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Credit to Author: Garrett M. Graff| Date: Tue, 15 May 2018 09:30:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n One day in <\/span>the summer of 1969, a young Marine lieutenant named Bob Mueller<\/a> arrived in Hawaii for a rendezvous with his wife, Ann. She was flying in from the East Coast with the couple\u2019s infant daughter, Cynthia, a child Mueller had never met. Mueller had taken a plane from Vietnam.<\/p>\n After nine months at war, he was finally due for a few short days of R&R outside the battle zone. Mueller had seen intense combat since he last said goodbye to his wife. He\u2019d received the Bronze Star with a distinction for valor for his actions in one battle, and he\u2019d been airlifted out of the jungle during another firefight after being shot in the thigh. He and Ann had spoken only twice since he\u2019d left for South Vietnam.<\/p>\n Despite all that, Mueller confessed to her in Hawaii that he was thinking of extending his deployment for another six months, and maybe even making a career in the Marines<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ann was understandably ill at ease about the prospect. But as it turned out, she wouldn\u2019t be a Marine wife for much longer. It was standard practice for Marines to be rotated out of combat, and later that year Mueller found himself assigned to a desk job at Marine headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. There he discovered something about himself: \u201cI didn\u2019t relish the US Marine Corps absent combat.\u201d<\/p>\n So he headed to law school with the goal of serving his country as a prosecutor. He went on to hold high positions in five presidential administrations. He led the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, overseeing the US investigation of the Lockerbie bombing and the federal prosecution of the Gambino crime family boss John Gotti. He became director of the FBI one week before September 11, 2001, and stayed on to become the bureau\u2019s longest-serving director since J. Edgar Hoover.<\/p>\n And yet, throughout his five-decade career, that year of combat experience with the Marines has loomed large in Mueller\u2019s mind. \u201cI\u2019m most proud the Marines Corps deemed me worthy of leading other Marines,\u201d he told me in a 2009 interview.<\/p>\n June 2018. Subscribe to WIRED<\/a>.<\/p>\n Today, the face-off<\/a> between Special Counsel Robert Mueller and President Donald Trump stands out, amid the black comedy of Trump\u2019s Washington, as an epic tale of diverging American elites: a story of two men\u2014born just two years apart, raised in similar wealthy backgrounds in Northeastern cities, both deeply influenced by their fathers, both star prep school athletes, both Ivy League educated\u2014who now find themselves playing very different roles in a riveting national drama about political corruption and Russia\u2019s interference in the 2016 election. The two men have lived their lives in pursuit of almost diametrically opposed goals\u2014Mueller a life of patrician public service, Trump a life of private profit.<\/p>\n Those divergent paths began with Vietnam, the conflict that tore the country apart just as both men graduated from college in the 1960s. Despite having been educated at an elite private military academy, Donald Trump famously drew five draft deferments, including one for bone spurs in his feet. He would later joke, repeatedly<\/a>, that his success at avoiding sexually transmitted diseases while dating numerous women in the 1980s was \u201cmy personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.\u201d<\/p>\n Mueller, for his part, not only volunteered for the Marines, he spent a year waiting for an injured knee to heal so he could serve. And he has said \u00adlittle about his time in Vietnam over the years. When he was leading the FBI through the catastrophe of 9\/11 and its aftermath, he would brush off the crushing stress, saying, \u201cI\u2019m getting a lot more sleep now than I ever did in Vietnam.\u201d One of the only other times his staff at the FBI ever heard him mention his Marine service was on a flight home from an official international trip. They were watching We Were Soldiers<\/em>, a 2002 film starring Mel Gibson about some of the early battles in Vietnam. Mueller glanced at the screen and observed, \u201cPretty accurate.\u201d<\/p>\n His reticence is not unusual for the generation that served on the front lines of a war that the country never really embraced. Many of the veterans I spoke with for this story said they\u2019d avoided talking about Vietnam until recently. Joel Burgos, who served as a corporal with Mueller, told me at the end of our hour-long conversation, \u201cI\u2019ve never told anyone most of this.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet for almost all of them\u2014Mueller included\u2014Vietnam marked the primary formative experience of their lives. Nearly 50 years later, many Marine veterans who served in Mueller\u2019s unit have email addresses that reference their time in Southeast Asia: gunnysgt, 2-4marine, semperfi,\u00a0\u00adPltCorpsman, Grunt. One Marine\u2019s email handle even references Mutter\u2019s Ridge, the area where Mueller first faced large-scale combat in December 1968.<\/p>\n The Marines and Vietnam instilled in Mueller a sense of discipline and a relentlessness that have driven him ever since. He once told me that one of the things the Marines taught him was to make his bed every day. I\u2019d written a book about his time at the FBI and was by then familiar with his severe, straitlaced demeanor, so I laughed at the time and said, \u201cThat\u2019s the least<\/em> surprising thing I\u2019ve ever learned about you.\u201d But Mueller persisted: It was an important small daily gesture exemplifying follow-through and execution. \u201cOnce you think about it\u2014do it,\u201d he told me. \u201cI\u2019ve always made my bed and I\u2019ve always shaved, even in Vietnam in the jungle. You\u2019ve put money in the bank in terms of discipline.\u201d<\/p>\n Mueller\u2019s former Princeton classmate and FBI chief of staff W. Lee Rawls recalled how Mueller\u2019s Marine leadership style carried through to the FBI, where he had little patience for subordinates who questioned his decisions. He expected his orders to be executed in the Hoover building just as they had been on the battlefield. In meetings with subordinates, Mueller had a habit of quoting Gene Hackman\u2019s gruff Navy submarine captain in the 1995 Cold War thriller Crimson Tide<\/em>: \u201cWe\u2019re\u00a0here to preserve democracy,\u00a0not\u00a0to\u00a0practice it.\u201d<\/p>\n Discipline has certainly been a defining feature of Mueller\u2019s Russia investigation. In a political era of extreme TMI\u2014marked by rampant White House leaks<\/a>, Twitter tirades<\/a>, and an administration that disgorges jilted cabinet-\u00adlevel officials as quickly as it can appoint new ones\u2014the special counsel\u2019s office has been a locked door. Mueller has remained an impassive cypher: the stoic, silent figure at the center of America\u2019s political gyre. Not once has he spoken publicly about the Russia investigation since he took the job in May 2017, and his carefully chosen team of prosecutors and FBI agents has proved leakproof, even under the most intense of media spotlights. Mueller\u2019s spokesperson, Peter Carr, on loan from the Justice Department, has essentially had one thing to tell a media horde ravenous for information about the Russia investigation: \u201cNo comment.\u201d<\/p>\n If Mueller\u2019s discipline is reflected in the silence of his team, his relentlessness has been abundantly evident in the pace of indictments, arrests, and legal maneuvers coming out of his office.<\/p>\n His investigation is proceeding on multiple fronts<\/a>. He is digging into Russian information operations carried out on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms. In February his office indicted 13 people and three entities connected to the Internet Research Agency, the Russian organization that allegedly masterminded the information campaigns<\/a>. He\u2019s also pursuing those responsible for cyber intrusions, including the hacking of the email system at the Democratic National Committee.<\/p>\n At the same time, Mueller\u2019s investigators are probing the business dealings of Trump and his associates, an effort that has yielded indictments for tax fraud and conspiracy<\/a> against Trump\u2019s former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, and a guilty plea on financial fraud and lying<\/a> to investigators by Manafort\u2019s deputy, Rick Gates. The team is also looking into the numerous contacts between Trump\u2019s people and Kremlin-connected figures. And Mueller is questioning witnesses in an effort to establish whether Trump has obstructed justice by trying to quash the investigation itself.<\/p>\n Almost every week brings a surprise development in the investigation. But until the next indictment or arrest, it\u2019s difficult to say what Mueller knows, or what he thinks.<\/p>\n Before he became special counsel, Mueller freely and repeatedly told me that his habits of mind and character were most shaped by his time in Vietnam, a period that is also the least explored chapter of his biography.<\/p>\n This first in-depth account of his year at war is based on multiple interviews with Mueller about his time in combat\u2014conducted before he became special counsel\u2014as well as hundreds of pages of once-classified Marine combat records, official accounts of Marine engagements, and the first-ever interviews with eight Marines who served alongside Mueller in 1968 and 1969. They provide the best new window we have into the mind of the man leading the Russia investigation.<\/p>\n Mueller volunteered for the Marines in 1966, right after graduating from Prince\u00adton. By late 1968 he was a lieutenant leading a combat platoon in Vietnam.<\/p>\n Robert Swan Mueller <\/span>III, the first of five children and the only son, grew up in a stately stone house in a wealthy Philadelphia suburb. His father was a DuPont executive who had captained a Navy submarine-chaser in World War II; he expected his children to abide by a strict moral code. \u201cA lie was the worst sin,\u201d Mueller says. \u201cThe one thing you didn\u2019t do was to give anything less than the truth to my mother and father.\u201d<\/p>\n He attended St. Paul\u2019s prep school in Concord, New Hampshire, where the all-boys classes emphasized Episcopal ideals of virtue and manliness. He was a star on the lacrosse squad and played hockey with future US senator John Kerry on the school team. For college he chose his father\u2019s alma mater, Princeton, and entered the class of 1966.<\/p>\n The expanding war in Vietnam was a frequent topic of conversation among the elite students, who spoke of the war\u2014echoing earlier generations\u2014in terms of duty and service. \u201cPrinceton from \u201962 to \u201966 was a completely different world than \u201967 onwards,\u201d said Rawls, a lifelong friend of Mueller\u2019s. \u201cThe anti-Vietnam movement was not on us yet. A year or two later, the campus was transformed.\u201d<\/p>\n On the lacrosse field, Mueller met David Hackett, a classmate and athlete who would profoundly affect Mueller\u2019s life. Hackett had already enlisted in the Marines\u2019 version of ROTC, spending his Princeton summers training for the escalating war. \u201cI had one of the finest role models I could have asked for in an upperclassman by the name of David Hackett,\u201d Mueller recalled in a 2013 speech as FBI director. \u201cDavid was on our 1965 lacrosse team. He was not necessarily the best on the team, but he was a determined and a natural leader.\u201d<\/p>\n After he graduated in 1965, Hackett began training to be a Marine, earning top honors in his officer candidate class. After that he shipped out to Vietnam. In Mueller\u2019s eyes, Hackett was a shining example. Mueller decided that when he graduated the following year, he too would enlist in the Marines.<\/p>\n On April 30, 1967, shortly after Hackett had signed up for his second tour in Vietnam, his unit was ambushed by more than 75 camouflaged North Vietnamese troops who were firing down from bunkers with weapons that included a .50-\u00adcaliber machine gun. According to a Marine history, \u201cdozens of Marines were killed or wounded within minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n Hackett located the source of the incoming fire and charged 30 yards across open ground to an American machine gun team to tell them where to shoot. Minutes later, as he was moving to help direct a neighboring platoon whose commander had been wounded, he was killed by a sniper. Posthumously awarded the Silver Star, Hackett\u2019s commendation explained that he died \u201cwhile pressing the assault and encouraging his Marines.\u201d<\/p>\n By the time word of Hackett\u2019s death filtered back to the US, Mueller was already making good on his pledge to follow him into military service. The news only strengthened his resolve to become an infantry officer. \u201cOne would have thought that the life of a Marine, and David\u2019s death in Vietnam, would argue strongly against following in his footsteps,\u201d Mueller said in that 2013 speech. \u201cBut many of us saw in him the person we wanted to be, even before his death. He was a leader and a role model on the fields of Princeton. He was a leader and a role model on the fields of battle as well. And a number of his friends and teammates joined the Marine Corps because of him, as did I.\u201d<\/p>\n In mid-1966, Mueller underwent his military physical at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard; this was before the draft lottery began and before Vietnam became a divisive cultural watershed. He recalls sitting in the waiting room as another candidate, a strapping 6-foot, 280-pound lineman for the Philadelphia Eagles, was ruled 4-F\u2014medically unfit for military service. After that it was Mueller\u2019s turn to be rejected: His years of intense athletics, including hockey and lacrosse, had left him with an injured knee. The military declared that it would need to heal before he would be allowed to deploy.<\/p>\n In the meantime, he married Ann Cabell Standish\u2014a graduate of Miss Porter\u2019s School and Sarah Lawrence\u2014over Labor Day weekend 1966, and they moved to New York, where he earned a master\u2019s degree in international relations at New York University.<\/p>\n Once his knee had healed, Mueller went back to the military doctors. In 1967\u2014just before Donald Trump received his own medical deferment for heel spurs\u2014Mueller started Officer Candidate School at Quantico, Virginia.<\/p>\n For high school, Mueller attended St. Paul\u2019s School in Concord, New Hampshire. As a senior in 1962, Mueller (#12) played on the hockey team with future US senator John Kerry (#18).<\/p>\n Like Hackett before <\/span>him, Mueller was a star in his Officer Candidate School training class. \u201cHe was a cut above,\u201d recalls Phil Kellogg, who had followed one of his fraternity brothers into the Marines after graduating from the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico. Kellogg, who went through training with Mueller, remembers Mueller racing another candidate on an obstacle course\u2014and losing. It\u2019s the only time he can remember Mueller being bested. \u201cHe was a natural athlete and natural student,\u201d Kellogg says. \u201cI don\u2019t think he had a hard day at OCS, to be honest.\u201d There was, it turned out, only one thing he was bad at\u2014and it was a failing that would become familiar to legions of his subordinates in the decades to come: He received a D in delegation.<\/p>\n During the time Mueller spent in training, from November 1967 through July 1968, the context of the Vietnam War changed dramatically. The bloody Tet Offensive\u2014a series of coordinated, widespread, surprise attacks across South Vietnam by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese in January 1968\u2014stunned America, and with public opinion souring on the conflict, Lyndon Johnson declared he wouldn\u2019t run for reelection. As Mueller\u2019s training class graduated, Walter Cronkite declared on the CBS Evening News<\/em> that the war could not be won. \u201cFor it seems now more certain than ever,\u201d Cronkite told his millions of viewers on February 27, 1968, \u201cthat the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.\u201d<\/p>\n The country seemed to be descending into chaos; as the spring unfolded, both Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. Cities erupted in riots. Antiwar protests raged. But the shifting tide of public opinion and civil unrest barely registered with the officer candidates in Mueller\u2019s class. \u201cI don\u2019t remember anyone having qualms about where we were or what we were doing,\u201d Kellogg says.<\/p>\n That spring, as Donald J. Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and began working for his father\u2019s real estate company, Mueller finished up Officer Candidate School and received his next assignment: He was to attend the US Army\u2019s Ranger School.<\/p>\n Arriving in Vietnam, Mueller was well trained, but he was also afraid. \u201cYou were scared to death of the unknown,\u201d he says. \u201cMore afraid in some ways of failure than death.\u201d<\/p>\n Mueller knew that only the best young officers went on to Ranger training, a strenuous eight-week advanced skills and leadership program for the military\u2019s elite at Fort Benning, Georgia. He would be spending weeks practicing patrol tactics, assassination missions, attack strategies, and ambushes staged in swamps. But the implications of the assignment were also sobering to the newly minted officer: Many Marines who passed the course were designated as \u201crecon Marines\u201d in Vietnam, a job that often came with a life expectancy measured in weeks.<\/p>\n Mueller credits the training he received at Ranger School for his survival in Vietnam. The instructors there had been through jungle combat themselves, and their stories from the front lines taught the candidates how to avoid numerous mistakes. Ranger trainees often had to function on just two hours of rest a night and a single daily meal. \u201cRanger School more than anything teaches you about how you react with no sleep and nothing to eat,\u201d Mueller told me. \u201cYou learn who you want on point, and who you don\u2019t want anywhere near point.\u201d<\/p>\n After Ranger School, he also attended Airborne School, aka jump school, where he learned to be a parachutist. By the fall of 1968, he was on his way to Asia. He boarded a flight from Travis Air Force Base in California to an embarkation point in Okinawa, Japan, where there was an almost palpable current of dread among the deploying troops.<\/p>\n From Okinawa, Mueller headed to Dong Ha Combat Base near the so-called demilitarized zone\u2014the dividing line between North and South Vietnam, established after the collapse of the French colonial regime in 1954. Mueller was determined and well trained, but he was also afraid. \u201cYou were scared to death of the unknown,\u201d he says. \u201cMore afraid in some ways of failure than death, more afraid of being found wanting.\u201d That kind of fear, he says \u201canimates your unconscious.\u201d<\/p>\n For American troops, <\/span>1968 was the deadliest year of the war, as they beat back the Tet Offensive and fought the battle of Hue. All told, 16,592 Americans were killed that year\u2014roughly 30 percent of total US fatalities in the war. Over the course of the conflict, more than 58,000 Americans died, 300,000 were wounded, and some 2\u00a0million South and North Vietnamese died.<\/p>\n Just 18 months after David Hackett was felled by a sniper, Mueller was being sent to the same region as his officer-training classmate Kellogg, who had arrived in Vietnam three months earlier. Mueller was assigned to H Company\u2014Hotel Company in Marine parlance\u2014part of the 2nd Battalion of the 4th Marine Regiment, a storied infantry unit that traced its origins back to the 1930s.<\/p>\n The regiment had been fighting almost nonstop in Vietnam since May 1965, earning the nickname the Magnificent Bastards. The grueling combat took its toll. In the fall of 1967, six weeks of battle reduced the battalion\u2019s 952 Marines to just 300 fit for duty.<\/p>\n During the Tet Offensive, the 2nd Battalion had seen bitter and bloody fighting that never let up. In April 1968, it fought in the battle of Dai Do, a days-long engagement that killed nearly 600 North Vietnamese soldiers. Eighty members of the 2nd Battalion died in the fight, and 256 were wounded.<\/p>\n David Harris, who arrived in Vietnam in May, joined the depleted unit just after Dai Do. \u201cHotel Company and all of 2\/4 was decimated,\u201d he says. \u201cThey were a skeleton crew. They were haggard, they were beat to death. It was just pitiful.\u201d<\/p>\n By the time Mueller was set to arrive six months later, the unit had rebuilt its ranks as its wounded Marines recovered and filtered back into the field; they had been tested and emerged stronger. By coincidence, Mueller was to inherit leadership of a Hotel Company platoon from his friend Kellogg. \u201cThose kids that I had and Bob had, half of them were veterans of Dai Do,\u201d Kellogg says. \u201cThey were field-sharp.\u201d<\/p>\n Second Lieutenant Mueller, <\/span>24 years and 3 months old, joined the battalion in November 1968, one of 10 new officers assigned to the unit that month. He knew he was arriving at the so-called pointy end of the American spear. Some 2.7\u00a0million US troops served in Vietnam, but the vast majority of casualties were suffered by those who fought in \u201cmaneuver battalions\u201d like Mueller\u2019s. The war along the demilitarized zone was far different than it was elsewhere in Vietnam; the primary adversary was the North Vietnamese army, not the infamous Viet Cong guerrillas. North Vietnamese troops generally operated in larger units, were better trained, and were more likely to engage in sustained combat rather than melting away after staging an ambush. \u201cWe fought regular, hard-core army,\u201d Joel Burgos says. \u201cThere were so many of them\u2014and they were really good.\u201d<\/p>\n William Sparks, a private first class in Hotel Company, recalls that Mueller got off the helicopter in the middle of a rainstorm, wearing a raincoat\u2014a telltale sign that he was new to the war. \u201cYou figured out pretty fast it didn\u2019t help to wear a raincoat in Vietnam,\u201d Sparks says. \u201cThe humidity just condensed under the raincoat\u2014you were just as wet as you were without it.\u201d<\/p>\n As Mueller walked up from the landing zone, Kellogg\u2014who had no idea Mueller would be inheriting his platoon\u2014recognized his OCS classmate\u2019s gait. \u201cWhen he came marching up the hill, I laughed,\u201d Kellogg says. \u201cWe started joking.\u201d On Mueller\u2019s first night in the field, his brand-new tent was destroyed by the wind. \u201cThat thing vanished into thin air,\u201d Sparks says. He didn\u2019t even get to spend one night.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the coming days, Kellogg passed along some of his wisdom from the field and explained the procedures for calling in artillery and air strikes. \u201cDon\u2019t be John Wayne,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not a movie. Marines tell you something\u2019s up, listen to them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe lieutenants who didn\u2019t trust their Marines went to early deaths,\u201d Kellogg says.<\/p>\n And with that, Kellogg told their commander that Mueller was ready, and he hopped aboard the next helicopter out.<\/p>\n Today, military units usually train together in the US, deploy together for a set amount of time, and return home together. But in Vietnam, rotations began\u2014and ended\u2014piecemeal, driven by the vagaries of injuries, illness, and individual combat tours. That meant Mueller inherited a unit that mixed combat-\u00adexperienced veterans and relative newbies.<\/p>\n A platoon consisted of roughly 40 Marines, typically led by a lieutenant and divided into three squads, each led by a sergeant, which were then divided into three four-man \u201cfire teams\u201d led by corporals. While the lieutenants were technically in charge, the sergeants ran the show\u2014and could make or break a new officer. \u201cYou land, and you\u2019re at the mercy of your staff sergeant and your radioman,\u201d Mueller says.<\/p>\n Marines in the field knew to be dubious of new young second lieutenants like Mueller. They were derided as Gold Brickers, after the single gold bar that denoted their rank. \u201cThey might have had a college education, but they sure as hell didn\u2019t have common sense,\u201d says Colin Campbell, who was on Hotel Company\u2019s mortar squad.<\/p>\n Mueller knew his men feared he might be incompetent or worse. \u201cThe platoon was petrified,\u201d he recalls. \u201cThey wondered whether the new green lieutenant was going to jeopardize their lives to advance his own career.\u201d Mueller himself was equally terrified of assuming field command.<\/p>\n As he settled in, talk spread about the odd new platoon leader who had gone to both Princeton and Army Ranger School. \u201cWord was out real fast\u2014Ivy League guy from an affluent family. That set off alarms. The affluent guys didn\u2019t go to Vietnam then\u2014and they certainly didn\u2019t end up in a rifle platoon,\u201d says VJ Maranto, a corporal in H Company. \u201cThere was so much talk about \u2018Why\u2019s a guy like that out here with us?\u2019 We weren\u2019t Ivy Leaguers.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, none of his fellow Hotel Company Marines had written their college thesis on African territorial disputes before the International Court of Justice, as Mueller had. Most were from rural America, and few had any formal education past high school. Maranto spent his youth on a small farm in Louisiana. Carl Rasmussen, a lance corporal, grew up on a farm in Oregon. Burgos was from the Mississippi Delta, where he was raised on a cotton plantation. After graduating from high school, David Harris had gone to work in a General Motors factory in his home state of Ohio, then joined the Marines when he was set to be drafted in the summer of 1967.<\/p>\n Many of the Marines under Mueller\u2019s command had been wounded at least once; 19-year-old corporal John C. Liverman had arrived in Vietnam just four months after a neighbor of his from Silver Spring, Maryland, had been killed at Khe Sanh\u2014and had seen heavy combat much of the year. He\u2019d been hit by shrapnel in March 1968 and then again in April, but after recovering in Okinawa, he had agitated to return to combat.<\/p>\n Hotel Company quickly came to understand that its new platoon leader was no Gold Bricker. \u201cHe wanted to know as much as he could as fast as he could about the terrain, what we did, the ambushes, everything,\u201d Maranto says. \u201cHe was all about the mission, the mission, the mission.\u201d<\/p>\n Second Battalion\u2019s mission, <\/span>as it turned out, was straightforward: Search and destroy. \u201cWe stayed out in the bush, out in the mountains, just below DMZ, 24 hours a day,\u201d David Harris says. \u201cWe were like bait. It was the same encounter: They\u2019d hit us, we\u2019d hit them, they\u2019d disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n Frequent deaths and injuries meant that turnover in the field was constant; when Maranto arrived at Hotel Company, he was issued a flak jacket that had dried blood on it. \u201cWe were always low on men,\u201d Colin Campbell says.<\/p>\n Mueller\u2019s unit was constantly on patrol; the battalion\u2019s records described it as \u201cnomadic.\u201d Its job was to keep the enemy off-kilter and disrupt their supply lines. \u201cYou\u2019d march all day, then you\u2019d dig a foxhole and spend all night alternating going on watch,\u201d says Bill White, a Hotel Company veteran. \u201cWe were always tired, always hungry, always thirsty. There were no showers.\u201d<\/p>\n In those first weeks, Mueller's confidence as a leader grew as he won his men\u2019s trust and respect. \u201cYou\u2019d sense his nervousness, but you\u2019d never see that in his demeanor,\u201d Maranto says. \u201cHe was such a professional.\u201d<\/p>\n The members of the platoon soon got acquainted with the qualities that would be familiar to everyone who dealt with Mueller later as a prosecutor and FBI director. He demanded a great deal and had little patience for malingering, but he never asked for more than he was willing to give himself. \u201cHe was a no-bullshit kind of guy,\u201d White recalls.<\/p>\n Mueller\u2019s unit began <\/span>December 1968 in relative quiet, providing security for the main military base in the area, a glorified campground known as Vandegrift Combat Base, about 10 miles south of the DMZ. It was one of the only organized outposts nearby for Marines, a place for resupply, a shower, and hot food. Lance Corporal Robert W. Cromwell, who had celebrated his 20th birthday shortly before beginning his tour of duty, entertained his comrades with stories from his own period of R&R: He\u2019d met his wife and parents in Hawaii to be introduced to his newborn daughter. \u201cHe was so happy to have a child and wanted to get home for good,\u201d Harris says.<\/p>\n On December 7 the battalion boarded helicopters for a new operation: to retake control of a hill in an infamous area known as Mutter\u2019s Ridge.<\/p>\n The strategically important piece of ground, which ran along four hills on the southern edge of the DMZ, had been the scene of fighting for more than two years and had been overrun by the North Vietnamese months before. Artillery, air strikes, and tank attacks had long since denuded the ridge of vegetation, but the surrounding hillsides and valleys were a jungle of trees and vines. When Hotel Company touched down and fanned out from its landing zones to establish a perimeter, Mueller was arriving to what would be his first full-scale battle.<\/p>\n As the American units advanced, the North Vietnamese retreated. \u201cThey were all pulling back to this big bunker complex, as it turned out,\u201d Sparks says. The Americans could see the signs of past battles all around them. \u201cYou\u2019d see shrapnel holes in the trees, bullet holes,\u201d Sparks says.<\/p>\n After three days of patrols, isolated firefights with an elusive enemy, and multiple nights of American bombardment, another unit in 2nd Battalion, Fox Company, received the order to take some high ground on Mutter\u2019s Ridge. Even nearly 50 years later, the date of the operation remains burned into the memories of those who fought in it: December 11, 1968.<\/p>\n None of Mueller's fellow Marines had written their college thesis on African territorial disputes before the International Court of Justice, as Mueller had.<\/p>\n That morning, after a night of air strikes and artillery volleys meant to weaken the enemy, the men of Fox Company moved out at first light. The attack went smoothly at first; they seized the western portions of the ridge without resistance, dodging just a handful of mortar rounds. Yet as they continued east, heavy small-arms fire started. \u201cAs they fought their way forward, they came into intensive and deadly fire from bunkers and at least three machine guns,\u201d the regiment later reported. Because the vegetation was so dense, Fox Company didn\u2019t realize that it had stumbled into the midst of a bunker complex. \u201cHaving fought their way in, the company found it extremely difficult to maneuver its way out, due both to the fire of the enemy and the problem of carrying their wounded.\u201d<\/p>\n Hotel Company was on a neighboring hill, still eating breakfast, when Fox Company was attacked. Sparks remembers that he was drinking a \u201cMo-Co,\u201d C-rations coffee with cocoa powder and sugar, heated by burning a golf-ball-sized piece of C-4 plastic explosive. (\u201cWe were ahead of Starbucks on this latte crap,\u201d he jokes.) They could hear the gunfire across the valley.<\/p>\n \u201cLieutenant Mueller called, \u2018Saddle up, saddle up,\u2019\u201d Sparks says. \u201cHe called for first squad\u2014I was the grenade launcher and had two bags of ammo strapped across my chest. I could barely stand up.\u201d Before they could even reach the enemy, they had to fight their way through the thick brush of the valley. \u201cWe had to go down the hill and come up Foxtrot Ridge. It took hours.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the only place in the DMZ I remember seeing vegetation like that,\u201d Harris says. \u201cIt was thick and entwining.\u201d<\/p>\n When the platoon finally crested the top of the ridge, they confronted the horror of the battlefield. \u201cThere were wounded people everywhere,\u201d Sparks recalls. Mueller ordered everyone to drop their packs and prepare for a fight. \u201cWe assaulted right out across the top of the ridge,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t long before the unit came under heavy fire from small arms, machine guns, and a grenade launcher. \u201cThere were three North Vietnamese soldiers right in front of us that jumped right up and sprayed us with AK-47s,\u201d Sparks says. They returned fire and advanced. At one point, a Navy corpsman with them threw a grenade, only to have it bounce off a tree and explode, wounding one of Hotel Company\u2019s corporals. \u201cIt just got worse from there,\u201d Sparks says.<\/p>\n In the next <\/span>few minutes, numerous men went down in Mueller\u2019s unit. Maranto remembers being impressed that his relatively green lieutenant was able to stay calm while under attack. \u201cHe\u2019d been in-country less than a month\u2014most of us had been in-country six, eight months,\u201d Maranto says. \u201cHe had remarkable composure, directing fire. It was sheer terror. They had RPGs, machine gun, mortars.\u201d<\/p>\n Mueller realized quickly how much trouble the platoon was in. \u201cThat day was the second heaviest fire I received in Vietnam,\u201d Harris says. \u201cLieutenant Mueller was directing traffic, positioning people and calling in air strikes. He was standing upright, moving. He probably saved our hide.\u201d<\/p>\n Cromwell, the lance corporal who had just become a father, was shot in the thigh by a .50-caliber bullet. When Harris saw his wounded friend being hustled out of harm\u2019s way, he was oddly relieved at first. \u201cI saw him and he was alive,\u201d Harris says. \u201cHe was on the stretcher.\u201d Cromwell would finally be able to spend some time with his wife and new baby, Harris figured. \u201cYou lucky sucker,\u201d he thought. \u201cYou\u2019re going home.\u201d<\/p>\n But Harris had misjudged the severity of his friend\u2019s injury. The bullet had nicked one of Cromwell\u2019s arteries, and he bled to death before he reached the field hospital. The death devastated Harris, who had traded weapons with Cromwell the night before\u2014Harris had taken Cromwell\u2019s M-14 rifle and Cromwell took Harris\u2019 M-79 grenade launcher. \u201cThe next day when we hit the crap, they called for him, and he had to go forward,\u201d Harris says. Harris couldn\u2019t shake the feeling that he should have been the one on the stretcher. \u201cI\u2019ve only told two people this story.\u201d<\/p>\n The battle atop and around Mutter\u2019s Ridge raged for hours, with the North Vietnamese fire coming from the surrounding jungle. \u201cWe got hit with an ambush, plain and simple,\u201d Harris says. \u201cThe brush was so thick, you had trouble hacking it with a machete. If you got 15 meters away, you couldn\u2019t see where you came from.\u201d<\/p>\n As the fighting continued, the Marines atop the ridge began to run low on supplies. \u201cJohnny Liverman threw me a bag of ammo. He\u2019d been ferrying ammo from one side of the ridge to the other,\u201d Sparks recalls. Liverman was already wounded, but he was still fighting; then, during one of his runs, he came under more fire. \u201cHe got hit right through the head, right when I was looking at him. I got that ammo, I crawled up there and got his M-16 and told him I\u2019d be back.\u201d<\/p>\n Sparks and another Marine sheltered behind a dead tree stump, trying to find any protection amid the firestorm. \u201cNeither of us had any ammo left,\u201d Sparks recalls. He crawled back to Liverman to try to evacuate his friend. \u201cI got him up on my shoulder, and I got shot, and I went down,\u201d he says. As he was lying on the ground, he heard a shout from atop the ridge, \u201cWho\u2019s that down there\u2014are they dead?\u201d<\/p>\n It was Lieutenant Mueller.<\/p>\n Sparks hollered back, \u201cSparks and Liverman.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHold on,\u201d Mueller said, \u201cWe\u2019re coming down to get you.\u201d<\/p>\n A few minutes later, Mueller appeared with another Marine, known as Slick. Mueller and Slick slithered Sparks into a bomb crater with Liverman and put a battle dress on Sparks\u2019 wound. They waited until a helicopter gunship passed overhead, its guns clattering, to distract the North Vietnamese, and hustled back toward the top of the hill and comparative safety. An OV-10 attack plane overhead dropped smoke grenades to help shield the Marines atop the ridge. Mueller, Sparks says, then went back to retrieve the mortally wounded Liverman.<\/p>\n The deaths mounted. Corporal Agustin Rosario\u2014a 22-year-old father and husband from New York City\u2014was shot in the ankle, and then, while he tried to run back to safety, was shot again, this time fatally. Rosario, too, died waiting for a medevac helicopter.<\/p>\n Finally, as the hours passed, the Marines forced the North Vietnamese to withdraw. By 4:30 pm, the battlefield had quieted. As his commendation for the Bronze Star later read, \u201cSecond Lieutenant Mueller\u2019s courage, aggressive initiative and unwavering devotion to duty at great personal risk were instrumental in the defeat of the enemy force and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the United States Naval Service.\u201d<\/p>\n As night fell, Hotel and Fox held the ground, and a third company, Golf, was brought forward as additional reinforcement. It was a brutal day for both sides; 13 Americans died and 31 were wounded. \u201cWe put a pretty good hurt on them, but not without great cost,\u201d Sparks says. \u201cMy closest friends were all killed there on Foxtrot Ridge.\u201d<\/p>\n As the Americans explored the field around the ridge, they counted seven enemy dead left behind, in addition to seven others killed in the course of the battle. Intelligence reports later revealed that the battle had killed the commander of the 1st Battalion, 27th North Vietnamese Army Regiment, \u201cand had virtually decimated his staff.\u201d<\/p>\n For Mueller, the battle had proved both to him and his men that he could lead. \u201cThe minute the shit hit the fan, he was there,\u201d Maranto says. \u201cHe performed remarkably. After that night, there were a lot of guys who would\u2019ve walked through walls for him.\u201d<\/p>\n That first major exposure to combat\u2014and the loss of Marines under his command\u2014affected Mueller deeply. \u201cYou\u2019re standing there thinking, \u2018Did I do everything I could?\u2019\u201d he says. Afterward, back at camp, while Mueller was still in shock, a major came up and slapped the young lieutenant on the shoulder, saying, \u201cGood job, Mueller.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat vote of confidence helped me get through,\u201d Mueller told me. \u201cThat gesture pushed me over. I wouldn\u2019t go through life guilty for screwing up.\u201d<\/p>\n The heavy toll of the casualties at Mutter\u2019s Ridge shook up the whole unit. Cromwell\u2019s death hit especially hard; his humor and good nature had knitted the unit together. \u201cHe was happy-go-lucky. He looked after the new guys when they came in,\u201d Bill White recalls. For Harris, who had often shared a foxhole with Cromwell, the death of his best friend was devastating.<\/p>\n White also took Cromwell\u2019s death hard; overcome with grief, he stopped shaving. Mueller confronted him, telling him to refocus on the mission ahead\u2014but ultimately provided more comfort than discipline. \u201cHe could\u2019ve given me punishment hours,\u201d White says, \u201cbut he never did.\u201d<\/p>\n Decades later, Mueller <\/span>would tell me that nothing he ever confronted in his career was as challenging as leading men in combat and watching them be cut down. \u201cYou see a lot, and every day after is a blessing,\u201d he told me in 2008. The memory of Mutter\u2019s Ridge put everything, even terror investigations and showdowns with the Bush White House, into perspective. \u201cA lot is going to come your way, but it\u2019s not going to be the same intensity.\u201d<\/p>\n When Mueller finally did leave the FBI in 2013, he \u201cretired\u201d into a busy life as a top partner at the law firm WilmerHale. He taught some classes in cybersecurity at Stanford, he investigated the NFL\u2019s handling of the Ray Rice domestic violence case, and he served as the so-called settlement master for the Volkswagen Diesel\u00adgate scandal. While in the midst of that assignment\u2014which required the kind of delicate give-and-take ill-suited to a hard-driving, no-nonsense Marine\u2014the 72-year-old Mueller received a final call to public service. It was May 2017, just days into the swirling storm set off by the firing of FBI director James Comey, and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein wanted to know if Mueller would serve as the special counsel in the Russia investigation. The job\u2014overseeing one of the most difficult and sensitive investigations ever undertaken by the Justice Department\u2014may only rank as the third-hardest of Mueller\u2019s career, after the post-9\/11 FBI and after leading those Marines in Vietnam.<\/p>\n Having accepted the assignment as special counsel, he retreated into his prosecutor\u2019s bunker, cut off from the rest of America.<\/p>\n In January 1969, <\/span>after 10 days of rain showers and cold weather, the unit got a three-day R&R break at Cua Viet, a nearby support base. They listened to Super Bowl III on the radio as Joe Namath and the Jets defeated the Baltimore Colts. \u201cOne touch of reality was listening to that,\u201d Mueller says.<\/p>\n In the field, they got little news about what was transpiring at home. In fact, later that summer, while Mueller was still deployed, Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon\u2014an event that people around the world watched live on TV. Mueller wouldn\u2019t find out until days afterward. \u201cThere was this whole segment of history you missed,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n R&R breaks were also rare opportunities to drink alcohol, though there was never much of it. Campbell says he drank just 15 beers during his 18 months in-country. \u201cI can remember drinking warm beer\u2014Ballantines,\u201d he says. In camp, the men traded magazines like Playboy<\/em> and mail-\u00adorder automotive catalogs, imagining the cars they would soup up when they returned to the States. They passed the time playing rummy or pinochle.<\/p>\n For the most part, Mueller skipped such activities, though he was into the era\u2019s music (Creedence Clearwater Revival was\u2014and is\u2014a particular favorite). \u201cI remember several times walking into a bunker and finding him in a corner with a book,\u201d Maranto says. \u201cHe read a lot, every opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout the rest of the month, they patrolled, finding little contact with the enemy, although plenty of signs of their presence: Hotel Company often radioed in reports of finding fallen bodies and hidden supply caches, and they frequently took incoming mortar rounds from unseen enemies.<\/p>\n Command under such conditions wasn\u2019t easy; drug use was a problem, and racial tensions ran high. \u201cMany of the GIs were draftees; they didn\u2019t want to be there,\u201d Maranto says. \u201cWhen new people rotated in, they brought what was happening in the United States with them.\u201d<\/p>\n Mueller recalls at times struggling to get Marines to follow orders\u2014they already felt that the punishment of serving in the infantry in Vietnam was as bad as it could get. \u201cScrew that,\u201d they\u2019d reply sharply when ordered to do something they didn\u2019t want to do. \u201cWhat are you going to do? Send me to Vietnam?\u201d<\/p>\n Yet the Marines were bonded through the constant danger of combat. Everyone had close calls. Everyone knew that luck in the combat zone was finite, fate pernicious. \u201cIf the good Lord turned over a card up there, that was it,\u201d Mueller says.<\/p>\n Nights particularly were filled with dread; the enemy preferred sneak attacks, often in the hours before dawn. Colin Campbell recalls a night in his foxhole when he turned around to find a North Vietnamese soldier, armed with an AK-47, right behind him. \u201cHe\u2019d gotten inside our perimeter. He had our back,\u201d Campbell says. \u201cWhy didn\u2019t he kill me and the other guy in the foxhole?\u201d Campbell shouted, and the infiltrator bolted. \u201cAnother Marine down the line shot him dead.\u201d<\/p>\n Mueller was a constant presence in the field, regularly reviewing the code signs and passwords that identified friendly units to one another. \u201cHe was quiet and reserved. The planning was meticulous and detailed. He knew at night where every position was,\u201d Maranto recalls. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be unusual for him to come out and make sure the fire teams were correctly placed\u2014and that you were awake.\u201d<\/p>\n The men I talked to who served alongside Mueller, men now in their seventies, mostly had strong memories of the type of leader Mueller had been. But many didn\u2019t know, until I told them, that the man who led their platoon was now the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the election. \u201cI had no idea,\u201d Burgos told me. \u201cWhen you\u2019ve been in combat that long, you don\u2019t remember names. Faces<\/em> you remember,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Maranto says he only put two and two together recently, although he\u2019d wondered for years if that guy who was the FBI director had served with him in Vietnam. \u201cThe name would ring a bell\u2014you know that\u2019s a familiar name\u2014but you\u2019re so busy with everyday life,\u201d Maranto says.<\/p>\n April 1969 marked <\/span>a grim American milestone: The Vietnam War\u2019s combat death toll surpassed the 33,629 Americans killed while fighting in Korea. It also brought a new threat to Hotel Company\u2019s area: a set of powerful .50-\u00adcaliber machine gun nests that the North Vietnamese had set up to harass helicopters and low-flying planes. Hotel Company\u2014and the battalion\u2019s other units\u2014devoted much of the middle of the month to chasing down the deadly weapons. Until they were found, resupply helicopters were limited, and flights were abandoned when they came under direct fire. One Marine was even killed in the landing zone. Finally, on April 15 and 16, Hotel Company overran the enemy guns and forced a retreat, uncovering 10 bunkers and three gun positions.<\/p>\n The next day, at around 10 am, Mueller\u2019s platoon was attacked while on patrol. Facing small-arms fire and grenades, they called for air support. An hour later four attack runs hit the North Vietnamese position.<\/p>\n Five days later, on April 22, one of the 3rd Platoon\u2019s patrols came under similar attack\u2014and the situation quickly became desperate. Sparks, who had returned to Hotel Company that winter after recovering from his wound at Mutter\u2019s Ridge, was in the ambushed patrol. \u201cWe lost the machine gun, jammed up with shrapnel, and the radio,\u201d he recalls. \u201cWe had to pull back.\u201d<\/p>\n Nights particularly were filled with dread; the enemy preferred sneak attacks, often in the hours before dawn.<\/p>\n With radio contact lost, Mueller\u2019s platoon was called forward as reinforcement. American artillery and mortars pounded the North Vietnamese as the platoon advanced. At one point, Mueller was engaged in a close firefight. The incoming fire was so intense\u2014the stress of the moment so all-consuming, the adrenaline pumping so hard\u2014that when he was shot, Mueller didn\u2019t immediately notice. Amid the combat, he looked down and realized an AK-47 round had passed clean through his thigh.<\/p>\n Mueller kept fighting.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough seriously wounded during the fire\u00adfight, he resolutely maintained his position and, ably directing the fire of his platoon, was instrumental in defeating the North Vietnamese Army force,\u201d reads the Navy Commendation that Mueller received for his action that day. \u201cWhile approaching the designated area, the platoon came under a heavy volume of enemy fire from its right flank. Skillfully requesting and directing supporting Marine artillery fire on the enemy positions, First Lieutenant Mueller ensured that fire superiority was gained over the hostile unit.\u201d<\/p>\n Two other members of Hotel Company were also wounded in the battle. One of them had his leg blown off by a grenade; it was his first day in Vietnam.<\/p>\n Mueller\u2019s days in combat ended with him being lifted out by helicopter in a sling. As the aircraft peeled away, Mueller recalls thinking he might at least get a good meal out of the injury on a hospital ship, but he was delivered instead to a field hospital near Da Hong, where he spent three weeks recovering.<\/p>\n Maranto, who was on R&R when Mueller was wounded, remembers returning to camp and hearing word that their commander had been shot. \u201cIt could happen to any one of us,\u201d Maranto says. \u201cWhen it happened to him, there was a lot of sadness. They enjoyed his company.\u201d<\/p>\n Mueller recovered and returned to active duty in May. Since most Marine officers spent only six months on a combat rotation\u2014and Mueller had been in the combat zone since November\u2014he was sent to serve at command headquarters, where he became an aide-de-camp to Major General William K. Jones, the head of the 3rd Marine Division.<\/p>\n By the end of 1969, Mueller was back in the US, his combat tour complete, working at the Marine barracks near the Pentagon. Soon thereafter, he sent off an application to the University of Virginia\u2019s law school. \u201cI consider myself exceptionally lucky to have made it out of Vietnam,\u201d Mueller said years later in a speech. \u201cThere were many\u2014many\u2014who did not. And perhaps because I did survive Vietnam, I have always felt compelled to contribute.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the years, a few of his former fellow Marines from Hotel Company recognized Mueller and have watched his career unfold on the national stage over the past two decades. Sparks recalls eating lunch on a July day in 2001 with the news on: \u201cThe TV was on behind me. \u2018We\u2019re going to introduce the new FBI director, Robert<\/em> \u2026 Swan<\/em> \u2026 Mueller<\/em>.\u2019 I slowly turned, and I looked, and I thought, \u2018Golly, that\u2019s Lieutenant Mueller.\u2019\u201d Sparks, who speaks with a thick Texas accent, says his first thought was the running joke he\u2019d had with his former commander: \u201cI\u2019d always call him \u2018Lieutenant Mew-ler<\/em>,\u2019 and he\u2019d say, \u2018That\u2019s Mul-ler<\/em>.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n More recently, his former Marine comrade Maranto says that after spending six months in combat with Mueller, he has watched the coverage of the special counsel investigation unfold and laughed at the news reports. He says he knows Mueller isn\u2019t sweating the pressure. \u201cI watch people on the news talking about the distractions getting to him,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n Garrett M. Graff<\/strong> (@vermontgmg<\/a>) is a con\u00adtributing editor at<\/em> WIRED and author of<\/em> The Threat Matrix: Inside Robert Mueller\u2019s FBI and the War on Global Terror<\/a>. He can be reached at garrett.graff@gmail.com.<\/em><\/p>\n This article appears in the June issue. Subscribe now<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Listen to this story, and other WIRED features, on the Audm app<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n