was the great Patton in World War two. Uh, this Patton was a bird colonel at the time. He was the commander of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, and he retired with two stars. But anyway. I went up to. Black horse, and I had some legal matters and I had to spend the night. And he said, uh. Captain. Would you like to? Would you like to? I have an air conditioned trailer. You can stay there. And I said what? And a specialist took me aside and he said, the colonel. Takes his track out in the woods every night to draw fire. And I thought, yeah, the guy wants to go where the action is. He doesn't want an air conditioned trailer. He doesn't want something fancy. He wants to go out there and looking for a fight. And that influenced me in a good way now, in a bad way. Well, when its chopper got shot down, he radioed back. Don't let anyone wash the blood off my shirt. I need it for my museum. So that was kind of an ego thing, that that was a bad thing. So Colonel Patton and I, uh, another thing he did that was a bad thing is that I'm getting into bad lessons while getting the good ones.
John S Berry Sr.: Uh. He, uh. Called me once, but by then we had a pretty good relationship. He called me die, Wade and captain, and he got on some sort of a field horn. He said, I need to see you. So I asked Bob Jones. Colonel Jones, I said, I guess I better get up to Black Horse. And he said, yeah, go ahead. So I got my driver and my interpreter, and we went through the French rubber tree plantation, which the Viet Cong owned, because we couldn't fire into it because of a treaty with France or something. Dangerous place to go through. But it was the fastest way. I got up there. Here's what he had done. He took his camera out and took pictures of a bunch of dead Viet Cong. And then he had it printed on a Christmas card that said Peace on Earth. Well, doing that is a violation of the Geneva Accords and the laws of land warfare. And General Creighton Abrams was furious. And he said, uh. Becarefull. I want you to go with me, I said. Of course. So I got Bob Jones's permission. Creighton Abrams was furious. So I. I did the best I could. I said, well, sir, he he meant this as a morale booster for the.
John S Berry Sr.: For the troops and for the guys out there in the woods. And he wasn't. And I looked around. This is macveigh. This is a. It's a it's the damn Pentagon in Vietnam. Air conditioning and China drinking out of China. And so I described the conditions of, of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. And I said to those people this would be a morale booster. And he just. He let him off with a warning. Now another bad lesson. When we finished, it was time for supper and the general. By then he would sit his over and says, okay, uh, you can, uh, you can eat at the General's mess. It was a bunker underground. I said, okay, thank you sir. So I sat at a table with some other captains who were the waiters lieutenants. Now, that was a terrible idea to use a lieutenant to wait tables. That guy had been through some school, whether it was infantry or artillery or he'd been somewhere. And he's bringing me a steak. That is not the job of a lieutenant. You hire a civilian to do that? But, uh, he turned out to be good because he asked me if I'd like another steak. And I knew the next day I'd be eating c-rations. So I said, yeah, that's a good idea. I think I'll do that.
John S Berry Jr.: So you got to see some good leadership from that, Lieutenant. Yeah. Good initiative. All right. Well, I guess we'll count that as a good. So then one more good leadership lesson that you've learned. You've already hit the three bad. So what's one more good.
John S Berry Sr.: All right. I am called to macveigh use or v excuse me in long bin I'm told that I have a client. They can't describe his name. Just. Say I'm looking for number six. I went up. Did what you always do. You dry fire your pistol into a sand bucket, turn it in, go in and say, I want number six. They take me out to a steel box. Captain Lee Brumley. He and Bob Rowe, commander of the Green Berets in Vietnam, were charged with conspiracy to murder a double agent. Here's what Bob Rowe did as a leader. He somehow kept the morale up of all those guys, kept him together. Now the. Imagine the amount of time, effort, and money that was being spent to try to get one of them to flip on the others, and nobody would do it. And that's one of the ways we got that thing dismissed just that strong. And you've met him. You remember Bob Rowe very well. He remembered you. But the strong leadership of the commander of the Green Berets, now, he was the guy. He was on the Boston Social Register. He had inherited millions. He didn't have to serve at all. He went to West Point. He wanted to serve. And the fact that those men were so with him. Knew he was. Loyalties a two way street. He had so much loyalty for those men that they had loyalty for him. Nobody flipped. And eventually, uh, for a lot of reasons that I won't go into here, but the commander of the Green Berets and all of his men got their charges dismissed. They got on the Freedom bird going home, and the captain announced they were on the plane and everybody cheered. It was a nice thing to happen.
John S Berry Jr.: And that was, of course, a huge national story. And for any of our listeners that want to learn more, they can get a copy of our book, Those Gallant Men on Trial in Vietnam by John Stevens Berry. You can hear the entire story there. But once again, sometimes, uh, I heard this from Dan Sullivan. I like to say that as we get older, we get to choose who we're going to be a hero to. And you got to be a hero to the nation's heroes, the Green Berets, the fifth special forces in Vietnam. And that's got to be, you know, one of your greatest, uh, accomplishments. You can go back and look at and say, when I was a young man, I helped some of America's best. I helped America's best, uh, when their country failed to have their back.
John S Berry Sr.: And, John, you are a hero. And you have a lot of heroes working with you here at Barry Law to help other heroes. And can you think of anything better a guy could do? I mean, think about it. What do you do? It's almost like you don't have to work, because it's such a great honor to be able to do what you do on a daily basis. And I thank you for carrying on the work that was the center of my life.
John S Berry Jr.: Well, every Monday we have stand to and one of the things I try to I heard this from a general from the first Infantry Division used to say this every single day. I think it was, uh, Paul Funk Jr. He said, go out and be a hero to someone today. And I think that that's, you know, that that's what we're going to do as veterans. We've we've served and now we get to use those skills, use that leadership to be a hero to someone else, whether it's our fellow veterans or someone else from our community, in our community, or even our customers and our clients, we get a chance to be a hero because we know what it's like. The military taught us a lot about heroism. It also taught us a lot about bureaucracy. And it seems that those are the the two, the two polar forces in the military that on one hand, we want to develop heroes, but we do have a large bureaucracy. I've learned in growing this organization that there there's a healthy tension between the two, that you do need a little bit of bureaucracy in order to take care of those heroes. But when you have too much bureaucracy, it can suffocate heroism in the organization.
John S Berry Sr.: And that is something that may he rest in peace. James Martin Davis always said to me when we were trying a case together, we've been in war. We know how to cut through the and I won't say the word, but we've been in war. And when it comes to the government bureaucracy. What can they do to me that the Viet Cong hasn't already done? Do your worst. I'm going to cut right through your red tape.
John S Berry Jr.: Thank you so much today, dad, for sharing your stories. It has been an absolute honor and I'm glad we get to share this with the rest of our community. Thank you, and thank you so much for your continued service to our American heroes, our United States veterans.
John S Berry Sr.: I salute you. I salute Barry Law, and I thank you.
John S Berry Jr.: Thank you for joining us today on veteran LED, where we pursue our mission of promoting veteran leadership in business, strengthening the veteran community, and getting veterans all of the benefits that they earn. If you know a leader who should be on the veteran led podcast, report to our online community by searching at veteran LED on your favorite social channels and posting in the comments, we want to hear how your military challenges prepared you to lead your industry or community, and we will let the world know. And of course, hit subscribe and join me next time on Veteran Led.