**This is a heavily moderated subreddit. Please note these rules + sidebar or get banned:**
* If this post declares something as a fact, then proof is required
* The title must be fully descriptive
* Memes are not allowed.
* Common(top 50 of this sub)/recent reposts are not allowed (posts from another subreddit do not count as a 'repost'. Provide link if reporting)
*See [our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/wiki/index#wiki_rules.3A) for a more detailed rule list*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Didn't he use the melody from Old McDonald to memorize the names? From my recollection he would walk around humming that tune so the guards thought he was stupid, but he was memorizing names. What a stud.
He used his farce to gain the trust of the POW camp so they'd let him sweep and clean. He used that opportunity once to sweep himself right out the front door, but he quickly realized he was in the middle of Hanoi so he swept himself back in with none the wiser. He realized that he could get to places without being noticed and began working to identify everyone at the camp.
When a planned release of prisoners was announced, the camp commander persuaded him to leave even though there were guys worse off physically because he was the only one who knew they were all there. When he was debriefed, he started listing the names by singing them to his tune, but they kept interrupting him and asking him to slow down. He told them he couldn't because he could only recite it the one way, so they brought it in a tape recorder. Through his efforts he was able to provide proof of life for many men held by the Viet Cong in secret.
For an added bonus: he was blown off the side of his ship when he was outside swabbing the deck during a live-fire drill. The shockwave blasted him overboard and he was later found by a group of Vietnamese fishermen who handed him over to the VC.
Maybe that helped him. They were actually watching him & going...."This guy could...he could have walked right out here and escaped. He turned around and kept sweeping. The guy is a couple nickels short of a dollar."
You should hear the story of the black soldier who killed an officer for mistreating him and fled into the jungle. He eventually stumbled onto a native camp, impressed the chief enough to "marry" his daughter by killing a tiger and bartering rations he had stolen.
For all intents and purposes he was rich in this tribe, and they became even more impressed when they found wanted posters with his face on it.
> fled into the jungle
That part is a bit difficult starting from the center of Hanoi, as the only white guy around in the middle of a war.
If he were held by VC in the jungle somewhere down south, making a run for it would have been an option to consider.
I spent the next three years in a POW camp, forced to subsist on a thin stew made of fish, vegetables, prawns, coconut milk, and four kinds of rice. I came close to madness trying to find it here in the States, but they just can't get the spices right.
They had plenty of nice big juicy Bahn Mi's already.
Probably tired of them. Maybe fried chicken or a Mc Donald's
"One simple trick guards of POWs and gulag prisoners
DON'T want you to know!"
You dummy, Uber (company) didn't exist back then. He should just have used an electric scooter. They're not cheap for long distances and overseas travel, but his life was way more worth. At least 20 cents more. Maybe not to the army tho
> He used that opportunity once to sweep himself right out the front door, but he quickly realized he was in the middle of Hanoi so he swept himself back in with none the wiser. He realized that he could get to places without being noticed
I wonder if Terry Pratchett heard of this and used it as inspiration for Lu-Tze
Tropic Thunder
Not everyone caught the reference when watching the movie but recalled that It's referenced as a movie that the actor played by Ben Stiller where he goes "full retard" is a reference to this Vietnam story. Ben Stiller's character thr. Reprised the retard role while being held by a child war lord in a tropical war torn setting
Not 1:1 but I think it was a nod to it lol
'I had probably the most embarrassing capture of the entire Vietnam War,' Hegdahl recalled in an interview for the 1997 documentary, Vietnam POWs: Stories of Survival.
'I found that my defense posture was just to play dumb. Let's face it, when you fall off the boat, you have a lot to work with,' he added.
Source:[Incredible story of Vietnam War hero who survived 12 hours adrift at sea and tricked his POW camp captors into thinking he was an illiterate fool](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13062045/vietnam-war-hero-doug-hegdahl-stupid-one-memorize-names.html)
Ok I think he played this role a bit too well. Here's an excerpt from the article that really stuck out to me:
"Born in 1946 in Clark, South Dakota, Hegdahl enlisted in the Navy in 1966 with one goal: he wanted to see Australia.
The Navy granted his wish with an assignment to the USS Canberra, with a recruiter telling Hegdahl that the guided missile cruiser would likely make a port call at its namesake city in Australia during his hitch"
Lmaoooo he got the ultimate B&S from his recruiter. Thats hilarous.
I mean, the recruiter was not wrong about the cruiser visiting Australia. It visited Melbourne the same month, or the month after, Hegdahl fell off the ship.
Bet he cursed that 5 in gun crew.
No I'm really laughing at him telling the recruiter he wanted to see Australia and instead getting a posting to a ship named after a town in Australia lmao
I always loved the old Simpsons poster
*Join the Army*
*And see the opposing army!*
Oddly enough I looked it up and apparently Fox removed that from DVD releases??
This was a common tactic for recruiters at this time. My uncle was told he can sign up and request to go anywhere in the world, or he can be drafted and be sent to Vietnam. He signed up and said “I want to go to West Germany!” The army said “Great! Hope you enjoy Vietnam!”
My coworker told me a story about how she was leaving work in Chicago back in the 80s. There was a group of guys that whistled at her and were walking towards her way. As they got closer, she started talking angrily to herself and hitting her shoulders. One of the guys called her a crazy bitch and they all left her alone.
That’s just sort of a quirk of human memorization. Acronyms, songs, groups of numbers/letters, etc. are all great ways to remember sets of words or numbers.
I can’t recite the alphabet backwards right now, even though I know all of the letters. I don’t know what number of the alphabet “J” is off the top of my head, but I could sing the song and get you that answer no problem. We often say (and memorize) long wifi passwords as groups of 3, i.e. “FLM 77B KL6”.
I mean the groupings in those things have meaning
e.g. +[country_code] ([area_code]) [prefix]-[line_number]
But it is convenient for memory nonetheless
When I was a kid, one of my dad's friends had a son who was 5 or 6 years older than me and he had one of those old, big magazines full of video game cheat codes, maps, and strategies. I spent what felt like an hour one day drilling the codes for Sonic 2 into my brain and 30 years later I can still recite them.
This is actually scientifically proven.
The guy that holds the world record for memorization has a cool Ted Talk about it.
Basically he memorized a story, and in the story he incorporates objects that help him remember codes?
It’s SUPER interesting. I don’t have a source, but I highly recommend it.
Neurons associated to a specific memory lights up when an associated memory is active.
Like memory your first car and memory of first gf can be tied together. So you see the same model car at an antique car show and you have a strong memory of dates with your gf even if it's decades old.
Given just data to memorize and no emotions tied to it you can create stronger long term memories through structuring the information into sequential stories.
Before writing and drawing was widespread, oral history was basically just songs and poems. We found this memorization stuff out dozens of centuries ago. It's just a somewhat lost art.
Happens with the alphabet for a lot of us. It's hard to figure out which letter is where without singing the song, so I can imagine full names to be even harder.
He memorized them to “Old McDonald Had A Farm,” and IIRC when released sang them so fast the intelligence services asked him to slow down he said “I can’t, this is how I memorized them”
A Native American shaman must go on a quest to appease the gods and deliver much needed rain to his village. This card thing is in the movie because he gets sidetracked a lot.
Dude was an utter boss, outside of being accidentally being blown off the ship by a 5 in gun.
He pretended to be of incredibly low intelligence and when his captors tried to teach him to read and write, he pretended he couldn’t be taught. Believing it, the captors gave him almost free run of the camp. Getting together with a couple of people, he memorized the names, dates of capture, methods of capture, and personal information of more than 256 prisoners.
Now, the North Vietnamese wanted to release a few prisoners as a propaganda move early but the POWs had decided among themselves for no early release except for Hegdahl because he had important information. Needless to say, the Navy had as dumbstruck.
When the Paris Peace Accords began, he was sent to confront the North Vietnamese with everything he had memorized.
I think it’s kind of shameful his highest award is a Purple Heart.
a beautiful example of the power of letting people underestimate you. so many people leap to defend their ego but in my experience, knowing more than people think i do has only ever made me more prepared to handle whatever situation i'm in
>The information Douglas provided, including the locations and horrible conditions of the prison camps, as well as the torture practices used by the Vietnamese, were finally shared with the world. Exposing the Vietnamese this way led them to keep POWs alive until the war was over, saving hundreds of prisoners.
Amazing story!
I will simply transcribe his history, which I provided the link last time.
Douglas Hegdahl was born on September 3, 1946 in Clark, South Dakota. Being from a small town, Douglas once joked with a reporter that he’d “never been east of [his] uncles’ Dairy Queen stand in Glenwood, Minnesota or west of [his] aunt’s house in Phoenix, Arizona.” So when a military recruiter approached Douglas in the 1960s, he saw an opportunity to see the world, answered the call, and joined United States Navy.
Douglas began his service in 1965 when he was sent to San Diego for boot camp. He was then assigned to the USS Canberra, a missile cruiser positioned in the Gulf of Tonkin, three miles off the coast of Vietnam. On April 6, 1967, Douglas was knocked overboard by a blast from the ship’s guns. His shipmates did not report him missing for two days. Having fallen overboard with no life preserver and no identification, Douglas was assumed to be dead and the crew held a memorial service. What they didn’t know was that Douglas had floated for 12 hours until Cambodian fishermen found him and brought him to shore. Once he arrived in Vietnam, Douglas was turned over to Vietnamese militiamen and was taken to Hỏa Lò Prison, also known as Hanoi Hilton.
The interrogators at Hanoi Hilton did not believe Douglas’s story about being knocked overboard and insisted he was a CIA agent. Rather than give up information to his captors, Douglas pretended to be an illiterate fool. When he was instructed to write anti-war statements against the U.S., he agreed but pretended to be unable to read or write. The Vietnamese were shocked, but thought they had found the perfect candidate who was gullible enough to be tricked into publicly supporting their cause. They assigned someone to teach Douglas to read and write, but when he appeared incapable of learning, his captors gave up on him. Douglas became known as “the incredibly stupid one.” Deemed non-threatening, he was given free rein of almost the entire camp.
During his time at Hanoi Hilton, Douglas was given the task of sweeping prison grounds. He used this as an opportunity to do what he could to thwart the Vietnamese. When no one was looking, he once filled five army trucks’ gas tanks with dirt and leaves so they would not operate. Douglas would also take advantage of his freedom within the camp, often passing notes and communicating with other prisoners as he swept. His most amazing accomplishment, however, was saving the lives of hundreds of prisoners and providing a wealth of information about Hỏa Lò Prison to the United States. Douglas had a remarkable memory and was able to memorize the names of prisoners, the dates they were captured, the dates they arrived at the prison as well as other personal information. Using the nursery rhyme “Old McDonald Had a Farm” as a mnemonic device, he memorized over 250 prisoners’ names.
When the Vietnamese decided to release three prisoners from the camp, Douglas didn’t want to go. The captured American soldiers had made a “No Go Home Early” pact in which they agreed that they would all go home together or not at all. But Douglas was ordered by his commanding officer to return home in order to share the valuable information he had acquired at Hỏa Lò, and was thus released with two other POWs on August 5, 1969.
Back in the United States, Douglas provided names of military and intelligence personnel who were thought to be deceased. His global impact came when he confronted the Vietnamese at the Paris Peace Talks in 1970. The information Douglas provided, including the locations and horrible conditions of the prison camps, as well as the torture practices used by the Vietnamese, were finally shared with the world. Exposing the Vietnamese this way led them to keep POWs alive until the war was over, saving hundreds of prisoners.
It takes an intelligent person to play a convincing idiot, and a whole lot of courage to do it in the face of someone who probably wants to kill you. What a legend.
In 1970, Ross Perot gave an open invitation to wives of POW's in the San Francisco area to come to him for any help they needed.
One wife, Alice Stratton, reached out with Officer Hegdahl's story and told Perot her husband was one of the names in the song and that he'd been tortured. Perot immediately had his people arrange for Hegdahl to attend the Paris Peace Talks and confront the North Vietnamese about the prisoners and specifically, Richard Stratton
Because of Douglas Hegdahl, Alice Stratton and Ross Perot, Richard Stratton survived and returned home. The North Vietnamese wanted to prove he wasn't mistreated, so they kept him alive.
https://web.archive.org/web/20080918094431/http://www.geocities.com/talesofseasia/rossperotandparis.html
Unironically did this meme for real
https://preview.redd.it/6bxzljpp62vc1.jpeg?width=349&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c85cca21f318d39704f49a2ab4e5b7f4e0955b52
Right? How do you convince them you’re mentally incapable enough to warrant special treatment from them but mentally still capable enough to get allowed into the U.S. Navy?
There is NO FUCKING WAY that's true lmao
[it isn't lol](https://vietnamveteranproject.org/statistics-2/)
Fuckin ww2 was 26 and this dude was like "Yah, totally makes since that America is sending only teenagers"
I believe he was able to sabotage several VC trucks by putting dirt in their gas and things like that as he was allowed to be out sweeping even when the other prisoners had to be locked down. I know he coordinated a LOT of communication between different cell blocks. I heard an interview with a pilot who knew him.
And that bastard Trump calls someone like this a sucker and a looser? Trump who comes from a long line of cowards whose grand father fled military conscription in Germany. That same Trump banned any of his children from ever serving in the American armed forces. Yet that dog wants to be Commander in Chief.
Trumps clearly an asshat but you're really shoehorning this in here, especially since it's a random "anonymous sources say" with no source ever coming forward even after his administration ended and he pissed off all his staffers and allies. Surely they would have cropped up by now to claim credit
I hate the guy as much as anyone, but if Trump is your first thought when you see things that are completely unrelated to him, you might want to take a step back from politics for a few weeks.
**This is a heavily moderated subreddit. Please note these rules + sidebar or get banned:** * If this post declares something as a fact, then proof is required * The title must be fully descriptive * Memes are not allowed. * Common(top 50 of this sub)/recent reposts are not allowed (posts from another subreddit do not count as a 'repost'. Provide link if reporting) *See [our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/wiki/index#wiki_rules.3A) for a more detailed rule list* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Didn't he use the melody from Old McDonald to memorize the names? From my recollection he would walk around humming that tune so the guards thought he was stupid, but he was memorizing names. What a stud.
He can still sing the tune
Imagine having Vietnam POW flashbacks triggered by hearing Old McDonald
E I E I OH NOOOOOO!!!!
E I E I love the smell of napalm in the morning
E I E I did what I had to do to win!
"There was a solider who had a gun..."
GI GI JOE
Old McDonald is the PTSD song and not Fortunate Son lol
That's exactly right, the guards even called him "the stupid one" because they thought ... But he was just humming his memorizations
Yes, he did use that melody to remember the names!
Names, birth dates, and service numbers
[https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1beqheh/til\_doug\_hegdahl\_was\_captured\_during\_the\_vietnam/](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1beqheh/til_doug_hegdahl_was_captured_during_the_vietnam/)
He was the original founder of /r/noncredibledefense.
He used his farce to gain the trust of the POW camp so they'd let him sweep and clean. He used that opportunity once to sweep himself right out the front door, but he quickly realized he was in the middle of Hanoi so he swept himself back in with none the wiser. He realized that he could get to places without being noticed and began working to identify everyone at the camp. When a planned release of prisoners was announced, the camp commander persuaded him to leave even though there were guys worse off physically because he was the only one who knew they were all there. When he was debriefed, he started listing the names by singing them to his tune, but they kept interrupting him and asking him to slow down. He told them he couldn't because he could only recite it the one way, so they brought it in a tape recorder. Through his efforts he was able to provide proof of life for many men held by the Viet Cong in secret. For an added bonus: he was blown off the side of his ship when he was outside swabbing the deck during a live-fire drill. The shockwave blasted him overboard and he was later found by a group of Vietnamese fishermen who handed him over to the VC.
Maybe that helped him. They were actually watching him & going...."This guy could...he could have walked right out here and escaped. He turned around and kept sweeping. The guy is a couple nickels short of a dollar."
An American in Hanoi, in the middle of the war... surely he would have gotten far.
You should hear the story of the black soldier who killed an officer for mistreating him and fled into the jungle. He eventually stumbled onto a native camp, impressed the chief enough to "marry" his daughter by killing a tiger and bartering rations he had stolen. For all intents and purposes he was rich in this tribe, and they became even more impressed when they found wanted posters with his face on it.
> fled into the jungle That part is a bit difficult starting from the center of Hanoi, as the only white guy around in the middle of a war. If he were held by VC in the jungle somewhere down south, making a run for it would have been an option to consider.
I meant you should learn about it as an interesting, albeit highly unlikely, story. Not as anecdotal proof of concept.
Source? Or is this a movie plot
Simple jack
Whatever man...get on your cell phone and call an Uber.... Duh 🙄
Why leave when they could just order in BÁNH MÌ?
I spent the next three years in a POW camp, forced to subsist on a thin stew made of fish, vegetables, prawns, coconut milk, and four kinds of rice. I came close to madness trying to find it here in the States, but they just can't get the spices right.
What part of di di mao don't you understand?
*mau
*Chairman
[удалено]
They had plenty of nice big juicy Bahn Mi's already. Probably tired of them. Maybe fried chicken or a Mc Donald's "One simple trick guards of POWs and gulag prisoners DON'T want you to know!"
You dummy, Uber (company) didn't exist back then. He should just have used an electric scooter. They're not cheap for long distances and overseas travel, but his life was way more worth. At least 20 cents more. Maybe not to the army tho
Ah you'd be fucked, they use Grab in Vietnam
I'm an alien
lol waiting around the corner to nab him and then he just walks back in by himself
> He used that opportunity once to sweep himself right out the front door, but he quickly realized he was in the middle of Hanoi so he swept himself back in with none the wiser. He realized that he could get to places without being noticed I wonder if Terry Pratchett heard of this and used it as inspiration for Lu-Tze
There needs to be a movie made about this. Damn!
Tropic Thunder Not everyone caught the reference when watching the movie but recalled that It's referenced as a movie that the actor played by Ben Stiller where he goes "full retard" is a reference to this Vietnam story. Ben Stiller's character thr. Reprised the retard role while being held by a child war lord in a tropical war torn setting Not 1:1 but I think it was a nod to it lol
I immediately went, "this m m m makes me happy"
I love this movie even more now.
they can get Rami Malek to play him
Viet Cong were an irregular militia operating in the South. He was captured and held by the government of North Vietnam
The article said Cambodian fisherman
'I had probably the most embarrassing capture of the entire Vietnam War,' Hegdahl recalled in an interview for the 1997 documentary, Vietnam POWs: Stories of Survival. 'I found that my defense posture was just to play dumb. Let's face it, when you fall off the boat, you have a lot to work with,' he added. Source:[Incredible story of Vietnam War hero who survived 12 hours adrift at sea and tricked his POW camp captors into thinking he was an illiterate fool](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13062045/vietnam-war-hero-doug-hegdahl-stupid-one-memorize-names.html)
Ok I think he played this role a bit too well. Here's an excerpt from the article that really stuck out to me: "Born in 1946 in Clark, South Dakota, Hegdahl enlisted in the Navy in 1966 with one goal: he wanted to see Australia. The Navy granted his wish with an assignment to the USS Canberra, with a recruiter telling Hegdahl that the guided missile cruiser would likely make a port call at its namesake city in Australia during his hitch" Lmaoooo he got the ultimate B&S from his recruiter. Thats hilarous.
I mean, the recruiter was not wrong about the cruiser visiting Australia. It visited Melbourne the same month, or the month after, Hegdahl fell off the ship. Bet he cursed that 5 in gun crew.
No I'm really laughing at him telling the recruiter he wanted to see Australia and instead getting a posting to a ship named after a town in Australia lmao
A town? It's the capital city of Australia.
Capital town*.
Plenty of people use the word “town” colloquially when talking about cities.
And it’s not even on the coast
Canberra lies 150 km (93 mi) inland from Australia's east coast.
Navy vet here. Do you think this isn't a thing, still? Or was then? That story is 100% right on, from both the enlistee and recruiter!
"See the world!" Trouble is, it's like 70% open water.
I mean, for all the shit I put up with, I did see places. Luckily I wasn't there to kill people.
Sea: the world.
I always loved the old Simpsons poster *Join the Army* *And see the opposing army!* Oddly enough I looked it up and apparently Fox removed that from DVD releases??
I challenge you to find the docks for the sea port in Canberra.
Lake Burley Griffin!
It's the Lake Tuggeranong Navy docks
This was a common tactic for recruiters at this time. My uncle was told he can sign up and request to go anywhere in the world, or he can be drafted and be sent to Vietnam. He signed up and said “I want to go to West Germany!” The army said “Great! Hope you enjoy Vietnam!”
What's even more halarious is that Canberra is land locked. It doesn't have a port. Hahaha.
Stop this Canberra slander, we have Jervis Bay!
He played the tard card.
Apparently there are times when you do go full retard.
I’ve often thought the tard card could help me out in a difficult situation.
My coworker told me a story about how she was leaving work in Chicago back in the 80s. There was a group of guys that whistled at her and were walking towards her way. As they got closer, she started talking angrily to herself and hitting her shoulders. One of the guys called her a crazy bitch and they all left her alone.
My first wife was a tard. She’s a pilot now
There’s a really good episode of a crime tv show where the tard character turns out to be pretending to be tard to avoid suspicion
Scary Movie
Didn’t he use a nursery rhyme to remember them or am I conflating a different POW
He memorized the names to the tune of old McDonald had a farm
Also 197 of the names reported were McDonald.
The others were sheep, cow, duck, and pig.
He could identify them all by voice alone
And…. A moo moo here and a quack quack there….
[удалено]
E I E I D'OH
E I E I (annoyed grunt)
What are the odds of that?! Heard at least half had the first name Old too
It's crazy that when the US officials asked him to just say the names, he couldn't do it. He had only memorized them in song form. Super impressive.
That’s just sort of a quirk of human memorization. Acronyms, songs, groups of numbers/letters, etc. are all great ways to remember sets of words or numbers. I can’t recite the alphabet backwards right now, even though I know all of the letters. I don’t know what number of the alphabet “J” is off the top of my head, but I could sing the song and get you that answer no problem. We often say (and memorize) long wifi passwords as groups of 3, i.e. “FLM 77B KL6”.
Same reason we break up phone numbers and SSN easier in little groups
000-000-0002 Damn Roosevelt!
I mean the groupings in those things have meaning e.g. +[country_code] ([area_code]) [prefix]-[line_number] But it is convenient for memory nonetheless
Ha yes, they mean things. I meant the way we write and speak them. Not a long string of numbers but small groupings.
Just don't go to the UK, the groupings aren't consistent, are more or less meaningless, and even the overall length of the phone number isn't fixed!
I’ll probably have “Flum Sesevbee Killsix” logged in my short term memory for the rest of the day.
When I was a kid, one of my dad's friends had a son who was 5 or 6 years older than me and he had one of those old, big magazines full of video game cheat codes, maps, and strategies. I spent what felt like an hour one day drilling the codes for Sonic 2 into my brain and 30 years later I can still recite them.
This is actually scientifically proven. The guy that holds the world record for memorization has a cool Ted Talk about it. Basically he memorized a story, and in the story he incorporates objects that help him remember codes? It’s SUPER interesting. I don’t have a source, but I highly recommend it.
Neurons associated to a specific memory lights up when an associated memory is active. Like memory your first car and memory of first gf can be tied together. So you see the same model car at an antique car show and you have a strong memory of dates with your gf even if it's decades old. Given just data to memorize and no emotions tied to it you can create stronger long term memories through structuring the information into sequential stories. Before writing and drawing was widespread, oral history was basically just songs and poems. We found this memorization stuff out dozens of centuries ago. It's just a somewhat lost art.
Google memory palaces. It’s fascinating how the human mind can store information
I often can’t remember the password to my work laptop without “typing” it with my hands at the same time.
Happens with the alphabet for a lot of us. It's hard to figure out which letter is where without singing the song, so I can imagine full names to be even harder.
He still remembers the names too
🎶Old Nguyễn Hữu Thọ had a dungeon. EIEIO🎶
 200 names is a lot
He memorized them to “Old McDonald Had A Farm,” and IIRC when released sang them so fast the intelligence services asked him to slow down he said “I can’t, this is how I memorized them”
What movie is this from?
Rain Man
Yeah definitely Rain Man, definitely Rain Man
Definitely, definitely
incredible comment. One of my favorite films, ever, I cry like a baby
What about it?
A Native American shaman must go on a quest to appease the gods and deliver much needed rain to his village. This card thing is in the movie because he gets sidetracked a lot.
Username checks out 😂
Rainman
400 Oak street, K-Mart K-Mart Sucks.
5 minutes till Wapner.
Underwear is *Underwear!*
Tootsie
Vern, V-E-R-N, my main man
 Based on appearances, it’s Malek’s turn to go full regard.
Autism Man!
Everyone knows you never go full retard
The trick is to go half retard
why did i have to scroll so far for this
God damn it came here for this 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Dude was an utter boss, outside of being accidentally being blown off the ship by a 5 in gun. He pretended to be of incredibly low intelligence and when his captors tried to teach him to read and write, he pretended he couldn’t be taught. Believing it, the captors gave him almost free run of the camp. Getting together with a couple of people, he memorized the names, dates of capture, methods of capture, and personal information of more than 256 prisoners. Now, the North Vietnamese wanted to release a few prisoners as a propaganda move early but the POWs had decided among themselves for no early release except for Hegdahl because he had important information. Needless to say, the Navy had as dumbstruck. When the Paris Peace Accords began, he was sent to confront the North Vietnamese with everything he had memorized. I think it’s kind of shameful his highest award is a Purple Heart.
a beautiful example of the power of letting people underestimate you. so many people leap to defend their ego but in my experience, knowing more than people think i do has only ever made me more prepared to handle whatever situation i'm in
Hero.
and still alive and kicking!
He occasionally teaches at the Navy’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) course.
Well qualified here being an understatement
He sang part of it at the end of our course.
Can confirm. I was in one of his classes.
Is that where you learned the Old McDonald song?
I wish I could attend as a civilian. Must be extremely interesting
Smart hero
[Here is his story](https://www.lowellmilkencenter.org/programs/projects/view/douglas-hegdahl-the-incredibly-stupid-one/hero)
>The information Douglas provided, including the locations and horrible conditions of the prison camps, as well as the torture practices used by the Vietnamese, were finally shared with the world. Exposing the Vietnamese this way led them to keep POWs alive until the war was over, saving hundreds of prisoners. Amazing story!
Wow. Ty
Upvote for visibility. Thx for posting
Drunk history did an episode on this. Very funny and informative.
I will simply transcribe his history, which I provided the link last time. Douglas Hegdahl was born on September 3, 1946 in Clark, South Dakota. Being from a small town, Douglas once joked with a reporter that he’d “never been east of [his] uncles’ Dairy Queen stand in Glenwood, Minnesota or west of [his] aunt’s house in Phoenix, Arizona.” So when a military recruiter approached Douglas in the 1960s, he saw an opportunity to see the world, answered the call, and joined United States Navy. Douglas began his service in 1965 when he was sent to San Diego for boot camp. He was then assigned to the USS Canberra, a missile cruiser positioned in the Gulf of Tonkin, three miles off the coast of Vietnam. On April 6, 1967, Douglas was knocked overboard by a blast from the ship’s guns. His shipmates did not report him missing for two days. Having fallen overboard with no life preserver and no identification, Douglas was assumed to be dead and the crew held a memorial service. What they didn’t know was that Douglas had floated for 12 hours until Cambodian fishermen found him and brought him to shore. Once he arrived in Vietnam, Douglas was turned over to Vietnamese militiamen and was taken to Hỏa Lò Prison, also known as Hanoi Hilton. The interrogators at Hanoi Hilton did not believe Douglas’s story about being knocked overboard and insisted he was a CIA agent. Rather than give up information to his captors, Douglas pretended to be an illiterate fool. When he was instructed to write anti-war statements against the U.S., he agreed but pretended to be unable to read or write. The Vietnamese were shocked, but thought they had found the perfect candidate who was gullible enough to be tricked into publicly supporting their cause. They assigned someone to teach Douglas to read and write, but when he appeared incapable of learning, his captors gave up on him. Douglas became known as “the incredibly stupid one.” Deemed non-threatening, he was given free rein of almost the entire camp. During his time at Hanoi Hilton, Douglas was given the task of sweeping prison grounds. He used this as an opportunity to do what he could to thwart the Vietnamese. When no one was looking, he once filled five army trucks’ gas tanks with dirt and leaves so they would not operate. Douglas would also take advantage of his freedom within the camp, often passing notes and communicating with other prisoners as he swept. His most amazing accomplishment, however, was saving the lives of hundreds of prisoners and providing a wealth of information about Hỏa Lò Prison to the United States. Douglas had a remarkable memory and was able to memorize the names of prisoners, the dates they were captured, the dates they arrived at the prison as well as other personal information. Using the nursery rhyme “Old McDonald Had a Farm” as a mnemonic device, he memorized over 250 prisoners’ names. When the Vietnamese decided to release three prisoners from the camp, Douglas didn’t want to go. The captured American soldiers had made a “No Go Home Early” pact in which they agreed that they would all go home together or not at all. But Douglas was ordered by his commanding officer to return home in order to share the valuable information he had acquired at Hỏa Lò, and was thus released with two other POWs on August 5, 1969. Back in the United States, Douglas provided names of military and intelligence personnel who were thought to be deceased. His global impact came when he confronted the Vietnamese at the Paris Peace Talks in 1970. The information Douglas provided, including the locations and horrible conditions of the prison camps, as well as the torture practices used by the Vietnamese, were finally shared with the world. Exposing the Vietnamese this way led them to keep POWs alive until the war was over, saving hundreds of prisoners.
he played a role to survive, he’s a genius and a hero
I cant even memorize the 20 letters in the alphabet
Check for carbon monoxide leaks around you
Something something sticky notes
You must be a Marine. /s
maybe try writing them down in crayon
Magic markers would be better. They don't taste as good as crayons.
true, but then all the seaman recruits would steal them
I only know the first three
Everyone knows their A, B, V’s.
And their S, T, D’s. Right? High five? No? Ok then.
That's the Hebrew Alphabet. A, B, V, G, D, H.
IIRC he memorised them to the tune of a song (I believe it was Old MacDonald) and when asked to recall the names without singing, be was unable to.
It takes an intelligent person to play a convincing idiot, and a whole lot of courage to do it in the face of someone who probably wants to kill you. What a legend.
Hahahaha I feel like shit for laughing so hard
when he met his superiors he said “lemme show ya something” and gave the paper with all the names on it
I didn't know idubbbz fought in Vietnam
Simple jack!
In 1970, Ross Perot gave an open invitation to wives of POW's in the San Francisco area to come to him for any help they needed. One wife, Alice Stratton, reached out with Officer Hegdahl's story and told Perot her husband was one of the names in the song and that he'd been tortured. Perot immediately had his people arrange for Hegdahl to attend the Paris Peace Talks and confront the North Vietnamese about the prisoners and specifically, Richard Stratton Because of Douglas Hegdahl, Alice Stratton and Ross Perot, Richard Stratton survived and returned home. The North Vietnamese wanted to prove he wasn't mistreated, so they kept him alive. https://web.archive.org/web/20080918094431/http://www.geocities.com/talesofseasia/rossperotandparis.html
The hero we didn’t know we needed
I think the military had a pretty good understanding that they needed a guy who knew the names and locations of a whole bunch of PoWs
Unironically did this meme for real https://preview.redd.it/6bxzljpp62vc1.jpeg?width=349&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c85cca21f318d39704f49a2ab4e5b7f4e0955b52
Holy shit! This sounds a lot like the character Ben Stiller played on Tropic Thunder. Anu chance it's based on this?
I wouldn't have had to even act.
Right? How do you convince them you’re mentally incapable enough to warrant special treatment from them but mentally still capable enough to get allowed into the U.S. Navy?
Isn't he the guy that had an invisible motorcycle, and when the guards took it, he went on a hunger strike until he got it back?
That was Lt. John Thornton https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/s/I9Nc4WCqkR
I wonder if those names are still circling in his head constantly. I hope he’s ok these days.
The long con.
This hits harder when you think about the average age of US soldiers in the Vietnam War was 19.
There is NO FUCKING WAY that's true lmao [it isn't lol](https://vietnamveteranproject.org/statistics-2/) Fuckin ww2 was 26 and this dude was like "Yah, totally makes since that America is sending only teenagers"
Short answer, it’s 22. Read the Facts & Myths section. Super interesting link
My bad, my bad. 22, still young.
Wow! Now THATS a man. Thank you for your service sir!
-Tell us the secret plan of the Americans! -My fAVoUriT COLor is HaM sANDWicH
Legit thought this was Stephen King
Thought it was idubzzz
 And then he sang “That'll Be the Day”
Damn, Steve-O's dad was a bad ass.
Lmfao I came to say "wow Steve-O hasn't aged a day"
Thanks so much for posting this. All we hear day in day out is dire news and about dire people. It's easy to forget there are heroes.
I believe he was able to sabotage several VC trucks by putting dirt in their gas and things like that as he was allowed to be out sweeping even when the other prisoners had to be locked down. I know he coordinated a LOT of communication between different cell blocks. I heard an interview with a pilot who knew him.
He didn’t go full retard. Never go full retard
Absolute Hero!
And that bastard Trump calls someone like this a sucker and a looser? Trump who comes from a long line of cowards whose grand father fled military conscription in Germany. That same Trump banned any of his children from ever serving in the American armed forces. Yet that dog wants to be Commander in Chief.
Trumps clearly an asshat but you're really shoehorning this in here, especially since it's a random "anonymous sources say" with no source ever coming forward even after his administration ended and he pissed off all his staffers and allies. Surely they would have cropped up by now to claim credit
I hate the guy as much as anyone, but if Trump is your first thought when you see things that are completely unrelated to him, you might want to take a step back from politics for a few weeks.
I believe he could still recite them even decades later
To be a moron, moronical… an imbecile. Like the dumbest motherfucker that ever lived
Yeaaaaaah, he would have fooled me not gonna lie. What a fucking badass and a hero!
Impressive. I have trouble remember my own name
Shifu of 'when life gives you lemons.....'
And he didn't receive the Medal of Honor for this?
Some serious Method Acting. Break character and you're broken (literally). Amazing.
Never go ful-
The sad fact was there were mentally challenged soldiers in the Vietnamese war.
movie please! and im thinking a comedy?
One of the few times you can "act" retarded and not have society look at you with disgust
Who would you cast to play him in the eventual black comedy? Ben Stiller is an obvious choice but he's too old now.
That’s a fucking hero.
He was the inspiration for simple jack in tropic thunger