“The Incredibly Stupid One” (Stories from The Vietnam War)

“The Incredibly Stupid One”
The Vietnam War. Douglas Brent Hegdahl found himself in the notorious 'Hanoi Hilton'.
Realising the seriousness of the situation, Doug made the decision to play dumb.
As it turned out, it was an excellent tactic.

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Credit:
Created by Daniel Turner
Script: Dejan Milivojevic
Narrator:

Chris Kane

[Simplehistory]

🧠"The Incredibly Stupid One" was in fact very clever...

[cannonball]

Vietnamese Officer: "Torture the prisoner!"
Vietnamese Guard: "Ewww, but he's picking his nose. You do it"
Vietnamese Officer: "No, you do it"

[TheBeastlyCHAMP]

Bruh imagine the enemy even hiring a tutor to teach you your basic language

[blackegret]

NVA: "Don't play dumb with me!"
Doug: "But I am dumb."
NVA: *Facepalm*

[illustriouschin]

The brilliant aspect of his deception is that he didn't just pretend to be stupid, he created a mental model of not an American farmer's son but of a Vietnamese farmer's son, a context which his captors would understand, using details which would not have been commonly known to Americans at the time, based purely on his intuition.

[itspugsley]

Imagine pretending to so stupid that the enemy doesn’t take you seriously and you save hundreds of troops

[dblundz]

" WHAT, ARE YOU STUPID?"
"Yes"
"oh, okay"

[Errormanden]

To be fair. Getting knocked off his ship that way was incredibly stupid.

[florianschulz]

the man just went "incredible stupidity got me into this mess, and incredible stupidity is gonna get me out of it!"

[apalahartisebuahnama]

"Appear smart when you're dumb, appear dumb when you're smart "
- not Sun Tzu

[georgejones]

"my grandfather won the medal of honor at Omaha beach"

"Mine was known as the stupid one"

[irk]

Fisherman: "Hey Pal, Did you just blow in from stupid town?"

[bingusofwales]

Imagine being a Vietnamese soldier who learned that the one you literally called “the incredibly stupid one” had literally been spying on everything going on inside the camp, sabotaging vehicles, and remembering hundreds of names and identifying factors of soldiers, all while you remember how you looked at him as a stupid, incapable prisoner

[salavat]

Guess Sun Tzu was right : A good spy is a genius, who is capable of looking like, and acting like an inoffensive, harmless fool.

[mr.epicmemerman]

Vietnamese Troops: "Tell us the American plans right now!"
Doug: "My FaVoRiTe CoLoR iS pIlLoW."

[_vla]

"Your going to die"
"But what if i don't wana die"

[sjtv]

As I was leaving the military I made good friends with a retiring 5th group E-7, great guy who taught me a lot.
When he talked about SERE school, and what to do of you're captured or just being held up by hostile people, he really did harp on "play stupid" as being white possibly the best tactic to protect yourself.
You guys know who Sgt. Shrek McPhee is, right? Delta and Green Beret legend? The Sheriff of Kandahar?
He was one single guy who went alone in Afghanistan for over a year, gathering intelligence and stuff. Whenever confronted by checkpoint guards or anyone really, he would just scream a "mongoloid scream" and convince people he was mentally disabled.
Worked like a damn charm

[professionalcommentstealer]

"Nobody knows they're being fooled because they're too busy laughing at the fool"

[randomstuff]

This guy: Falls off boat
His shipmates 2 days later: Ayo where u at?

[maxchua]

"Oh yeah, this is big brain time"