Former Delta Force operator Larry Vickers told podcaster Shawn Ryan about the rescue of Kurt Muse from a Panamanian prison during Operation Just Cause in an interview released Thursday.
The United States launched Operation Just Cause to depose Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega in December 1989 after an incident in which a Marine was killed. Vickers told Ryan during “The Shawn Ryan Show” episode that the rescue of Muse was a high-stakes operation, with a guard telling Muse he would be killed if the United States tried to extract him from the La Comandancia prison.
“There was a guard that had told Kurt, if there was a rescue attempt, he was going to kill him,” Vickers told Ryan. “Because Kurt, I think, asked him ‘Hey, if there’s a rescue attempt for me, what are you going to do?’ And he goes ‘I’ll kill you.’”
“This guy was in the room right across from Kurt,” Vickers said. “So the priority was to get down to Kurt as soon as possible to beat this guy. You know, before this guy gets a situational awareness, figures out what’s going on, goes over to Kurt’s cell and kills him.”
Vickers told Ryan he almost didn’t even live to make the entry into the prison for the hostage rescue mission.
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“Breacher, on my team, went up to put a charge up, and in the process of pulling the time fuse, he knocked the charge down, and it fell right from me, about from me to you,” Vickers told Ryan. “And I was like ‘What is that?’ It didn’t even dawn on me it was the charge. Fortunately, when he went to pull it, he did not ignite the time fuse. That probably would have killed me. If memory serves me correct, it was a C6 charge, which was P for plenty.”
“We were not going to take any chance of getting in that door. It was P for plenty. It probably would have killed me, because I ended up going from being the guy looking through the window. Now I’m going to be the number one guy going through the door, and I was down on [my] knee, and I was like ‘What is that?’ I couldn’t believe it, and I remember my team sergeant came up,” Vickers said. “He goes, ‘Hey, man, get the backup charge ready,’ because I had a backup charge. And I go, why am I going to get the backup charge ready? Because the breachers right there, within the breacher, went back around and he said ‘Hey, come.’ He basically had me come up for cover. I covered him on the door. He put the charge back up. We initiate it. And dude, it was a boom. I’ll never forget it. It was a boom.”
After snipers knocked out the power for the prison, Vickers and the rest of the Delta Force team entered the building.
“I come around, doors long gone on the cupola. I step in. There’s no landing, Sean. Here’s the door. The steps go right up to the door,” Vickers told Ryan. “There’s no landing like this, where you step in and then go down the steps. It goes right up the door like you know, out here, you guys got you. I almost, by the grace of God, I don’t know how I didn’t trip, because it’s pitch black. I’m walking into it, and, by the grace of God, somehow I didn’t trip, went down.”
Vickers also explained why he ended up being the first Delta Force operator into the prison where Muse was held.
“The guys are following me, and people are like ‘Why are you number one, man?’ I was the most expendable guy. It’s that simple,” Vickers said. “I was the new guy on F team, F team and G team were going in. F team secured the inside [of] the route, inside the prison, the stairwell, the hallway, that kind of stuff. G team was the ones [who] are going to extract them. They’re going to be the team that gets them out.”
Vickers recounted the entry, including the team firing at one of the guards, before they reached the area of the prison where Muse was held.
“He was in a room across, and the G team went in and killed him. Yep, he’s armed with a pistol,” Vickers said. “I think the guy, I think he was in a shower, if memory serves me correct. G team found him in the shower. I think the guy went for his pistol, already had a pistol in his hand. They killed him.”
“Yep, they got Muse out. They brought in a little, you know, kit, aviator kit bag, and had body armor and a helmet, you know, a body armor and a Kevlar helmet. peeled him out. I remember seeing him go up the stairs,” Vickers said. “Couple things. We get up. We tell him ‘Hey, you know, PC secure to get the extraction birds out.’ The reason the book’s called ‘Six Minutes To Freedom’ was because from when we touched down to when we called, you know, PC secure, called for EXO was six minutes.”
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