A warm welcome back to Heroes Behind the Badge where we

tell real stories about real cops.

We expose the fake news about the police, and we bring you the true facts.

Hi, I'm Dennis Collins.

I'm your host today.

I'm a founding director of Citizens Behind the Badge.

I'm a proud law enforcement father.

This podcast is brought to you by Citizens Behind the Badge, the

leading voice of the American people.

Support of the men and women of law enforcement citizens behind the Badge org.

Citizens behind the badge org.

You can get involved today.

Click on Citizens Behind the Badge.

Do org get involved with hundreds of thousands of fellow Americans who

are already supporting their police?

Okay, today, as always, we have a very special guest and, uh in order

to introduce him properly, let me introduce my colleagues As always,

Bill Erfurth and Craig Floyd.

Good morning gentlemen.

Morning.

Morning, sir. Mr. Er was formerly lieutenant er for 26 years with

the Miami Police Department.

A highly decorated, exciting, thrilling career.

Yeah.

And he is now a founding director of Citizens Behind the Badge.

And of course, of course, Craig Floyd.

You probably know Craig from the Law Enforcement Officer's Memorial.

He is the.

Founding director, CEO, emeritus of the Law Enforcement Memorial and the museum,

and he is the founder and our fearless leader of citizens behind the badge.

He's our CEO and President, and he's here today to join me with our guest.

Good morning, Craig.

Morning Dennis.

Good to be with you sir. As always.

Always good to be with both of you.

Uh, we always like to remind people and Billy Erfurth does this, well remind

our listeners, our viewers, about how they can help support this podcast.

Oh, we wanna make sure that everyone jumps on, uh.

Like and subscribe or follow at whatever different venue you use to listen to

your podcast or watch your podcasts, and that way you will get notified

immediately when the next podcast drops.

Absolutely.

And it also shows, uh, the podcast Gods of algorithms that you enjoy the content.

So if you enjoy, or like anything you hear in any of these podcasts, clicking

subscribe, or like, or follow will help.

Get us more response and that would be great.

Okay, so let's get to today's guest.

Little did he know when he volunteered for the drafts in late 1960s, right

in the middle of the Vietnam War, that his name would become famous forever.

Today's guest, Jan Scruggs.

He served in Vietnam as an army infantryman, spent most of his time firing

81 millimeter rounds at enemy targets.

But in May, 1969, he was in his first battle.

He was being evacuated by an armored unit.

He had a premonition that that day he was gonna get hit.

Well, unfortunately, the worst happened.

He was severely injured.

He thought he was near death.

As he was bleeding out, he said the Lord's Prayer, and he made a promise.

Look, God, if you can get me out of this mess here, I'll do something to pay you.

Back in 1979, Scruggs announced to the world that a national

memorial to the Vietnamese War veterans heroes would be built.

And two and a half years later.

In 1982, it became a reality.

Scruggs stood at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC and opened

it to a crowd of over 50,000 people.

A promise made, a promise, kept.

Some, wanted a war memorial.

Scruggs wanted to focus on the men and women, the people who had served and died.

And now the world can see the 58,279 names engraved forever on the wall forevermore.

Jan Scruggs, welcome to Heroes Behind the Badge Podcast.

Thank you for your service, but most important of all,

thank you for your vision.

The one thing I would like to ask you to kind of start as the story is told on

that fateful day when you were injured, when you were wounded, you had deployed

your poncho as a protective device that probably saved you from instant death.

Is that story true?

Yeah.

They were firing a rocket pro propelled grenades at us.

It's a little bomb about like that shoots through a bazooka and uh.

They fired three of them on all, all sides of me, but especially on my buttocks.

So yes, the, the shrapnel was so weak once, you know, once

everything started working that I was able to, uh, have a good day.

Uh, I got rescued by some, uh, Vietnam veteran guys and, uh,

this a crazy thing happened to me.

So, uh, anyway, we all interesting.

I think people, law enforcement and uh, military veterans have a

lot of things in common, no doubt.

Yeah.

A lot of dangerous situations I have to deal with that can come outta nowhere.

And, uh, so you least expect it.

Yes, you least expect it.

There's some guy with a 12 gauge.

But, but you were ready.

Thankfully you were ready.

And the story that we're gonna hear today, uh, is amazing.

It probably would've never happened if you weren't here.

So let's, uh, I know you and Craig Floyd have a long history together.

Let's, let's start off with Craig and, and kind of go over this amazing story.

Jan, uh, it's been a long time since we've been together, and

it's a privilege because it brings back such great memories of how Jan Scruggs,

the man who built the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, dedicated in 1982, became such a

helpful, supportive voice for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.

And Jan, I, I think really to get started, I, I called you.

Out out of the blue when we were struggling to build the National

Law Enforcement Officer's Memorial.

And I have to believe because of your success in 1982 that you probably

got a lot of calls, like, uh, the one you got from me asking for help.

How did you do it?

And I think, you know, does, let's start with.

What were the secrets to your success?

Nobody had built a national memorial in Washington, DC for many, many years.

I don't know the, the last one before yours, but it was probably,

you know, the Lincoln Memorial, the, uh, you know, Jefferson Memorial.

There were some big ones, but none really, uh, happened until 1982 all of a sudden,

Jan Scruggs, uh, is the man who built it.

What were the secrets to your success?

How in the world did you, uh, counter all, you know, all those obstacles,

uh, that were in your way and, and what were the secrets to, uh, the

Vietnam Veterans Memorial success?

The, the success of almost anything revolves around the team that

you put together to guide the project through the, the hurdles of Washington

National Capital Planning Commission.

All these different commissions look at you and, uh, and look at your project

and decide whether to approve it or not.

So, uh, we got some pretty good people involved.

The architect.

A.

The memorial itself is absolutely fantastic.

'cause it has two big lions, the African lions guarding each side and

showing that, uh, the general public and the police were on the same team.

So,

and that Ray Kaskey was our sculptor of those Lions, Kaskey.

Kaskey, that's the name, yeah.

Yeah.

Ray Kaskey and Davis Buckley was the architect, uh, that you

introduced us to, to build the National law enforcement officers memorial.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So let me, let me stop.

Lemme stop you there because this was an interesting part I wanted to get into.

Um, Maya Lin was the architect who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Correct.

And it was, you selected Maya Lin and her design through a design

competition that was open to dozens of architects all over the world.

Her, uh, design was selected when you advised me as to how we should select

an architect, how we should get a design for our memorial, which we didn't have

one at the time when I met you, um, you said you didn't want us to do a design

competition, that we should commission a single architect and basically work

with him and tell him what we wanted.

Uh, and then that was a better way to go.

Why, why did you tell us that when you had such great success with

your design competition for vie?

It just looked like this was gonna be a little more

difficult than the Vietnam thing.

You know, policemen in everybody's mind, you know, and when you wake up at night

and you know, worry what's going on here?

So.

Instead of go going the way we did with the Vietnam wall, we decided to go with

the idea of a different kind of wall, but very effective one that draws people in.

Not only veterans veteran police officers, but uh, really talented

people who keep us all safe for try two.

Made sense.

And I, I think you also mentioned, uh, the expense involved and the time

involved in getting a design, uh, selected and ultimately approved.

And I, I think everybody needs to understand that when you build a national

memorial in Washington, DC as you alluded to, there are a number of hoops you

have to jump through, especially with.

Design and site approval.

You have to go through the Commission of Fine Arts.

You have to go through the National Capital Planning Commission,

the Secretary of Interior, and the National Park Service.

I mean, it's one after the other and it can be a very lengthy process.

We only had five years.

When I called you in 1986, December, I said, Jan.

Look, you're, you're the man who did it.

Uh, we're struggling.

All right.

We, we were two years into the national law enforcement officer's

memorial authorization process.

Congress gave us five years to select a site to raise all the money, to get

a design approved and to ultimately start construction on our memorial.

We were struggling and the clock was ticking, and then I called you and we

had lunch and, and the rest is history.

You set us on the right path.

But, uh, but as you pointed out with your experience at Vietnam, you were

able to navigate a lot of those hurdles for us, and you became our first

full-time employee at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.

Uh, I don't think many people realized that, but it was Jan Scruggs who

really set us on the right path.

And, uh, yeah.

Tell me about your struggles.

I mean, how long did it take from beginning to end to build

the Vietnam Veterans Memorial?

Basically, uh, from beginning and end, it took three

years, which was outrageous.

I mean, we, they could have done a lot of things to stand in our way, but a

lot of people with these commissions recognize that this made sense.

This is something that affects a lot of people.

The idea of our personal freedoms and being.

Doing what we have anyway, I had the largest architectural design competition

held in the history of we Western civilization was for the Vietnam

Veterans Memorial by Maya Ying, win a, uh, Chinese American, a patriotic,

you know, she grew up in a little town in uh, Ohio, and they were the

only Chinese family in the, in Ohio.

So.

We with the right people, with a plan in place.

And, you know, I was, I was off to, I just decided I was gonna be the world's

most successful 42-year-old lawyer.

And I said, uh, so I went to law school, which was a total bust, but

uh, I came back to where I started and Li Life's been very good to me.

So, so Craig, let me jump in and let's, yeah, go ahead talk a little

little bit about, about the backstory.

So, as you were saying, you had five years that you were able to get this project

off the ground to establish a national law enforcement officer's memorial.

The backstory is that you were working on Capitol Hill, you were an aide,

uh, Mario Biaggi was a congressman, and, and you were, you were basically

tapped to go and and do this.

So you had five years, as you had mentioned, you, you were two years

into this, you were struggling and hadn't really come together

and you reached out to Jan, but I don't know the connection there.

So how was it that you and Jan at that point came together and

how did that change everything after those first two years?

So it, it was a, one of our board members, alright,

his name is Ray Pazuello.

Uh, he was with the turn order police in Rhode Island and he

was on our board of directors.

And uh, we looked at each other one day, all of us sitting around the

table saying, you know, what can we do to get this, uh, thing going?

'cause we weren't getting any traction after two years, I think

we had raised $44,000 and we knew it was gonna cost multiple

millions of dollars to get it done.

We didn't have a site, we didn't have a design.

And uh, Ray said, you know what, Jan Scruggs built the

Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Uh, why don't you give Jan a call and see if he might be willing to share some

of his advice, his secrets of success.

So I picked up the phone.

I I managed to find your phone number, Jan. I don't remember how I did that.

Uh, called Jan up, said, Hey, would you mind having lunch with me?

We went up to Capitol Hill one day, had lunch.

He was very willing to meet and, uh, was very, uh, generous with

his advice over lunch that day.

And Jan, I, this is an interesting point.

Uh, I think the main message, uh, that I remember from that lunch is.

Craig, you'll never be successful building this memorial of yours for police.

Unless you treat it like a full-time job, you're not gonna be able

to do it on a volunteer basis.

And as Bill uh alluded to, I was working at the time for Congressman Mario Biaggi.

Uh, I was doing a lot of other things besides building the National Law

enforcement officer's memorial.

And, and Jan said, you know, you gotta have an office, you gotta have,

uh, people working on this 24 7.

And uh, Jan became our first full-time employee of the National Law

Enforcement Officer's Memorial Fund.

He said he had about eight months before he was gonna go to law school.

And he'd love to come and help us out.

And Jan, I I don't realize, uh, uh, to this day exactly why you chose us.

Uh, like I said earlier, I'm sure you got a lot of opportunities to

help other memorials, or at least people that dreamed of building

a memorial came to you for help.

And, uh, yet you chose us and, and you gave us eight months of your time and,

uh, really, uh, got this thing rolling.

Um, we never would've done it without you.

Did, do you remember that lunch?

Do you remember those early days?

It was a long time ago.

I remember the, the passion that I felt listening to, to you talk

about it, is that if anybody was the right person for the job, this was for you.

And, uh, so you and I together put.

What we needed.

We didn't have much, but we had a little bit.

And, uh, we started, uh, the, the process and, and found that very few people

really wanted to stand in our way.

We had more friends than enemies.

And, uh, off we went.

And I think one of the things you, you told me also is, um, you

know, we needed to get a site selected.

Um, and you eventually introduced me to a guy named Davis Buckley,

who, uh, has worked hand in glove with me for, I don't know.

Oh yeah.

He worked with me for over 30 years building the National Law Enforcement

Officers Memorial, but also the National Law Enforcement Museum.

And you said Davis might be the right guy for the job.

And then the three of us, you, Jan, Davis, Buckley, myself, representing the

board of directors for the Memorial Fund.

Um, we went after something rather bold.

The Park service at that point in time had visions of any new memorials to

anyone should be on Memorial Drive leading up to Arlington National Cemetery.

Right?

And they were gonna give us a little hedge row where we could build a a statue.

Um, but we wanted something much grander, and you're the one.

I think that as much as anybody said, why don't we think of something bold,

get their attention, even if we're not successful, um, we'll get, we'll let

'em realize we want something bigger than just a hedgerow on Memorial Drive.

Together, we came up with an idea to build the national law enforcement

officer's memorial on the ellipse, which is that grand piece of property with the

national Christmas tree sitting there.

Yeah.

Between the White House and the Washington Monument.

And that did get their attention.

Did it not Jan.

It did It indeed.

And, and I think you've made, kind of set the model for

that because you did the same thing for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

You said, we're not gonna have a hedgerow on Memorial Drive.

We want something grand.

Yes.

Uh, and you got the site right next to the Lincoln Memorial, which uh, I'm

sure a lot of other people would've loved to have that same site, and

somehow you were able to get it done.

That had to be a quite a challenge.

Yeah.

And you're.

These seminal events in American history, the Vietnam War, and the

Civil War, and you're making a, a memorial that's relevant today, not

just yesterday, but today because people's lives are affected by it.

But yes, uh, you know.

We did it.

I can't believe we pulled,

can't believe we pulled this thing off.

But, uh, with, because we didn't have a lot of time, we didn't, you

know, you look at your calendar every day and say, are we gonna do

this in another three years or not?

Go down to history as a bunch of CLOs and, uh.

We, we did a, a great job, especially Craig Floyd is a very interesting

people we dealt with in the law enforcement community, and he has a

very good ability to talk to people.

You know, he doesn't talk down to them.

He engages in very well individually.

So that's a, that's a good trait to have generally,

I think you had it in spades.

Yeah.

Names.

Talk to me about the names.

All right.

Until you built the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, all the other monuments

and memorials in Washington didn't really have names on them.

Names of the fallen heroes from that war, or in our case, from the, the, the

war on crime, the, the law enforcement officers of this country who have

given their lives in the line of duty.

Um, how were you able to get, I don't know, 56,000 plus names?

Um, how did you compile that list, number one, and how were you able to

get them, uh, inscribed on a memorial wall and get that design approved?

Yeah, we had, uh, some pretty big challenges facing us, but

basically we could get, we felt we could get the the names we wanted for

the law enforcement memorial using the same tactics that we did, uh, earlier.

This was really important for the project in law enforcement.

Community Done in a very nice way.

Uh, you don't hear big problems with this thing or people gathering

and, uh, it, it's just, just done.

Its, its job very well.

Yeah.

So Jan, you're the man and, uh, you got this done.

I, I don't think there's anyone that doesn't know about the

Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

There's some people that we still have to reach out to and

we gotta let them know about the National Law Enforcement Memorial.

It's just not as, as prominent per se, but here we are, we're talking

about this and, and you're going back with Craig back to the eighties

and here we are today in 2025.

Still, you have these massive events.

You have, and I, and I might might not be saying this, right, I'm trying to go off

the top of my head, but you have these angel flights or, or what, what Yes.

Called specifically where these elderly Vietnam veterans are being escorted

and brought back every year to the, to the memorial in DC and then every year,

and it's coming up right now in May.

Uh, you've got 30 or 40,000 law enforcement, uh, officers from

around the country and others that show up for National Police Week.

The legacy of both of these things now that you've been involved in, uh, just

continue to thrive and continue to live.

Talk about maybe one of your most rewarding, memorable experiences.

Well, just, you know, we had major.

National controversy surrounding the design of this memorial.

These were very organized, uh, targeted people and, uh, they were

trying to grab our construction permit from us and so forth.

So I think probably the most interesting thing that.

Came our way was that, uh, we built the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at the

time of Ronald Reagan, and he was the president of the United States.

You know, we all had a chance to meet a very nice fellow and uh, we

were able to persuade him that, you know, give us a construction permit.

Permit, needs a construction permit.

If you give us a construction permit, we will have this built in several months.

And, uh, so we, we left and we hired a another, well, we didn't really hire

him, a guy who was volunteering his time.

He was a White House fellow at the time, west Point graduate with a, with an MBA.

I mean, these guys are really very talented.

So, uh, the opponents to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial knew where to get

us with the Secretary of the interior.

And they said, uh, yeah, they went to the secretary of the interior's office.

He was traveling at time and told them that we needed this construction

permit and we needed it now.

And they said, uh, they went and met with him separately and

they said, but we forgot to tell you the most important thing.

We have the ear and the complete support of Ronald Reagan, the

President of the United States.

He wants this done and he wants it done now.

Now, of course, we were kind of bullshitting him a little

bit, but he fell for it.

Now did you get, did you get to meet Reagan?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He came there in, uh, 1980 three.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And what did he say to you about your accomplishment?

Brought his, he brought his wife and uh, uh, just, uh.

Being with, with a historical figure like that.

It was a, a nice feeling.

But once, yeah.

And what did he say to you specifically?

We were going 90 miles an hour, man.

We had, uh, bulldozers and heavy equipment ripping the mall up

so that nobody could change it.

I mean, they big holes in the ground.

It looked like a, a war zone.

But, uh, we had to beat these guys and, and we did.

And, you know, not all of 'em.

And what, and, and Jan, what did Reagan say to you?

What was your interaction with him?

Our interaction was, uh, we had a couple of one meeting

in the White House and one of these guys, his name is Tom Shaw.

He, uh, he was a fantastic leader, so we had people like that and, and I

think the president saw that this was going to be, it may be a little bit of

a risk, but let's, let's see if this works and give these guys a break.

So he is.

I'm all in Ronald Reagan.

Not, not everybody likes him, but, uh, he doesn't, he doesn't have a lot of enemies.

You don't hear a lot, a lot of people complaining about Ronald

Reagan and back in the days of Ronald Reagan, people were more simple.

Yeah.

That's awesome, Craig?

I just wanna maybe close with a comment and a question.

Uh, the comment being that I think people need to understand that Jan Scruggs not

only built the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, but he was responsible in many ways,

directly and indirectly, uh, with things like the Korean War Memorial that got

built, uh, years later, the World War II Memorial, which had never, they never

had a memorial in Washington DC Yeah.

And, um, ultimately, uh, the National Law Enforcement Officers

Memorial, among many others that followed after his success in 1982.

So, Jan, you, you have truly, uh, accomplished quite a bit in your life.

My friend, I, I wanna close with this question.

This is the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam veterans or Vietnam War.

Um, and, you know, it's many years since the memorial has been built,

honoring those veterans who died there.

Um, reflect, uh, just for a moment as we close out on the war itself, your memories

of the war, what you think about the war today and, um, and, and how much of an

impact do you think the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has made on this country?

Yes, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is very inclusive.

It pulls people in to see it.

You know, when you go see the great monuments of Washington, you go see the

Lincoln and George Washington Memorial.

Fantastic.

But in order to appreciate them, you've gotta go back about 300 yards far enough

away that you can see the whole structure.

So, uh, fantastic.

Uh, we also, we were the guys who came up with the idea of

Memorial for the, uh, survivors of

Iraq and Afghanistan as well.

That's on the chopping block Now.

There there's going to be one, they have a night, a good staff, and, and, uh, the.

They'll have, they'll have a nice design.

So we're not leaving anybody, we're not trying to cr create the entire

world memorials or anything like that.

Uh, it's just, just a really nice thing to do and you get a feel that you're

doing something that is good for the nation, often are often divided nation.

Well, let me just close by saying Jan, uh, you know, you've done

many, uh, great things in your life.

Certainly the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is at the top of the list, but, uh,

you're also a hero behind the badge because if not for you, uh, I don't

think we would have a national law enforcement officer's memorial today.

I think it some point we might've had to give it up.

Um, but you said it straight.

We were successful.

And today, uh, our National Law Enforcement officers memorial is,

is very impactful, as is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in terms of healing

for the surviving family members of officers, uh, who died in the line of

duty, as well as an appreciation that in your case, was not shown to Vietnam

veterans when they returned from the war.

Uh, and I think, uh, the same is true of police officers in this country.

I don't think they've been appreciated nearly enough by this country, but those

two memorials have made the difference.

Today people do appreciate those soldiers who fought in Vietnam

just as they appreciate the men and women in law enforcement who are

serve and protect our communities every day at great personal risk.

So thank you, my friend.

It's been great to reminisce and uh, I wish you well and, uh, again, a

big thank you for all you did, uh, to support law enforcement in this country.

Uh, thank you for your big role.

You did this, uh, on your own.

You didn't have much in, in the way of staff, but you, you've, you've,

you stopped the guys at the, at the gates, so it was very good.

We had some, uh, we opponents as well.

The law enforcement memorial.

But anyway, we beat them back and everything's fine.

So God, not easy.

The 50th anniversary is coming up, are these

right?

War in Vietnam and other wars, but uh,

wow.

Hard to believe, isn't it?

Yeah.

Hey Jan. Uh, thanks for joining us on Heroes Behind the Badge.

This is a story that needed to be told and thanks for telling it.

Also, thank you for your service.

Thank you for your amazing vision of how to memorialize

the people who count the heroes.

And most important, thank you for your help in making the National Law

Enforcement memorial, um, a, a reality.

A place where we never forget.

We'll never forget our war heroes, our Vietnam War heroes, and we'll

never forget our heroes behind the badge in no small part.

Thanks to you

Heroes.

Behind the Badge podcast, we tell the real stories about real cops.

We expose the fake news about the police.

We give you the real truth.

You've been listening to another episode.

We invite you to join us often.

The best thing you can do, is hit subscribe.

Hit like, hit follow.

Uh, that tells the gods of the algorithms that you liked.

Something you heard today.

If you enjoyed something that Jan had to say, which I think would be

easy to enjoy and appreciate, give us a click, give us a subscribe, a

like a follow, and that will help.

It'll also make you the first to know when a new episode launches.

As you know, this podcast is brought to you by Citizens Behind the Badge.

We're the leading voice of the American people in support of the

men and women of law enforcement.

You can join the hundreds of thousands of Americans already lending

their support to law enforcement.

You can make contributions on the citizens behind the badge org.

The contributions help for us to advocate.

For law enforcement to advocate for law enforcement, that's

citizens behind the badge.org.

And don't forget, hit follow, subscribe, or like on the app

you use to view this podcast.

You'll be the first to know about our next episodes, which

will be coming up very soon.

Again, thanks to Jan Scruggs, our guest.

Thanks to Bill Erfurth, Craig Floyd, my colleagues.

This is Dennis Collins signing off for this edition of Heroes Behind the Badge.