>> The Vietnam War
was a horrible, horrible weight
to put on the backs
of teenagers.
What did you do
to a generation of people?
Boy.
>> I think it's important for
everybody to tell their story.
The only thing we can
truly give each other
is our stories.
We need to share those.
This attitude
that men aren't supposed to cry.
There's plenty to cry about,
so what's the issue here?
Anyway.
But see, I didn't cry myself.
Or, I didn't have any emotions
except anger.
I was either numb or pissed off,
you know, for years
and years and years.
>> One thing about combat,
is that you don't have a choice
to learn, to live through it.
And also, you don't have
a choice when you come home,
to learn new ways.
You're different.
You've changed.
One of the tragedies of Vietnam,
and I mean, it's a tragedy,
is that even today,
there are a lot of people,
including a lot of the veterans
that fought over there,
who don't fully comprehend
that it's hard to come back
out of it.
I mean, it's just too big.
( sighs )
>> Narrator: It was a divisive
war that some said America
could never win, while others
insisted we were
much too powerful to lose.
This is not the story
of the Vietnam War,
but of the the men and women
who went to Southeast Asia
to serve their country.
In the voices of a few,
resonate the stories,
each unique, each profound,
of the three million who served,
the ones who didn't return,
and those who have passed
before their stories
could be told.
Vietnam War Stories.
>> Vietnam War Stories
was made possible by
lead gifts from Associated Bank;
the Lynde and Harry Bradley
Foundation;
and Don and Roxanne Weber;
with major support
from the Ho-Chunk Nation,
the Elizabeht E. Doolittle
Charitable Trust,
Oshkosh Defense,
and from Wisconsin
Public Service Foundation,
Kwik Trip,
the Forest County
Potawatomi Foundation,
the Oneida Nation,
Ron and Colleen Weyers,
Philip J. and Elizabeth B.
Hendrickson,
with additional support
from The National Endowment
for the Humanities;
and others, a complete list
is available from PBS,
and the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting.
>> There was a draft program
for doctors.
You either had to go in
after your training was over,
or risk that you
were going to be drafted.
I decided I didn't want
to be drafted into the Army,
and I liked to fly.
So, I signed up
for the Air Force.
I went to Flight Surgeon School.
They tried to teach a bunch
of dumb doctors how to march.
We took turns
marching the squad around.
I marched my squad
right into a fence.
( laughs )
>> My dad was a Tuskegee Airman.
And my earliest recollections
are of being at and on airbases
and around airplanes.
And the only thing I ever wanted
to do was to fly airplanes,
and fly in the Air Force,
and to fly fighters.
That was my one goal in life.
And it turned out
that I'm heterozygous
for the sickle cell.
That eliminated me
from the program
to become an Air Force pilot.
But I knew about Vietnam.
I can recall listening to
reports about the domino effect,
that we had to stop
the Communists.
And that if we didn't,
the North would sweep down
and engulf the South,
and the South would fall.
I bought it.
Tradition of service,
the country calls you,
you respond, so I joined.
>> President Johnson decided
he needed to eliminate
some of the flow of supplies
from North Vietnam
to South Vietnam.
He decided to start a bombing
campaign against the North,
"Operation Rolling Thunder."
But it was done with the pilot's
hands tied behind their back,
in that they were limited
as to what they could hit
and what they couldn't.
We might hit a Russian and
drag the Russians into the war.
>> I personally never dropped
a bomb.
But I was dedicated
to doing everything I could to
keep the weapons systems going,
which I did.
The unit went on Temporary Duty
to Thailand,
the Royal Thai airbase at Korat.
So I volunteered to go.
And this was a time when
we were not officially there.
We were not allowed to take any
photographs in the flatland.
We were not allowed to talk
about what was going on.
"Training missions."
These training missions
were anything but.
We were bombing as early
as the spring of 1965.
Meanwhile, the Chinese and the
Soviets helped the Vietnamese
put together very good defenses.
>> A flight of four
F4-C fighters had been attacked
by a SAM missile
for the first time.
Knocked two of them
out of the sky,
damaged the third one severely,
and the fourth one
was able to return to base.
So what they did was programmed
a mass gaggle, 48 airplanes, to
go after one SAM missile site,
and show the North Vietnamese
that, you know, who was boss.
>> 1965, we had a lot of losses,
just a lot of losses.
I mean, the pilots' situation
involved flying 100 missions,
or a year, whichever came first,
then rotating.
And I can remember one friend,
Carl Richter.
Carl completed his 100 missions,
and he volunteered
to go a second 100.
Volunteered.
Didn't have to.
>> All the airplanes we had
were in the air.
As it turned out,
it was a sting operation
by the North Vietnamese.
They set up a bunch of
white painted telephone poles,
and an active radar site,
and that's what we sent
48 airplanes after.
They had every gun
in North Vietnam pointed at us.
One of my pilots said
it looked like a Fourth of July
celebration gone bad.
We only lost six airplanes.
But six airplanes
is six airplanes.
And it's six pilots.
>> It's kind of difficult,
'cause it brings--
( sighs heavily )
It was when Carl Richter
was lost.
And I can remember,
we were in the shack.
And we were getting reports
on the radio,
because he was shot down.
And they were trying to hold off
the Vietnamese soldiers
while they tried to pick him up.
And they did pick him up.
I can remember
we were just elated.
Everybody just went crazy.
Unfortunately, he had suffered
really severe injuries.
He had ejected at very a high
speed, and he went into shock
and died on the helicopter
on the way back.
>> Frank Tullo
was shot down that day,
and was able to be extracted
from the jungle, picked up by
a Jolly Green Giant helicopter.
They got out of there
while they were being shot at.
He came back to Korat
the next day.
The whole squadron
was out there to meet him.
I took him to my dispensary.
He had a laceration
over his eye.
And I sewed that up for him,
and examined him, and
didn't find anything else
other than a whole lot
of North Vietnamese sweat
and dirt.
I sent him
to the Officer's Club.
Everybody got drunk that night.
>> I went to UW-Whitewater
for a year,
majoring in football and beer.
As a result,
they invited me to leave.
In those years,
not a whole lot of options.
I figured I'd enlist in the
one service that would get me
out of the country quicker,
before my dad found out.
So I joined the Marine Corps.
And they're the only ones
that promised they'd have me
out of town the next day.
>> I got in a little trouble
when I was a youth.
And my probation officer
was a Naval Reserve Officer.
And he thought it would
make a man out of me
if I joined the Navy Reserves.
So I thought I'd fool him,
and instead of getting a tan
in the Gulf of Tonkin
on a two-year Navy stint,
I joined the Marine Corps
for four years.
>> I had a hard time in school.
I was always the one
that got the lowest score
on any spelling test, or math.
And I grew up thinking that,
just, I'm a loser.
I'd been told that.
And you know,
you're not a good student.
You're not going to make it.
And so, you know,
I would get in fights.
The Marine Corps
turned my life around.
>> My older brother
was in the Marine Corps
right after Korea.
And I had an uncle that was
World War II Marines, you know,
the islands, Guadalcanal,
Palalua, and Okinawa.
So I just figured,
it's the thing to do.
So I joined.
Then after that, it was Vietnam.
Naval Gunfire Forward Observer.
They put us on O.P.s at night,
just me and the radio operator.
Whenever we really got
up against the enemy,
I had a ship on call,
and I'd call in Naval gunfire
and try to take care of them,
get 'em off us, kill 'em.
Basically, that's what we did.
>> Our job was essentially
to respond to where the
North Vietnamese would make
an assault on one battalion.
You'd stick a battalion out
in a field someplace, as bait.
Their job was to engage
and stay engaged.
And we'd come in behind them
and squeeze in between
the two of them.
Hammer and anvil tactics,
they called it in those years.
The Marines were in the north.
Marine Infantrymen
were assigned to a line company.
Your chance was one in one
to be killed or wounded.
That was the statistics.
And they were pretty accurate.
>> Quang Tri, Phu Bai,
Dong Ha.
Everything was just thrown
together into one mass blur,
which was 90% boring
and 10% chaotic.
I guess chaotic might be
putting it a little
blandly.
>> Gosh, you know, here you are.
You're trained,
but this is for real.
They said you're going to be
reporting up on an outpost
called Con Thien,
on the very northern tip
of South Vietnam,
the demilitarized zone.
>> There was no color.
Everything was blown apart,
because they had
Agent Oranged it all.
They had burnt it all.
I mean, we walked out of this
greenery, and your whole world
went black and white.
I remember it just like
we're sitting there today.
I went, what is this about.
>> The DMZ was a line on a
map, six miles south
of the Ben Hai River
and six miles north
of the Ben Hai River.
It's six miles on their side
of the line, six miles
on our side of the line,
which were demilitarized.
( laughs )
>> They kept dropping mortar
rounds.
That went on for hours.
And we knew we were in
for a long night.
Then they started
with the ground forces.
They just kept coming
and coming.
>> That's when it turned into
a different war.
Because the North Vietnamese,
they basically wanted
to come down across the DMZ.
They did not want
to do the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
And the Marine Corps
wasn't going to let 'em.
You know, it was multi,
multi troops.
I mean, 4,000 or 5,000 at a time
would come down
across the river.
And we were up there
trying to stop 'em.
>> My squad leader,
he'd been there
for almost ten months.
I made up my mind
when I got over there,
to do whatever he told me,
because he had survived.
We called him Sergeant Rock.
He came out to get me
out of my fox hole,
because they were going
to be over-running the area.
And as we were running back
inside the perimeter, you know,
a mortar round came in--
( voice breaking )
And killed him.
>> When you're in a firefight,
and someone is injured or
killed, you don't have the time
or the capacity to grieve,
or to cradle them,
or give comfort.
But then when it's over,
is when everything hits you.
The adrenaline
starts to wear off,
and the reality sets in.
The pain that you've seen
on your fellow Marine's face,
or the vision of
a Vietnamese's head exploding,
because you shot him in the eye.
No time during the firefight,
but afterwards, much reflection.
Much reflection.
>> I survived the night.
Most of the rest didn't.
I have no idea why.
You know, those things
change you forever.
>> Uh, that was it.
That was the real stuff
up there.
It was just horrific.
If that's a word
that even describes it.
It had every aspect
that there was to have.
The body mutilation,
the trench warfare,
the artillery.
It had it all.
Thousands against thousands.
You know, it was just--
>> We got over-run.
It was an interesting night.
But it's the next morning, where
you are having a cigarette,
and the sun was coming up.
And I had a C-ration can,
made a cup of coffee,
instant coffee.
I just remember,
I picked up the coffee,
and my hand was shaking so bad
it splashed.
I put the other hand up to
take a drag off the cigarette,
and I could hardly find
the cigarette.
I still have this dream
about that morning,
smoking that first cigarette
and that first cup of coffee,
and how it felt so good
to be alive.
It was--
It's one of those things
that will always be with me,
and will come back
at the strangest of times.
>> Flying with the
1st Cav Division, we were
the first Airmobile Division in
the Army, a wholly new concept.
Here we had the capability
with this Huey to completely
support a soldier with aircraft.
Put soldiers in by air.
Supply 'em by air.
Reinforce 'em by air.
Medevac 'em by air.
Give 'em fire support.
Close air support by air.
And the stars just lined up
for that type of warfare.
>> I was not much for flying.
I didn't like heights.
When I went over in a boat,
I said to myself, "Self, you've
never really committed yourself,
and the Army wants you to be
a helicopter mechanic,
and a crew chief
that flies all the time.
You've got to get your butt off
of this being afraid of heights
and stick it out."
That's kind of what I did.
>> Some people told me
I was the number one gunner
in the outfit.
I was flattered about that.
but it was scary to me
up and to the point,
it's like when I would
pull that trigger.
Then it's like, when you pull
that trigger, that fear
would kind of go out of you.
Then when you come back in and
you're picking up the wounded,
some guys are holding their guts
inside, or some guy is hanging
onto his leg, because he doesn't
want to leave his leg in the LZ.
And you try to not let that
interfere with what your job is,
or what you're trying to do.
War is horrifying.
It's not glorifying.
>> I was flying the UH-1, the
Huey, and we had a crew of four,
a pilot in command, a co-pilot,
a crew chief and a gunner.
Armament, all we carried was
an M-60 machine gun on each side
that the crew chief and
the gunner each had
to keep everybody's head down
while we inserted our infantry.
They liked
riding in a helicopter.
Sat with legs dangling
out the side of the aircraft,
completely unrestrained,
flying along at 1500 feet
and 90-100 knots.
I don't ever recall, ever,
anybody falling out.
Getting in close,
they were standing on the skid.
As soon as we got close enough,
they were on the ground
and gone.
This thing
was a well-oiled machine.
It's just unbelievable.
Everybody knew what to do,
and did it.
>> We usually went in
from 1500 feet,
and went into the LZ, ten of us,
tried to land all ten of us
at the same time.
And the faster you can get down,
the harder it is for them
to hit you.
It was a wild ride.
Coming off of 1500 feet is
like riding a roller coaster.
We came in at about a couple
hundred feet, they would say,
"Door gunners, open up!"
So we would just, whatever
looked like would hide somebody,
we shot at.
>> We just hit the treetops
and then we got nailed
with an RPG, just blew
the front of the ship apart.
And we kind of come to
a skidding halt.
And the crossfire
was horrendous.
The first 30 seconds,
like 50 of the guys got killed.
Just so bad.
They were waiting for us.
All this banging,
and yelling and screaming.
And I've got to get Timmy out,
my pilot.
Damn near ripped the door off.
And I just kind of lift him up,
and then I had my hand, which is
on the airframe over here,
but then all this got blown out.
I took my arm here,
and tucked it inside my pants.
And then I got the Thompson
and then skid
around the chin of the chopper.
And you can hear 'em chattering.
They're trying
to take my 60 off.
I yelled at them.
They looked at me, and--
end of that story.
>> You could look out there,
and you could just see
a sea of red tracers.
The sergeant running the pad,
he says, we've got a couple guys
out there that are hit, and
we're not getting ammunition to
the guys out there on the end.
"Would you hover out there
and kick off ammunition?"
I says, "Let me talk
to the crew."
I told them
what they asked us to do.
The crew chief
made the decision.
He said, "Well, if I was out
there, not getting ammunition,
and some candy ass helicopter
pilot wouldn't bring it out,
I'd be pretty pissed.
Saddle up, boys."
>> Then I turned and
looked over, and
I could see the pilot
was looking back at me.
I could see the red dots
on the visor.
And he finally said
the door gunner's hit.
I unhooked my belt
and climbed over the seat,
and there was blood
all over the helicopter.
The blood comes from the back
and flies forward.
>> That's when I got hit
in the leg.
And there was a period from when
I went down to the one knee,
till I got back in the gunwell.
How I got there, I have no idea.
I knew I had to
get back to my 60.
Then you could see the VC
were kind of gathering up,
making a human wave attack.
They started coming,
raking back and forth.
They were dropping four
or five feet, right in front.
They'd do that a couple times.
They couldn't penetrate.
I ran out of ammo.
I had my .45.
Just then something out of
my peripheral, I jumped back.
I go, whoo, you know.
So instead of sticking me in the
guts, he stuck me in the leg.
I eliminated the elements
and had to pull a bayonet out.
Then finally,
they dropped troops
about half a click from us.
They worked their way
towards us, to one side.
That's how we got help.
>> And we took ground fire,
small arms.
It shot the engine out,
came up through the floor
and hit me in the leg.
We were going down.
The aircraft
tumbled through the trees.
And it landed, luckily,
it landed right side up.
But we were all in bad shape.
I remember very little of this,
but I jettisoned my door.
I jumped out and I fell down.
And I don't remember anything
after that.
And they said when I jumped out,
the bones of my left leg were
sticking through my flight suit.
That was the last time
I saw Vietnam.
>> I remember one time
we called out into the jungle.
We got there and there was
seven bodies laying out there.
Ponchos don't like
to stay closed in the air
at 100 miles an hour.
There were a lot of gray faces
and blue faces.
They don't really teach you
much about that
in helicopter school.
The worst one for me,
KIA picking up.
It was the first one.
A. Gonzalez, his name was.
Never forgot it.
I forgot my roommate's name,
the pilots' names, all that.
But I never forgot his name.
>> Should I have been dead?
Probably.
That's what they tell me.
And here I am.
You know, just blown
to smithereens, and shot,
and bayoneted.
I still function.
Guys I fought with, some of
them, I don't know who they are,
are the ones
that put me in for this.
I wear it for the guys
that aren't here.
I wear it for you.
I'm just a caretaker,
that's all I am.
I'm just a soldier
trying to do a job.
>> I was the first one to put
my hand up when they asked
for volunteers for Vietnam.
We were the first River Division
over there, which was
something I didn't hear of.
And apparently,
that's what I volunteered for.
In World War II,
most people remember the boats
going up on the beach,
dropping a ramp,
and the army guys running off.
That's exactly what we were on.
However, this boat
was totally re-fitted.
It was our job to get the army
where we knew there was
heavy concentration
of North Vietnamese,
give 'em gun support
and medical evacuation.
Complete evacuation
when the operation was over,
or if something went wrong.
>> The boats that I was on,
we went up some rivers
where the boats were longer
than the river was wide.
And we had to pull up
onto the beach and back down
just to turn around.
But my boat, being equipped
with a helicopter pad,
we were the medical aid boat
for the division.
And my job, when we brought in
the helicopters, I'd have to
get out of my gun mount,
go up and stand on the corner
of the flight deck, and wave
the pilot in to set down.
He couldn't actually see,
because the nose of the
helicopter was over the edge.
I got orders for swiftboats.
The delta area
where I was stationed,
there was no highways.
To get from village to village,
you had to go by boat.
And we were supposed to patrol
and prevent any infiltration
of supplies, medical supplies,
food, ammunition to the VC.
They would try to sneak it in
via the ocean.
Our job was to stop that.
>> Went to
the Westchester County.
We had about 120 in the ship's
company, and the LSTs had
that unusual mission, you know,
of being able to navigate
the waters of the Mekong.
Far up into the delta, where
other Navy ships could not go.
The armored gunboats,
the tangos, would tie up
alongside the LST, refuel,
meals, try to repair.
And at night they would circle,
drop grenades in the water
to try to keep the Viet Cong
from being able to swim out
there and do damage with mines
or explosive charges.
>> We helped each other.
It wasn't Army, Navy.
It was Riverine Force.
If the Army
was still on the boats,
they'd get their guns out there.
And one side or the other side,
sometimes both sides
of the boat, we had shooting.
Because at a top speed
of less than ten miles an hour,
we had to fight our way
out of any situation.
>> Very few missions that we
went on, did we go in and out
without receiving fire.
One time, something
out of the corner of my eye
just caught my attention.
I look up, and here was
a mortar shell going up,
and I was just mesmerized by it.
And then it started coming down,
and then it dawned on me,
exactly what was going on.
I thought, "Oh, hell!"
I ran and I dove right through
the opening of the gun mount!
And back up, firing away.
>> Once you started
running the rivers,
invariably you were going
to get ambushed someplace.
For a while there,
I think 75% of the people
that were on the boats
were killed or wounded.
Everybody on my crew
was wounded at least twice.
I mean, the jungle
was right up to the riverbanks.
That's when Admiral Zumwalt
ordered the use of Agent Orange.
After they had sprayed it,
you swore you were on the moon.
There was nothing alive,
just incredible.
But it did move
the VC back further.
>> Early morning hours,
two tremendous explosions,
and they had managed
to get out there.
Frogmen fastened targets
on both sides of the ship.
The worst damage
of any Navy ship in the war.
Many, many people dead.
Many, many people hurt.
It was just, try to find them
and get the ones that were alive
out of there if we could.
You could hear people
struggling to get out.
They died, I suppose.
We just couldn't get to them
in time.
Everybody fought back
with everything they had, and...
( voice breaks )
It was a hard thing to do.
>> We'd drop them off
at first light,
help them off the boat.
And then we would just stay
in the area.
And when they confronted
any enemy action,
they would radio back to us.
And if we could help with
the machine guns or the mortars,
that was our immediate duty.
Then there were times where
the Viet Cong resistance was
bigger than what we expected.
And they knew
they could not cross the river
because of the boats.
Then they would fight back
through the Army.
And it was always a very
depressing day when you knew
that you were supposed to...
pick up 40 guys
and only 20 show up.
>> Being the medical aid boat,
we still had our fire fights,
and we got to deal
with the wounded.
Some of it bad, but we were
part of the getting them out,
and getting them to safety.
I've seen enough blood and gore
to last me a lifetime.
>> I remember talking
to Admiral Zumwalt
at one of our reunions.
His son was on swiftboats, and
he ended up dying from cancer
from exposure to Agent Orange.
He said if he had to do it
all over again, he'd still do
it, because it gave us
30 more years to live,
even though a lot of us
suffer from exposure to it.
We were young and dumb,
and we didn't know what
the effects would be of it.
We would tie our clothes
on a rope, and throw them in the
prop wash when we were running.
It's the only way we had
of cleaning our clothes.
Here, the river
was full of Agent Orange,
the riverbanks were,
and it just, we didn't know it.
>> All my memories of Vietnam
just focus right back
on that one night.
And I had thought
that when I got older,
it wouldn't bother me anymore.
But it does, it gets worse.
And no matter how hard I try,
I can't shake that guilt.
I've had the chance
to have a good life.
And they never did.
They never had a chance.
>> And of course, word had
gotten around that there were
build-ups all over the place.
That was -- in the delta,
leading into Tet.
I don't think anybody
had any idea
it was going to be that bad.
Because I think they would've
been better prepared,
and dealt with it better.
We were incredulous,
areas that we could go through
normally, you know,
all of a sudden,
there were all kinds of enemy.
>> I was an advisor
to the Vietnamese.
Pretty impressed
with the corps staff.
Very well-grounded
in what they were doing.
Things were looking pretty good
in November.
Things got a little tight
in December.
And in the Danang area,
we started seeing
a lot of activity to our west.
It kept building and building
during January.
It was clear that something
was going to happen,
somewhere along the way.
>> The South Vietnamese,
untold by people that know now,
were pretty much wise
to what was going to go on.
They knew that this wasn't
going to be what the Americans
thought it was going to be,
there was going to be
a cease-fire for that holiday.
They had fully intended
to try and overrun
as many places as they could.
>> I was assigned as the X-O
for a special forces camp.
We were a relatively small camp,
a few hundred indigenous troops.
But they sent like a battalion
along with, I think, as many
as 17 tanks to attack our camp.
And we lost that one.
>> I was asleep in a bunker,
and all of a sudden I hear this,
"Any station this net,
any station this net?
We're being overrun.
We've got gooks on the wire."
And I looked into
where the radio operator was,
and he was sleeping.
So I got up, I went over,
and I got on the radio.
I just said,
"This is 7-4-3 Charlie,
can I get any assistance?"
And the guy keys the mic again,
and you can just hear
this horrific battle raging.
>> The morning of Tet,
we got awakened at about 4:30.
The first thing that I noticed
when I got to the compound
was that there were
South Vietnamese army forces
up on the back wall.
And they were firing off
the back wall with rifles
and machine guns.
And I figured that probably
was not something that
they were doing for practice.
>> And there was a tank
that was probably 15-20 yards
away from us,
just sitting there pointed.
And then he fired at us
with his main gun.
I got hit in the hip,
and it was like I was paralyzed,
I was down on all fours.
In fact, the colonel said,
"I think Wilkens has had it."
And I can't--
It's probably just a matter
of seconds, but I'm wanting
to say, "No, I haven't!"
And the colonel helped me.
And actually, we went underneath
the dispensary building.
Now it's in the middle
of the night, and they've
pretty much gained control
of the hill by then.
The NVA troops were in,
going through the dispensary.
They were basically walking
like six inches over our head.
>> It was bedlam.
And a lot of people killed,
a lot of people killed.
Then I was hit twice,
they came in with choppers
and got me out of there.
Here I am,
being taken to this aid station.
We get down there,
we get inside,
and we're told it's too hot,
we've got to get out of here.
So you've got to lift out
of an area like that.
And we did, and I was convinced
that was it, this is Waterloo.
>> He was in such dire straits
that he gave me the coordinates
to the center of his compound.
And he said,
"Start dropping them in and
walking them out to the wire."
I knew it was at Ca Mau.
Their main communication
got knocked out, and they
were on a jerry-rigged antenna
from the back of a Jeep.
And just because we were
on top of that hill,
that's why we heard them.
So I was relaying.
Called for artillery support.
"This is --7-4-3 Charlie,
give me some battery, one round,
on these coordinates."
>> The general walked over to
a map and took his swagger stick
and he pointed to the village
behind us.
He just said, "They're in there.
We need to get rid of 'em."
So for the better part
of a couple hours, the planes
at Danang would just take off,
make a left turn,
fly behind the compound,
drop their bombs, circle around,
land, get more.
That was the end
of the threat to Danang.
>> To the best of my knowledge,
the first
and one of the only times
that they ever used the tanks
in the entire conflict
in Vietnam.
There were 24 Americans in camp.
14 got out, 13 were wounded,
and ten were missing.
The A-team at --
was the most decorated A-team
in United States history.
>> The whole place was chaos.
Saigon itself was chaos.
Being taken by bus
from the hospital to the plane,
I don't think any of us
were confident
that we were out of it yet.
Got on that plane
and the old plane took off.
Then, we're thinking,
we're going to get shot down
at the end of the runway.
Oh, man.
When we lifted off
and we were out of range,
it was just an incredible,
incredible feeling.
I guess I'm going
to see tomorrow after all.
>> There was praise, I think,
for General Lam, in terms of
inside the Vietnamese circles,
nationally and locally,
for having saved Danang.
But there were other parts of
the country where it stayed hot
for a long, long time.
For the South Vietnamese,
it was a very tough time.
They just got hammered.
>> This was a very organized
military type of attack.
There was nothing amateurish
about it.
And in fact,
the entire Tet Offensive,
how many places they hit
with such force at one time?
It was really probably
a turning point in terms of,
if nothing else, respect
for the degree of military force
that they were able to employ.
>> Ca Mau was this
provincial headquarters.
There was only 50 guys there.
Overrun, 100% causalities,
23 of them dead.
35 years later, Christmas Eve,
I get an email that simply said
that he was Captain McMaken,
and he was the one that was
on the radio that night.
And that if it wasn't for
--7-4-3 Charlie, that there
wouldn't be anybody left.
That's heavy, you know.
And it's not for me,
it's for them.
There were a lot of guys
that didn't make it.
>> Some of the religious things
that we have,
have a lot to do with warriors.
And there were certain times
that I had heard these warriors
tell their stories.
I often listened to them,
and I never, ever really
gave it much of a thought.
It was something
that I accepted,
that perhaps one of these days
that I'm going to be doing that.
And I know my mother
always wanted to have a doctor
in the family, so I became
a corpsman with
the United States Marine Corps."
>> It was actually my intention
to become a sister when
I graduated from high school.
But in 1967, the Vietnam War
was hot and heavy,
protests were hot and heavy.
It moved me to a point of,
I was tired of the people
in the street
telling me how to think,
or the government
telling me how to think.
So at that moment I decided,
before I give my life to God,
I'd give three years of my life
to my country.
So when I graduated in June,
I joined the Army.
>> I signed up
into the medical corps.
And the flight going over
was terrible.
It was the most gut wrenching,
unnerving thing
you've ever sat in,
because everybody in that plane
knew where you were going.
Everybody knew
that not everybody in that plane
was going to come back alive,
or not injured.
It was surreal.
Civilian stewardesses,
cute gals, very friendly,
trying to give you some water,
or a pop, or a snack,
knowing that not everybody
would come back.
>> I worked for a two-star
general.
He said, "Your job in Vietnam
is only going to be six months.
Because the guy that
had it before you
had ten days left in 'Nam,
and went outside the hooch
and shot himself.
He couldn't deal
with the job anymore."
And there was only
two of us women
and 26 guys in the office.
But I was picked to do that,
handling of the dead.
How they were killed,
when they were killed.
And send the letters home.
>> And I never really talk
about the first six months
that I was in Vietnam.
I refuse.
All I'll say is, I survived.
One of the chief hospital
corpsman from MAAG 16
came to our unit,
and was looking for corpsmen
to volunteer to go fly medevacs.
That was the only time
in my entire military career
that I volunteered for anything.
>> Got to the WAC detachment
on Long Binh post.
Now, the WAC detachment,
there were about 7,500 or 8,000
women in Vietnam.
Most of them were nurses.
The rest of us were
enlisted women or officers
who worked in administration,
finance, communications.
I was at the Com Center,
the communications facility.
All the casualty reports
went out of our office.
>> One day, we were assigned
to a remains unit, for
deploying some of the fallen.
They had not been,
if I can use the term,
processed yet.
So they were still,
many of them were in body bags.
It was an old French
factory building.
And the first time I saw
the first Indiana Jones movie,
where you get to the end of
the movie, and the ark is being
hauled down this huge aisle,
and then the camera pans back
and you see how large
this building is, and you see
all these other crates that
look the same as that crate?
That's the same feeling I had.
>> It was a daily,
basically, all-day thing.
It never ended,
the letters going home,
having to send those.
There was nothing warm about
a form letter on my typewriter,
and I just added the name.
"Mr. and Mrs. John Doe,"
and "your son."
They were signed by
the government.
So you just--
It was a cold feeling.
I mean, you hated it,
but somebody had to do it.
>> When we would fly medevac,
we'd fly from 6:00
in the morning
till 6:00 in the evening,
then another corpsman
would come in and fly
from 6:00pm
to 6:00 in the morning.
There were hundreds,
hundreds, of wounded Marines
that I picked up.
I saw everything imaginable.
>> One day on the radio,
we picked up a squad
that was under attack,
that was asking for help.
And...
They didn't get it.
To helplessly listen...
was kind of tough.
I lost God over there.
So my idea of being a sister
after I got out
was out the window.
Of course, years later,
I was able to put all that
in the proper perspective.
>> You try to dehumanize it
as much as you can,
because if you don't,
you just can't get through it.
And then it revisits you
again, and again,
and again.
I call it the "demons."
And it will destroy you.
It will literally destroy you.
>> You had to keep the morale up
of the men,
even if you didn't feel it.
You had to be there for them.
I couldn't do anything
about protecting them there,
but all the ones
that I had to put away,
I guess the rest alive are mine.
I was just very
protective of them.
And I've always said,
"My soldiers, my buddies."
Always been.
I've said that ever since
I came home from Vietnam.
It's just me.
>> There were 15 of us
that went over to Vietnam
at the same time.
And there were only three of us
that came back.
I guess to be honest with you,
I really didn't want
to come home.
Because I was thinking,
"Who can take care of these guys
better than I can?"
The thing
I wanted to be remembered,
was that I was a good corpsman.
And I'd, you know, hope
that somebody would say,
"Well, Doc Thundercloud."
"Oh yeah, I remember him!
Damn good corpsman."
That's all I wanted.
>> It would get to the point
where a lot of choppers
would be coming in, and they'd
say, "It's going to be
a busy day tomorrow.
We're going to have
a lot of casualty reports," and
think of the people coming in
as work rather than people,
because it got too hard.
It got too hard.
That was what hit me
about the wall actually.
I processed names all the time,
and here are all these names.
That's when I lost it
the first time.
>> The year I was in Vietnam,
over 16,000 American
military personnel were lost.
It is staggering to me.
I think that works out
to about 40 or 50 a day.
>> There was a lot of battles
that we'd gone through.
And we had lost a number
of people.
And the powers that be said,
hey, these guys need some R&R.
Let's put them up here
at Eagle Beach.
Let them relax.
We were there for about a day
or two.
And from right there, after all
that relaxing, and good times,
they flew us out to Henderson.
I never had heard of Henderson.
When we landed there, one of the
worst firebases I had ever seen.
The jungle was right there.
I mean, I looked around
and I went,
there's no protection here.
Anybody could sneak up here
real quick.
You wouldn't see 'em
till it was too late.
You know, and that's exactly
what happened.
>> Ripcord was big time.
Big time.
We'd push up this hill.
I know two.
It was in view of Ripcord.
It made the hair stand up on the
back of my neck.
A lot of activity.
I mean, you really saw it.
What I expected, we were--
out of there, 'cause I know
they were going to be ticked.
And a lot of the old guys did,
too.
There was only a few of us, what
I call "old guys," that had been
there for quite a while,
you know.
And then we had a bunch of new
guys.
Our leader, at that time,
was a new guy, too.
We totally expected a booby
trap, and move off during
that night, but we didn't.
They said we were staying,
which kind of upset us.
I went down and dug my hole,
more deeper and bigger.
>> Fire Support Base Ripcord,
53 days we had incoming fire,
whether it'd be mortar rounds,
recoilless rifle.
A lot of artillery rounds being
fired in support.
And this is at the time they had
hatched this plan that as the
monsoons let up, they wanted
to attack the North Vietnamese
supply camps
in the A Shau Valley.
This was their territory.
The Companies we had out in the
field started taking significant
casualties and meeting
significant enemy opposition.
>> I turned and I yelled.
I said, "Hey, you guys
better wake up!
Something is happening."
And an instant later,
I saw a flash.
RPG hit five feet away from me.
It exploded.
I went up flying in the air.
I was upside down.
I landed on my head,
rolled over, got up real quick.
I was deaf.
I could see tracers flying
through the air.
I could see explosions,
but I couldn't hear anything.
>> All hell broke loose.
A wave of RPGs hit the command
post on the top.
And I mean, it was horrendous,
knocked me off my feet.
There they were right with us.
It was eyeball to eyeball.
They had broken through.
Screaming, cussing,
machine gun fire.
Everybody opened up.
I mean, it was a fight.
I popped that hand flare.
And what I saw coming up from
the east side up that saddle,
nothing but heads.
>> They attacked on Hill 902,
at 4:00am in the morning.
They crawled in under the cover
of darkness with satchel charges
and weapons.
And were above the perimeter,
and came pouring into the holes
while others were coming up
the trails and the hillside
into 'em.
>> Doc was just laying there
on his back.
It looked like he was asleep.
In fact, I thought he was.
I said, "Hey, Doc, get up."
And I tried to pick him up, and
the back of his head was gone.
I caught a round on the left
side of my head, which severed
an artery.
I mean, it just squirt
for about five feet.
And being a medic, knowing
that an artery had been severed,
you know, I'm bleeding to death
here.
I couldn't stop it.
Trying to take care of the guys.
The Lieutenant was dead.
Sergeant Steiner was dead.
And I looked for Ed Vesser,
my friend.
"Where the hell is Ed?"
I said, "I can't see him."
And he was blown, maybe 100 feet
down there, or he walked down
there.
I'm not sure how he got down
there.
But there he was down there,
laying there.
>> I heard Cooper.
I believe he was on Ripcord at
that time, calling on the radio.
Nobody answered.
Well, I knew that the CP
had been eliminated.
So I got on the radio.
And I told him we needed Cobras
now.
The Cobras did finally show up,
and I was happy as heck
about that.
But I wasn't real happy about
what I saw afterwards.
Radcliffe, a good friend of
mine, was gone.
Hewitt, Zoler, --, Lentz,
you know, Herndon, Barber...
>> I led the combat assault
out there to evacuate
the wounded and dead.
And one of the soldiers
who had been in my platoon,
all you could find was his boot
with his dog tag on it.
It was pretty brutal.
And we had the unenviable task
of trying to police up what was
left, and identifying what was
left.
>> I don't think I ever told
this to anybody.
But I hesitated to go down
there.
People are shooting at us.
You get so scared that every
cell in your body is just
terrified.
But he was my friend.
So, I crawled down there.
I got to Ed.
And the thing that I'll always
remember is he said to me,
"I knew you'd come."
Terrible.
I feel guilty about that.
Still do.
>> I don't consider it a loss.
We kicked their hind ends,
compared to what they did to us.
When we took off from the LZ
with the wounded, I looked down,
and there was bodies of NVAs
all up and down that saddle.
I'm proud of my service.
I'm proud of the guys that were
there, definitely.
I guess we all left something
on that hill.
>> It turns out that the battle
for Fire Support Base Ripcord
was actually the last large
battle that the US was involved
in, in the Vietnam War.
There's a lot of pressure on the
homefront to reduce the American
casualties.
Commanders became reluctant to
go to places where they knew
there were heavy enemy
concentrations.
It's a shame, because we never
really fought to win.
We fought not to lose.
And I think most of us who were
there thought we should fight
to win.
Because that's what we went
over there to do.
>> Dragged him up the hill.
Got him up to the sandbags,
and laid him down.
I said, "Ed, Medevac will be
coming soon, just hang on,"
you know.
He died at 7:40am.
He didn't make it.
But that's war.
>> Narrator: America's
endless war had come to an end.
It was time for the country
to leave it behind and move on.
The majority of our Vietnam
Veterans proceeded to build
productive and successful lives.
But they had all brought the war
home with them.
And it lives vividly on
in their memories,
and their nightmares.
And for those who are able
to share with us, it lives
vividly on in their stories.
>> I wanted a South Vietnamese
flag, not one that
you just go buy one, you know.
So I decided, when these victory
ships come into the bay, they
have to fly that country's flag.
These are big, beautiful flags.
And so, working nightshift
one time, I climbed up onto the
superstructure.
But the flag that they're flying
is locked with a padlock,
so you can't bring it down
off the flag pole.
So then I shimmied all the way
up the flag pole and managed to
unhook the flag, bring it on
down, tuck it inside my jungle
shirt, continuing my shift of
work and get off that ship
before the captain woke up
that next morning.
Oh, he was ticked that
that flag was gone.
He wanted to know what crew was
on there.
They searched our barracks.
It's a very cool, all-cloth,
South Vietnamese flag.
When I look at that, I think,
you know, it's not a flag for
any country.
Here's this flag that so many
guys gave their lives for, and
the country doesn't exist
anymore.
>> Vietnam War Stories
was made possible by
lead gifts from Associated Bank;
the Lynde and Harry Bradley
Foundation;
and Don and Roxanne Weber;
with major support
from the Ho-Chunk Nation,
the Elizabeht E. Doolittle
Charitable Trust,
Oshkosh Defense,
and from Wisconsin
Public Service Foundation,
Kwik Trip,
the Forest County
Potawatomi Foundation,
the Oneida Nation,
Ron and Colleen Weyers,
Philip J. and Elizabeth B.
Hendrickson,
with additional support
from The National Endowment
for the Humanities;
and others, a complete list
is available from PBS;
and the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting.