- So Douglas Hegdahl is taken to the Hanoi Hilton,
a notorious POW camp.
And he thinks, I'm gonna pretend to be
an idiot.
[burps] - [laughs]
- So Florence Nightingale gathers together
38 nurses to take care of these soldiers.
The fuck are you doing? His dick is out.
And Florence was like,
Fuck you. His fucking arm's infected.
Why do I want to kick you? - [chuckles]
[patriotic music]
?
[The Police's "Sending Out An SOS"]
- I love you. - I love you, man.
- Cheers. I remember when we first met,
every time I saw you, you would have a boot on your car.
- [laughs]
- Am I wrong?
- You're not wrong.
- You have a--
- I went through 11 cars in Los Angeles
and 9 of them got booted.
- [chuckles] That's not false. I know--
- None of this-- this is all true.
- It is a great excuse to not drive.
- Oh, yeah, it's great.
Hey, do you wanna drive?
- I would love to, but I got two boots.
- Hello. [burps] I'm Mark Gagliardi.
And today, we're gonna be talking about Douglas Hegdahl.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
Our story begins in April of 1967.
America is embroiled in the middle of the Vietnam War.
And Douglas Hegdahl is one of the sailors
on the "USS Canberra,"
which is a destroyer ship that is
going up and down the coast of North Vietnam.
He's just come off of his 1:00 a.m. watch shift.
And boom--Douglas Hegdahl is blown into the waters
of the South China Sea
by the gun that is on the deck of the ship
that he is standing on.
So he floats there until
these North Vietnamese fishermen
see him in the water; they pull him up;
they put him on board; and they take care of him;
and then, unfortunately,
hand him off immediately to the North Vietnamese soldiers.
And the North Vietnamese say,
You're a spy!
You never declared war on us.
We don't have to abide by the Gem--Ge--
[groans] Geneva Conventions.
You wanna go to the Hanoi Hilton?
'Cause that's where we're going.
- Sounds fancy as hell.
- No-no-no-no-no-no-no, Derek!
The Hanoi Hilton is not fancy!
That is an ironic name, my friend.
- [chuckles]
- So Douglas Hegdahl is taken to the Hanoi Hilton,
a notorious POW camp.
[burps] - Mm.
- [blows raspberry]
- Disgusting. - Look.
Let's not be real jerks about this.
- Okay.
- So Douglas Hegdahl was pulled into meetings
with The Rabbit, who was the guy that
was the main interrogator of this place,
a brutal monster.
And The Rabbit was like,
You don't have a story for me?
I've got a story for you.
And he would throw him down
and beat the Christ out of him.
And so Douglas Hegdahl, in the course of his beatings,
thinks to himself,
Things are crazy.
I gotta figure something out.
I know.
I'll pretend that I'm a backwards bumpkin
like those guys I grew up with
in Clark, South Dakota.
I'm gonna pretend to be an idiot.
And Douglas Hegdahl's like, Uh, you know what?
I--I agree with you guys.
I--I'm on your team now.
And the North Vietnamese say,
You seem to be a guy who
understands where we're coming from.
Why don't we give you these propaganda things to say?
And then we won't look like we're the assholes.
And Douglas Hegdahl says, Oh, uh, problem is,
I--I don't really know how to read so good.
So they give him this tutor.
And they try to teach him how to read and write.
He's pretending to be stupid.
So Doug Hegdahl's like,
Oh, uh, gosh, I need a new pair of glasses.
So what do they do?
They fucking take him out into Hanoi
and they're like,
We're gonna take you to go get new glasses.
And he's like, Oh, gosh, this is great.
He memorizes the route... [camera shutter snaps]
from the Hanoi Hilton into the city
where he's gonna go.
And on his way back,
he's got this brand-new pair of glasses.
He wanted to learn the route
and he talked these bozos into
getting him a new pair of glasses.
- That's great.
- Yeah.
- [laughs]
- So Douglas Hegdahl seemed to be
the dumbest guy that the North Vietnamese
had ever captured.
In fact, the nickname that the North Vietnamese Army
gave Douglas Hegdahl was, quote,
"The Incredibly Stupid One."
So at a certain point,
the North Vietnamese were just like,
What are we gonna do with this idiot?
And they're like,
Oh, we take a nap every couple hours
every afternoon, uh...
Why don't we just let this, uh, really dumb American
be the guy that walks the grounds
during our dumb afternoon siesta?
So Doug Hegdahl's like,
Yeah, sure, I'll roam around the camp...
[dramatic music]
And sabotage your trucks. [burps]
- [laughing]
- Boy, this television show is hard.
- [laughing] - I get it.
You guys are a real bunch of dicks.
You're laughing because you know that was a bit.
- It was a Chris Pratt fall.
?
- ♪ Hegdahl, summer in the city ♪
\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h- ♪ Hegdahl, summer in the city! ♪
\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h♪ Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty ♪
[both laugh]
- All right, so do you remember where you were?
- So Douglas Hegdahl
\h\h\h\h\h\hhas convinced the North Vietnamese Army
\h\h\h\hthat he’s some sort of fucking, uh, country bumpkin.
So they gave him free rein
\h\hof the entirety of the Hanoi Hilton.
He decides the best thing \h\h\h\h\h\hthat he can do
\h\h\h\his to sabotage the North Vietnamese.
\h\h\h\hSo Hegdahl puts dirt in the tanks of the trucks.
\h\h\hAnd all five trucks are rendered un-drivable.
And then Doug Hegdahl \h\h\h\h\h\h\his like,
I’m going to learn the names
of every single man that is \h\h\h\h\hin this POW camp.
So he memorizes the names
\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hto the tune of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm."
\h\h\h\hSo he’s just kind of walking around the grounds,
singing to himself.
♪ Old MacDonald had a Dave ♪
♪ E-I-E-I-O ♪
♪ And that Dave’s last name \h\h\h\h\h\hwas MacDonald ♪
\h\h- [chuckles] - ♪ E-I-E-I-O ♪
♪ With a Dave MacDonald here ♪
♪ And a put him on your list \h\h\h\hof people who are ♪
♪ Gonna get on the boat \h\hto get out of this ♪
♪ Godforsaken place there ♪
♪ E-I-E-I-O ♪
- [laughs]
- So he memorizes 256 names,
every prisoner of this \h\h\h\h\h\hPOW camp,
including John McCain.
- Cheers to McCain.
- To John McCain. \h\h\hboth: Yeah.
- Now, the North Vietnamese
\h\hrelease three American hostages
every few months.
So Douglas Hegdahl is gonna be \h\h\h\h\hone of the guys that
the North Vietnamese return \hback to the United States.
So on August 5, 1969,
\h\hHegdahl is released in a prisoner exchange.
So when Hegdahl gets back \h\hto the United States,
all of the information \hthat he’s memorized,
he shares with Russell... \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hCrowe.
- Mark.
[flatulence]
Inappropriate.
- [laughs]
\h\h[flatulence] All right, so...
\h\h\h\hRoss Perot, a rich Texas oilman,
\h\hwho was also a POW advocate.
And Ross Perot said,
Hey, man, I want you to go to the Paris Peace talks!
\hAnd I want you to be the guy that confronts
the North Vietnamese and says,
\h\h\h\h\hNo, no, man! Here’s what y’all did!
And Doug Hegdahl was like,
Okay.
So Doug Hegdahl flies to Paris.
The US delegation shows up
and the North Vietnamese \h\hdelegation shows up.
And then the US is like,
We got this dude, \h\hDoug Hegdahl,
\h\h\h\h\h\hwho was in one of your POW camps.
And he’s like,
Hey, guess what, dickheads.
I was faking it the whole time.
\h\h\hYou’re breaking the Geneva Convention.
You’re torturing prisoners.
\h\h\h\h\h\hI saw it with mine own eyes.
So the North Vietnamese \h\h\h\h\h\h\hare like,
Oh, shit!
\h\hThis guy that we called "The Incredibly Stupid One"
\h\h\h\h\h\h\his actually... [whispers] Incredibly smart.
So Doug Hegdahl is like,
Fuck, yeah, I am, \h\hmotherfuckers!
\hBoom! America.
And it’s thanks to \h\h\hDoug Hegdahl
who had memorized the names
of all 256 POWs
that--
[sighs]
So in 1973,
\h\h\hall of these men were finally released
from the Hanoi Hilton,
thanks to the work
of Seaman Douglas Hegdahl.
\h\h\h\h\h\h\h- Cheers. Great job, Mark.
- Hi! You’re watching "Drunk History."
Wish I wasn’t!
- [laughs]
- Why do I get... - Pissed at me?
- I drink and I get-- - I know.
- Like you're my brother or something and I wanna punch ya.
- That's cool. - Is it?
- Oh, I mean, no.
But I mean, it's... - Oh.
- Cool that you feel like I'm your brother.
- I don't know, you're just fun to fuck with.
You know what? Because I know you can defend yourself
and you can fuck with me worse than I can fuck with you.
- I know, I hold back. - Because you're clever.
I know! - You throw--
you--you go out shooting.
- That's so rude. - I wait for my final bomb.
- Aw, shit, what does that mean?
- I love you. - Aww.
That was beautiful.
Hello, my name is Paget Brewster.
And today we will be discussing Florence Nightingale,
the Mother of Modern Nursing.
Wha--that was perfect!
- Just rolled right off your tongue.
- Did it not?
- [mockingly] The mutter of mudern nursing.
- Did I say "The mutter of mudern nursing"?
- [very slurred] The mudder of muddern nurding.
- Hi, I'm Paget Brewster, and today,
we will be discussing Florence Nightingale,
The Mutter of Modern Nursing.
[both laugh]
Okay, our story begins in 1830s England,
which is the beginning of the Victorian Area.
- Oh. - "Era."
- I've been there.
- Shut it up now.
- [chuckles] - Okay.
So Florence Nightingale is the daughter
of a very wealthy affluent family
outside of London.
And Florence is doing what everyone her age is doing.
She's a teenager and her mother says,
Oh, this is so great.
You're just gonna study all this stuff.
And then you're gonna marry rich
'cause you're rich, and you're gonna have kids.
And Florence is like,
Ugh. I don't think I want that at all.
In fact, I like nursing.
I like fixing people and helping people.
And maybe I'm a fucking weirdo, I don't fucking know.
And she started thinking, Oh, my God.
Maybe God has chosen me for something greater
than just being a rich fucking lady.
So she tells her parents,
I don't want to run a house.
I just want to be a fucking nurse.
She wants to be a nurse, but nursing is not a profession.
And at the age of 24, she leaves the house
and starts interning at
the Harley Street hospital in London.
And in 1853, the War of Crimea breaks out.
So--
- Have you ever been in that river?
- Huh?
- "Cry me a" river? You never been there?
- Oh, fuck me. Oh, my God.
- [chuckles] - Oh, God.
Why do I want to kick you?
- I get that. - I like you.
Anyway.
In 1854, the Secretary of War,
Sidney Herbert writes a letter
to Florence Nightingale saying,
Florence, uh, you're a great nurse.
I've heard about your work
at the--at the something hospital
I already forgot the fucking name of.
- Is that Harley?
- Harley Street hospital. That's right.
I need you to go get a team of nurses together
and go and help out our military doctors.
So Florence was like, Yep, I'm fucking on board.
So Florence gathers together 38 nurses.
And they go to the Scutari Barracks Hospital
in Constantinople,
which is a piece of shit.
It was rats and lice.
It's not even a hospital; it's a barracks.
So they show up, and the male doctors,
they flip the fuck out.
They're like, Fuck these broads.
We don't need any chicks here.
God damn it. This sucks.
- Would you like me to help you?
- Yes, please, Derek.
You broke it! [laughs]
That's pretty manly. [laughs]
[shimmering tone]
Thank you. Gi--
Don't you--
Give me my fucking booze, bitch!
All right, you're fucking in for it now.
So the doctor's pissed off, and Florence is like,
Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah, I get that.
It's never happened before in history,
but I'm here now, my ladies are here now.
Florence and her nurses are
shocked at the conditions,
but they believe in Florence, and they're like,
All right.
We're gonna do whatever she says.
Let's go. Let's clean this up.
Two days later, thousands of soldiers injured
from the Battle of Inkerman
are brought into the barracks hospital.
This was 3,000 soldiers
laying on straw pallets.
They are covered in their own excrement.
They are bleeding.
So the doctors are like,
Oh, shit. Fuck it, we need your help.
She ends up being known as the lady with the lamp,
because it was this British woman
there in Crimea,
holding a lamp and visiting soldiers.
But one night,
while she was changing the dressing
of a man who had had an arm amputation,
an army doctor walked in.
And the man was naked. - But why?
- Because they had no resources.
And the doctor said to Florence,
The fuck are you doing? His dick is out.
And Florence was like,
Fuck you. His fucking arm's infected.
- Holding for plane. [distant plane drones]
- Oh, my God, we're holding for a plane.
Don't kick me. - I have a twitch.
- I am not a fan of this. I thought you were a gentleman.
- Florence Nightingale. I thought you liked--
- Oh, I'm a fan of Florence Nightingale, not you.
You ready? - [chuckles]
- Shut up!
I'm gonna kick you in the nuts!
Bring your nuts closer
so I can kick the-- 'cause I'm tired.
- [soft laugh]
- So all of these soldiers are amazed
this lady with a lamp was protecting them.
And the soldiers were saying to each other,
This is the only person that's cared about us.
And Florence and her nurses have done
everything they can do.
Unfortunately, in the four months
that they are first there, 4,777 soldiers die.
And Florence says, I'm so fucking angry.
I'm so angry we lost so many men.
And I need to find out why we failed.
So the Crimean War ends in 1856.
And Florence gets back to England.
And she is awarded
a $250,000 war fund dispensation gift
from Queen Victoria.
But Queen Victoria says,
What happened in Crimea?
And Florence says, I don't fucking know.
It was bad.
And I think I noticed a trend.
And I'm gonna have to fucking think about this.
She is also really sick.
She has the Crimean flu.
I mean, bad, coughing, sputum.
- What's sputum?
- Sputum's an old term for mucus.
- Too much informashe. - "Informashe"?
- [chuckles]
- I will not accept that from you.
- Crimea river.
- Shut up. Fuck you. I'm drunk.
- Okay, you ready? - Yes.
- [exhales] And it should start with me
speaking to the camera full of rage, right?
- Mm-hmm. - Like, rage and regret.
- Yeah, like chugging that. - Like "chugganaut"?
- Like chugging that.
- Oh, chugging this? - Mm-hmm.
- 'Cause that's what I do every year,
I chug-- - Yeah.
- You know what, I am gonna chug it.
- Okay. You remember where you were?
- Yes. - You do. Okay.
Okay, so...
Florence goes back to England
and just goes to her bed.
She's so ill
that she stays in bed for 11 years.
- What? - And it--yes.
In those 11 years,
she starts studying
all of her notes from Constantinople.
And she's like, I know something was wrong here.
And she's building graphs.
And she starts seeing a pattern.
And she's like, I think I figured out what happened.
The men at the Scutari Hospital
were ten times more likely to die
from an infectious disease than from a war wound.
That's why we failed. It was hygiene.
And she was like,
Cleanliness is next to godliness.
So she presents all of this analytical data
to Queen Victoria.
And in 1859, she wrote a book
called "Notes on Nursing."
Years go by,
and Florence uses the money that Queen Victoria gave her
to found the Nightingale School of Nursing,
which is the first nursing school
in the history of ever?
Nursing didn't exist until Florence Nightingale.
Also, when Florence Nightingale is 87 years old,
she received the Order of Merit
from Queen Victoria,
who still is kicking, and is like,
This fucking Florence is great!
She fixed a bunch of shit.
I like her moxie.
This was the first time a woman was ever awarded
the Order of Merit.
And that's a big fucking deal.
[burps] - Are you okay?
- Yeah, I burped. - I know.
That looked aggressive.
- It was not an aggressive burp.
- I mean, aggressive as in, like,
I wanna make sure you're not gonna throw up.
Okay? - You know I--I'm a lady.
- Oh. Curtsy.
- [British accent] C--curtsy.
Okay, you ready?
So Florence Nightingale was responsible
for pioneering an industry
and giving women a job and a purpose
that they weren't allowed at that time.
So what she did was really extraordinary.
And it's amazing.
159 years later,
her book is still used in hospitals today.
My math is not good.
It might be 170-something.
- Remember, it's 2019.
- Okay, I don't like math.
I want you to do it.
Not because you're a man. Well, kind of.
- Uh....
[patriotic music]
?