1
00:00:18,306 --> 00:00:21,856
Sometimes I would
hear a car crunch up in the snow,

2
00:00:21,976 --> 00:00:24,274
and I'd think maybe it
would be somebody coming

3
00:00:24,395 --> 00:00:25,863
to give us bad news.

4
00:00:25,980 --> 00:00:28,904
Which was not
good for me to think.

5
00:00:29,025 --> 00:00:30,902
It was an underlying anxiety

6
00:00:31,027 --> 00:00:33,906
that I really think was
there all the time.

7
00:00:35,531 --> 00:00:38,455
All his young
life, Denton Crocker, Jr.-

8
00:00:38,576 --> 00:00:40,749
known as "Mogie" to his family...

9
00:00:40,912 --> 00:00:42,960
had dreamed of serving
his country,

10
00:00:43,081 --> 00:00:45,334
of putting his own life
on the line

11
00:00:45,458 --> 00:00:49,258
in defense of what he called
"individual freedom."

12
00:00:49,420 --> 00:00:53,345
He'd wanted to serve
in Vietnam so much

13
00:00:53,466 --> 00:00:56,470
he'd pressured his parents
into granting their permission

14
00:00:56,594 --> 00:00:59,564
for him to join the Army before
he was 18.

15
00:01:01,974 --> 00:01:05,604
He was eager for combat and
pleased when he was assigned

16
00:01:05,728 --> 00:01:10,074
to the 1st Brigade of the
celebrated 101st Airborne,

17
00:01:10,191 --> 00:01:14,287
the "Screaming Eagles"
who had led the way on D-Day.

18
00:01:14,445 --> 00:01:18,166
But he was quickly disappointed
to find himself attached

19
00:01:18,282 --> 00:01:23,163
to battalion headquarters,
repairing weapons, making lists,

20
00:01:23,287 --> 00:01:25,039
keeping records.

21
00:01:25,164 --> 00:01:28,634
It was "boring," he wrote home.

22
00:01:28,793 --> 00:01:31,993
I think perhaps
you will understand my disappointment

23
00:01:32,046 --> 00:01:34,799
when you see that there is
little sense in being over here

24
00:01:34,966 --> 00:01:37,139
unless one faces
the main objective,

25
00:01:37,260 --> 00:01:39,809
the destruction of the VC.

26
00:01:42,098 --> 00:01:44,521
Certainly one feels no sense
of accomplishment

27
00:01:44,642 --> 00:01:47,316
when one's friends
are facing all the dangers.

28
00:01:50,690 --> 00:01:53,864
I had a map on
the back of the living room door.

29
00:01:53,985 --> 00:01:57,910
And I put pins in it
every time Denton Jr. Moved.

30
00:01:58,030 --> 00:01:59,373
And he moved a lot.

31
00:02:00,658 --> 00:02:03,002
And I knew those names
at one time

32
00:02:03,161 --> 00:02:08,338
as well as any area
of our own world.

33
00:02:19,427 --> 00:02:21,771
Well, how'd
you have a good weekend?

34
00:02:22,972 --> 00:02:24,224
Yeah, I did, Mr. President.

35
00:02:24,348 --> 00:02:25,520
I hope you did too.

36
00:02:25,683 --> 00:02:27,161
What's your thinking these days?

37
00:02:27,185 --> 00:02:28,437
I haven't talked to you.

38
00:02:28,561 --> 00:02:29,858
What's happening to our pause?

39
00:02:29,979 --> 00:02:31,356
What are our generals saying?

40
00:02:31,522 --> 00:02:33,900
See, I think you'll
find some foreign leaders

41
00:02:34,025 --> 00:02:36,824
will criticize you
if you resume bombing.

42
00:02:36,944 --> 00:02:40,539
As a matter of fact,
no other intelligence source

43
00:02:40,656 --> 00:02:43,705
that I've seen indicates that
Hanoi is even considering

44
00:02:43,868 --> 00:02:45,541
moving toward negotiation

45
00:02:45,661 --> 00:02:47,755
in order to lead us
to extend the pause.

46
00:02:47,872 --> 00:02:49,340
Intelligence information...

47
00:02:49,457 --> 00:02:53,212
As 1966 began, the
president of the United States

48
00:02:53,377 --> 00:02:55,721
was just learning
the name of the man

49
00:02:55,880 --> 00:03:00,056
who was the most powerful member
of the Politburo in Hanoi...

50
00:03:00,176 --> 00:03:01,644
Le Duan.

51
00:03:01,761 --> 00:03:03,614
First Secretary
of the Communist Party,

52
00:03:03,638 --> 00:03:06,733
a man named Le Duan...
L-E capital D-U-A-N...

53
00:03:06,891 --> 00:03:09,235
who today is putting
considerable pressure

54
00:03:09,352 --> 00:03:12,856
on Ho Chi Minh and others
to ensure continuing a war

55
00:03:12,980 --> 00:03:15,278
that he thinks they either are
winning or can win.

56
00:03:29,497 --> 00:03:31,225
As they continued
to escalate the war,

57
00:03:31,249 --> 00:03:34,093
Johnson and McNamara were
frustrated

58
00:03:34,252 --> 00:03:38,132
that American commanders in
Vietnam, who had come of age

59
00:03:38,256 --> 00:03:40,600
during World War II and Korea,

60
00:03:40,716 --> 00:03:42,889
were having a hard time
making sense

61
00:03:43,010 --> 00:03:45,388
of what was happening
on the ground.

62
00:03:45,513 --> 00:03:50,610
In the months and years to come,
as the American presence grew,

63
00:03:50,768 --> 00:03:53,021
Hanoi would escalate too,

64
00:03:53,145 --> 00:03:55,944
sending more and more
soldiers south,

65
00:03:56,107 --> 00:03:59,236
strengthening its own
air defenses,

66
00:03:59,360 --> 00:04:01,408
and recruiting more fighters

67
00:04:01,529 --> 00:04:04,908
from the alienated
South Vietnamese countryside.

68
00:04:08,786 --> 00:04:11,756
The Johnson administration
was desperately trying

69
00:04:11,873 --> 00:04:15,923
to prop up the government in
Saigon and, at the same time,

70
00:04:16,043 --> 00:04:19,217
help that government to somehow
win the loyalty

71
00:04:19,338 --> 00:04:21,181
of its own people.

72
00:04:21,299 --> 00:04:25,349
Johnson had tried to forge
an international coalition

73
00:04:25,469 --> 00:04:27,767
to defend South Vietnam.

74
00:04:27,889 --> 00:04:32,986
But only five other countries
would ever send combat troops...

75
00:04:33,144 --> 00:04:36,990
Australia and New Zealand,
Thailand, the Philippines,

76
00:04:37,148 --> 00:04:39,025
and South Korea.

77
00:04:40,610 --> 00:04:45,207
America's most important allies,
Britain, France and Canada,

78
00:04:45,323 --> 00:04:51,330
refused to take part and were
calling instead for peace talks.

79
00:04:51,454 --> 00:04:54,082
And more and more Americans,

80
00:04:54,206 --> 00:04:56,925
including some of the country's
most respected

81
00:04:57,043 --> 00:04:58,841
foreign policy experts,

82
00:04:59,003 --> 00:05:02,428
were beginning to question the
way the war was being fought,

83
00:05:02,548 --> 00:05:04,767
whether it could ever be won,

84
00:05:04,884 --> 00:05:09,811
and if the United States
should be in Vietnam at all.

85
00:05:12,475 --> 00:05:20,201
As 1966 began, 2,344 Americans
had died in Vietnam.

86
00:05:20,316 --> 00:05:23,160
Nearly 200,000
were stationed there,

87
00:05:23,277 --> 00:05:26,326
and more were on their way.

88
00:05:27,823 --> 00:05:30,201
Those soldiers would quickly
discover

89
00:05:30,368 --> 00:05:32,541
that the war they were being
asked to fight

90
00:05:32,703 --> 00:05:35,377
was not their father's war.

91
00:05:38,292 --> 00:05:41,546
We tend to fight the next war

92
00:05:41,671 --> 00:05:44,550
in the same way
we fought the last one.

93
00:05:44,715 --> 00:05:48,845
We are prisoners
of our own experience.

94
00:05:48,970 --> 00:05:51,348
And many of the things
that we learned that worked

95
00:05:51,472 --> 00:05:52,519
in World War II

96
00:05:52,640 --> 00:05:56,110
were not applicable
to the war in Vietnam.

97
00:05:58,020 --> 00:06:00,068
We simply thought we'd go
in with a sledgehammer

98
00:06:00,189 --> 00:06:01,816
and knock things down,
clean them up,

99
00:06:01,941 --> 00:06:03,784
and it would be all over.

100
00:06:03,901 --> 00:06:07,371
It was a kind
of an oversimplification

101
00:06:07,488 --> 00:06:09,240
of the problem

102
00:06:09,365 --> 00:06:13,586
combined with our
overconfidence that caused us,

103
00:06:13,703 --> 00:06:16,206
I think, to be arrogant.

104
00:06:16,330 --> 00:06:19,584
And it's very, very difficult
to dispel ignorance

105
00:06:19,750 --> 00:06:21,878
if you retain arrogance.

106
00:06:38,185 --> 00:06:41,109
In early February of 1966,

107
00:06:41,272 --> 00:06:44,401
President Johnson
got more bad news.

108
00:06:44,525 --> 00:06:47,278
His old friend,
J. William Fulbright,

109
00:06:47,445 --> 00:06:48,446
the powerful chairman

110
00:06:48,612 --> 00:06:51,081
of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee,

111
00:06:51,198 --> 00:06:54,293
planned to hold hearings
on the Vietnam War,

112
00:06:54,410 --> 00:06:58,881
and the television networks
intended to cover the hearings

113
00:06:58,998 --> 00:07:00,716
from gavel to gavel.

114
00:07:00,833 --> 00:07:04,258
Fulbright, who had once
supported the war,

115
00:07:04,378 --> 00:07:06,255
now opposed it.

116
00:07:06,380 --> 00:07:09,634
LBJ was alarmed.

117
00:07:09,759 --> 00:07:12,558
His own advisers had been giving
him conflicting advice

118
00:07:12,678 --> 00:07:15,101
about Vietnam for years.

119
00:07:15,222 --> 00:07:18,317
But a public debate about
how he was running the war

120
00:07:18,434 --> 00:07:22,439
in front of millions of
Americans filled him with dread.

121
00:07:24,273 --> 00:07:26,492
As the hearings got underway,

122
00:07:26,650 --> 00:07:28,277
the president tried
to deflect attention

123
00:07:28,402 --> 00:07:32,123
by suddenly announcing he was
going to a military conference

124
00:07:32,239 --> 00:07:36,415
in Honolulu, to meet for the
first time the two generals

125
00:07:36,535 --> 00:07:39,288
who now headed
the Saigon government.

126
00:07:39,413 --> 00:07:41,141
It is a meeting
without precedent,

127
00:07:41,165 --> 00:07:44,009
and is designed to strengthen
United States determination

128
00:07:44,126 --> 00:07:47,551
to pursue to the end the drive
against communist domination

129
00:07:47,671 --> 00:07:49,014
in South Vietnam.

130
00:07:53,177 --> 00:07:56,556
General Nguyen Van
Thieu was the chief of state,

131
00:07:56,680 --> 00:08:00,150
but real power lay
with Thieu's bitter rival,

132
00:08:00,267 --> 00:08:03,362
the former head of the
South Vietnamese Air Force,

133
00:08:03,521 --> 00:08:06,525
Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky.

134
00:08:06,690 --> 00:08:11,446
Ky was "an unguided missile,"
according to one U.S. diplomat,

135
00:08:11,570 --> 00:08:14,244
known for his
flamboyant uniforms,

136
00:08:14,365 --> 00:08:18,370
his gaudy private life,
and his public pronouncements.

137
00:08:18,536 --> 00:08:22,791
He once told a reporter that
what Vietnam really needed

138
00:08:22,915 --> 00:08:25,338
was "five Hitlers."

139
00:08:25,459 --> 00:08:29,089
How could we
allow and accept that to happen?

140
00:08:29,213 --> 00:08:31,136
He was a charlatan.

141
00:08:31,257 --> 00:08:33,806
The man not only
has no training,

142
00:08:33,926 --> 00:08:36,975
has no education,
but doesn't seem to inter...

143
00:08:37,096 --> 00:08:42,603
be interested in being educated,
and proud of his ignorance.

144
00:09:15,968 --> 00:09:19,268
President Johnson spent
most of his time in Honolulu

145
00:09:19,388 --> 00:09:22,562
urging Ky to focus
on pacification...

146
00:09:22,683 --> 00:09:25,687
earning the support of the
South Vietnamese people

147
00:09:25,811 --> 00:09:29,111
by undertaking economic
and social reforms

148
00:09:29,231 --> 00:09:33,281
Americans had been calling for
for more than a decade.

149
00:09:33,402 --> 00:09:36,906
Johnson wasn't interested
in "high-sounding words"

150
00:09:37,031 --> 00:09:39,159
about progress, he said.

151
00:09:39,283 --> 00:09:41,661
He wanted genuine achievements...

152
00:09:41,785 --> 00:09:46,791
what they called in Texas,
"coonskins on the wall."

153
00:09:46,957 --> 00:09:50,712
Well, nobody understood
what does it mean "coonskin."

154
00:09:50,836 --> 00:09:55,433
And people the Vietnamese
at the delegation they ask me,

155
00:09:55,549 --> 00:09:57,347
"You understand what it is?"

156
00:09:57,468 --> 00:09:59,891
And myself I said,
"Well, I don't understand."

157
00:10:00,012 --> 00:10:02,435
I have to ask some Americans
to explain to me.

158
00:10:02,556 --> 00:10:05,685
And some American friends,
they explain to me later on

159
00:10:05,809 --> 00:10:07,937
and only by then
the Vietnamese understood.

160
00:10:09,688 --> 00:10:11,656
I happen to hold
the point of view

161
00:10:11,815 --> 00:10:13,283
that it isn't going to be
too long

162
00:10:13,400 --> 00:10:15,448
before the American people,
as a people,

163
00:10:15,569 --> 00:10:18,118
will repudiate our war
in Southeast Asia.

164
00:10:18,239 --> 00:10:19,999
That, of course, is good news

165
00:10:20,032 --> 00:10:21,204
to Hanoi, Senator.

166
00:10:21,325 --> 00:10:22,998
Oh, I know that

167
00:10:23,118 --> 00:10:25,712
that's the smear artist that you
militarists give to those of us

168
00:10:25,829 --> 00:10:27,515
that have honest differences
of opinion with you.

169
00:10:27,539 --> 00:10:30,167
But I don't intend to get down
in the gutter with you

170
00:10:30,334 --> 00:10:32,507
and engage in that
kind of debate, General.

171
00:10:32,670 --> 00:10:36,095
Johnson's trip to
Honolulu had not distracted

172
00:10:36,215 --> 00:10:37,512
the American public.

173
00:10:37,633 --> 00:10:40,682
They were riveted
to the hearings.

174
00:10:40,844 --> 00:10:43,313
And I also think
that great countries,

175
00:10:43,430 --> 00:10:45,353
especially this country,

176
00:10:45,516 --> 00:10:48,315
is quite strong enough
to engage in a compromise

177
00:10:48,435 --> 00:10:50,563
without losing its standing
in the world,

178
00:10:50,688 --> 00:10:53,157
without losing its prestige
as a great nation.

179
00:10:53,274 --> 00:10:55,322
On the contrary,
I think it would be

180
00:10:55,442 --> 00:10:59,697
one of the greatest victories
for us and our prestige

181
00:10:59,822 --> 00:11:03,543
if we could-could be ingenious
enough and magnanimous enough

182
00:11:03,701 --> 00:11:05,544
to bring about some kind
of a settlement

183
00:11:05,661 --> 00:11:07,379
of this particular struggle.

184
00:11:07,538 --> 00:11:11,964
Fulbright invited the
respected diplomat George Kennan

185
00:11:12,084 --> 00:11:13,586
to testify.

186
00:11:13,711 --> 00:11:16,681
For two decades,
his doctrine of containment...

187
00:11:16,797 --> 00:11:18,674
stopping Soviet expansion...

188
00:11:18,799 --> 00:11:21,848
had been the basis
of American foreign policy,

189
00:11:21,969 --> 00:11:25,018
and had in some ways been
the justification

190
00:11:25,139 --> 00:11:30,396
for leading the United States
into its proxy war in Vietnam.

191
00:11:30,519 --> 00:11:31,871
The first point
I would like to make

192
00:11:31,895 --> 00:11:36,116
is that if we were not already
involved as we are today

193
00:11:36,233 --> 00:11:37,906
in Vietnam,

194
00:11:38,068 --> 00:11:39,490
I would know of no reason

195
00:11:39,611 --> 00:11:42,239
why we should wish
to become so involved,

196
00:11:42,406 --> 00:11:43,999
and I could think
of several reasons

197
00:11:44,116 --> 00:11:45,538
why we should wish not to.

198
00:11:45,659 --> 00:11:49,755
You have referred
to containment here.

199
00:11:49,913 --> 00:11:55,135
How... how can we contain
in Vietnam?

200
00:11:55,252 --> 00:11:58,927
We would do better if we really
would show ourselves

201
00:11:59,048 --> 00:12:02,427
a little more relaxed and
less terrified of what happens

202
00:12:02,551 --> 00:12:04,474
in the...

203
00:12:04,595 --> 00:12:08,395
certainly in the smaller
countries of Asia and Africa,

204
00:12:08,515 --> 00:12:12,520
and not jump around like an
elephant frightened by a mouse

205
00:12:12,644 --> 00:12:14,772
every time these things occur.

206
00:12:14,897 --> 00:12:18,572
Johnson was relieved
when, at the last moment,

207
00:12:18,692 --> 00:12:21,616
instead of airing Kennan's
testimony,

208
00:12:21,779 --> 00:12:25,124
CBS showed reruns
of The Real McCoys,

209
00:12:25,282 --> 00:12:29,253
The Andy Griffith Show
and I Love Lucy.

210
00:12:29,370 --> 00:12:33,420
But NBC kept the cameras
running.

211
00:12:33,540 --> 00:12:36,293
This is not only not
our business,

212
00:12:36,460 --> 00:12:38,303
but I don't think we can
do it successfully.

213
00:12:38,462 --> 00:12:41,306
And I take it
by this you mean that

214
00:12:41,423 --> 00:12:44,472
this is simply not a
practicable objective,

215
00:12:44,593 --> 00:12:47,016
as I understand it,
in this country.

216
00:12:47,137 --> 00:12:49,435
We can't achieve it even
with the best of will.

217
00:12:49,556 --> 00:12:52,150
This is correct,
and I have a fear

218
00:12:52,309 --> 00:12:57,816
that our thinking about this
whole problem is still affected

219
00:12:57,940 --> 00:13:02,491
by some sort of illusions about
invincibility on our part.

220
00:13:12,204 --> 00:13:14,332
Just before the hearings began,

221
00:13:14,498 --> 00:13:17,502
the president had decided
to resume the bombing of targets

222
00:13:17,668 --> 00:13:19,511
in North Vietnam.

223
00:13:19,628 --> 00:13:25,431
The 37-day pause that had
begun on Christmas Eve 1965

224
00:13:25,551 --> 00:13:28,600
had yielded no hint
of Hanoi's willingness

225
00:13:28,720 --> 00:13:30,848
to come
to the negotiating table.

226
00:13:33,016 --> 00:13:36,896
In South Vietnam, Viet Cong
guerrillas were now believed

227
00:13:37,020 --> 00:13:41,025
to control nearly three-quarters
of the country.

228
00:13:41,150 --> 00:13:43,994
But General
William Westmoreland,

229
00:13:44,111 --> 00:13:47,866
the American commander,
thought his most urgent task

230
00:13:48,031 --> 00:13:51,706
was to destroy the North
Vietnamese regular army units

231
00:13:51,827 --> 00:13:53,579
Hanoi was sending South.

232
00:13:55,622 --> 00:13:58,501
Westmoreland's target
for the next two years

233
00:13:58,625 --> 00:14:02,721
would be reaching what he
called the "crossover point"-

234
00:14:02,838 --> 00:14:05,682
the point at which U.S.
and ARVN forces

235
00:14:05,799 --> 00:14:09,679
were killing more enemy troops
than could be replaced.

236
00:14:10,721 --> 00:14:14,271
It would be a war of attrition.

237
00:14:14,391 --> 00:14:19,272
But that would require
still more American soldiers.

238
00:14:21,398 --> 00:14:24,652
They came from every corner
of the country.

239
00:14:27,905 --> 00:14:31,409
I was born at West Point
when my dad was on the faculty there.

240
00:14:31,533 --> 00:14:34,002
From my earliest recollection,

241
00:14:34,119 --> 00:14:36,372
West Point was what
I wanted to do,

242
00:14:36,497 --> 00:14:39,250
not even particularly
because I had an inkling

243
00:14:39,374 --> 00:14:41,502
or a strong desire
for a military career.

244
00:14:41,627 --> 00:14:42,753
It's just...

245
00:14:42,920 --> 00:14:44,840
West Point was kind of the
height of my ambition.

246
00:14:47,049 --> 00:14:50,098
The son of a colonel
who had served in World War II,

247
00:14:50,219 --> 00:14:54,941
Matt Harrison had grown up on
Army bases around the world.

248
00:14:55,098 --> 00:14:57,066
For him and his four siblings,

249
00:14:57,184 --> 00:15:01,439
the military was always
at the center of their lives.

250
00:15:01,605 --> 00:15:05,735
You addressed
parents "sir" and "ma'am,"

251
00:15:05,859 --> 00:15:08,612
and you said "yes"
and not "yeah."

252
00:15:08,779 --> 00:15:11,999
And you answered the phone,
"Colonel Harrison's quarters."

253
00:15:12,115 --> 00:15:14,834
We got up every Saturday
morning and we dusted the house.

254
00:15:14,952 --> 00:15:17,876
My dad would put on the
West Point marching band

255
00:15:17,996 --> 00:15:20,116
and my sister and I would dust
around the living room.

256
00:15:21,542 --> 00:15:23,135
It seemed to Matt's parents

257
00:15:23,293 --> 00:15:25,466
that he could do no wrong.

258
00:15:25,587 --> 00:15:28,807
He was the embodiment of the
values they had hoped to instill

259
00:15:28,966 --> 00:15:33,972
in all their children:
duty, honor, and country.

260
00:15:35,514 --> 00:15:37,937
The strongest
impression I have from my class

261
00:15:38,058 --> 00:15:42,438
and my classmates was they were
guys who just were idealists.

262
00:15:42,563 --> 00:15:45,487
And I think guys drawn
from little towns

263
00:15:45,607 --> 00:15:48,907
all across the United States
had that in common.

264
00:15:49,027 --> 00:15:51,906
It was a time before
the questions

265
00:15:52,030 --> 00:15:54,078
about American exceptionalism.

266
00:15:54,199 --> 00:15:56,122
We didn't question.

267
00:15:56,243 --> 00:15:59,338
We believed in what
this country stood for,

268
00:15:59,496 --> 00:16:03,626
and we believed that people
who had the ability

269
00:16:03,750 --> 00:16:06,845
to lead soldiers should do that.

270
00:16:20,183 --> 00:16:22,185
I wanted to
go with the gladiators.

271
00:16:22,352 --> 00:16:24,195
I wanted to go
with the tough guys.

272
00:16:26,857 --> 00:16:30,828
I was born in Boston, in
the Roxbury section of Boston.

273
00:16:30,944 --> 00:16:33,993
There were those who would
recruit you for gangs

274
00:16:34,114 --> 00:16:37,368
and try to entice you
to do things

275
00:16:37,492 --> 00:16:41,042
that-that weren't in the
best interest of society.

276
00:16:41,163 --> 00:16:42,164
Let's put it like that.

277
00:16:43,707 --> 00:16:45,880
Roger Harris
dreamed of going to college

278
00:16:46,001 --> 00:16:48,629
on a football scholarship,
but was not big enough

279
00:16:48,754 --> 00:16:51,177
to play for his team
in high school.

280
00:16:51,298 --> 00:16:53,426
And so I enlisted
in the Marine Corps.

281
00:16:53,550 --> 00:16:57,521
And I felt that...
that it was a win-win

282
00:16:57,638 --> 00:17:02,360
because, one, if I died,
then my mother would be able

283
00:17:02,476 --> 00:17:05,605
to receive the $10,000
insurance policy.

284
00:17:05,729 --> 00:17:07,402
I thought that was
a lot of money,

285
00:17:07,564 --> 00:17:09,066
that my mother will be rich
if I die.

286
00:17:09,232 --> 00:17:10,232
You know, she'll be rich.

287
00:17:11,860 --> 00:17:14,534
If I live, then I'll be a hero,
you know,

288
00:17:14,655 --> 00:17:16,908
and I can come back
and get a job.

289
00:17:17,074 --> 00:17:19,418
Naive, dumb, you know?

290
00:17:21,078 --> 00:17:23,501
John Musgrave was from
the Fair-mount neighborhood

291
00:17:23,622 --> 00:17:25,966
of Independence, Missouri.

292
00:17:26,083 --> 00:17:29,428
I was 17 and
my best friend and I

293
00:17:29,586 --> 00:17:31,680
went down and enlisted
in the Marine Corps.

294
00:17:31,797 --> 00:17:34,721
I had always dreamed
of being a Marine.

295
00:17:34,841 --> 00:17:36,434
And...

296
00:17:39,388 --> 00:17:43,268
Well, I knew I wasn't going
to be a man right away

297
00:17:43,392 --> 00:17:45,861
but I was going to be a Marine,
and that was enough.

298
00:17:45,977 --> 00:17:50,198
I'd be doing something mature.

299
00:17:50,315 --> 00:17:52,864
And I'd be doing something
that was important.

300
00:17:52,984 --> 00:17:57,785
And there was a war on
and I wanted a piece of it.

301
00:17:59,700 --> 00:18:01,794
I grew up in
Perkasie, Pennsylvania.

302
00:18:01,910 --> 00:18:04,004
And every Memorial Day

303
00:18:04,121 --> 00:18:07,216
all that generation
of World War II would dress up

304
00:18:07,332 --> 00:18:09,372
in their American Legion
uniforms and parade around.

305
00:18:10,877 --> 00:18:14,723
And I'd put red, white, and blue
crepe paper on my bicycle.

306
00:18:14,840 --> 00:18:17,138
And the kids could ride
behind the parade.

307
00:18:18,885 --> 00:18:22,355
Bill Ehrhart would sign
up in part because his father,

308
00:18:22,472 --> 00:18:25,316
a pastor, had not served.

309
00:18:25,475 --> 00:18:28,479
Ehrhart was a gifted student

310
00:18:28,603 --> 00:18:30,480
and in his senior year
in high school

311
00:18:30,647 --> 00:18:33,617
was accepted by four colleges.

312
00:18:33,734 --> 00:18:35,486
Had he attended any one of them,

313
00:18:35,652 --> 00:18:38,872
he would have been
deferred from the draft.

314
00:18:38,989 --> 00:18:40,491
It all came down to this notion

315
00:18:40,657 --> 00:18:43,627
of I was going to serve
my country and be a hero

316
00:18:43,744 --> 00:18:47,169
and have that gorgeous
Marine Corps uniform.

317
00:18:47,330 --> 00:18:50,254
And the girls would just be
draped around my neck

318
00:18:50,375 --> 00:18:53,003
and nobody would beat me up
again.

319
00:18:53,128 --> 00:18:54,380
But at the same time

320
00:18:54,504 --> 00:18:57,974
I would really be serving
my country.

321
00:18:58,091 --> 00:19:00,719
It was my chance to be...

322
00:19:00,844 --> 00:19:03,393
one doesn't want to trivialize
it, but it was my chance to be

323
00:19:03,513 --> 00:19:05,356
the star of my own
John Wayne movie.

324
00:19:05,474 --> 00:19:10,651
It was my chance to do what that
World War II generation had done

325
00:19:10,771 --> 00:19:12,990
and seemed to be so proud of.

326
00:19:13,106 --> 00:19:15,985
Now I had my turn.

327
00:19:17,402 --> 00:19:18,713
Wherever they came from,

328
00:19:18,737 --> 00:19:21,707
whatever their reasons for
joining the military,

329
00:19:21,823 --> 00:19:24,201
training transformed them.

330
00:19:33,210 --> 00:19:35,463
For about the first five weeks
at Parris Island,

331
00:19:35,587 --> 00:19:39,057
I was convinced that I was going
to die there.

332
00:19:40,550 --> 00:19:42,670
The drill instructors said
they were going to kill me.

333
00:19:42,761 --> 00:19:44,308
And they certainly
sounded serious.

334
00:19:46,973 --> 00:19:49,647
I grew up in segregated
neighborhoods all my life.

335
00:19:49,768 --> 00:19:53,523
So, I'd never met a black person
till I arrived at boot camp.

336
00:19:53,647 --> 00:19:57,322
Never stood next to a black
person or a Hispanic

337
00:19:57,442 --> 00:19:59,069
or anyone who was Jewish.

338
00:19:59,236 --> 00:20:02,331
I just... they didn't mix
where I grew up.

339
00:20:02,447 --> 00:20:04,916
So that was just eye opening.

340
00:20:05,075 --> 00:20:08,500
But when I got to talking to
everybody, we were all the same.

341
00:20:08,620 --> 00:20:11,214
We were all working class
and poor.

342
00:20:11,331 --> 00:20:14,460
And we all wanted to be Marines
real bad.

343
00:20:15,669 --> 00:20:17,171
By the time I graduated,

344
00:20:17,295 --> 00:20:20,595
I felt like I was
king of the world.

345
00:20:20,715 --> 00:20:22,592
I was God.

346
00:20:22,759 --> 00:20:24,978
I could do anything.

347
00:20:25,095 --> 00:20:28,315
On that day I became a Marine.

348
00:20:28,431 --> 00:20:32,231
You know, the Marine Corps
trains you to be a fighter.

349
00:20:32,352 --> 00:20:34,400
They train you to fight,
they train you to kill.

350
00:20:34,521 --> 00:20:37,650
They used to say that if you're
a Marine, you can't die

351
00:20:37,774 --> 00:20:40,368
until you kill three Vietnamese.

352
00:20:41,736 --> 00:20:43,659
And I said,
"Well, I'm from Roxbury.

353
00:20:43,780 --> 00:20:48,661
If the expectation is three,
I'll do ten."

354
00:20:50,495 --> 00:20:52,122
You know, craziness.

355
00:21:01,006 --> 00:21:03,976
The tendency
for a great power is to use

356
00:21:04,134 --> 00:21:05,977
what it's greatest at...

357
00:21:06,136 --> 00:21:09,310
namely its firepower,
destructive power.

358
00:21:09,431 --> 00:21:12,605
Dropping a lot of bombs
and shooting a lot of artillery

359
00:21:12,726 --> 00:21:14,478
at a distance.

360
00:21:14,603 --> 00:21:15,820
You save lives.

361
00:21:15,979 --> 00:21:18,528
You kill a lot of them,
you don't lose a lot of us.

362
00:21:20,150 --> 00:21:22,903
The central coastal
province of Binh Dinh

363
00:21:23,028 --> 00:21:25,907
was home to more than
half a million people.

364
00:21:26,031 --> 00:21:29,626
For decades, it had been
a guerrilla stronghold,

365
00:21:29,743 --> 00:21:32,587
and in early 1966,

366
00:21:32,704 --> 00:21:37,835
the Viet Cong had been augmented
by North Vietnamese regulars,

367
00:21:37,959 --> 00:21:40,508
some 8,000 men in all.

368
00:21:44,174 --> 00:21:47,018
General Westmoreland sent
20,000 American,

369
00:21:47,135 --> 00:21:49,979
South Vietnamese
and South Korean troops

370
00:21:50,096 --> 00:21:53,350
storming across the province
in pursuit of the enemy

371
00:21:53,516 --> 00:21:56,019
and their sources of supply.

372
00:21:56,186 --> 00:22:00,657
They first dropped leaflets
and broadcast from loudspeakers

373
00:22:00,774 --> 00:22:02,776
to warn villagers
of the terrible fate

374
00:22:02,901 --> 00:22:06,576
that awaited anyone who fired
on their helicopters,

375
00:22:06,696 --> 00:22:08,915
urged them to leave their homes,

376
00:22:09,032 --> 00:22:12,252
promised safe passage
to any Viet Cong

377
00:22:12,369 --> 00:22:13,871
who wished to surrender.

378
00:22:13,995 --> 00:22:17,545
Then they called in airstrikes
and artillery

379
00:22:17,707 --> 00:22:21,428
and blew the hamlets to bits.

380
00:22:21,544 --> 00:22:25,924
It was the first large-scale
search-and-destroy campaign

381
00:22:26,049 --> 00:22:27,892
of the war.

382
00:22:32,055 --> 00:22:35,150
The offensive lasted 42 days.

383
00:22:35,266 --> 00:22:41,865
The Army reported
2,389 enemy soldiers killed.

384
00:22:41,982 --> 00:22:44,952
Westmoreland was pleased.

385
00:22:45,068 --> 00:22:47,662
But commanders on the scene
were concerned

386
00:22:47,779 --> 00:22:51,454
that despite all the American
firepower brought against them,

387
00:22:51,574 --> 00:22:55,420
most of the North Vietnamese
regulars had still managed

388
00:22:55,537 --> 00:22:59,132
to escape back
into the Central Highlands.

389
00:22:59,249 --> 00:23:03,755
The operation would drive
more than 100,000 civilians

390
00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:05,547
from their homes.

391
00:23:06,881 --> 00:23:09,930
Similar search-and-destroy
and bombing campaigns...

392
00:23:10,051 --> 00:23:15,103
17 large-scale U.S. offensives
in 1966 alone...

393
00:23:15,265 --> 00:23:16,642
would produce a total

394
00:23:16,766 --> 00:23:19,736
of more than three million
homeless people

395
00:23:19,853 --> 00:23:21,400
all across the country,

396
00:23:21,521 --> 00:23:26,743
roughly one-fifth
of South Vietnam's population.

397
00:23:31,072 --> 00:23:34,372
Since there was no front
in Vietnam,

398
00:23:34,492 --> 00:23:37,962
as there had been in the first
and second World Wars,

399
00:23:38,121 --> 00:23:42,422
since no ground was ever
permanently won or lost,

400
00:23:42,542 --> 00:23:46,217
the American military command
in Vietnam...

401
00:23:46,337 --> 00:23:50,763
fell back more and more
on a single grisly measure

402
00:23:50,884 --> 00:23:52,636
of supposed success:

403
00:23:52,761 --> 00:23:54,980
counting corpses.

404
00:23:55,096 --> 00:23:57,724
Body count.

405
00:24:02,896 --> 00:24:04,290
The problem with the war,

406
00:24:04,314 --> 00:24:06,942
as it often is, are the metrics.

407
00:24:07,067 --> 00:24:11,914
It is a situation where if you
can't count what's important,

408
00:24:12,030 --> 00:24:14,453
you make what you can count
important.

409
00:24:15,825 --> 00:24:17,678
So, in this particular case
what you could count

410
00:24:17,702 --> 00:24:20,171
was dead enemy bodies.

411
00:24:22,123 --> 00:24:24,842
You don't get
details with a body count.

412
00:24:24,959 --> 00:24:26,757
You get numbers.

413
00:24:26,878 --> 00:24:31,679
And the numbers are lies,
most of 'em.

414
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:36,306
If body count is
your success mark,

415
00:24:36,429 --> 00:24:42,482
then you're pushing otherwise
honorable men, warriors,

416
00:24:42,602 --> 00:24:43,979
to become liars.

417
00:24:45,855 --> 00:24:47,653
If body count

418
00:24:47,774 --> 00:24:48,991
is the measure of success,

419
00:24:49,109 --> 00:24:52,659
then there's the tendency
to count every body

420
00:24:52,779 --> 00:24:54,873
as an enemy soldier.

421
00:24:55,031 --> 00:24:59,457
There's a tendency to want
to pile up dead bodies

422
00:24:59,577 --> 00:25:05,584
and perhaps to use
less discriminate firepower

423
00:25:05,708 --> 00:25:07,176
than you otherwise might

424
00:25:07,293 --> 00:25:10,718
in order to achieve the result

425
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:14,430
that you're charged
with trying to obtain.

426
00:25:34,904 --> 00:25:40,456
Just think about the
problem from the North's point of view.

427
00:25:40,577 --> 00:25:43,922
They had to supply the South.

428
00:25:44,038 --> 00:25:47,258
I'm talking about bringing in
people, equipment, supplies,

429
00:25:47,375 --> 00:25:49,252
and so forth.

430
00:25:49,377 --> 00:25:54,304
They started from nothing and
pushed a road through that...

431
00:25:54,424 --> 00:25:57,348
through an area
the size of Massachusetts.

432
00:25:57,468 --> 00:26:01,314
So this is not a trivial amount
of real estate

433
00:26:01,431 --> 00:26:04,605
that they took over,
built a road on,

434
00:26:04,726 --> 00:26:06,273
and then maintained it.

435
00:26:09,063 --> 00:26:12,738
For years, Hanoi had
smuggled most of its arms and supplies

436
00:26:12,859 --> 00:26:16,113
to the South aboard an
improvised fleet of junks,

437
00:26:16,237 --> 00:26:18,581
trawlers and freighters.

438
00:26:18,698 --> 00:26:21,201
But when the U.S. Navy
effectively blockaded

439
00:26:21,326 --> 00:26:23,078
the Southern coastline,

440
00:26:23,203 --> 00:26:25,501
the North Vietnamese would be
forced to move

441
00:26:25,622 --> 00:26:28,375
almost all of their
supplies overland,

442
00:26:28,499 --> 00:26:30,593
through Laos and Cambodia,

443
00:26:30,710 --> 00:26:33,008
neutral countries
Hanoi considered

444
00:26:33,129 --> 00:26:35,473
part of the greater battlefield.

445
00:26:35,632 --> 00:26:39,182
Americans called it
the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

446
00:26:39,302 --> 00:26:43,352
The North Vietnamese called it
Route 559,

447
00:26:43,473 --> 00:26:47,478
after the men and women
of the 559th Army Corps,

448
00:26:47,602 --> 00:26:50,981
who were turning it from
a braided web of footpaths

449
00:26:51,105 --> 00:26:55,235
into 12,000 tangled miles
of jungle roadways

450
00:26:55,360 --> 00:26:59,035
down which men and materiel
streamed south.

451
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:01,520
When they had fought the French,

452
00:27:01,658 --> 00:27:05,663
the Viet Minh had depended
on tens of thousands of porters,

453
00:27:05,828 --> 00:27:08,752
then on legions of bicycles.

454
00:27:08,873 --> 00:27:12,002
Now, to offset the growing
American presence,

455
00:27:12,168 --> 00:27:15,798
the North Vietnamese
used more mechanized transport...

456
00:27:15,922 --> 00:27:19,017
relays of six-wheeled
Russian-built trucks

457
00:27:19,175 --> 00:27:22,770
traveling under cover
of darkness.

458
00:27:22,887 --> 00:27:25,857
MACV reasoned that
if the Ho Chi Minh Trail

459
00:27:25,974 --> 00:27:28,443
could somehow be
sufficiently damaged,

460
00:27:28,559 --> 00:27:32,860
the enemy would be unable
to sustain itself.

461
00:27:35,441 --> 00:27:38,991
Three million tons of explosives
would eventually be dropped

462
00:27:39,112 --> 00:27:41,706
on the Laos portion
of the trail alone...

463
00:27:41,823 --> 00:27:45,999
a million more tons than fell
on Germany and Japan

464
00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:48,872
during all of World War II.

465
00:27:49,038 --> 00:27:53,043
Some key choke-points were hit
so many times

466
00:27:53,167 --> 00:27:56,546
the workers gave them
names... "the Gate of Death,"

467
00:27:56,671 --> 00:28:02,269
"Fried Flesh Hill"
and "the Gorge of Lost Souls."

468
00:28:04,429 --> 00:28:06,932
To expose enemy traffic,

469
00:28:07,056 --> 00:28:09,900
other aircraft dropped
chemical defoliants,

470
00:28:10,059 --> 00:28:11,936
including Agent Orange,

471
00:28:12,061 --> 00:28:14,985
that destroyed thousands
of acres of jungle

472
00:28:15,106 --> 00:28:18,861
and turned the earth into what
one American pilot called

473
00:28:18,985 --> 00:28:21,579
"bony, lunar dust."

474
00:28:23,489 --> 00:28:25,833
We'd punch a hole
in the road and say,

475
00:28:25,950 --> 00:28:27,553
"Ha ha, they'll never get around
that one."

476
00:28:27,577 --> 00:28:30,171
And the next day you'd come up,
and the hole wouldn't be there;

477
00:28:30,288 --> 00:28:33,007
and there'd be dust on the trees
back, you know, 50 meters

478
00:28:33,124 --> 00:28:35,968
in both directions, saying,
heavy traffic all night.

479
00:28:53,353 --> 00:28:58,234
As many as 230,000
teenagers, many of them volunteers,

480
00:28:58,358 --> 00:29:02,283
worked to keep the roads open
and the traffic moving.

481
00:29:02,445 --> 00:29:05,324
More than half of them
were women.

482
00:29:07,950 --> 00:29:10,920
Le Minh Khue, who had left
her home in the North

483
00:29:11,037 --> 00:29:13,881
with a novel by Ernest Hemingway
in her backpack,

484
00:29:13,998 --> 00:29:17,548
observed her 17th birthday
on the trail.

485
00:29:33,851 --> 00:29:38,948
Thousands died on the trail
from starvation and accidents,

486
00:29:39,065 --> 00:29:42,660
fevers and snakebite
and sheer exhaustion,

487
00:29:42,777 --> 00:29:45,576
as well as from
the relentless bombing.

488
00:30:57,727 --> 00:31:00,038
But
in this kind of war you never know.

489
00:31:00,062 --> 00:31:01,814
You have to be constantly alert

490
00:31:01,939 --> 00:31:04,362
because you can't tell friends
from enemies.

491
00:31:04,484 --> 00:31:07,909
Relax for a moment and your
reward may be a grenade

492
00:31:08,070 --> 00:31:09,447
or a hail of bullets.

493
00:31:09,572 --> 00:31:11,745
I couldn't watch the news.

494
00:31:11,908 --> 00:31:14,957
My parents would be sitting
in front of the television

495
00:31:15,077 --> 00:31:17,455
and I would hide in the kitchen.

496
00:31:19,624 --> 00:31:23,174
Of course you don't tell
anybody, but it was too much.

497
00:31:23,294 --> 00:31:25,217
I really didn't want to know.

498
00:31:39,352 --> 00:31:42,697
Mogie Crocker had
spent most of his boyhood

499
00:31:42,813 --> 00:31:44,565
reading about war.

500
00:31:44,690 --> 00:31:47,990
But nothing had prepared him
for what he would experience

501
00:31:48,110 --> 00:31:51,080
in Quang Duc Province
on the Cambodian border.

502
00:31:53,157 --> 00:31:54,784
He had deliberately fouled up
his work

503
00:31:54,909 --> 00:31:57,287
at battalion headquarters
so badly

504
00:31:57,411 --> 00:31:58,958
that he had finally been
reassigned

505
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:02,425
to what he wanted most...
a combat unit.

506
00:32:15,763 --> 00:32:18,812
Not hearing
in those days was so difficult.

507
00:32:18,933 --> 00:32:23,313
There'd be at least eight to ten
days usually between letters.

508
00:32:23,437 --> 00:32:27,317
So knowing he was in action,
you just didn't know what,

509
00:32:27,483 --> 00:32:29,235
you know, might be going on.

510
00:32:31,112 --> 00:32:33,114
Mogie's battalion commander,

511
00:32:33,239 --> 00:32:35,412
Lieutenant Colonel
Henry Emerson,

512
00:32:35,533 --> 00:32:37,001
known as "The Gunfighter,"

513
00:32:37,159 --> 00:32:40,834
was courageous,
implacable, relentless.

514
00:32:42,290 --> 00:32:44,213
A few months before
Mogie got there,

515
00:32:44,333 --> 00:32:47,712
he had offered a case of whiskey
to the first of his men

516
00:32:47,837 --> 00:32:51,933
to bring him the hacked-off head
of an enemy soldier.

517
00:32:52,049 --> 00:32:54,893
They did.

518
00:32:57,763 --> 00:33:01,768
For nine days in early May
of 1966,

519
00:33:01,892 --> 00:33:06,193
Mogie and his outfit battled
nothing but the terrain.

520
00:33:06,355 --> 00:33:09,325
They struggled through
a labyrinth of elephant grass

521
00:33:09,442 --> 00:33:10,739
and thorn bushes,

522
00:33:10,860 --> 00:33:13,579
bamboo taller than three men

523
00:33:13,696 --> 00:33:16,415
and triple-canopied jungle
so thick

524
00:33:16,532 --> 00:33:20,537
it sometimes took an hour
to move 100 feet.

525
00:33:21,954 --> 00:33:23,376
The monsoon had begun.

526
00:33:23,497 --> 00:33:26,967
Sunlight rarely reached
the forest floor.

527
00:33:27,084 --> 00:33:29,086
Finger-long black leeches

528
00:33:29,211 --> 00:33:32,841
caused wounds that quickly
became infected.

529
00:33:32,965 --> 00:33:36,219
When Colonel Emerson learned
that four companies

530
00:33:36,385 --> 00:33:38,934
of North Vietnamese
were preparing an ambush,

531
00:33:39,055 --> 00:33:42,150
he decided to ambush
the ambushers.

532
00:33:43,434 --> 00:33:46,984
On May 11, he ordered
his men to attack,

533
00:33:47,104 --> 00:33:50,574
backed by massive air
and artillery strikes.

534
00:33:53,027 --> 00:33:54,995
Before the fighting ended,

535
00:33:55,112 --> 00:34:01,085
some 2,000 shells had slammed
into the enemy positions.

536
00:34:01,243 --> 00:34:04,998
Blood was everywhere,
pooled on the ground,

537
00:34:05,122 --> 00:34:08,592
smeared on leaves and grass
and bamboo.

538
00:34:08,709 --> 00:34:11,087
There were scores of corpses,

539
00:34:11,253 --> 00:34:15,599
torn to pieces or blown into
the earth, hidden in thickets,

540
00:34:15,758 --> 00:34:18,853
half-buried
in scooped-out graves.

541
00:34:18,969 --> 00:34:21,267
The earth-shaking concussions

542
00:34:21,430 --> 00:34:25,276
had blown the eyeballs of
some of them from their heads.

543
00:34:26,769 --> 00:34:28,112
In the midst of the fighting,

544
00:34:28,229 --> 00:34:30,857
Mogie's squad was moving along
a narrow path

545
00:34:30,981 --> 00:34:34,155
when two enemy machine guns
opened up on them.

546
00:34:40,574 --> 00:34:43,794
His closest friend
was fatally wounded.

547
00:34:43,953 --> 00:34:48,584
Mogie crouched in front of him,
radioed for suppressive fire,

548
00:34:48,708 --> 00:34:52,588
and then, as both machine guns
continued shooting,

549
00:34:52,712 --> 00:34:57,092
he carried his dying friend
off the battlefield.

550
00:34:58,217 --> 00:34:59,389
For his courage,

551
00:34:59,510 --> 00:35:03,640
he would be awarded the
Army Commendation Medal.

552
00:35:05,933 --> 00:35:09,187
In his letters home,
Mogie told his family

553
00:35:09,311 --> 00:35:13,191
nothing of what he'd seen
or done.

554
00:35:20,489 --> 00:35:23,834
One day when I was
at the post office mailing something,

555
00:35:23,993 --> 00:35:27,839
I asked the clerk,
"How do they let you know

556
00:35:27,997 --> 00:35:29,840
if your son is wounded?"

557
00:35:29,957 --> 00:35:32,961
It was very hard for me
to form those words.

558
00:35:33,085 --> 00:35:35,679
But I just felt
I've got to know.

559
00:35:35,796 --> 00:35:40,051
I just felt so suspended
in space, in anxiety.

560
00:35:42,011 --> 00:35:45,515
And the man said,
"Now, don't ask that.

561
00:35:45,639 --> 00:35:48,017
Don't think about that."

562
00:35:48,184 --> 00:35:50,812
I said, "Well, I have to know."

563
00:35:50,936 --> 00:35:54,531
And he said, "Don't worry,
they'll tell you."

564
00:36:23,344 --> 00:36:28,020
I didn't like
the war protesters whatever.

565
00:36:28,140 --> 00:36:31,235
I kind of felt that they were
privileged, spoiled kids

566
00:36:31,393 --> 00:36:38,117
who may have been protesting
because they didn't want to go.

567
00:36:38,234 --> 00:36:40,657
So they leave it to some guy

568
00:36:40,778 --> 00:36:43,076
that maybe got through two years
of high school

569
00:36:43,197 --> 00:36:44,494
to go do it for 'em.

570
00:36:45,741 --> 00:36:48,210
The war by 1966

571
00:36:48,327 --> 00:36:50,750
began to impact the middle class

572
00:36:50,913 --> 00:36:54,042
because the draft calls
had to be enlarged.

573
00:36:54,166 --> 00:36:57,136
They couldn't get enough
people to volunteer

574
00:36:57,253 --> 00:36:59,472
or draft people out
of the working class.

575
00:36:59,588 --> 00:37:01,386
They started drafting people
out of college.

576
00:37:01,507 --> 00:37:05,637
And that's when the
antiwar movement shifted

577
00:37:05,761 --> 00:37:09,356
from a moral movement
to a self-interest movement

578
00:37:09,473 --> 00:37:12,568
driven by people who
didn't want to go to war

579
00:37:12,685 --> 00:37:16,940
and their loved ones who didn't
want them to go to war.

580
00:37:24,488 --> 00:37:26,741
Bill Zimmerman
was a graduate student

581
00:37:26,866 --> 00:37:31,212
at the University of
Chicago in May of 1966.

582
00:37:31,328 --> 00:37:33,956
The son of Eastern European
refugees,

583
00:37:34,081 --> 00:37:36,630
he'd worked for civil rights
in Mississippi

584
00:37:36,750 --> 00:37:40,004
and had been opposed to American
involvement in Vietnam

585
00:37:40,129 --> 00:37:42,848
since 1963.

586
00:37:42,965 --> 00:37:45,468
The draft was a consuming issue

587
00:37:45,634 --> 00:37:48,137
for young men of
Zimmerman's generation.

588
00:37:48,262 --> 00:37:52,563
Since 1942, every male citizen
of the United States

589
00:37:52,683 --> 00:37:56,358
had been required
to register at age 18.

590
00:37:56,478 --> 00:37:59,948
But of the nearly 27 million
American men

591
00:38:00,065 --> 00:38:02,693
who came of age during
the Vietnam War,

592
00:38:02,818 --> 00:38:05,822
more than half avoided
military service

593
00:38:05,946 --> 00:38:08,369
through exemptions
and deferments.

594
00:38:08,490 --> 00:38:12,165
Nearly 500,000 Americans applied

595
00:38:12,286 --> 00:38:14,505
for conscientious objector
status

596
00:38:14,622 --> 00:38:16,750
on religious or moral grounds,

597
00:38:16,874 --> 00:38:19,844
six times as many
as in World War II.

598
00:38:20,002 --> 00:38:26,180
In all, 170,000 were allowed
to perform alternative service

599
00:38:26,300 --> 00:38:30,646
in hospitals,
homeless shelters, and schools.

600
00:38:30,763 --> 00:38:34,813
Some were trained as medics
and sent to Vietnam.

601
00:38:34,934 --> 00:38:37,403
At least two were killed;

602
00:38:37,519 --> 00:38:41,274
both received the Congressional
Medal of Honor.

603
00:38:41,398 --> 00:38:45,824
A million young men served in
the Reserves or National Guard

604
00:38:45,945 --> 00:38:49,540
with the expectation they would
never be sent into combat.

605
00:38:49,657 --> 00:38:54,163
Reservists and Guardsmen
were almost always white,

606
00:38:54,286 --> 00:38:56,960
generally better educated,
better connected,

607
00:38:57,081 --> 00:38:59,709
and better paid than draftees.

608
00:38:59,875 --> 00:39:03,379
Interrupting their lives,
President Johnson felt,

609
00:39:03,504 --> 00:39:06,303
would have increased opposition
to the war.

610
00:39:06,423 --> 00:39:11,930
"If you've got the dough," GIs
said, "you don't have to go."

611
00:39:13,639 --> 00:39:15,733
The result was an
Army heavily skewed

612
00:39:15,891 --> 00:39:18,610
toward minorities
and the underprivileged.

613
00:39:30,781 --> 00:39:33,580
For a time, African Americans,

614
00:39:33,701 --> 00:39:37,251
though they represented
only 12% of the population,

615
00:39:37,413 --> 00:39:41,088
suffered a disproportionate
number of casualties.

616
00:39:41,250 --> 00:39:45,175
Resentment began to grow.

617
00:39:45,295 --> 00:39:47,357
We've got
to build so much strength

618
00:39:47,381 --> 00:39:48,849
in building our community,

619
00:39:48,966 --> 00:39:50,968
that if they come to get
one person,

620
00:39:51,093 --> 00:39:52,570
they going to have to mess
with us all.

621
00:39:52,594 --> 00:39:53,720
That's what we got to do!

622
00:39:53,846 --> 00:39:55,189
That's what we go to do.

623
00:39:56,807 --> 00:40:01,278
We've got to build so much
strength inside our community,

624
00:40:01,395 --> 00:40:04,695
so that when LBJ says,
"Come here, boy, to my war,"

625
00:40:04,815 --> 00:40:06,817
we say, "Hell no,
we ain't going."

626
00:40:10,612 --> 00:40:11,923
I'm not going to help nobody

627
00:40:11,947 --> 00:40:14,075
get something
my Negroes don't have.

628
00:40:14,199 --> 00:40:15,519
If I'm going to die,
I'll die now,

629
00:40:15,576 --> 00:40:18,295
right here fighting you,
if I'm going to die.

630
00:40:18,412 --> 00:40:22,212
You my enemy, my enemy is the
white people, not Viet Congs,

631
00:40:22,332 --> 00:40:23,800
or Chinese, or Japanese.

632
00:40:23,917 --> 00:40:26,295
You my opposer
when I want freedom.

633
00:40:26,420 --> 00:40:28,263
You my opposer when
I want justice.

634
00:40:28,380 --> 00:40:29,802
You my opposer
when I want equality.

635
00:40:29,923 --> 00:40:31,641
And you want me to go
somewhere and fight,

636
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:34,098
but you won't even stand up
for me here at home.

637
00:40:34,219 --> 00:40:39,316
At first, 10,000 draftees
were called up each month,

638
00:40:39,475 --> 00:40:44,823
but in 1966, the growing demand
for fresh troops in Vietnam

639
00:40:44,938 --> 00:40:48,488
raised that number to 30,000.

640
00:40:48,650 --> 00:40:51,824
Now, thousands
of college students

641
00:40:51,945 --> 00:40:55,245
could no longer expect
a deferment.

642
00:40:55,365 --> 00:40:58,665
And if your rank
fell below a certain threshold,

643
00:40:58,786 --> 00:41:01,835
you were yanked out of college.

644
00:41:01,955 --> 00:41:04,549
And the worst that could happen
to you is you would be killed

645
00:41:04,666 --> 00:41:06,339
in Vietnam.

646
00:41:06,502 --> 00:41:09,881
So we protested at
the University of Chicago

647
00:41:10,005 --> 00:41:14,556
that the university was
complicit with this war

648
00:41:14,676 --> 00:41:18,931
by agreeing to supply those
rankings to the draft board.

649
00:41:19,056 --> 00:41:21,650
We thought for the first time,
you know,

650
00:41:21,767 --> 00:41:23,519
we're really having an impact.

651
00:41:27,356 --> 00:41:32,954
But a majority of Americans,
old and young, supported the war.

652
00:41:33,070 --> 00:41:35,243
The Young Americans for Freedom,

653
00:41:35,364 --> 00:41:38,789
created by the conservative
writer William F. Buckley,

654
00:41:38,909 --> 00:41:43,540
held counter-demonstrations
on campuses across the country.

655
00:42:42,181 --> 00:42:46,027
I was brought up to
believe that the communists were people

656
00:42:46,143 --> 00:42:51,115
who destroy the family,
destroy religion,

657
00:42:51,273 --> 00:42:54,743
and people who had no allegiance
to our country

658
00:42:54,860 --> 00:42:57,909
but to international communism.

659
00:42:58,030 --> 00:43:01,955
My mother would describe them
as,

660
00:43:02,117 --> 00:43:04,290
which means that
these are people

661
00:43:04,453 --> 00:43:07,081
with the head of a water buffalo
and the face of a horse,

662
00:43:07,206 --> 00:43:11,131
meaning that they were
subhumans, and they were brutal.

663
00:43:12,461 --> 00:43:15,635
But on the other hand I
thought they also include people

664
00:43:15,797 --> 00:43:19,427
like my sister Thang
and a lot of my cousins.

665
00:43:19,551 --> 00:43:23,806
I couldn't quite reconcile
the two images.

666
00:43:23,931 --> 00:43:28,186
But of the two, I think the
other image was much stronger

667
00:43:28,310 --> 00:43:30,187
because I was so scared of them.

668
00:43:30,312 --> 00:43:33,816
I thought these people must be
really, really horrible people.

669
00:43:33,941 --> 00:43:36,364
That was the frame of mind I had

670
00:43:36,485 --> 00:43:40,706
when I started doing research
into the communist movement.

671
00:43:40,822 --> 00:43:44,372
Duong Van Mai was
the daughter of an official

672
00:43:44,493 --> 00:43:47,667
in the South Vietnamese
government and was now married

673
00:43:47,788 --> 00:43:50,337
to an American, David Elliott.

674
00:43:50,457 --> 00:43:53,552
Back in 1964, she had gone
to work

675
00:43:53,669 --> 00:43:56,263
for the RAND Corporation
in Saigon.

676
00:43:56,380 --> 00:43:58,633
The think tank had been
commissioned

677
00:43:58,757 --> 00:44:02,478
by Robert McNamara to do
a study of enemy prisoners

678
00:44:02,594 --> 00:44:05,518
to find out
"Who are the Viet Cong?

679
00:44:05,681 --> 00:44:07,934
And what makes them tick?"

680
00:44:09,685 --> 00:44:11,983
I remember my first interview.

681
00:44:12,104 --> 00:44:13,697
I was by myself.

682
00:44:13,814 --> 00:44:18,661
I was very young and I was going
to this pretty grim prison

683
00:44:18,777 --> 00:44:23,374
to interview this high-ranking
cadre who had been captured.

684
00:44:23,532 --> 00:44:27,537
I went in thinking I'm going
to meet this beast, you know,

685
00:44:27,661 --> 00:44:30,005
this guy with the head
of a water buffalo

686
00:44:30,122 --> 00:44:31,624
and the face of a horse.

687
00:44:31,748 --> 00:44:34,376
He walked in and he was
very surprised to see me.

688
00:44:35,752 --> 00:44:38,380
Just as surprised
as I was to see him.

689
00:44:38,505 --> 00:44:42,760
Here was a man who had devoted
all his life to fight

690
00:44:42,884 --> 00:44:45,854
for what he called a just cause

691
00:44:45,971 --> 00:44:48,565
to free his country
of foreign domination,

692
00:44:48,724 --> 00:44:53,230
to reunify the country
under just government.

693
00:44:53,395 --> 00:44:55,363
So he really totally
believed in it

694
00:44:55,480 --> 00:44:58,700
to the point that he sacrificed
his whole life to this cause.

695
00:44:58,817 --> 00:45:01,445
So I left, I was very...
I was very impressed with him.

696
00:45:03,155 --> 00:45:04,907
When the RAND
report was presented

697
00:45:05,032 --> 00:45:07,956
to McNamara's top
deputies at the Pentagon,

698
00:45:08,076 --> 00:45:11,080
describing the Viet Cong
as a dedicated enemy

699
00:45:11,204 --> 00:45:14,583
that "could only be defeated
at enormous cost,"

700
00:45:14,708 --> 00:45:19,009
one senior official said,
"If what you say is true,

701
00:45:19,129 --> 00:45:21,598
"we're fighting
on the wrong side,

702
00:45:21,757 --> 00:45:24,681
the side that's going to lose
this war."

703
00:45:53,413 --> 00:45:58,715
The overall myth
of an American army running roughshod

704
00:45:58,835 --> 00:46:03,966
by policy, by strategy, by
tactics to terrorize and murder

705
00:46:04,132 --> 00:46:08,763
and victimize the innocent
population of South Vietnam,

706
00:46:08,887 --> 00:46:10,480
that image is the...

707
00:46:10,597 --> 00:46:13,817
it-it doesn't do justice
to the young men and women

708
00:46:13,934 --> 00:46:15,106
who served over there.

709
00:46:15,227 --> 00:46:18,026
It's certainly not
an accurate depiction

710
00:46:18,146 --> 00:46:20,649
of what our army was about.

711
00:46:22,484 --> 00:46:25,658
From the first, the
Johnson administration understood

712
00:46:25,779 --> 00:46:27,577
that the war could not be won

713
00:46:27,697 --> 00:46:31,497
without convincing poor farmers
living in the countryside

714
00:46:31,660 --> 00:46:35,381
that the government in Saigon,
not the Viet Cong,

715
00:46:35,497 --> 00:46:40,003
had their best interests
at heart.

716
00:46:40,168 --> 00:46:42,296
In addition to the military,

717
00:46:42,421 --> 00:46:45,516
many American aid organizations
were at work

718
00:46:45,674 --> 00:46:47,347
in Vietnamese villages.

719
00:46:47,467 --> 00:46:50,220
They dug wells
and built windmills,

720
00:46:50,345 --> 00:46:54,316
started schools,
introduced improved rice,

721
00:46:54,433 --> 00:46:56,106
provided medical care,

722
00:46:56,226 --> 00:46:59,901
and electrified
much of the countryside.

723
00:47:02,524 --> 00:47:05,323
Under pressure
from Robert McNamara,

724
00:47:05,444 --> 00:47:09,165
MACV struggled to find ways
to measure the progress

725
00:47:09,281 --> 00:47:13,536
of pacification in South
Vietnam's 44 provinces,

726
00:47:13,702 --> 00:47:18,549
220 districts
and 13,000 hamlets,

727
00:47:18,665 --> 00:47:23,842
and finally came up with
the Hamlet Evaluation System.

728
00:47:23,962 --> 00:47:28,058
Soon some 220 U.S.
district advisers

729
00:47:28,216 --> 00:47:31,937
were required to produce
some 90,000 pages

730
00:47:32,053 --> 00:47:36,809
of data every month... a mountain
of information so daunting

731
00:47:36,933 --> 00:47:40,563
no one could make sense of it.

732
00:47:43,315 --> 00:47:46,194
Everything can be quantified.

733
00:47:46,318 --> 00:47:50,164
So you can literally say,
"How pacified is this village?"

734
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:53,329
"It's 37.5% pacified."

735
00:47:53,450 --> 00:47:55,623
Well, what does that mean?

736
00:47:55,744 --> 00:47:57,087
An American would tell you,

737
00:47:57,204 --> 00:48:00,424
"You know, we haven't had
an incident in this village

738
00:48:00,582 --> 00:48:03,085
or this province," whatever.

739
00:48:03,210 --> 00:48:09,013
"The incident rate's going down,
and therefore we're winning."

740
00:48:09,132 --> 00:48:11,726
But we would point out
that certain troubled areas

741
00:48:11,843 --> 00:48:14,437
in the provinces that we were
working in,

742
00:48:14,554 --> 00:48:17,728
we would say simply
that it's not pacified

743
00:48:17,849 --> 00:48:21,604
unless you want to consider it
pacified by the other side.

744
00:48:23,355 --> 00:48:25,699
To the extent that
pacification was succeeding,

745
00:48:25,815 --> 00:48:28,864
schools were being built,
wells were being cleaned.

746
00:48:28,985 --> 00:48:30,282
And then one fine night

747
00:48:30,403 --> 00:48:33,122
here comes 400 North Vietnamese
soldiers into the village,

748
00:48:33,281 --> 00:48:36,080
executes the village chief,
kidnaps 12 of the young people

749
00:48:36,201 --> 00:48:39,626
for, you know, service in the
revolutionary armed forces,

750
00:48:39,788 --> 00:48:41,836
and the people look
at the government and say,

751
00:48:41,957 --> 00:48:47,305
"You promised us you'd protect
us, but you didn't stay."

752
00:48:52,676 --> 00:48:54,428
I was over there early.

753
00:48:54,553 --> 00:48:58,899
I was with a really good unit,
who believed in Army traditions,

754
00:48:59,015 --> 00:49:00,517
they believed in honor,

755
00:49:00,642 --> 00:49:04,647
they believed even in treating
your enemy humanely

756
00:49:04,771 --> 00:49:06,819
once he was a POW.

757
00:49:06,940 --> 00:49:11,320
Lieutenant Mike Heaney
from Basking Ridge, New Jersey,

758
00:49:11,486 --> 00:49:14,456
was a platoon leader
in the 1st Cavalry Division.

759
00:49:14,573 --> 00:49:17,827
He'd arrived late in 1965

760
00:49:17,951 --> 00:49:20,921
and was assigned to a densely
populated section

761
00:49:21,037 --> 00:49:22,254
of central Vietnam,

762
00:49:22,372 --> 00:49:24,466
where he found himself
surrounded

763
00:49:24,583 --> 00:49:26,836
by North Vietnamese infiltrators

764
00:49:26,960 --> 00:49:30,464
and villagers whose loyalties
were unclear.

765
00:49:31,590 --> 00:49:33,809
We never really figured out

766
00:49:33,925 --> 00:49:36,348
how to determine
who the enemy was.

767
00:49:36,511 --> 00:49:41,358
Being normal, decent
American boys,

768
00:49:41,474 --> 00:49:44,318
you don't just put your rifle up
and take a shot at a guy

769
00:49:44,436 --> 00:49:45,562
and try to kill him

770
00:49:45,687 --> 00:49:49,442
unless you're pretty sure
this is an enemy.

771
00:49:49,566 --> 00:49:52,115
And if he wasn't armed,

772
00:49:52,235 --> 00:49:56,206
or wasn't menacing you in any
way, we wouldn't shoot him.

773
00:49:57,907 --> 00:49:59,580
We'd go through a village

774
00:49:59,701 --> 00:50:02,124
in which there would be no
people we could identify

775
00:50:02,245 --> 00:50:05,749
as enemy soldiers, and we'd find
a big cache of rice.

776
00:50:05,874 --> 00:50:09,128
So the standing instructions
were blow that up, burn it,

777
00:50:09,252 --> 00:50:11,004
destroy it, poison it, whatever.

778
00:50:11,129 --> 00:50:14,679
We really didn't want to do that
because it...

779
00:50:14,799 --> 00:50:17,018
You didn't have to be a
rocket scientist to look around

780
00:50:17,135 --> 00:50:18,738
and see these people are
depending on this.

781
00:50:18,762 --> 00:50:19,762
This is their food.

782
00:50:21,348 --> 00:50:24,227
We were told sometimes
to burn thatched dwellings.

783
00:50:24,351 --> 00:50:25,648
And guys would
unenthusiastically

784
00:50:25,769 --> 00:50:27,897
try to light a roof.

785
00:50:28,021 --> 00:50:29,739
And as soon as the flame
burned out,

786
00:50:29,856 --> 00:50:32,234
they weren't going to try again.

787
00:50:32,359 --> 00:50:35,613
Our hearts really weren't
in trying to destroy

788
00:50:35,737 --> 00:50:37,910
civilian food, civilian homes.

789
00:50:38,073 --> 00:50:41,202
It gave us an uneasy feeling
about,

790
00:50:41,326 --> 00:50:43,044
"What is this war is about?"

791
00:50:47,582 --> 00:50:49,584
Most of the fighting in Vietnam

792
00:50:49,709 --> 00:50:52,258
was the kind Mike Heaney
was about to see...

793
00:50:52,379 --> 00:50:58,102
small-scale, close-up, and
initiated by the elusive enemy.

794
00:50:59,594 --> 00:51:02,268
The military called it
"contact."

795
00:51:03,807 --> 00:51:09,439
"War is hell," grunts liked to
say, "but contact is a mother."

796
00:51:13,983 --> 00:51:18,739
The job of an infantry platoon
usually is to try to scare up

797
00:51:18,863 --> 00:51:21,912
enemy infantry and take it down.

798
00:51:22,033 --> 00:51:26,459
Really, the tactic was
we were acting as bait.

799
00:51:26,621 --> 00:51:28,623
And at some level we knew that.

800
00:51:28,748 --> 00:51:31,467
You know, go walk
in the woods and draw fire.

801
00:51:33,294 --> 00:51:34,921
Six months into his tour,

802
00:51:35,046 --> 00:51:37,720
Heaney undertook what
he and his men thought

803
00:51:37,841 --> 00:51:39,468
would be an easy assignment:

804
00:51:39,634 --> 00:51:43,810
climb a slope not far
from their base at An Khe

805
00:51:43,930 --> 00:51:47,651
and drive a small enemy mortar
unit off a ridge line.

806
00:51:47,767 --> 00:51:52,443
As soon as we started out,
we started to get some bad vibes.

807
00:51:52,564 --> 00:51:57,821
We found some boot prints
in the mud

808
00:51:57,986 --> 00:52:00,489
at the edge of this
landing zone,

809
00:52:00,613 --> 00:52:03,583
and a nice trail, a well-used
trail going up the ridge.

810
00:52:03,700 --> 00:52:07,830
I remember talking to one of
my squad leaders about this.

811
00:52:07,954 --> 00:52:12,004
And we were both sitting there,
"Well, shit, this sucks."

812
00:52:13,251 --> 00:52:16,130
And all of a sudden
the very point man,

813
00:52:16,254 --> 00:52:18,552
the first guy in the column,
Sergeant Mays,

814
00:52:18,673 --> 00:52:22,177
without saying anything just put
his M16 up to his shoulder

815
00:52:22,302 --> 00:52:23,679
and fired off a round.

816
00:52:23,845 --> 00:52:26,974
And he turned around
and he said, "VC on the trail.

817
00:52:27,098 --> 00:52:28,816
VC on the trail."

818
00:52:30,852 --> 00:52:34,732
Before I had a chance
to digest this, he went down,

819
00:52:34,856 --> 00:52:35,732
shot right through the chest.

820
00:52:35,857 --> 00:52:36,857
Boom!

821
00:52:38,234 --> 00:52:40,032
And all of a sudden

822
00:52:40,153 --> 00:52:43,999
what was a very well-laid
ambush erupted.

823
00:52:45,366 --> 00:52:49,496
And it was so loud
and so unexpected

824
00:52:49,621 --> 00:52:53,967
I was stunned for...
for a little bit, you know.

825
00:52:54,083 --> 00:52:55,710
"What the fuck is going on?"

826
00:52:55,877 --> 00:52:59,677
Heaney's radio operator,
Private Terry Carpenter,

827
00:52:59,798 --> 00:53:02,142
got the company commander
on the line.

828
00:53:02,258 --> 00:53:05,387
"We've run into something bad,"
Heaney said.

829
00:53:05,553 --> 00:53:10,400
At that moment, a bullet hit
Carpenter in the head.

830
00:53:10,558 --> 00:53:12,026
I knew Terry was down.

831
00:53:12,143 --> 00:53:13,941
I knew Sergeant Mays was down.

832
00:53:14,062 --> 00:53:16,440
I had asked the first machine
gun crew to come up

833
00:53:16,564 --> 00:53:18,237
and start laying down
machine gun fire.

834
00:53:18,399 --> 00:53:20,777
They got blown away
pretty quickly.

835
00:53:20,902 --> 00:53:24,247
They never really had a chance
to lay down much fire.

836
00:53:24,405 --> 00:53:26,123
At that point there
wasn't anybody left

837
00:53:26,241 --> 00:53:28,084
in my forward unit.

838
00:53:28,243 --> 00:53:31,087
Every one of them had
been taken down except me.

839
00:53:31,246 --> 00:53:32,964
Every one.

840
00:53:33,081 --> 00:53:35,379
Every one had been killed

841
00:53:35,500 --> 00:53:37,594
or mortally wounded
at that point.

842
00:53:41,923 --> 00:53:43,266
Night fell.

843
00:53:43,424 --> 00:53:45,426
What was left
of Heaney's company braced

844
00:53:45,552 --> 00:53:49,227
for the assault they assumed
would come at dawn.

845
00:53:50,431 --> 00:53:52,399
I was lying there
on the perimeter.

846
00:53:52,517 --> 00:53:54,645
I was right next
to a dead enemy soldier.

847
00:53:54,769 --> 00:53:57,488
It was kind of my face
and his feet

848
00:53:57,605 --> 00:53:59,198
and I kept looking back at him,

849
00:53:59,315 --> 00:54:01,784
because I couldn't see
any wounds on him.

850
00:54:01,943 --> 00:54:04,321
And, you know, the strange
things you think,

851
00:54:04,445 --> 00:54:06,118
"This guy's going to kill me.

852
00:54:06,239 --> 00:54:07,491
"He's faking it.

853
00:54:07,615 --> 00:54:08,895
"He's waiting until the assault,

854
00:54:08,950 --> 00:54:10,918
then he's going to jump up
and kill me."

855
00:54:11,035 --> 00:54:12,503
And I almost shot him again.

856
00:54:12,620 --> 00:54:14,213
Just to make sure he was dead.

857
00:54:15,790 --> 00:54:18,009
Then the enemy
began to lob mortar shells

858
00:54:18,126 --> 00:54:20,379
among Heaney's men.

859
00:54:20,503 --> 00:54:22,597
I felt like
somebody had taken a bat

860
00:54:22,714 --> 00:54:26,810
and hit me on my calf, my right
calf, as hard as he could.

861
00:54:26,968 --> 00:54:31,940
I was so stunned by the shock
of being hit,

862
00:54:32,056 --> 00:54:37,187
and I just drew in a deep breath
of air in terrible pain.

863
00:54:37,312 --> 00:54:39,610
I couldn't speak.

864
00:54:39,731 --> 00:54:42,530
Right after the ambush happened,

865
00:54:42,650 --> 00:54:44,527
and I knew I'd lost
a bunch of guys,

866
00:54:44,652 --> 00:54:48,873
I said a prayer to God saying,
basically,

867
00:54:48,990 --> 00:54:51,493
"If you need any more guys
from my platoon, take me.

868
00:54:51,659 --> 00:54:53,536
Don't take any more of my men."

869
00:54:53,661 --> 00:54:57,006
As soon as I said it,
I freaked myself out and said,

870
00:54:57,123 --> 00:55:00,718
"Holy shit, can I take
that prayer back?"

871
00:55:00,835 --> 00:55:01,836
But it was too late.

872
00:55:02,003 --> 00:55:03,425
I'd-I'd said it.

873
00:55:03,546 --> 00:55:04,843
And as it turns out,

874
00:55:05,006 --> 00:55:08,556
not one more man in my platoon
died after that prayer.

875
00:55:10,178 --> 00:55:14,354
American artillery
finally zeroed in on the enemy.

876
00:55:14,515 --> 00:55:17,314
The survivors of Heaney's
company stumbled down the hill

877
00:55:17,435 --> 00:55:19,108
to safety.

878
00:55:19,228 --> 00:55:22,107
He was carried to a hospital.

879
00:55:30,031 --> 00:55:32,875
I was lying on my bed sobbing.

880
00:55:32,992 --> 00:55:35,290
And this nurse came over.

881
00:55:35,411 --> 00:55:37,004
She bent over and said,
"Lieutenant...

882
00:55:37,121 --> 00:55:39,544
"You... the-the your men
are all over the place.

883
00:55:39,666 --> 00:55:41,714
You've gotta stop crying."

884
00:55:41,834 --> 00:55:44,633
And at that point
my platoon sergeant,

885
00:55:44,754 --> 00:55:48,099
huge black guy from Detroit
whom I loved dearly,

886
00:55:48,216 --> 00:55:51,720
Sergeant Sam Hunt, he came over
and he sat down next to me

887
00:55:51,844 --> 00:55:53,312
and he took my hand

888
00:55:53,429 --> 00:55:54,772
and he said to this nurse,

889
00:55:54,889 --> 00:55:56,516
"Ma'am, this here lieutenant

890
00:55:56,641 --> 00:55:58,609
don't have to stop doing
anything."

891
00:56:50,528 --> 00:56:52,168
The students are angry now.

892
00:56:52,280 --> 00:56:53,782
And the word is passed

893
00:56:53,948 --> 00:56:57,293
to gather at Saigon's main
Buddhist pagoda after dark.

894
00:56:59,370 --> 00:57:00,690
After all these years,

895
00:57:00,788 --> 00:57:04,133
the Vietnamese have learned
to live with crises and war.

896
00:57:04,250 --> 00:57:07,470
But they haven't learned yet
to live as a nation.

897
00:57:08,963 --> 00:57:11,182
Now, Dean, what
are we going to do?

898
00:57:11,299 --> 00:57:15,099
Are we moving to the point where
it would be difficult for us

899
00:57:15,219 --> 00:57:16,971
to ask people to continue
to die out there,

900
00:57:17,138 --> 00:57:20,062
this kind of stuff going on
every two or three months?

901
00:57:20,183 --> 00:57:21,983
I think not
yet, sir, by any means.

902
00:57:22,143 --> 00:57:25,317
I think that this is still
a minority problem.

903
00:57:25,480 --> 00:57:28,324
But political talk is not going
to be able to get anywhere

904
00:57:28,483 --> 00:57:30,326
if they don't maintain
the elements of order.

905
00:57:34,405 --> 00:57:37,204
On May 15, 1966,

906
00:57:37,325 --> 00:57:40,454
the government of South Vietnam,
the country for which

907
00:57:40,578 --> 00:57:43,047
so many Americans were
risking their lives,

908
00:57:43,164 --> 00:57:46,008
again seemed
on the brink of collapse.

909
00:57:48,461 --> 00:57:52,056
The ascendancy of Prime Minister
Ky had dealt a severe blow

910
00:57:52,173 --> 00:57:54,847
to activist Buddhists,
who had been demanding

911
00:57:55,009 --> 00:57:58,684
representative government and
a negotiated end to the war

912
00:57:58,805 --> 00:58:00,899
since 1963.

913
00:58:01,015 --> 00:58:05,020
When Ky suddenly fired
a rival general,

914
00:58:05,144 --> 00:58:06,862
a popular Buddhist commander,

915
00:58:06,979 --> 00:58:12,201
demonstrators poured into
the streets of Hue and Danang.

916
00:58:12,360 --> 00:58:14,579
They shut down the port

917
00:58:14,695 --> 00:58:16,868
through which U.S. supplies
had been flowing.

918
00:58:19,033 --> 00:58:22,958
Some South Vietnamese soldiers,
loyal to the dismissed general,

919
00:58:23,079 --> 00:58:25,582
abandoned the struggle
against the communists

920
00:58:25,706 --> 00:58:28,175
and headed for the city.

921
00:58:28,292 --> 00:58:31,637
Angry crowds burned
American jeeps.

922
00:58:31,754 --> 00:58:35,759
Signs reading "Peace!"
and "Americans Go Home!"

923
00:58:35,883 --> 00:58:37,556
appeared everywhere.

924
00:58:37,718 --> 00:58:40,847
President Johnson
was so concerned,

925
00:58:40,972 --> 00:58:44,522
he asked his advisors to ready
a fallback position

926
00:58:44,642 --> 00:58:46,690
if the Ky government fell.

927
00:58:46,811 --> 00:58:50,406
If necessary, he said,
the U.S. should be prepared

928
00:58:50,523 --> 00:58:52,946
to get out of Vietnam
and perhaps

929
00:58:53,067 --> 00:58:57,368
make a stand against communism
in Thailand instead.

930
00:58:59,574 --> 00:59:01,576
Ky ordered South Vietnamese
soldiers

931
00:59:01,742 --> 00:59:04,370
to surround and subdue Danang,

932
00:59:04,495 --> 00:59:08,250
where they exchanged fire
with their former comrades.

933
00:59:11,919 --> 00:59:17,096
As Ky's forces stormed
Buddhist pagodas in Danang,

934
00:59:17,258 --> 00:59:20,262
his warplanes strafed
dissident troops

935
00:59:20,428 --> 00:59:22,101
occupying the central market.

936
00:59:25,141 --> 00:59:26,859
The rebellion was crushed.

937
00:59:26,976 --> 00:59:29,855
Washington was relieved.

938
00:59:29,979 --> 00:59:33,779
Ky seemed to be back in control.

939
00:59:33,900 --> 00:59:38,155
But from his command post
on a hilltop outside the city,

940
00:59:38,279 --> 00:59:41,658
an American Marine lieutenant
had watched in disbelief

941
00:59:41,782 --> 00:59:45,457
as two battles unfolded

942
00:59:45,620 --> 00:59:50,751
in the west, his fellow Marines
were fighting the Viet Cong;

943
00:59:50,875 --> 00:59:54,550
in the east,
the South Vietnamese army

944
00:59:54,670 --> 00:59:57,469
seemed to be at war with itself.

945
01:00:08,434 --> 01:00:11,313
May 16, 1966.

946
01:00:11,479 --> 01:00:13,857
Dear Mom and Dad...

947
01:00:13,981 --> 01:00:15,904
Our operation here
on the Cambodian border

948
01:00:16,025 --> 01:00:18,198
has been quite a success.

949
01:00:18,319 --> 01:00:20,572
No doubt you will hear about it
on the news.

950
01:00:21,989 --> 01:00:24,162
We keep getting more and more
operations thrown at us

951
01:00:24,325 --> 01:00:26,327
so that nothing is very sure.

952
01:00:31,249 --> 01:00:34,093
Whether I will go
out again soon I don't know,

953
01:00:34,210 --> 01:00:35,587
but don't plan on steady mail.

954
01:00:38,881 --> 01:00:41,134
Tell Randy I'm looking forward
to seeing his new dog.

955
01:00:44,512 --> 01:00:47,516
I may take a 15-day leave
to Tokyo

956
01:00:47,682 --> 01:00:49,480
to keep from cracking up.

957
01:00:52,353 --> 01:00:54,196
It was a lovely spring day,

958
01:00:54,313 --> 01:00:57,408
and I opened the letter
that said that.

959
01:00:57,525 --> 01:01:00,324
And I was just really devastated

960
01:01:00,444 --> 01:01:04,574
because by that time
Vietnam was in total chaos.

961
01:01:04,699 --> 01:01:07,122
There was
a continuing changeover

962
01:01:07,243 --> 01:01:11,293
of people in authority at the
government in South Vietnam.

963
01:01:11,414 --> 01:01:14,884
And there were protests of
the Buddhist monks and others

964
01:01:15,042 --> 01:01:16,214
that...

965
01:01:16,335 --> 01:01:18,212
there were anti-American
demonstrations.

966
01:01:18,379 --> 01:01:21,053
I just thought,
"Why? Why are we there?"

967
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:24,760
I think that
letter when my brother

968
01:01:24,802 --> 01:01:27,396
showed a kind of despair

969
01:01:27,513 --> 01:01:30,733
is probably the first time
he'd expressed that openly

970
01:01:30,891 --> 01:01:33,644
to the whole family.

971
01:01:37,315 --> 01:01:41,741
It echoed back to the day
he'd said to me,

972
01:01:41,902 --> 01:01:43,404
"I don't want to go back."

973
01:01:44,905 --> 01:01:46,782
To an old high school friend,

974
01:01:46,907 --> 01:01:50,878
Mogie was even more forthcoming.

975
01:01:50,995 --> 01:01:53,589
Dear Duff,

976
01:01:53,706 --> 01:01:56,004
Since I last wrote,
which is several months,

977
01:01:56,125 --> 01:01:58,219
a number of exciting but
terribly unpleasant events

978
01:01:58,336 --> 01:02:02,057
have occurred, the worst of
which was being pinned down

979
01:02:02,173 --> 01:02:03,595
by two Chinese
light machine guns

980
01:02:03,716 --> 01:02:06,185
firing 900 rounds per minute

981
01:02:06,302 --> 01:02:08,976
and having my best friend
killed more or less beside me.

982
01:02:11,182 --> 01:02:12,729
Someday I may tell you
the whole story

983
01:02:12,850 --> 01:02:15,603
if my nerves aren't
completely gone by then.

984
01:02:15,728 --> 01:02:18,982
Actually the latter
is just wishful thinking,

985
01:02:19,106 --> 01:02:23,407
in false hope
they will take me off the line.

986
01:02:23,527 --> 01:02:27,407
I was fantastically religious
for a while,

987
01:02:27,531 --> 01:02:30,660
sending up various and sundry
prayers mainly concerned

988
01:02:30,785 --> 01:02:33,755
with trying to stay alive,

989
01:02:33,871 --> 01:02:38,377
but I am once again an atheist
until the shooting starts.

990
01:02:55,643 --> 01:02:57,145
I really believed

991
01:02:57,311 --> 01:03:01,487
that we had to stop
the communist expansion.

992
01:03:01,649 --> 01:03:06,655
I also believed that we were
on the side of the angels.

993
01:03:06,821 --> 01:03:09,244
Just as France had provided
us with support

994
01:03:09,365 --> 01:03:12,369
during our revolution, we were
providing the South Vietnamese

995
01:03:12,493 --> 01:03:14,541
with support during
their revolution.

996
01:03:14,662 --> 01:03:18,257
Matthew Harrison
was among the 300 graduates

997
01:03:18,374 --> 01:03:22,925
of the class of 1966 who
volunteered to go to Vietnam.

998
01:03:23,045 --> 01:03:23,921
Rangers!

999
01:03:24,046 --> 01:03:25,047
Rangers!

1000
01:03:25,172 --> 01:03:26,845
- All the way!
- All the way!

1001
01:03:27,007 --> 01:03:30,477
But first, he went
to Florida to become a Ranger

1002
01:03:30,594 --> 01:03:33,268
and endured nine weeks of
the most demanding training

1003
01:03:33,389 --> 01:03:35,266
the Army had to offer.

1004
01:03:35,391 --> 01:03:37,860
Airborne daddy gonna
take a little trip!

1005
01:03:38,018 --> 01:03:40,521
Airborne daddy gonna
take a little trip!

1006
01:03:40,688 --> 01:03:44,238
The man in charge was
Major Charles A. Beckwith-

1007
01:03:44,358 --> 01:03:45,780
Chargin' Charlie...

1008
01:03:45,901 --> 01:03:49,030
hero of the siege of Plei Me
the year before.

1009
01:03:49,196 --> 01:03:53,576
"If a man is bloody stupid," he
told each group of newcomers,

1010
01:03:53,701 --> 01:03:57,001
"his mother will receive
a telegram and it will say,

1011
01:03:57,121 --> 01:03:59,874
"'Your son is dead
because he's stupid.'

1012
01:03:59,999 --> 01:04:05,221
"Let's hope your telegram only
reads, 'Your son is dead.'

1013
01:04:05,379 --> 01:04:08,383
"With the training we're going
to give you here,

1014
01:04:08,507 --> 01:04:12,387
"maybe your mother won't receive
any telegram at all.

1015
01:04:12,511 --> 01:04:14,309
So pay attention."

1016
01:04:15,639 --> 01:04:16,856
To make it through,

1017
01:04:16,974 --> 01:04:19,068
Harrison and his fellow trainees
had to survive

1018
01:04:19,185 --> 01:04:23,531
days without sleep;
were deprived of food and water,

1019
01:04:23,647 --> 01:04:27,572
forced to march up mountains
until their feet bled

1020
01:04:27,735 --> 01:04:31,239
and patrol through swamps
that harbored copperheads

1021
01:04:31,363 --> 01:04:32,580
and cottonmouths;

1022
01:04:32,698 --> 01:04:35,747
had to learn how to detect
booby traps

1023
01:04:35,868 --> 01:04:40,965
and outmaneuver veterans
masquerading as Viet Cong.

1024
01:04:41,081 --> 01:04:45,427
"Expect the unexpected,"
Beckwith told his trainees

1025
01:04:45,586 --> 01:04:47,179
again and again.

1026
01:04:47,296 --> 01:04:50,596
"Life is unfair."

1027
01:04:51,967 --> 01:04:53,935
Once he'd become a Ranger,
Harrison was eager

1028
01:04:54,094 --> 01:04:57,849
to get to Vietnam and put
into action

1029
01:04:57,973 --> 01:05:01,318
the survival and leadership
skills he'd been absorbing

1030
01:05:01,435 --> 01:05:03,688
for five years.

1031
01:05:03,812 --> 01:05:06,782
I remember
discussing with my classmates

1032
01:05:06,899 --> 01:05:09,277
how horrible it would be
to serve in the Army

1033
01:05:09,401 --> 01:05:13,656
if everybody just a year ahead
of us had served in combat

1034
01:05:13,781 --> 01:05:16,034
and we didn't have the
opportunity to do that.

1035
01:05:16,158 --> 01:05:19,287
I was afraid we were going
to win the war too quickly

1036
01:05:19,453 --> 01:05:22,127
and I wouldn't have a chance
to experience it.

1037
01:05:45,771 --> 01:05:51,574
June 3, 1966, was
Mogie Crocker's 19th birthday.

1038
01:05:51,694 --> 01:05:55,244
His company was involved
in yet another campaign,

1039
01:05:55,364 --> 01:05:58,994
aimed at finding and killing
North Vietnamese troops

1040
01:05:59,159 --> 01:06:03,585
filtering into the
Central Highlands from Laos.

1041
01:06:03,706 --> 01:06:07,586
As night fell, Mogie and
his squad were ordered

1042
01:06:07,710 --> 01:06:09,838
to move up toward
the crest of a hill

1043
01:06:10,004 --> 01:06:13,304
overlooking a besieged
ARVN outpost

1044
01:06:13,424 --> 01:06:15,426
so that artillery could be
brought up

1045
01:06:15,551 --> 01:06:18,896
and positioned to shell
the enemy in the morning.

1046
01:06:21,890 --> 01:06:25,690
They moved slowly,
warily up the slope.

1047
01:06:25,853 --> 01:06:27,855
Mogie was the point man.

1048
01:06:30,899 --> 01:06:33,573
Out of the darkness,
a machine gun opened up.

1049
01:06:36,363 --> 01:06:40,994
Denton Crocker, Jr. Never made
it to the top of the hill.

1050
01:06:57,051 --> 01:07:00,476
It was just a
lovely day to be out in our garden.

1051
01:07:02,389 --> 01:07:06,235
Candy, our little girl,
went to a birthday party.

1052
01:07:06,352 --> 01:07:09,572
And the other children were
just around the house, I guess.

1053
01:07:09,688 --> 01:07:14,569
But shortly after lunchtime,
I stepped out on the porch.

1054
01:07:18,864 --> 01:07:22,084
I saw two men in uniform
coming to the house.

1055
01:07:24,828 --> 01:07:28,423
And I knew something terrible
had happened.

1056
01:07:29,792 --> 01:07:31,385
And I ran down the steps.

1057
01:07:31,502 --> 01:07:34,051
And I just grabbed hold
of one of them and said,

1058
01:07:34,171 --> 01:07:36,014
"Don't tell me.
Don't say it.

1059
01:07:36,131 --> 01:07:38,680
Not my beautiful boy."

1060
01:07:38,801 --> 01:07:41,179
And he just said, "Yes."

1061
01:07:45,474 --> 01:07:47,874
I was sitting on
the couch in the living room.

1062
01:07:47,976 --> 01:07:51,856
I suddenly heard my mother
screaming for my father.

1063
01:07:51,980 --> 01:07:55,951
Like in a movie, here came
the priest up the stairs

1064
01:07:56,068 --> 01:07:58,446
with a soldier,
and she's going, "Oh no."

1065
01:07:58,570 --> 01:08:02,165
And she's calling my dad.

1066
01:08:02,282 --> 01:08:05,035
My reaction was to leap up
off the couch,

1067
01:08:05,160 --> 01:08:06,628
race out the back door

1068
01:08:06,745 --> 01:08:08,622
and I grabbed my little
brother's hand

1069
01:08:08,789 --> 01:08:10,132
and I just started walking.

1070
01:08:10,249 --> 01:08:12,627
I said, "You have to come
with me."

1071
01:08:12,751 --> 01:08:14,378
I said, "I have something
to show you."

1072
01:08:14,503 --> 01:08:16,471
I have no idea
where I was going.

1073
01:08:16,630 --> 01:08:21,306
I just said to myself, "No.

1074
01:08:21,468 --> 01:08:22,811
This isn't going to happen."

1075
01:08:22,928 --> 01:08:26,558
And something made me
turn around

1076
01:08:26,682 --> 01:08:30,687
and I walked up to the back
of the house from the alley.

1077
01:08:30,811 --> 01:08:33,655
And my dad was standing there.

1078
01:08:33,814 --> 01:08:37,318
And I fell into his arms
and I said,

1079
01:08:37,443 --> 01:08:39,241
"Don't let it be true, Dad.

1080
01:08:41,655 --> 01:08:43,657
Is it true?"

1081
01:08:43,824 --> 01:08:45,326
And he said, "Yes.".

1082
01:08:48,495 --> 01:08:51,669
I somehow knew that
things had changed forever.

1083
01:08:53,375 --> 01:08:56,379
That my mom as my mom
and my dad as my dad,

1084
01:08:56,503 --> 01:08:59,507
it was never going to be
quite the same again.

1085
01:08:59,673 --> 01:09:01,516
I just, I remember sitting
on the couch

1086
01:09:01,633 --> 01:09:03,601
and I put my arms around them
and I said,

1087
01:09:03,719 --> 01:09:06,893
"We'll love each other
and we'll be all right."

1088
01:09:07,014 --> 01:09:10,314
But I don't know
how far it carried.

1089
01:09:10,434 --> 01:09:11,686
You know?

1090
01:09:11,810 --> 01:09:14,188
We all tried.

1091
01:09:20,194 --> 01:09:22,663
Carol said to me one day

1092
01:09:22,780 --> 01:09:25,124
very shortly after Denton
was killed,

1093
01:09:25,240 --> 01:09:29,916
probably that very clay,
"How can you believe in God?"

1094
01:09:30,037 --> 01:09:33,166
And I said,
"Because we had Mogie."

1095
01:09:36,502 --> 01:09:41,053
And I think that his life
was a real gift.

1096
01:09:41,215 --> 01:09:44,264
It was a privilege to have him.

1097
01:09:44,384 --> 01:09:45,556
A friend wrote to me,

1098
01:09:45,677 --> 01:09:49,307
"Our children are really
only on loan to us,"

1099
01:09:49,431 --> 01:09:51,308
which I guess is true.

1100
01:09:53,852 --> 01:09:57,573
Ten clays later, an Army
captain escorted Mogie's body

1101
01:09:57,731 --> 01:09:59,950
to Dick Stone's funeral home.

1102
01:10:00,067 --> 01:10:02,946
The family priest had suggested

1103
01:10:03,070 --> 01:10:05,448
that Mogie be buried
in Saratoga Springs

1104
01:10:05,572 --> 01:10:09,543
so that his parents could easily
visit his grave.

1105
01:10:09,660 --> 01:10:14,291
But they chose Arlington
National Cemetery instead.

1106
01:10:15,707 --> 01:10:18,927
"A corner of my heart knew,"
his mother remembered,

1107
01:10:19,044 --> 01:10:20,637
"that if he were buried near us,

1108
01:10:20,754 --> 01:10:25,430
I would want to claw the ground
to retrieve the warmth of him."

1109
01:10:33,058 --> 01:10:34,560
I hear my friends say,

1110
01:10:34,685 --> 01:10:36,983
"I am troubled,"
and "I am confused,"

1111
01:10:37,104 --> 01:10:38,481
and "I am frustrated,"

1112
01:10:38,605 --> 01:10:41,199
and all of us can understand
those people.

1113
01:10:41,316 --> 01:10:44,286
Sometimes I almost develop
a stomach ulcer myself,

1114
01:10:44,403 --> 01:10:46,497
just listening to them.

1115
01:10:46,613 --> 01:10:49,287
And we all wish
the war would end.

1116
01:10:49,408 --> 01:10:51,502
We all wish the troops
would come home.

1117
01:10:51,618 --> 01:10:54,792
There is no human being
in all this world

1118
01:10:54,955 --> 01:10:58,585
who wishes these things
to happen,

1119
01:10:58,709 --> 01:11:00,586
for peace to come to the world,

1120
01:11:00,711 --> 01:11:03,305
more than your president
of the United States.

1121
01:11:13,724 --> 01:11:15,647
The military
claimed to have killed

1122
01:11:15,767 --> 01:11:22,366
some 57,000 enemy soldiers in
the first six months of 1966.

1123
01:11:22,482 --> 01:11:25,406
But privately the administration
worried

1124
01:11:25,527 --> 01:11:28,406
that General Westmoreland's
"crossover point"...

1125
01:11:28,530 --> 01:11:31,750
the moment when more enemy
soldiers had been killed

1126
01:11:31,867 --> 01:11:35,792
than could be replaced...
seemed no nearer.

1127
01:11:35,913 --> 01:11:39,588
From the first, the Joint Chiefs
had urged the president

1128
01:11:39,708 --> 01:11:40,960
to be more aggressive...

1129
01:11:41,084 --> 01:11:46,762
to permit troops to pursue
the enemy into Laos and Cambodia

1130
01:11:46,882 --> 01:11:51,683
and to expand the target list
for bombing in North Vietnam.

1131
01:11:51,845 --> 01:11:55,895
Johnson still would not allow
borders to be crossed

1132
01:11:56,016 --> 01:11:59,361
by regular ground troops
for fear of bringing China

1133
01:11:59,519 --> 01:12:02,898
or even the Soviet Union
into the war.

1134
01:12:03,023 --> 01:12:05,697
And he was wary
of heavier bombing,

1135
01:12:05,817 --> 01:12:08,696
fearful of hitting
more civilians.

1136
01:12:08,862 --> 01:12:11,536
But despite his concern,

1137
01:12:11,698 --> 01:12:15,248
the president now agreed to
intensify the bombing campaign

1138
01:12:15,369 --> 01:12:17,918
called Operation
Rolling Thunder.

1139
01:12:18,038 --> 01:12:21,133
He approved attacks
on oil facilities

1140
01:12:21,249 --> 01:12:23,468
all over North Vietnam,

1141
01:12:23,585 --> 01:12:26,464
including some sites adjacent
to the cities

1142
01:12:26,588 --> 01:12:30,138
of Haiphong and Hanoi.

1143
01:12:30,258 --> 01:12:32,181
His commanders assured him

1144
01:12:32,302 --> 01:12:34,930
that this would be
a mortal blow to the enemy,

1145
01:12:35,055 --> 01:12:37,774
sure to force
the North Vietnamese

1146
01:12:37,891 --> 01:12:39,438
to the bargaining table.

1147
01:12:47,067 --> 01:12:50,742
Tens of thousands
of sorties were flown.

1148
01:12:53,865 --> 01:12:57,085
Many bombs hit
their intended targets.

1149
01:12:57,244 --> 01:12:59,246
But many missed

1150
01:12:59,413 --> 01:13:03,008
and fell on residential
neighborhoods instead,

1151
01:13:03,125 --> 01:13:06,004
just as the president
had feared.

1152
01:13:10,549 --> 01:13:13,598
Things are going reasonably
well in the South, aren't they?

1153
01:13:13,760 --> 01:13:15,888
Yes, I think so.

1154
01:13:16,013 --> 01:13:18,436
Because we think we're taking
a heavy toll of them,

1155
01:13:18,557 --> 01:13:21,185
but it just scares me to see
what we're doing there

1156
01:13:21,309 --> 01:13:24,404
with God knows how many
airplanes and helicopters

1157
01:13:24,521 --> 01:13:29,277
and firepower and going after
a bunch of half-starved beggars.

1158
01:13:29,443 --> 01:13:31,571
This is what's going
on in the South.

1159
01:13:31,695 --> 01:13:34,164
And the great danger is that,

1160
01:13:34,281 --> 01:13:38,878
that they can keep that up
almost indefinitely.

1161
01:13:38,994 --> 01:13:40,914
The only thing that'll prevent
it, Mr. President,

1162
01:13:40,954 --> 01:13:42,672
is their morale breaking.

1163
01:13:42,789 --> 01:13:45,167
There's no question but what
the troops in the South,

1164
01:13:45,292 --> 01:13:46,885
the VC and North Vietnamese,

1165
01:13:47,002 --> 01:13:49,801
they know that we're bombing
in the North.

1166
01:13:49,921 --> 01:13:51,389
And we just have a free rein.

1167
01:13:51,506 --> 01:13:53,066
And when they see they're
getting killed

1168
01:13:53,133 --> 01:13:54,726
in such high rates in the South,

1169
01:13:54,843 --> 01:13:58,143
and they see that the supplies
are less likely to come down

1170
01:13:58,305 --> 01:13:59,907
from the North, I think it will
just hurt their morale

1171
01:13:59,931 --> 01:14:00,978
a little bit more.

1172
01:14:01,141 --> 01:14:02,452
And to me that's
the only way to win

1173
01:14:02,476 --> 01:14:04,319
because we're not killing
enough of them

1174
01:14:04,478 --> 01:14:07,573
to make it impossible for
the North to continue to fight.

1175
01:14:07,689 --> 01:14:10,442
But we are killing enough
to destroy the morale

1176
01:14:10,567 --> 01:14:11,944
of those people down there

1177
01:14:12,069 --> 01:14:14,149
if they think this is going
to have to go on forever.

1178
01:14:15,906 --> 01:14:16,953
All right.

1179
01:14:17,074 --> 01:14:18,872
Go ahead, Bob.

1180
01:15:04,496 --> 01:15:08,046
People talk about collateral
damage, but it means something.

1181
01:15:09,751 --> 01:15:12,300
You don't want to do
collateral damage.

1182
01:15:12,420 --> 01:15:15,424
You want to do the damage
you want to do.

1183
01:15:15,549 --> 01:15:17,392
That's the winning way
to do this.

1184
01:15:31,189 --> 01:15:33,408
Even though
I was in a cell by myself

1185
01:15:33,567 --> 01:15:36,286
and others were in by
themselves, we weren't alone.

1186
01:15:36,403 --> 01:15:38,872
We were together
in this old French prison

1187
01:15:38,989 --> 01:15:41,788
halfway around the world
from the United States.

1188
01:15:41,908 --> 01:15:46,459
Gradually I began to realize
this could go on a long time.

1189
01:15:46,580 --> 01:15:49,925
A long time to me
was like maybe a year or two.

1190
01:15:50,041 --> 01:15:54,262
I never dreamed it would be
eight-and-a-half years.

1191
01:15:54,421 --> 01:15:58,972
By the summer of 1966,
Lieutenant Everett Alvarez,

1192
01:15:59,092 --> 01:16:01,936
the first American pilot
to have been shot down

1193
01:16:02,095 --> 01:16:06,396
over North Vietnam, had been
a captive for nearly two years

1194
01:16:06,516 --> 01:16:09,360
and had been joined
in and around Hanoi

1195
01:16:09,477 --> 01:16:12,572
by more than 100
other downed airmen.

1196
01:16:12,689 --> 01:16:16,489
Even though the North Vietnamese
considered them all

1197
01:16:16,610 --> 01:16:19,864
"aggressors,"criminals,"
and "air pirates"

1198
01:16:19,988 --> 01:16:23,367
rather than prisoners of war
deserving of humane treatment,

1199
01:16:23,491 --> 01:16:27,166
Alvarez and the others had
been treated relatively well

1200
01:16:27,287 --> 01:16:28,504
at first.

1201
01:16:28,622 --> 01:16:31,626
But that hadn't lasted long.

1202
01:16:31,750 --> 01:16:35,505
The men were soon forbidden to
communicate with one another,

1203
01:16:35,629 --> 01:16:37,973
forced to bow to their jailers,

1204
01:16:38,131 --> 01:16:41,431
and told that their country
had forgotten them.

1205
01:16:41,551 --> 01:16:44,976
They were subjected
to isolation, beatings,

1206
01:16:45,138 --> 01:16:47,732
and hour upon hour of torture,

1207
01:16:47,849 --> 01:16:51,444
all aimed at forcing them
to admit their guilt

1208
01:16:51,561 --> 01:16:55,941
and record statements
denouncing the war.

1209
01:16:57,609 --> 01:17:00,328
When that cell door
would open, when they would say,

1210
01:17:00,445 --> 01:17:05,793
"You, your turn," you know,
the bottom just fell out of you,

1211
01:17:05,909 --> 01:17:08,958
and you knew
that you may not come back.

1212
01:17:09,079 --> 01:17:14,176
The manacles, the ropes,
the beatings, they broke bones.

1213
01:17:14,292 --> 01:17:16,090
They... they did everything.

1214
01:17:17,671 --> 01:17:19,344
My arms turned black

1215
01:17:19,464 --> 01:17:22,638
from the cuffs that cut off
all circulation.

1216
01:17:22,759 --> 01:17:24,511
And they didn't let me die.

1217
01:17:24,636 --> 01:17:26,684
They just kept the pain.

1218
01:17:26,846 --> 01:17:29,850
That's when I realized
that I was not a superhuman.

1219
01:17:33,603 --> 01:17:38,905
The first time I broke and gave
them something, I felt so low.

1220
01:17:39,025 --> 01:17:42,325
I felt so little.

1221
01:17:44,531 --> 01:17:47,205
Some of the men who
were forced to record statements

1222
01:17:47,325 --> 01:17:51,705
did their best to make their
true feelings known back home.

1223
01:17:51,871 --> 01:17:55,796
Commander Jeremiah Denton
blinked his eyes to spell out

1224
01:17:55,917 --> 01:17:58,295
"torture" in Morse code.

1225
01:18:05,802 --> 01:18:09,306
On July 6, just one week
after American bombs

1226
01:18:09,431 --> 01:18:12,230
had first fallen on Hanoi
and Haiphong,

1227
01:18:12,392 --> 01:18:16,738
jailers rounded up Alvarez
and 51 other prisoners,

1228
01:18:16,855 --> 01:18:19,278
and, while cameras rolled,

1229
01:18:19,399 --> 01:18:21,902
marched them through
downtown Hanoi,

1230
01:18:22,027 --> 01:18:25,327
past the angry citizens
of the city.

1231
01:18:25,447 --> 01:18:27,791
I could hear the
crowd being whipped up.

1232
01:18:27,907 --> 01:18:31,878
And as I passed this one fellow
with the megaphone,

1233
01:18:31,995 --> 01:18:34,043
he looked at me
and he yelled to the crowd.

1234
01:18:34,164 --> 01:18:37,213
"Alvarez, Alvarez, son of
a bitch, son of a bitch!"

1235
01:18:37,334 --> 01:18:40,838
People started pressing in,
throwing things...

1236
01:18:40,962 --> 01:18:42,930
bottles, shoes.

1237
01:18:43,089 --> 01:18:45,217
But the guards by this time
were having a hard time

1238
01:18:45,342 --> 01:18:47,765
keeping the people away.

1239
01:18:47,927 --> 01:18:50,726
The North
Vietnamese had hoped to rally

1240
01:18:50,847 --> 01:18:55,227
international support for trying
the prisoners as war criminals.

1241
01:18:55,352 --> 01:18:57,229
It backfired.

1242
01:18:57,354 --> 01:19:01,530
People everywhere, even many of
those who opposed the war,

1243
01:19:01,649 --> 01:19:05,654
sympathized with the stumbling,
helpless men.

1244
01:19:07,072 --> 01:19:09,996
Plans for public trials
were canceled.

1245
01:19:12,285 --> 01:19:16,756
The bombing continued, and more
American planes were shot down.

1246
01:19:19,626 --> 01:19:24,132
The North Vietnamese took pride
in capturing American airmen.

1247
01:19:24,255 --> 01:19:28,135
Even children were
expected to do their part.

1248
01:19:29,969 --> 01:19:31,812
Hands up! Hand up!

1249
01:19:34,599 --> 01:19:36,567
Hands LIP!

1250
01:19:37,644 --> 01:19:38,644
Hands LIP!

1251
01:19:39,938 --> 01:19:42,157
The bombing
around Hanoi and Haiphong

1252
01:19:42,273 --> 01:19:44,651
that resulted in so many
of our people being POWs

1253
01:19:44,776 --> 01:19:45,868
for a long period of time

1254
01:19:45,985 --> 01:19:47,828
was fought out
of the White House basement,

1255
01:19:47,946 --> 01:19:50,825
with the president himself
picking targets,

1256
01:19:50,949 --> 01:19:52,701
and deciding that we're going
to attack now,

1257
01:19:52,826 --> 01:19:54,828
and then we're going to pause
for awhile.

1258
01:19:56,079 --> 01:20:00,676
Airpower was being misused,
big time.

1259
01:20:04,129 --> 01:20:06,632
Operation Rolling
Thunder did destroy

1260
01:20:06,756 --> 01:20:11,182
most of North Vietnam's
oil storage facilities.

1261
01:20:11,344 --> 01:20:14,143
But the North Vietnamese shifted

1262
01:20:14,264 --> 01:20:16,983
most of their oil
to underground tanks,

1263
01:20:17,100 --> 01:20:22,903
and more arrived every day
from China and the Soviet Union.

1264
01:20:26,109 --> 01:20:29,158
The bombing was stepped up
anyway.

1265
01:20:31,197 --> 01:20:32,198
Throughout the North,

1266
01:20:32,365 --> 01:20:35,039
enough crude air shelters
were fashioned

1267
01:20:35,201 --> 01:20:39,206
from concrete pipe buried
five feet beneath the ground

1268
01:20:39,330 --> 01:20:42,300
to accommodate some
18 million people-

1269
01:20:42,417 --> 01:20:45,671
virtually the entire population.

1270
01:20:49,841 --> 01:20:53,721
Over a million people were said
to be working around the clock

1271
01:20:53,887 --> 01:20:56,515
to undo what American bombs
had done.

1272
01:20:56,639 --> 01:20:59,233
When key bridges were destroyed,

1273
01:20:59,392 --> 01:21:01,690
they fashioned pontoon bridges
overnight

1274
01:21:01,811 --> 01:21:03,563
to keep traffic moving.

1275
01:21:03,688 --> 01:21:08,410
Crews waited along the roads
with heaps of gravel and stone

1276
01:21:08,568 --> 01:21:12,539
and stacks of wood
to fill bomb craters.

1277
01:21:12,655 --> 01:21:18,662
They worked under the slogan
"The enemy destroys, we repair.

1278
01:21:18,786 --> 01:21:23,417
The enemy destroys,
we repair again."

1279
01:21:29,797 --> 01:21:32,141
Rolling Thunder
was the dumbest campaign

1280
01:21:32,258 --> 01:21:34,602
ever devised by a human being.

1281
01:21:34,719 --> 01:21:36,847
The normal human thing to do

1282
01:21:36,971 --> 01:21:39,474
is to think that your enemy
thinks like you.

1283
01:21:39,599 --> 01:21:42,478
There's the old story,
apocryphal,

1284
01:21:42,602 --> 01:21:44,354
that when McNamara wants to know

1285
01:21:44,479 --> 01:21:47,528
what Ho Chi Minh is thinking,
he interviews himself.

1286
01:21:47,649 --> 01:21:50,448
What the problem then becomes is

1287
01:21:50,568 --> 01:21:54,163
that you keep trying to send
messages that are rational

1288
01:21:54,280 --> 01:21:56,624
based upon your judgment
of rationality,

1289
01:21:56,741 --> 01:21:59,915
but have nothing to do with
the definition of rationality

1290
01:22:00,036 --> 01:22:01,458
on the other side.

1291
01:22:02,789 --> 01:22:04,791
So what's irrational to us

1292
01:22:04,916 --> 01:22:06,668
is totally rational
to the other side

1293
01:22:06,793 --> 01:22:11,469
if you've decided that you are
going to reunify the Vietnams

1294
01:22:11,631 --> 01:22:15,886
no matter what it takes,
no matter how many casualties.

1295
01:22:19,597 --> 01:22:22,476
Hanoi did all it
could to publicize the damage

1296
01:22:22,600 --> 01:22:25,820
American bombs were doing
to civilians.

1297
01:22:25,979 --> 01:22:31,110
Most Americans dismissed the
reports as communist propaganda.

1298
01:22:33,278 --> 01:22:36,498
But when Harrison Salisbury
of the New York Times

1299
01:22:36,614 --> 01:22:42,246
traveled to North Vietnam and
reported on Christmas Day, 1966,

1300
01:22:42,370 --> 01:22:43,622
what he had seen,

1301
01:22:43,746 --> 01:22:48,001
public doubts about
the morality of the war grew.

1302
01:22:49,460 --> 01:22:52,009
A lot of the
military we talked to

1303
01:22:52,130 --> 01:22:56,431
shared our concerns about
how the war was being fought,

1304
01:22:56,551 --> 01:22:58,849
and whether or not
it could be won.

1305
01:22:59,012 --> 01:23:01,891
But when it came
to an official position,

1306
01:23:02,015 --> 01:23:04,859
it was what we know well,

1307
01:23:05,018 --> 01:23:07,897
namely, "We can win this war
and we're doing it right.

1308
01:23:08,021 --> 01:23:12,572
We just need more...
more troops, more bombing."

1309
01:23:18,740 --> 01:23:23,246
I recall on one instance
after I had returned from Vietnam,

1310
01:23:23,369 --> 01:23:27,044
I went by to see McNamara.

1311
01:23:29,042 --> 01:23:33,468
He was saying, "Well, how is our
strategic bombing program

1312
01:23:33,588 --> 01:23:36,057
affecting the course
of the war?"

1313
01:23:37,258 --> 01:23:41,855
I said, "It is not gaining us
anything.

1314
01:23:41,971 --> 01:23:45,646
Indeed, it is
counterproductive."

1315
01:23:47,310 --> 01:23:48,562
He said, "What do you mean?"

1316
01:23:51,272 --> 01:23:57,496
"Mr. Secretary, the sledgehammer
approach is not working.

1317
01:23:57,612 --> 01:24:00,536
"These people know
that at some point

1318
01:24:00,657 --> 01:24:03,251
"we're going to get tired
of killing them.

1319
01:24:03,368 --> 01:24:05,712
And they think they can
outlast us."

1320
01:24:05,828 --> 01:24:10,425
And he said, "Why don't people
tell me these things?"

1321
01:24:13,044 --> 01:24:16,389
I said, "Mr. Secretary,
you don't ask."

1322
01:24:19,926 --> 01:24:22,020
I think every father and son

1323
01:24:22,136 --> 01:24:27,893
struggles in the course
of their lives together.

1324
01:24:32,105 --> 01:24:37,453
And I don't think
my dad and I were exempt from that.

1325
01:24:37,610 --> 01:24:40,159
The interesting thing for me is

1326
01:24:40,279 --> 01:24:43,829
the space to talk about Vietnam
was never created.

1327
01:24:43,950 --> 01:24:47,955
And that was clearly a decision
on my father's part.

1328
01:24:49,997 --> 01:24:53,467
Craig McNamara, the son
of the Secretary of Defense,

1329
01:24:53,584 --> 01:24:55,678
was a student at
St. Paul's School

1330
01:24:55,795 --> 01:24:57,422
in Concord, New Hampshire,

1331
01:24:57,547 --> 01:25:01,643
where a teach-in about
the war was to be held.

1332
01:25:01,801 --> 01:25:05,146
I remember calling my father
from a phone booth and saying,

1333
01:25:05,304 --> 01:25:07,432
"Dad, we're going to have
this experience

1334
01:25:07,557 --> 01:25:09,309
"and if there's any
support materials

1335
01:25:09,434 --> 01:25:14,611
that you think I should present,
please let me know."

1336
01:25:16,149 --> 01:25:18,823
The support materials
didn't come.

1337
01:25:18,985 --> 01:25:22,990
I think my father really wanted
lovingly to protect me

1338
01:25:23,156 --> 01:25:26,285
from the Vietnam experience
to the best of his ability.

1339
01:25:26,409 --> 01:25:28,127
Well, we know you can't do that.

1340
01:25:28,244 --> 01:25:32,294
Things bleed through and it just
doesn't happen that way.

1341
01:25:32,415 --> 01:25:34,918
Probably, he realized
at that time

1342
01:25:35,042 --> 01:25:39,843
that the support materials...
weren't there.

1343
01:25:45,678 --> 01:25:48,038
Today I can
tell you that military progress

1344
01:25:48,139 --> 01:25:52,690
in the past 12 months has
exceeded our expectations.

1345
01:25:52,852 --> 01:25:54,695
The Viet Cong have
been unable to mount

1346
01:25:54,854 --> 01:25:56,948
the offensive
that they had planned

1347
01:25:57,064 --> 01:26:01,570
designed to cut the country
in half at its narrow waist.

1348
01:26:01,694 --> 01:26:03,662
The military pressure,

1349
01:26:03,780 --> 01:26:05,828
which forces have brought
against them,

1350
01:26:05,948 --> 01:26:07,468
have prevented them from
mounting that offensive

1351
01:26:07,492 --> 01:26:10,837
and have inflicted
very heavy casualties on them.

1352
01:26:10,953 --> 01:26:12,546
No matter how you measure it,

1353
01:26:12,705 --> 01:26:16,175
we're better off than we thought
we would be at this time.

1354
01:26:22,215 --> 01:26:24,026
Certainly when
I arrived, I'm thinking

1355
01:26:24,050 --> 01:26:26,018
I'm involved in
a winning enterprise.

1356
01:26:26,135 --> 01:26:27,887
I mean, America doesn't lose.

1357
01:26:28,012 --> 01:26:29,889
We never lose.

1358
01:26:30,056 --> 01:26:33,902
I had sort of not really known
much about the War of 1812,

1359
01:26:34,018 --> 01:26:37,397
which was...
pretty much of a draw,

1360
01:26:37,563 --> 01:26:40,737
or the Civil War in which
half of America lost,

1361
01:26:40,858 --> 01:26:43,953
and the Korean War
where we won the first half

1362
01:26:44,070 --> 01:26:45,162
and lost the second half.

1363
01:26:45,279 --> 01:26:48,032
But I'd been taught
America never loses.

1364
01:26:48,157 --> 01:26:52,207
The Marines had been
the first American combat troops

1365
01:26:52,328 --> 01:26:54,296
to fight in Vietnam.

1366
01:26:54,413 --> 01:26:56,836
And they were expected
to fight longer

1367
01:26:56,958 --> 01:27:01,259
than their Army counterparts...
13 months instead of 12.

1368
01:27:03,256 --> 01:27:05,099
Marine privates Bill Ehrhart,

1369
01:27:05,216 --> 01:27:09,767
John Musgrave, and Roger Harris
all arrived at Danang

1370
01:27:09,929 --> 01:27:12,398
in early 1967.

1371
01:27:12,515 --> 01:27:16,611
The first thing that assaulted
my nose was the foreign smells.

1372
01:27:16,727 --> 01:27:19,025
And watching people relieve
themselves

1373
01:27:19,146 --> 01:27:20,614
by the side of the road

1374
01:27:20,731 --> 01:27:23,530
and seeing animals
I'd never seen before...

1375
01:27:23,651 --> 01:27:25,528
the big water buffaloes.

1376
01:27:25,653 --> 01:27:28,031
You know, it was like
being on Mars,

1377
01:27:28,155 --> 01:27:31,830
because it was
totally foreign to me.

1378
01:27:31,951 --> 01:27:36,627
But I honestly, in my dumb
Missouri kid kind of way,

1379
01:27:36,747 --> 01:27:39,125
I thought, "Look at
all those foreigners."

1380
01:27:39,250 --> 01:27:41,628
And it didn't dawn on me
for a little while

1381
01:27:41,794 --> 01:27:44,968
that the only foreigner
in that area was me.

1382
01:27:46,924 --> 01:27:50,645
The feeling was that we
were going over to rescue folks.

1383
01:27:50,761 --> 01:27:53,810
And that the communists were
taking over this country

1384
01:27:53,931 --> 01:27:55,933
and they needed help.

1385
01:27:56,058 --> 01:27:58,561
But then when we got there
we realized that...

1386
01:27:58,686 --> 01:28:00,734
that it wasn't exactly
like that, you know.

1387
01:28:00,855 --> 01:28:03,153
Many of the Vietnamese,
they would spit at our trucks

1388
01:28:03,274 --> 01:28:05,151
and they'd tell us
to go back to America.

1389
01:28:05,276 --> 01:28:06,879
And then, you know, we began
questioning ourselves,

1390
01:28:06,903 --> 01:28:08,120
you know, why are we here?

1391
01:28:09,572 --> 01:28:11,324
These people don't want us here.

1392
01:28:13,451 --> 01:28:17,331
Roger Harris was assigned
to G Company, 2nd Battalion,

1393
01:28:17,496 --> 01:28:21,467
9th Regiment of the 3rd Marine
Division at Phu Bai,

1394
01:28:21,584 --> 01:28:23,757
outside of Hue.

1395
01:28:23,878 --> 01:28:25,926
John Musgrave was
first stationed

1396
01:28:26,047 --> 01:28:30,268
with the 1st Marine Division
at the Danang Airbase.

1397
01:28:30,384 --> 01:28:32,933
And Bill Ehrhart joined
the 1st Regiment

1398
01:28:33,054 --> 01:28:36,354
of the 1st Marine Division
near the city of Hoi An.

1399
01:28:39,018 --> 01:28:40,941
Private Ehrhart was given
a desk job,

1400
01:28:41,062 --> 01:28:43,156
collating snippets
of information

1401
01:28:43,272 --> 01:28:45,400
for the daily intelligence
summary.

1402
01:28:47,735 --> 01:28:49,863
Three days after he got
to Hoi An,

1403
01:28:49,987 --> 01:28:55,118
a group of civilian detainees
was brought into the compound.

1404
01:28:55,242 --> 01:28:58,667
These two amtracs
come in the back gate.

1405
01:28:58,788 --> 01:29:01,132
The Marines up top start
pushing them off.

1406
01:29:01,248 --> 01:29:02,888
Their hands are tied,
their feet are tied,

1407
01:29:02,917 --> 01:29:04,590
they have no way
to break their fall.

1408
01:29:04,710 --> 01:29:09,466
You literally can hear bones
snapping, shoulders dislocate.

1409
01:29:09,590 --> 01:29:12,560
And I grab Corporal Sal,

1410
01:29:12,718 --> 01:29:15,597
and he says in the absolute
flattest, hollowest voice

1411
01:29:15,721 --> 01:29:17,098
I've ever heard,

1412
01:29:17,223 --> 01:29:21,444
"Ehrhart, you better keep your
mouth shut and your eyes open

1413
01:29:21,560 --> 01:29:23,813
"till you understand
what's going on around here.

1414
01:29:23,938 --> 01:29:26,316
"Those trackers, they're
hitting mines out there

1415
01:29:26,440 --> 01:29:28,238
"on the sand flats every day.

1416
01:29:28,401 --> 01:29:30,403
"They're getting killed;
they're getting maimed.

1417
01:29:30,528 --> 01:29:33,953
"And these people know where
those mines are.

1418
01:29:34,073 --> 01:29:37,748
"You treat these people nice
in front of the trackers

1419
01:29:37,868 --> 01:29:39,040
"and those trackers

1420
01:29:39,161 --> 01:29:40,761
"will rearrange your head
and ass for you

1421
01:29:40,913 --> 01:29:42,381
and walk away laughing."

1422
01:29:44,000 --> 01:29:47,129
Well, at that point,
three days into Vietnam,

1423
01:29:47,253 --> 01:29:49,051
I'm thinking, "Whoa.

1424
01:29:49,171 --> 01:29:52,425
What the hell
is going on here?"

1425
01:29:54,427 --> 01:29:56,896
I think it is destroying
the good name

1426
01:29:57,013 --> 01:29:59,562
and the leadership
of the United States.

1427
01:29:59,682 --> 01:30:04,609
Furthermore, I believe that the
war is militarily unwinnable.

1428
01:30:04,729 --> 01:30:09,155
I believe that thousands
of American young men

1429
01:30:09,275 --> 01:30:13,371
are being asked to die to save
Lyndon Johnson's face.

1430
01:30:13,487 --> 01:30:16,957
He must know by now
that this war is unwinnable,

1431
01:30:17,074 --> 01:30:19,418
but he does not know
how to give up.

1432
01:30:19,535 --> 01:30:23,210
Therefore, I believe that young
men are not only justified

1433
01:30:23,330 --> 01:30:26,334
but to be thanked
if they point this out

1434
01:30:26,459 --> 01:30:30,305
by refusing to take part in such
an outrageous war any longer.

1435
01:30:34,341 --> 01:30:37,595
Dr. Benjamin Spock was
the best-loved pediatrician

1436
01:30:37,720 --> 01:30:39,017
of his time;

1437
01:30:39,138 --> 01:30:43,109
millions of American parents
had consulted his bestseller,

1438
01:30:43,225 --> 01:30:45,523
Baby and Child Care.

1439
01:30:45,644 --> 01:30:50,195
In early 1967, he wrote
the preface to an article

1440
01:30:50,316 --> 01:30:52,990
in the leftist magazine Ramparts

1441
01:30:53,152 --> 01:30:58,659
on the impact of American napalm
on South Vietnamese children.

1442
01:30:58,824 --> 01:31:03,500
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
was among those who had read it.

1443
01:31:03,662 --> 01:31:06,757
He had been agonizing
about the war for months.

1444
01:31:06,874 --> 01:31:09,673
But he had been reluctant
to break openly

1445
01:31:09,835 --> 01:31:13,715
with Lyndon Johnson, who had
done so much for civil rights.

1446
01:31:13,839 --> 01:31:18,015
Now he could no longer
stay silent.

1447
01:31:18,177 --> 01:31:23,308
I come to this
magnificent house of worship tonight

1448
01:31:23,432 --> 01:31:28,404
because my conscience
leaves me no other choice.

1449
01:31:28,521 --> 01:31:34,528
A time comes when silence
is betrayal.

1450
01:31:34,652 --> 01:31:41,410
That time has come for us
in relation to Vietnam.

1451
01:31:43,536 --> 01:31:46,710
Eleven days later,
King joined Dr. Spock

1452
01:31:46,831 --> 01:31:49,584
and perhaps half a million
other protestors

1453
01:31:49,708 --> 01:31:53,008
at a massive demonstration
in Central Park

1454
01:31:53,129 --> 01:31:55,223
organized by a new coalition,

1455
01:31:55,339 --> 01:31:59,970
the National Mobilization
to End the War in Vietnam.

1456
01:32:05,349 --> 01:32:08,398
That was the biggest
crowd any of us had ever been in

1457
01:32:08,519 --> 01:32:09,896
in our lives.

1458
01:32:10,062 --> 01:32:14,067
And when the front of the march
got down to the United Nations,

1459
01:32:14,233 --> 01:32:17,112
the back of the march had not
yet left Central Park.

1460
01:32:17,236 --> 01:32:20,456
That's how many people we were.

1461
01:32:25,202 --> 01:32:29,423
Not all of the people
on that march were students.

1462
01:32:29,540 --> 01:32:34,341
And as a result, we all felt
we have a chance now.

1463
01:32:34,461 --> 01:32:39,058
You know, there's a path that
we could see to ending the war.

1464
01:32:42,595 --> 01:32:45,189
Stop the bombing.

1465
01:32:45,306 --> 01:32:49,106
Let us save our national honor.

1466
01:32:49,268 --> 01:32:53,489
Stop the bombing,
and stop the war.

1467
01:32:53,606 --> 01:32:58,487
Let us save American lives
and Vietnamese lives.

1468
01:32:58,611 --> 01:33:02,115
Let us take a single
instantaneous step

1469
01:33:02,281 --> 01:33:03,624
to the peace table.

1470
01:33:03,741 --> 01:33:05,209
Stop the bombing.

1471
01:33:06,785 --> 01:33:08,833
The antiwar movement was growing

1472
01:33:08,954 --> 01:33:12,083
in numbers and militancy.

1473
01:33:12,208 --> 01:33:15,963
"We are no longer interested
in merely protesting the war,"

1474
01:33:16,128 --> 01:33:19,553
one organizer said,
"we are out to stop it."

1475
01:33:22,468 --> 01:33:26,348
Meanwhile, some in the Johnson
administration became convinced

1476
01:33:26,472 --> 01:33:29,726
the antiwar movement was
a communist conspiracy

1477
01:33:29,850 --> 01:33:31,693
directed by Moscow.

1478
01:33:31,810 --> 01:33:36,532
The FBI and the CIA,
which was barred by statute

1479
01:33:36,649 --> 01:33:39,027
from operating within
the United States,

1480
01:33:39,151 --> 01:33:43,452
began infiltrating the movement,
wiretapping its leaders,

1481
01:33:43,572 --> 01:33:48,669
even inciting violence in order
to undercut their appeal.

1482
01:33:52,706 --> 01:33:55,710
At that time,
people who supported the war

1483
01:33:55,834 --> 01:33:59,213
were fond of saying
"My country right or wrong's

1484
01:33:59,338 --> 01:34:02,217
"America,
love it or leave it."

1485
01:34:02,341 --> 01:34:05,811
Or "Better dead than Red."

1486
01:34:05,928 --> 01:34:10,058
Those sentiments seemed
insane to us.

1487
01:34:10,182 --> 01:34:12,355
We don't want to live
in a country

1488
01:34:12,476 --> 01:34:14,676
that we're going to support
whether it's right or wrong.

1489
01:34:14,770 --> 01:34:16,113
We want to live in a country

1490
01:34:16,230 --> 01:34:19,450
that acts rightly
and doesn't act wrongly.

1491
01:34:19,566 --> 01:34:23,867
And if our country isn't doing
that, it needs to be corrected.

1492
01:34:24,029 --> 01:34:27,203
So we had a very different idea
of patriotism.

1493
01:34:27,324 --> 01:34:33,878
So we began an era in which
two groups of Americans,

1494
01:34:34,039 --> 01:34:37,009
both thinking that
they were acting patriotically,

1495
01:34:37,126 --> 01:34:39,299
went to war with each other.

1496
01:34:39,420 --> 01:34:43,141
Over 200,000 communist
sympathizers

1497
01:34:43,257 --> 01:34:46,227
in that park this morning
tried to burn this flag,

1498
01:34:46,385 --> 01:34:48,058
but they didn't succeed.

1499
01:34:48,178 --> 01:34:49,778
I would put it this way...

1500
01:34:49,847 --> 01:34:52,191
there's a monstrous myth abroad,

1501
01:34:52,308 --> 01:34:55,733
a myth which Hanoi creates
and which it believes,

1502
01:34:55,894 --> 01:34:58,989
and that is that the United
States is so divided

1503
01:34:59,106 --> 01:35:03,657
that if they just hang on that
they will win in Washington,

1504
01:35:03,777 --> 01:35:06,047
and in the United States the
victory that our fighting men

1505
01:35:06,071 --> 01:35:07,744
are denying them in field.

1506
01:35:07,865 --> 01:35:10,709
As I have said before,

1507
01:35:10,826 --> 01:35:14,581
in evaluating the enemy strategy
it is evident to me

1508
01:35:14,705 --> 01:35:18,300
that he believes our
Achilles' heel is our resolve.

1509
01:35:19,752 --> 01:35:21,925
Two weeks after
the Manhattan protest,

1510
01:35:22,087 --> 01:35:26,217
General Westmoreland addressed
a joint session of Congress,

1511
01:35:26,342 --> 01:35:29,596
the first general ever to be
called home from a battlefield

1512
01:35:29,762 --> 01:35:32,231
by his president to do so.

1513
01:35:32,348 --> 01:35:37,980
Backed at home by resolve,
confidence, patience,

1514
01:35:38,103 --> 01:35:41,152
determination,
and continued support,

1515
01:35:41,273 --> 01:35:45,369
we will prevail in Vietnam
over the communist aggressor.

1516
01:35:47,071 --> 01:35:49,290
Behind the scenes,

1517
01:35:49,406 --> 01:35:52,785
neither Westmoreland
nor the administration he served

1518
01:35:52,910 --> 01:35:56,005
was confident the United States
would prevail.

1519
01:35:57,581 --> 01:35:59,800
Westmoreland reported
to the president

1520
01:35:59,958 --> 01:36:02,381
that according
to the latest statistics,

1521
01:36:02,503 --> 01:36:06,383
the crossover point had finally
been reached that spring,

1522
01:36:06,507 --> 01:36:10,887
except in the military sector
just south of the DMZ.

1523
01:36:11,011 --> 01:36:15,016
But, he warned, the United
States was doing little better

1524
01:36:15,140 --> 01:36:16,608
than holding its own.

1525
01:36:16,725 --> 01:36:20,446
If he were given
200,000 additional troops

1526
01:36:20,562 --> 01:36:23,816
and allowed to go into Laos
and Cambodia,

1527
01:36:23,941 --> 01:36:25,989
he could cut off
the Ho Chi Minh Trail

1528
01:36:26,110 --> 01:36:28,784
and end the war in two years.

1529
01:36:28,904 --> 01:36:32,249
But "When we add divisions,"
Johnson asked,

1530
01:36:32,366 --> 01:36:34,915
"can't the enemy add divisions?

1531
01:36:35,035 --> 01:36:37,208
Where does it all end?"

1532
01:36:37,329 --> 01:36:40,549
Westmoreland had no answer.

1533
01:36:40,666 --> 01:36:43,670
Instead, he and the Joint Chiefs
asked the president

1534
01:36:43,836 --> 01:36:47,682
to permit them to bomb sites
just below the Chinese border,

1535
01:36:47,840 --> 01:36:50,559
and to mine the harbors
of North Vietnam

1536
01:36:50,676 --> 01:36:56,524
to keep Hanoi's Soviet ally
from resupplying her by sea.

1537
01:36:56,640 --> 01:37:01,897
Meanwhile, Robert McNamara,
the chief architect

1538
01:37:02,020 --> 01:37:05,069
of American strategy in Vietnam,

1539
01:37:05,190 --> 01:37:07,318
had grown less and less
confident

1540
01:37:07,443 --> 01:37:09,537
in its ultimate success

1541
01:37:09,695 --> 01:37:13,541
and in the repeated calls
for more men and more bombing

1542
01:37:13,699 --> 01:37:16,703
made by the military he oversaw.

1543
01:37:16,827 --> 01:37:21,833
Robert McNamara was the
giant of Washington, D.C.

1544
01:37:21,957 --> 01:37:27,179
He was the embodiment of
intellect and self-confidence.

1545
01:37:27,296 --> 01:37:30,846
If there was a problem,
there had to be an answer.

1546
01:37:30,966 --> 01:37:33,970
And that was his fatal flaw.

1547
01:37:34,094 --> 01:37:36,722
The startling thing is

1548
01:37:36,889 --> 01:37:42,942
that this man who never seemed
to doubt anything he said,

1549
01:37:43,061 --> 01:37:46,611
actually began to doubt
profoundly what he was doing

1550
01:37:46,732 --> 01:37:48,325
in Vietnam.

1551
01:37:48,442 --> 01:37:50,035
But we didn't know about it.

1552
01:37:50,152 --> 01:37:53,531
In a private
memorandum to the president,

1553
01:37:53,655 --> 01:37:56,249
McNamara told Johnson that

1554
01:37:56,366 --> 01:37:59,085
"the picture of the world's
greatest superpower

1555
01:37:59,244 --> 01:38:04,045
"killing or seriously injuring
1,000 non-combatants a week,

1556
01:38:04,166 --> 01:38:08,592
"while trying to pound a tiny,
backward nation into submission

1557
01:38:08,754 --> 01:38:11,724
"on an issue whose merits are
hotly disputed

1558
01:38:11,840 --> 01:38:13,808
is not a pretty one."

1559
01:38:13,926 --> 01:38:18,602
He urged the president to limit
troop levels, not raise them,

1560
01:38:18,764 --> 01:38:22,814
and to declare an unconditional
end to all bombing

1561
01:38:22,935 --> 01:38:25,404
north of the 20th parallel.

1562
01:38:25,521 --> 01:38:29,492
"The war in Vietnam is acquiring
a momentum of its own

1563
01:38:29,608 --> 01:38:32,612
that must be stopped,"
McNamara wrote.

1564
01:38:32,736 --> 01:38:36,115
"Dramatic increases
in U.S. troop deployments

1565
01:38:36,240 --> 01:38:39,084
"and attacks on the North
are not necessary

1566
01:38:39,201 --> 01:38:40,828
"and are not the answer.

1567
01:38:40,953 --> 01:38:44,708
"The enemy can absorb them
or counter them,

1568
01:38:44,831 --> 01:38:46,424
"bogging us down further

1569
01:38:46,542 --> 01:38:51,799
and risking even more serious
escalation of the war."

1570
01:38:51,964 --> 01:38:56,640
In the end, Johnson tried
to find a middle ground.

1571
01:38:56,760 --> 01:38:59,229
He expanded the list
of bombing targets,

1572
01:38:59,346 --> 01:39:02,099
but he refused to mine
the harbors

1573
01:39:02,224 --> 01:39:04,477
and he agreed to send
Westmoreland

1574
01:39:04,601 --> 01:39:07,320
only 47,000 more troops,

1575
01:39:07,479 --> 01:39:10,653
which would bring the total
of U.S. forces in the country

1576
01:39:10,774 --> 01:39:12,947
to more than half a million men.

1577
01:39:15,320 --> 01:39:20,497
On June 17, 1967,
Robert McNamara placed a call

1578
01:39:20,617 --> 01:39:24,747
to his military assistant,
Lieutenant Colonel Robert Gard.

1579
01:39:24,871 --> 01:39:27,920
My phone rang and
the little light showed

1580
01:39:28,041 --> 01:39:30,635
it was the secretary
on the line.

1581
01:39:30,752 --> 01:39:33,881
And I picked it up and said,
"Yes, Mr. Secretary?"

1582
01:39:34,006 --> 01:39:35,849
And Mr. McNamara said,

1583
01:39:36,008 --> 01:39:38,636
"Bob, I want a thorough study
done of the background

1584
01:39:38,760 --> 01:39:41,229
of our involvement in Vietnam,"
and hung up the phone.

1585
01:39:41,346 --> 01:39:44,691
Leslie Gelb,
a 30-year-old member

1586
01:39:44,850 --> 01:39:48,024
of the International Security
Affairs staff,

1587
01:39:48,145 --> 01:39:51,149
was named to oversee
the top-secret analysis

1588
01:39:51,273 --> 01:39:55,494
of how key decisions had been
made, going all the way back

1589
01:39:55,611 --> 01:39:57,705
to the Truman administration.

1590
01:39:59,865 --> 01:40:04,746
McNamara gave us
full access to his closet,

1591
01:40:04,870 --> 01:40:07,419
in his office,
which was like a room.

1592
01:40:07,539 --> 01:40:10,008
But all his private papers
were there.

1593
01:40:10,125 --> 01:40:12,548
And I was picking out the memos,

1594
01:40:12,669 --> 01:40:15,218
a lot of which
I helped to write.

1595
01:40:15,380 --> 01:40:18,475
But there were others in there
that I had never seen.

1596
01:40:18,592 --> 01:40:25,692
In these memos you began to see
Robert McNamara communicating

1597
01:40:25,807 --> 01:40:30,859
with the president, alone,
his doubts.

1598
01:40:30,979 --> 01:40:33,232
It stunned me.

1599
01:40:40,906 --> 01:40:43,830
I had thought that we were
mostly fighting a guerrilla war.

1600
01:40:46,578 --> 01:40:52,881
I didn't know that we were going
to be fighting guys like us,

1601
01:40:53,001 --> 01:40:54,799
that I had a doppelganger
out there

1602
01:40:54,920 --> 01:41:00,177
who was leading a rifle platoon,
who knew what he was doing,

1603
01:41:00,300 --> 01:41:05,648
who was as fully prepared to
kill me as I was to kill him.

1604
01:41:07,933 --> 01:41:10,982
That June, First
Lieutenant Matthew Harrison

1605
01:41:11,103 --> 01:41:15,734
finally got his orders
to join the 173rd Airborne,

1606
01:41:15,857 --> 01:41:20,078
an elite unit ready to rush
anywhere they were needed.

1607
01:41:20,195 --> 01:41:25,668
They called themselves General
Westmoreland's Fire Brigade.

1608
01:41:30,122 --> 01:41:33,592
Harrison's arrival at Bien Hoa
was a reunion of sorts.

1609
01:41:33,709 --> 01:41:38,465
He and seven others from
the West Point class of 1966

1610
01:41:38,588 --> 01:41:41,592
all found themselves serving
in the 2nd Battalion,

1611
01:41:41,717 --> 01:41:44,971
including two especially
close friends:

1612
01:41:45,137 --> 01:41:49,142
Donald Judd and Richard Hood.

1613
01:41:49,307 --> 01:41:52,481
As young
lieutenants, as 22-year-olds,

1614
01:41:52,602 --> 01:41:57,654
we really were idealists
and we really were Boy Scouts.

1615
01:41:57,816 --> 01:42:01,946
I really felt as though
I was uniquely qualified

1616
01:42:02,070 --> 01:42:03,663
to lead American soldiers

1617
01:42:03,822 --> 01:42:06,075
and that there was nothing
more important

1618
01:42:06,199 --> 01:42:08,577
than what I was going
to be doing.

1619
01:42:08,702 --> 01:42:12,206
But when I joined the 173rd,

1620
01:42:12,330 --> 01:42:15,925
I think the first day I was
there some guy showed me

1621
01:42:16,042 --> 01:42:19,842
what looked like a bunch of
apricots on a leather thong.

1622
01:42:20,005 --> 01:42:23,509
Turns out they were ears,
dried, desiccated.

1623
01:42:25,385 --> 01:42:29,060
I understood theoretically
what it meant to be in a war.

1624
01:42:29,181 --> 01:42:32,105
But, of course, no one can
really understand it

1625
01:42:32,225 --> 01:42:33,602
until they've done it.

1626
01:42:38,565 --> 01:42:41,284
Harrison was a platoon
leader in Charlie Company.

1627
01:42:41,401 --> 01:42:47,079
His West Point classmates
served with Alpha Company.

1628
01:42:47,199 --> 01:42:49,543
Within a few days,

1629
01:42:49,659 --> 01:42:52,538
they were helicoptered into the
heart of the Central Highlands

1630
01:42:52,662 --> 01:42:56,132
near Dak To,
where North Vietnamese regulars

1631
01:42:56,249 --> 01:43:01,221
were said to be threatening
a Special Forces camp.

1632
01:43:01,379 --> 01:43:04,132
They were all airlifted
into landing zones

1633
01:43:04,257 --> 01:43:07,511
hacked out of the steep,
jungle-blanketed slope

1634
01:43:07,636 --> 01:43:11,391
of a mountain the Americans
called Hill 1338

1635
01:43:11,515 --> 01:43:16,737
for its height in meters, with
orders to hunt down the enemy.

1636
01:43:16,895 --> 01:43:19,239
They walked for two days,

1637
01:43:19,356 --> 01:43:22,200
following a well-worn
enemy trail,

1638
01:43:22,317 --> 01:43:26,914
constantly on the lookout
for booby traps or ambushes.

1639
01:43:31,451 --> 01:43:33,328
On the evening of June 21,

1640
01:43:33,453 --> 01:43:36,707
Harrison's Charlie Company
settled in for the night

1641
01:43:36,832 --> 01:43:40,211
while his friends in Alpha
Company set up camp

1642
01:43:40,335 --> 01:43:42,633
a little less than
two miles to the south,

1643
01:43:42,754 --> 01:43:46,509
along the same
slippery jungle path.

1644
01:43:46,633 --> 01:43:51,434
No one knew that an entire
North Vietnamese battalion...

1645
01:43:51,596 --> 01:43:53,940
perhaps 500 men...

1646
01:43:54,099 --> 01:43:56,773
was encamped on the other side
of a ridgeline,

1647
01:43:56,935 --> 01:44:00,610
just a few hundred yards away.

1648
01:44:02,607 --> 01:44:04,609
At 6:58 the next morning,

1649
01:44:04,776 --> 01:44:08,451
a patrol from Alpha Company
stumbled into a squad

1650
01:44:08,613 --> 01:44:10,240
of North Vietnamese.

1651
01:44:10,365 --> 01:44:13,244
The Americans withdrew

1652
01:44:13,368 --> 01:44:16,588
and struggled to establish
a perimeter.

1653
01:44:16,705 --> 01:44:19,208
Within minutes,
they were under attack

1654
01:44:19,332 --> 01:44:23,838
from relentless AK-47
automatic fire.

1655
01:44:23,962 --> 01:44:27,216
The enemy mounted
attack after attack,

1656
01:44:27,340 --> 01:44:30,219
drawing closer each time.

1657
01:44:30,343 --> 01:44:34,143
Alpha Company radioed for air
and artillery support,

1658
01:44:34,306 --> 01:44:38,277
but the triple-canopy jungle
blocked the spotter's view.

1659
01:45:29,861 --> 01:45:33,206
At around noon, Harrison's
unit was ordered to rescue

1660
01:45:33,323 --> 01:45:36,202
the trapped men
of Alpha Company.

1661
01:45:36,368 --> 01:45:38,996
It was mountainous terrain.

1662
01:45:39,120 --> 01:45:40,838
We were carrying two bodies

1663
01:45:40,956 --> 01:45:43,425
along with a bunch
of engineer equipment.

1664
01:45:43,541 --> 01:45:48,843
And we could not push down
the couple of hundred meters

1665
01:45:48,964 --> 01:45:51,888
to where the most of the
fighting had taken place.

1666
01:45:53,885 --> 01:45:56,104
The going was
steep and slippery.

1667
01:45:56,221 --> 01:45:58,269
North Vietnamese troops,

1668
01:45:58,390 --> 01:46:01,109
now entrenched along both sides
of the trail,

1669
01:46:01,226 --> 01:46:05,857
prevented Matt Harrison and his
men from reaching Alpha Company.

1670
01:46:05,981 --> 01:46:09,531
At dusk, the shooting died down,

1671
01:46:09,651 --> 01:46:12,074
and they dug in
at the top of a ridge

1672
01:46:12,195 --> 01:46:15,074
and did their best to sleep.

1673
01:46:16,908 --> 01:46:20,663
So we lay there
on the night of June 22

1674
01:46:20,787 --> 01:46:25,258
and we could hear the screams
of the wounded down the hill

1675
01:46:25,417 --> 01:46:29,968
as the North Vietnamese
went around and shot them.

1676
01:46:30,088 --> 01:46:33,262
By dawn, the
enemy had melted away.

1677
01:46:36,970 --> 01:46:40,224
Harrison and his platoon
crept down the hillside

1678
01:46:40,348 --> 01:46:43,943
and reached what was left
of Alpha Company.

1679
01:46:45,395 --> 01:46:51,277
Out of 137 men,
76 lay dead along the path.

1680
01:46:51,443 --> 01:46:56,415
Forty-three had been shot
in the head at close range.

1681
01:46:56,531 --> 01:47:01,082
Ears had been cut from some;
eyes gouged out;

1682
01:47:01,202 --> 01:47:03,125
ring fingers missing.

1683
01:47:03,246 --> 01:47:06,921
Twenty-three more men
were wounded.

1684
01:47:07,042 --> 01:47:12,799
Harrison found his classmates,
Donald Judd and Richard Hood,

1685
01:47:12,964 --> 01:47:15,012
among the dead.

1686
01:47:16,676 --> 01:47:20,806
This was my introduction to war.

1687
01:47:20,930 --> 01:47:24,730
This was my welcome to Vietnam.

1688
01:47:27,020 --> 01:47:30,490
We spent the rest of the day
putting those bodies

1689
01:47:30,607 --> 01:47:33,986
into body bags
and getting them out of there.

1690
01:47:34,110 --> 01:47:36,829
Getting-getting killed
is forever.

1691
01:47:36,988 --> 01:47:42,711
And, um, that was something
that I had known theoretically

1692
01:47:42,827 --> 01:47:45,000
but I now understood
particularly

1693
01:47:45,163 --> 01:47:47,757
when I put my two classmates
in body bags,

1694
01:47:47,874 --> 01:47:50,502
guys that I had gone
to school with for four years

1695
01:47:50,627 --> 01:47:53,597
and were good friends
and who just the week before

1696
01:47:53,713 --> 01:47:56,637
we had been drinking beer
and ribbing each other

1697
01:47:56,758 --> 01:47:59,807
and these guys were now gone.

1698
01:48:00,887 --> 01:48:01,989
Charlie Company found

1699
01:48:02,013 --> 01:48:05,563
just nine or ten
North Vietnamese bodies.

1700
01:48:05,683 --> 01:48:08,357
Harrison and his men were
ordered to search

1701
01:48:08,520 --> 01:48:12,320
the nearby hillsides
for more enemy dead,

1702
01:48:12,440 --> 01:48:16,445
who commanders assumed had been
killed by U.S. artillery.

1703
01:48:16,569 --> 01:48:20,164
MACV needed its body count.

1704
01:48:22,784 --> 01:48:25,833
We never located
them and I believe today

1705
01:48:25,954 --> 01:48:28,924
that we didn't locate them
because they weren't there.

1706
01:48:29,040 --> 01:48:33,546
I think we just
took a terrible loss on June 22.

1707
01:48:33,711 --> 01:48:40,765
To admit that a rifle company
in the 173rd had been wiped out

1708
01:48:40,885 --> 01:48:43,058
by the North Vietnamese
was not something

1709
01:48:43,179 --> 01:48:44,556
our leaders were prepared to do.

1710
01:48:44,681 --> 01:48:50,404
So we had to sell ourselves
and we had to sell the public

1711
01:48:50,520 --> 01:48:53,899
on the idea that we had
inflicted casualties

1712
01:48:54,023 --> 01:48:55,741
on the North Vietnamese
as severe

1713
01:48:55,900 --> 01:48:58,119
as they had inflicted on us.

1714
01:48:58,236 --> 01:49:02,707
An officer told a reporter
that the shattered rifle company

1715
01:49:02,824 --> 01:49:07,079
had killed 475 enemy soldiers.

1716
01:49:07,203 --> 01:49:11,253
When another officer suggested
to General Westmoreland

1717
01:49:11,374 --> 01:49:14,218
that the figure seemed too high
to be believable,

1718
01:49:14,335 --> 01:49:16,679
he replied, "Too late.

1719
01:49:16,796 --> 01:49:19,174
It's already gone out."

1720
01:49:19,299 --> 01:49:22,143
Within a few
days after the battle,

1721
01:49:22,260 --> 01:49:24,479
Westmoreland came up to speak

1722
01:49:24,596 --> 01:49:28,317
to what we thought of ourselves
as his brigade.

1723
01:49:28,433 --> 01:49:34,440
And he hopped up on a hood of
a jeep in very crisp fatigues

1724
01:49:34,606 --> 01:49:37,485
looking every inch
the battle commander

1725
01:49:37,609 --> 01:49:41,955
and gave us a pep talk and told
us how proud he was

1726
01:49:42,071 --> 01:49:44,574
and what a magnificent job
we had done.

1727
01:49:44,699 --> 01:49:49,626
But by then I had more
than just a suspicion

1728
01:49:49,787 --> 01:49:55,920
that this was a fairy tale,
that Westmoreland was wrong

1729
01:49:56,044 --> 01:49:58,968
and I didn't know whether
he knew he was wrong

1730
01:49:59,088 --> 01:50:02,809
or whether he believed
what he was being told

1731
01:50:02,926 --> 01:50:05,145
and wanted to believe.

1732
01:50:05,261 --> 01:50:09,641
But this was the first time
that I had to come to grips

1733
01:50:09,766 --> 01:50:11,518
with the fact
that the leadership

1734
01:50:11,643 --> 01:50:15,273
was either out of touch
or was lying.

1735
01:50:22,237 --> 01:50:25,992
I remember a very
difficult conversation I had

1736
01:50:26,157 --> 01:50:29,457
with a girl who had really been
a best friend of mine.

1737
01:50:29,577 --> 01:50:32,956
And the talk turned to Vietnam.

1738
01:50:33,081 --> 01:50:35,960
And I remember her looking
at me and saying,

1739
01:50:36,084 --> 01:50:43,389
"My father says that you can't
listen to people

1740
01:50:43,508 --> 01:50:46,182
"who've lost someone in the war

1741
01:50:46,302 --> 01:50:47,895
"because they're going
to support it

1742
01:50:48,012 --> 01:50:50,106
to justify that person's death."

1743
01:50:51,975 --> 01:50:54,979
I felt like she'd hit me
in the stomach.

1744
01:50:55,103 --> 01:50:59,279
But I knew at that moment there
were some factions developing

1745
01:50:59,399 --> 01:51:03,120
and this wasn't going to be
an easy path to walk;

1746
01:51:03,236 --> 01:51:04,863
that people were going
to have opinions

1747
01:51:05,029 --> 01:51:07,282
about my brother's death

1748
01:51:07,407 --> 01:51:11,128
that in some ways had nothing
to do with his death for me.