My new @wired cover story, tracing the untold story of Bob Mueller’s time in combat in Vietnam, is out today. Some thoughts and highlights follow: wired.com/story/robert-m…
It’s the first in-depth account of Mueller’s year at war—based on multiple interviews with Mueller, once-classified Marine combat records, and the first-ever interviews with eight Marines who served with him in '68 and '69. wired.com/story/robert-m…
1) Mueller volunteered to go to Vietnam, inspired by Princeton classmate David Hackett, who joined the Marines and later died in combat. Mueller even spent a year recuperating from a knee injury so he join the Marines. wired.com/story/robert-m…
2) Mueller was profoundly shaped by his year in Vietnam combat—seeing every day since as a blessing. The Marines and Vietnam instilled in Mueller a sense of discipline and a relentlessness that have driven him ever since. wired.com/story/robert-m…
3) Mueller told me: “I’ve always made my bed and I’ve always shaved, even in Vietnam in the jungle. You’ve put money in the bank in terms of discipline.” wired.com/story/robert-m…
4) As Mueller prepared to deploy and take command of a platoon, he recalls being afraid. “You were scared to death of the unknown,” he says. “More afraid in some ways of failure than death, more afraid of being found wanting.” wired.com/story/robert-m…
5) Mueller went into some of the worst combat of Vietnam, units where the casualty rate was effectively 100%. Fighting along the DMZ, he faced exclusively the North Vietnamese Army, not the Viet Cong. “I don’t think I ever saw a Viet Cong,” he told me. wired.com/story/robert-m…
6) His unit was initially wary of him. “Word was out real fast—Ivy League guy from an affluent family. That set off alarms. The affluent guys didn’t go to Vietnam then—and they certainly didn’t end up in a rifle platoon,” says one of his Marines. wired.com/story/robert-m…
7) “[Mueller] wanted to know as much as he could as fast as he could about the terrain, what we did, the ambushes, everything,” recalls Marine VJ Maranto. “He was all about the mission, the mission, the mission.” wired.com/story/robert-m…
8) Mueller’s unit was described in Marine records as “nomadic.” “You’d march all day, then you’d dig a foxhole and spend all night alternating going on watch,” says a Hotel Company veteran. “We were always tired, always hungry, always thirsty.” wired.com/story/robert-m…
9) Mueller’s biggest day in combat was December 11, 1968, the battle of Mutter’s Ridge. “There were wounded people everywhere,” a Marine recalls. “We assaulted right out across the top of the ridge.” wired.com/story/robert-m…
10) “[Mueller had] been in-country less than a month—most of us had been in-country six, eight months,” Maranto says. “He had remarkable composure, directing fire. It was sheer terror. They had RPGs, machine gun, mortars.” wired.com/story/robert-m…
11) “That day was the second heaviest fire I received in Vietnam,” a Marine recalled. “Lieutenant Mueller was directing traffic, positioning people and calling in air strikes. He was standing upright, moving. He probably saved our hide.” wired.com/story/robert-m…
12) “The minute the shit hit the fan, [Mueller] was there,” a Marine told me. “He performed remarkably. After that night, there were a lot of guys who would’ve walked through walls for him.” wired.com/story/robert-m…
13) Until today, we’ve never known the name of the mortally wounded Marine Bob Mueller rescued at that battle of Mutter’s Ridge. His name: John Liverman, of Silver Spring, MD. vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/…
14) I tracked down the other wounded Marine Mueller rescued that day. “Hold on,” he recalled Mueller shouting at him after he was shot, “We’re coming down to get you.” wired.com/story/robert-m…
15) Then, in April, Mueller himself was shot by an AK-47. “Seriously wounded during the fire¬fight, he resolutely maintained his position and, ably directing the fire of his platoon, was instrumental in defeating the [enemy],” his commendation said. wired.com/story/robert-m…
16) One his former Marine comrades says he knows Mueller isn’t sweating the pressure today. “I watch people on the news talking about the distractions getting to him,” the former Vietnam vet with Mueller says. “I don’t think so.” wired.com/story/robert-m…
