1
00:00:17,581 --> 00:00:19,424
Soldiers adapt.

2
00:00:19,541 --> 00:00:21,589
You go over there
with one mindset, you know,

3
00:00:21,710 --> 00:00:23,132
and then you adapt.

4
00:00:23,254 --> 00:00:25,222
You adapt to the atrocities
of war.

5
00:00:25,339 --> 00:00:26,807
You adapt to...

6
00:00:29,176 --> 00:00:33,352
killing and dying, you know.

7
00:00:33,514 --> 00:00:35,357
After a while
it doesn't bother you.

8
00:00:38,185 --> 00:00:40,105
Well, I should say it doesn't
bother you as much.

9
00:00:41,563 --> 00:00:45,067
When I first arrived in Vietnam,
there were some...

10
00:00:46,485 --> 00:00:48,004
there were some interesting
things that happened

11
00:00:48,028 --> 00:00:51,202
and I questioned
some of the Marines.

12
00:00:51,365 --> 00:00:55,962
I was made to realize that this
is war, and this is what we do.

13
00:00:57,621 --> 00:00:59,248
And that stuck in my head.

14
00:00:59,373 --> 00:01:00,249
This is war.

15
00:01:00,374 --> 00:01:02,468
This is what we do.

16
00:01:02,584 --> 00:01:06,305
And after a while
you embrace that.

17
00:01:08,090 --> 00:01:09,808
This is war.

18
00:01:09,925 --> 00:01:11,268
This is what we do.

19
00:01:25,482 --> 00:01:28,531
This evening I came here
to speak to you about Vietnam.

20
00:01:28,652 --> 00:01:31,576
There is progress
in the war itself,

21
00:01:31,739 --> 00:01:34,993
rather dramatic progress
considering the situation

22
00:01:35,117 --> 00:01:39,748
that actually prevailed when we
sent our troops there in 1965.

23
00:01:39,872 --> 00:01:44,252
The grip of the Viet Cong
on the people is being broken.

24
00:01:56,263 --> 00:01:58,891
In the summer of 1967,

25
00:01:59,016 --> 00:02:01,394
the men overseeing the war
in Vietnam

26
00:02:01,518 --> 00:02:03,520
remained outwardly optimistic...

27
00:02:03,645 --> 00:02:07,320
whatever private doubts
they may have held.

28
00:02:19,620 --> 00:02:23,875
The American military
command in Vietnam, MACV:

29
00:02:23,999 --> 00:02:27,469
claimed to have killed
200,000 enemy troops

30
00:02:27,586 --> 00:02:29,304
and had told the president

31
00:02:29,463 --> 00:02:32,467
that the all-important
"crossover point"...

32
00:02:32,591 --> 00:02:35,811
the moment when U.S. and ARVN
forces were killing

33
00:02:35,928 --> 00:02:38,977
more Viet Cong
and North Vietnamese troops

34
00:02:39,098 --> 00:02:42,648
than the enemy could replace...
appeared to have been reached

35
00:02:42,768 --> 00:02:45,692
in almost all of South Vietnam.

36
00:02:45,813 --> 00:02:48,066
But the United States
had suffered

37
00:02:48,190 --> 00:02:51,865
nearly 75,000 casualties.

38
00:02:51,985 --> 00:02:58,459
By July 4,
14,624 Americans had died,

39
00:02:58,575 --> 00:03:00,202
and, off the record,

40
00:03:00,327 --> 00:03:04,673
many officers were much less
sanguine than their commanders.

41
00:03:04,832 --> 00:03:10,214
From Saigon, R.W. Apple
of the New York Times summarized

42
00:03:10,337 --> 00:03:14,934
their views: "Victory is not
close at hand," he wrote.

43
00:03:15,050 --> 00:03:18,850
In fact,
"It may be beyond reach."

44
00:03:29,022 --> 00:03:31,400
It was true that the enemy
rarely won a battle

45
00:03:31,525 --> 00:03:34,369
in the traditional military
sense that they drove

46
00:03:34,486 --> 00:03:36,363
the Americans from the field.

47
00:03:36,530 --> 00:03:39,784
But it was also true
that no American victory

48
00:03:39,908 --> 00:03:41,626
seemed to matter.

49
00:03:41,743 --> 00:03:47,375
Battered enemy units were
quickly reinforced and rearmed.

50
00:03:47,499 --> 00:03:51,049
Pacification...
winning the hearts and minds

51
00:03:51,170 --> 00:03:54,800
of the South Vietnamese people...
was not working.

52
00:03:54,923 --> 00:03:59,224
Saigon still controlled
only a fraction of a country

53
00:03:59,344 --> 00:04:01,221
roughly the size of Florida,

54
00:04:01,388 --> 00:04:03,106
and its government remained

55
00:04:03,223 --> 00:04:07,444
unpopular and riddled
with corruption.

56
00:04:07,561 --> 00:04:11,156
President Johnson had been
forced to raise taxes

57
00:04:11,273 --> 00:04:14,618
to meet the war's
ever-climbing cost.

58
00:04:14,735 --> 00:04:18,865
His ambitious social program...
his War on Poverty...

59
00:04:18,989 --> 00:04:21,492
was in retreat.

60
00:04:26,538 --> 00:04:31,419
That summer, racial
unrest would grip American cities.

61
00:04:37,090 --> 00:04:41,095
The president would have
to send the Army into Detroit

62
00:04:41,220 --> 00:04:43,439
to end five days of rioting

63
00:04:43,597 --> 00:04:47,898
that left 43 dead and hundreds
of buildings razed.

64
00:04:49,186 --> 00:04:53,111
Twenty-six more died
in Newark, New Jersey,

65
00:04:53,273 --> 00:04:55,822
demonstrating yet again
how wide a gap

66
00:04:55,943 --> 00:05:00,449
remained between black
and white Americans.

67
00:05:00,614 --> 00:05:06,292
Only a third of the country saw
any sign of progress in Vietnam,

68
00:05:06,453 --> 00:05:09,457
and half of the country
now disapproved

69
00:05:09,581 --> 00:05:13,757
of the president's handling
of the war.

70
00:05:13,877 --> 00:05:16,972
Meanwhile,
Le Duan and his comrades

71
00:05:17,130 --> 00:05:20,430
who ran things in Hanoi,
were secretly planning

72
00:05:20,551 --> 00:05:25,057
a new offensive that they
believed would destroy

73
00:05:25,180 --> 00:05:27,979
what they called the puppet
government in Saigon

74
00:05:28,141 --> 00:05:31,862
and convince the United States
the war could never be won

75
00:05:31,979 --> 00:05:34,823
on the battlefield.

76
00:05:36,692 --> 00:05:39,741
There's the old
apocryphal story that, in 1967,

77
00:05:39,861 --> 00:05:41,829
they went to the basement
of the Pentagon

78
00:05:41,947 --> 00:05:44,166
when the mainframe computers
took up the whole basement,

79
00:05:44,324 --> 00:05:46,418
and they put on the old
punch cards everything

80
00:05:46,535 --> 00:05:48,055
you could quantify...
numbers of ships,

81
00:05:48,161 --> 00:05:50,473
numbers of airplanes, numbers of
tanks, numbers of helicopters,

82
00:05:50,497 --> 00:05:54,377
artillery, machine gun, ammo...
everything you could quantify,

83
00:05:54,501 --> 00:05:57,505
put it in the hopper and said,
"When will we win in Vietnam?"

84
00:05:57,671 --> 00:05:59,264
Went away on Friday.

85
00:05:59,381 --> 00:06:01,224
The thing ground away
all weekend.

86
00:06:01,341 --> 00:06:04,311
Came back on Monday and there
was one card in the output tray

87
00:06:04,428 --> 00:06:07,307
and it said, "You won in 1965."

88
00:06:07,431 --> 00:06:09,229
The only problem
is the enemy gets a vote

89
00:06:09,349 --> 00:06:10,976
and they weren't
on the punch cards.

90
00:06:18,817 --> 00:06:23,163
There were nearly half a
million American soldiers in Vietnam

91
00:06:23,280 --> 00:06:25,499
by the middle of 1967,

92
00:06:25,616 --> 00:06:28,335
with thousands more on the way.

93
00:06:28,452 --> 00:06:32,707
Only 20% would ever
be in combat.

94
00:06:32,873 --> 00:06:36,343
The rest served
in support units.

95
00:06:36,460 --> 00:06:40,055
None of them had been taught
very much about the people

96
00:06:40,172 --> 00:06:43,051
against whom... and for whom...
they had been asked to fight.

97
00:06:45,135 --> 00:06:47,979
Troops called the Vietnamese
"gooks"...

98
00:06:48,096 --> 00:06:51,396
a term first used
by U.S. Marines to refer

99
00:06:51,516 --> 00:06:53,735
to the people of Haiti
and Nicaragua

100
00:06:53,852 --> 00:06:57,402
during the American occupation
of those countries,

101
00:06:57,564 --> 00:07:01,239
and then applied
to the Asian enemy in Korea.

102
00:07:01,401 --> 00:07:06,328
Or "slopes," an epithet for the
Japanese during the Pacific War,

103
00:07:06,448 --> 00:07:11,375
or "dinks," an Australian term
for the Chinese.

104
00:07:11,495 --> 00:07:13,998
And so in basic training
they taught you

105
00:07:14,122 --> 00:07:16,250
that you were going to be
fighting gooks.

106
00:07:16,416 --> 00:07:19,260
It was part of the song
that you sang

107
00:07:19,419 --> 00:07:21,592
as you jogged down the road.

108
00:07:21,713 --> 00:07:23,932
As you went through
bayonet training,

109
00:07:24,091 --> 00:07:26,344
you were not talking about
Vietnamese.

110
00:07:26,468 --> 00:07:29,768
You were always
talking about gooks.

111
00:07:29,888 --> 00:07:33,392
Vietnamese might be people,
but gooks are-are...

112
00:07:33,517 --> 00:07:34,894
are close to being animals.

113
00:07:35,018 --> 00:07:39,273
GIs called
Vietnamese homes "hooches"-

114
00:07:39,398 --> 00:07:42,277
a corruption of the Japanese
word for dwelling places

115
00:07:42,401 --> 00:07:45,701
that they had learned during
the battle for Okinawa

116
00:07:45,821 --> 00:07:47,994
in the Second World War.

117
00:07:48,115 --> 00:07:53,292
Soldiers referred to older
Vietnamese women as "mama sans,"

118
00:07:53,412 --> 00:07:55,961
the term they used for women
who ran whorehouses

119
00:07:56,123 --> 00:07:58,876
in occupied Japan.

120
00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:01,753
The Viet Cong
and the North Vietnamese

121
00:08:01,878 --> 00:08:06,133
called GIs "invaders,"
"imperialists,"

122
00:08:06,299 --> 00:08:07,972
and...

123
00:08:08,135 --> 00:08:09,978
"American bandits."

124
00:08:15,225 --> 00:08:19,981
South Vietnam had been divided
into four tactical zones.

125
00:08:20,105 --> 00:08:24,406
By the summer of 1967,
American troops were fighting

126
00:08:24,526 --> 00:08:26,153
in all four of them.

127
00:08:28,572 --> 00:08:31,325
In IV Corps,
the "Brown Water Navy"

128
00:08:31,450 --> 00:08:34,169
patrolled the rivers
and canals and marshes

129
00:08:34,327 --> 00:08:37,501
of the densely populated
Mekong Delta,

130
00:08:37,622 --> 00:08:40,751
searching for the enemy.

131
00:08:40,876 --> 00:08:45,552
In III Corps, the Army continued
to sweep the thick jungles

132
00:08:45,672 --> 00:08:49,142
of the Iron Triangle,
the Viet Cong sanctuary

133
00:08:49,259 --> 00:08:52,809
near Saigon that was supposed
to have been permanently denied

134
00:08:52,929 --> 00:08:58,356
to the enemy by big American
operations earlier in the year.

135
00:08:58,477 --> 00:09:01,526
In II Corps,
a series of bloody battles

136
00:09:01,688 --> 00:09:06,285
in the Central Highlands
around Dak To temporarily drove

137
00:09:06,401 --> 00:09:11,532
North Vietnamese troops
back into Cambodia and Laos.

138
00:09:11,656 --> 00:09:16,127
But some of the most intense
combat would take place

139
00:09:16,244 --> 00:09:20,590
in I Corps... made up of the
five northernmost provinces

140
00:09:20,707 --> 00:09:23,711
of South Vietnam...
where the Marines would bear

141
00:09:23,877 --> 00:09:26,175
the brunt of the fighting.

142
00:09:26,296 --> 00:09:29,550
More than two-and-a-half million
people lived there,

143
00:09:29,716 --> 00:09:31,810
all but 2% of them within

144
00:09:31,927 --> 00:09:34,225
the narrow rice-growing
river valleys

145
00:09:34,346 --> 00:09:37,020
along the South China Sea.

146
00:09:37,140 --> 00:09:40,895
The Marines wanted to eradicate
the Viet Cong there,

147
00:09:41,019 --> 00:09:43,272
and provide security
to the people,

148
00:09:43,396 --> 00:09:46,275
village by village,
hamlet by hamlet.

149
00:09:46,399 --> 00:09:50,074
The vast, largely empty
highlands that stretched

150
00:09:50,195 --> 00:09:53,415
westward all the way to Laos,
the Marines argued,

151
00:09:53,532 --> 00:09:56,251
could be left to the enemy.

152
00:09:56,409 --> 00:09:58,878
"The real war is among
the people,"

153
00:09:58,995 --> 00:10:01,839
said Marine lieutenant
general Victor Krulak,

154
00:10:01,957 --> 00:10:04,585
"and not among the mountains."

155
00:10:04,709 --> 00:10:07,087
But General William
Westmoreland,

156
00:10:07,212 --> 00:10:10,182
the American commander,
feared that thousands

157
00:10:10,298 --> 00:10:14,019
of North Vietnamese Army
regulars... the NVA...

158
00:10:14,135 --> 00:10:18,311
were planning to seize
the two northernmost provinces.

159
00:10:18,431 --> 00:10:23,608
Finding and destroying them
remained his first goal.

160
00:10:25,438 --> 00:10:28,191
He insisted
the Third Marine Division

161
00:10:28,316 --> 00:10:30,535
move north to meet
that challenge,

162
00:10:30,652 --> 00:10:36,034
establish a base at Dong Ha and
man strongpoints at Gio Linh,

163
00:10:36,157 --> 00:10:43,632
Con Thien, Cam Lo, Camp Carroll,
the Rockpile and Khe Sanh.

164
00:10:43,748 --> 00:10:47,298
Khe Sanh overlooked Route 9,
the East-West highway

165
00:10:47,460 --> 00:10:51,055
that Westmoreland hoped would
one day carry American troops

166
00:10:51,172 --> 00:10:55,177
across the border into Laos,
where North Vietnamese men

167
00:10:55,302 --> 00:10:59,148
and supplies were streaming
south on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

168
00:11:02,475 --> 00:11:05,479
But the thousands of Marines
monitoring the border

169
00:11:05,604 --> 00:11:08,653
would find themselves within
range of highly accurate

170
00:11:08,815 --> 00:11:12,410
North Vietnamese artillery
and rocket launchers

171
00:11:12,527 --> 00:11:14,325
hidden within the DMZ.

172
00:11:23,371 --> 00:11:24,247
Tell me...

173
00:11:24,372 --> 00:11:25,474
You came here at full strength?

174
00:11:25,498 --> 00:11:27,171
I had 13 men when I came.

175
00:11:27,334 --> 00:11:29,837
And it's four days later now
and how many are still here?

176
00:11:30,003 --> 00:11:31,003
Six.

177
00:11:36,301 --> 00:11:39,976
The rifles have been jamming,
the mud's been...

178
00:11:40,096 --> 00:11:41,564
it slowed everything down.

179
00:11:41,681 --> 00:11:43,274
And the artillery comes in
everywhere.

180
00:11:43,391 --> 00:11:45,814
And, ah, it just gets
pretty futile

181
00:11:45,936 --> 00:11:47,188
and frustrating sometimes.

182
00:11:51,316 --> 00:11:54,035
I can't say that I'm scared
stiff, but I'm scared.

183
00:11:54,194 --> 00:11:57,243
I mean, after a while,
you know it's going to come.

184
00:11:57,364 --> 00:11:58,684
And you can't do nothing
about it.

185
00:11:58,782 --> 00:12:00,079
And you just look to God.

186
00:12:03,578 --> 00:12:06,548
Private First
Class John Musgrave

187
00:12:06,665 --> 00:12:09,293
of Fairmount, Missouri,
who had volunteered to join

188
00:12:09,417 --> 00:12:11,215
the 3rd Marine Division,

189
00:12:11,336 --> 00:12:15,136
was sent to the battle-scarred
countryside around Con Thien,

190
00:12:15,256 --> 00:12:18,635
a few kilometers south
of the DMZ.

191
00:12:21,388 --> 00:12:25,063
For the Marines in northern
I Corps in the 3rd Marine Division

192
00:12:25,183 --> 00:12:28,778
in the spring and summer of 1967
we called the DMZ

193
00:12:28,895 --> 00:12:30,317
the "Dead Marine Zone."

194
00:12:30,438 --> 00:12:34,238
Musgrave's 1st
Battalion had already suffered

195
00:12:34,401 --> 00:12:37,905
so many casualties in a series
of bloody sweeps

196
00:12:38,029 --> 00:12:41,624
that it was believed to be
a hard-luck outfit.

197
00:12:41,741 --> 00:12:45,245
They were called
the "Walking Dead."

198
00:12:48,415 --> 00:12:52,090
I joined the Marine
Corps to be in the varsity.

199
00:12:52,210 --> 00:12:55,635
And I felt like I wasn't varsity
unless I was up north

200
00:12:55,755 --> 00:12:57,052
fighting the NVA.

201
00:12:57,173 --> 00:13:00,268
I have never regretted
that decision.

202
00:13:00,427 --> 00:13:04,728
There were times when
we were under artillery fire,

203
00:13:04,848 --> 00:13:08,443
where I thought, you know,
"What-what were you thinking?"

204
00:13:08,560 --> 00:13:14,158
Here it is in a nutshell:
if I lived to be 63 years old,

205
00:13:14,274 --> 00:13:16,368
I didn't want to look
in the mirror some morning

206
00:13:16,484 --> 00:13:18,884
and have a guy looking back at
me that hadn't done everything

207
00:13:18,945 --> 00:13:20,743
for what he believed,

208
00:13:20,864 --> 00:13:24,619
that let somebody else
do the harder part.

209
00:13:29,330 --> 00:13:32,300
Every major contact I remember
with the NVA was initiated

210
00:13:32,417 --> 00:13:33,919
by them ambushing us.

211
00:13:34,044 --> 00:13:37,344
They wouldn't hit us
unless they outnumbered us.

212
00:13:37,464 --> 00:13:39,341
And we were fighting
in their yard.

213
00:13:42,427 --> 00:13:43,804
They knew the ground; we didn't.

214
00:13:47,640 --> 00:13:49,563
They were just really good.

215
00:14:08,244 --> 00:14:11,168
The North Vietnamese
carried Soviet-made,

216
00:14:11,289 --> 00:14:14,168
seemingly indestructible AK-47s.

217
00:14:15,627 --> 00:14:20,508
The Marines had to fight
with newly issued M-16 rifles

218
00:14:20,632 --> 00:14:24,808
that had for a time
a potentially fatal design flaw:

219
00:14:24,928 --> 00:14:27,647
they needed constant cleaning

220
00:14:27,764 --> 00:14:30,859
and often jammed
in the middle of firefights.

221
00:14:31,017 --> 00:14:34,021
Their rifles
worked; ours didn't.

222
00:14:34,187 --> 00:14:37,532
The M-16 was a piece of shit.

223
00:14:37,690 --> 00:14:39,290
You can't throw
your bullets at the enemy

224
00:14:39,359 --> 00:14:40,656
and have them be effective.

225
00:14:40,777 --> 00:14:45,248
And that rifle
malfunctioned on us repeatedly.

226
00:15:10,890 --> 00:15:13,894
My hatred for them was pure.

227
00:15:14,060 --> 00:15:15,607
Pure.

228
00:15:15,728 --> 00:15:17,605
I hated them so much.

229
00:15:18,982 --> 00:15:20,325
And I was so scared of them.

230
00:15:21,484 --> 00:15:23,737
Boy, I was terrified of them.

231
00:15:23,903 --> 00:15:26,201
And the scareder I got,
the more I hated them.

232
00:15:53,266 --> 00:15:56,566
I only killed one
human being in Vietnam.

233
00:15:56,686 --> 00:15:59,940
And that was the first man
that I ever killed.

234
00:16:00,064 --> 00:16:03,989
And I was sick with guilt
about killing that guy

235
00:16:04,110 --> 00:16:06,112
and thinking I'm going
to have to do this

236
00:16:06,279 --> 00:16:07,405
for the next 13 months.

237
00:16:07,530 --> 00:16:09,953
I'm-I'm going to go crazy.

238
00:16:10,116 --> 00:16:12,869
And I saw a Marine step
on a bouncing Betty mine,

239
00:16:12,994 --> 00:16:16,123
and that's when I made
my deal with the devil

240
00:16:16,247 --> 00:16:19,968
and that I said, "I will never
kill another human being

241
00:16:20,084 --> 00:16:22,303
"as long as I'm in Vietnam.

242
00:16:22,420 --> 00:16:27,517
"However, I will waste
as many gooks as I can find.

243
00:16:27,634 --> 00:16:30,979
"I'll wax as many dinks
as I can find.

244
00:16:31,137 --> 00:16:34,141
"I'll smoke as many zips
as I can find.

245
00:16:34,265 --> 00:16:37,314
But I ain't gonna kill anybody,"
you know?

246
00:16:37,435 --> 00:16:40,735
Turn the subject into an object.

247
00:16:40,855 --> 00:16:42,823
It's Racism 101.

248
00:16:42,982 --> 00:16:45,110
It turns out to be
a very necessary tool

249
00:16:45,235 --> 00:16:47,784
when you have children
fighting your wars,

250
00:16:47,904 --> 00:16:50,623
for them to stay sane
doing their work.

251
00:16:57,038 --> 00:16:59,587
On one early
patrol, Musgrave watched

252
00:16:59,707 --> 00:17:04,338
an American fighter swoop down
to drop napalm on enemy troops

253
00:17:04,462 --> 00:17:06,760
hidden behind a hedgerow.

254
00:17:06,881 --> 00:17:10,556
He could hear their AK-47s
firing at the plane

255
00:17:10,677 --> 00:17:14,272
until the instant
they were engulfed in flames.

256
00:17:14,389 --> 00:17:18,110
"If the enemy is willing to die
like that," he thought,

257
00:17:18,226 --> 00:17:21,105
"this is going to be
one very long war."

258
00:17:23,648 --> 00:17:25,867
They knew if they
would pop the ambush close

259
00:17:25,984 --> 00:17:27,531
and then get amongst you,

260
00:17:27,694 --> 00:17:31,198
we couldn't or would hesitate
to call in air on ourselves.

261
00:17:34,367 --> 00:17:38,497
So that... firefights
like that we called brawls.

262
00:17:38,621 --> 00:17:40,464
They were very intimate.

263
00:17:40,581 --> 00:17:42,049
And they were very deadly.

264
00:17:42,208 --> 00:17:45,052
And they were
absolutely terrifying.

265
00:17:49,132 --> 00:17:53,308
The Marines were spread too
thin to hold any of the territory

266
00:17:53,428 --> 00:17:55,897
they fought so hard to take.

267
00:17:56,014 --> 00:18:00,485
Again and again, they were sent
out from one stronghold

268
00:18:00,601 --> 00:18:04,606
or another along the DMZ,
looking for enemy soldiers.

269
00:18:04,731 --> 00:18:08,406
The disillusionment for
me began when I was going back

270
00:18:08,526 --> 00:18:11,575
to fight at places
we'd already fought before.

271
00:18:11,696 --> 00:18:15,200
We had fought, captured,
and then left

272
00:18:15,325 --> 00:18:17,373
and the NVA came right back.

273
00:18:17,493 --> 00:18:19,621
You don't like getting wounded

274
00:18:19,746 --> 00:18:21,464
in places you've already
been before.

275
00:18:23,750 --> 00:18:26,094
War is a real estate business.

276
00:18:26,210 --> 00:18:29,054
We're supposed to take
real estate away from the enemy

277
00:18:29,172 --> 00:18:33,018
and then deny the enemy access
to that real estate.

278
00:18:33,134 --> 00:18:39,312
On the morning of July 2,
1967, the 1st Battalion launched

279
00:18:39,432 --> 00:18:43,812
yet another sweep of the area
northeast of Con Thien.

280
00:18:43,936 --> 00:18:47,691
When they reached a crossroads
called "The Marketplace,"

281
00:18:47,815 --> 00:18:52,161
barely a mile and quarter from
their base, they were ambushed.

282
00:18:52,278 --> 00:18:55,657
One company
was virtually annihilated.

283
00:18:59,369 --> 00:19:04,125
John Musgrave's company
rushed to rescue the survivors,

284
00:19:04,290 --> 00:19:07,134
only to be pinned down there
as well.

285
00:19:09,962 --> 00:19:14,718
It was one of the worst clays the
Marine Corps endured in Vietnam:

286
00:19:14,842 --> 00:19:21,020
53 dead and 190 wounded were
carried off the battlefield.

287
00:19:21,140 --> 00:19:25,190
Thirty-four more dead
had to be left behind,

288
00:19:25,311 --> 00:19:29,032
and when Marines fought
their way back two days later

289
00:19:29,148 --> 00:19:31,992
to retrieve their bodies,
they found that a number

290
00:19:32,110 --> 00:19:38,163
had died because their M-16s had
jammed as the enemy closed in.

291
00:19:38,282 --> 00:19:41,456
Many had been executed,
shot in the face

292
00:19:41,577 --> 00:19:44,330
or back of the head
at close range.

293
00:19:44,497 --> 00:19:47,421
Some bodies had been
booby-trapped,

294
00:19:47,542 --> 00:19:50,386
others mutilated.

295
00:19:50,503 --> 00:19:53,723
Marine amphibious
force headquarters

296
00:19:53,840 --> 00:19:57,595
was so desperate to get
North Vietnamese prisoners,

297
00:19:57,718 --> 00:20:00,892
that they offered us
three day in-country R&R

298
00:20:01,013 --> 00:20:03,107
if we'd bring a prisoner in.

299
00:20:03,224 --> 00:20:04,567
Yeah, good luck.

300
00:20:04,684 --> 00:20:06,061
You know?

301
00:20:06,185 --> 00:20:08,483
Don't you know who...
what we're doing up here?

302
00:20:08,604 --> 00:20:10,277
Do you know who we're fighting?

303
00:20:12,066 --> 00:20:14,569
I want to make this clear,
we did not torture prisoners

304
00:20:14,694 --> 00:20:17,573
and we did not mutilate them.

305
00:20:23,119 --> 00:20:26,669
But to be a prisoner you had to
make it to the rear, you know.

306
00:20:26,789 --> 00:20:30,089
If he was with...
fell into our hands

307
00:20:30,209 --> 00:20:32,086
he was just one sorry fucker.

308
00:20:42,930 --> 00:20:45,308
I don't know how to explain it
that it would make sense.

309
00:20:53,483 --> 00:20:54,710
Roxbury, where I grew up,

310
00:20:54,734 --> 00:20:56,407
was the African-American
neighborhood,

311
00:20:56,569 --> 00:21:00,369
and South Boston was
the Irish-Catholic bastion.

312
00:21:00,490 --> 00:21:02,208
You know,
there was a lot of hate.

313
00:21:02,325 --> 00:21:05,920
South Boston folks hated us,
we hated them.

314
00:21:06,078 --> 00:21:07,295
And ironically, um...

315
00:21:09,999 --> 00:21:11,717
You know, you end up in a war.

316
00:21:13,503 --> 00:21:15,722
And the Vietnamese didn't care

317
00:21:15,838 --> 00:21:17,638
whether you were from
Roxbury or South Boston.

318
00:21:17,673 --> 00:21:19,641
They saw you as American.

319
00:21:19,759 --> 00:21:22,979
And they wanted to kill you
because you're American.

320
00:21:23,095 --> 00:21:27,441
Private Roger Harris had
joined the Marines in part, he said,

321
00:21:27,558 --> 00:21:29,902
because he wanted to be
"a gladiator,"

322
00:21:30,019 --> 00:21:33,114
a killer of his country's
enemies.

323
00:21:33,272 --> 00:21:36,446
On July 28, two weeks after

324
00:21:36,609 --> 00:21:40,614
John Musgrave's badly mangled
1st Battalion was pulled back

325
00:21:40,780 --> 00:21:42,453
to rest and recover,

326
00:21:42,615 --> 00:21:46,665
Roger Harris and the 2nd
Battalion moved out of Con Thien

327
00:21:46,786 --> 00:21:50,541
and into the southern half of
the Demilitarized Zone itself.

328
00:21:52,750 --> 00:21:54,353
We wanted the
North Vietnamese Army

329
00:21:54,377 --> 00:21:56,675
to expose themselves.

330
00:21:56,796 --> 00:21:59,720
So, basically,
you put the bait out there,

331
00:21:59,840 --> 00:22:04,141
and then we could call in
and rain hell on them.

332
00:22:04,262 --> 00:22:08,563
Roger Harris's
battalion advanced into the DMZ

333
00:22:08,683 --> 00:22:13,154
along a rough cart track
that led to the Ben Hai River.

334
00:22:13,312 --> 00:22:17,442
But planners had failed to see
that a concrete bridge

335
00:22:17,567 --> 00:22:19,444
over an impassable stream

336
00:22:19,569 --> 00:22:23,949
was too narrow and too weak
to carry armored vehicles.

337
00:22:24,073 --> 00:22:28,829
Now the Marines had no choice
but to violate a cardinal rule

338
00:22:28,953 --> 00:22:30,455
of infantry tactics...

339
00:22:30,580 --> 00:22:35,632
turn around and try to go back
the way they had come.

340
00:22:35,751 --> 00:22:38,846
The enemy was waiting.

341
00:22:45,011 --> 00:22:47,855
Massive ambushes and...

342
00:22:49,515 --> 00:22:53,486
and, um, a lot of death.

343
00:22:53,603 --> 00:22:55,480
And...

344
00:22:57,023 --> 00:22:58,650
craziness.

345
00:22:58,774 --> 00:23:03,575
The Marines were forced to
run a bloody gauntlet of mortars,

346
00:23:03,696 --> 00:23:07,542
machine gun fire and
rocket-propelled grenades.

347
00:23:07,700 --> 00:23:12,376
I had the utmost respect for
the North Vietnamese Army soldiers.

348
00:23:12,496 --> 00:23:18,674
When you see someone jump out
and confront a tank, you know,

349
00:23:18,794 --> 00:23:20,888
with a big 50-caliber
machine gun on it

350
00:23:21,047 --> 00:23:23,926
and a 90-millimeter cannon
on it,

351
00:23:24,050 --> 00:23:28,226
and an individual takes on
the tank,

352
00:23:28,387 --> 00:23:29,980
I think that says something.

353
00:23:31,641 --> 00:23:34,394
Roger Harris's
company held up the rear,

354
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:38,406
hounded by enemy
soldiers on all sides.

355
00:23:40,733 --> 00:23:44,078
The Marines staggered back
out of the DMZ

356
00:23:44,236 --> 00:23:47,285
alongside the battered
armored vehicles

357
00:23:47,406 --> 00:23:51,206
heaped with dead
and wounded Americans.

358
00:23:51,327 --> 00:23:54,206
The battalion suffered
214 casualties.

359
00:23:57,375 --> 00:24:00,754
Wasn't a good
day for Marines at all.

360
00:24:00,878 --> 00:24:02,095
A lot of people died.

361
00:24:02,254 --> 00:24:03,494
People got their legs shot off.

362
00:24:03,547 --> 00:24:05,424
People got run over by tanks.

363
00:24:08,094 --> 00:24:10,938
I don't want to talk about it
because it's...

364
00:24:14,183 --> 00:24:16,652
it's not a good day,
wasn't a good day.

365
00:25:25,546 --> 00:25:28,891
This is "bau cu",
the day of voting in Vietnam,

366
00:25:29,008 --> 00:25:31,887
and it's a solemn day
in the village of Hung Thao Phu

367
00:25:32,011 --> 00:25:34,639
and in other villages
throughout the country.

368
00:25:34,764 --> 00:25:37,187
And these people have dressed up
in their Sunday best for it.

369
00:25:40,102 --> 00:25:43,072
South Vietnamese
prime minister Nguyen Cao Ky

370
00:25:43,189 --> 00:25:47,160
had crushed
his Buddhist opponents in 1966,

371
00:25:47,276 --> 00:25:49,654
but he had been forced
by the Americans

372
00:25:49,779 --> 00:25:53,079
and his political rivals
to make at least tentative moves

373
00:25:53,199 --> 00:25:56,874
toward democracy...
election of a national assembly,

374
00:25:57,036 --> 00:26:00,165
a new constitution,
and a promise of elections

375
00:26:00,289 --> 00:26:03,384
for president
and vice president.

376
00:26:03,542 --> 00:26:08,298
But when Ky's old adversary
Nguyen Van Thieu declared

377
00:26:08,422 --> 00:26:11,221
he wanted to challenge Ky
for the top spot,

378
00:26:11,342 --> 00:26:14,391
things in Saigon had threatened
to come apart again.

379
00:26:16,889 --> 00:26:19,489
We were watching
the rivalry between Thieu and Ky.

380
00:26:19,558 --> 00:26:21,560
And that was a game.

381
00:26:21,727 --> 00:26:24,571
In Vietnam, the country
was watching like a...

382
00:26:24,730 --> 00:26:27,483
we were watch...
watching a movie.

383
00:26:27,608 --> 00:26:29,781
And Thieu and Ky
was watching as to,

384
00:26:29,902 --> 00:26:32,701
not whoever had the support
of the people,

385
00:26:32,822 --> 00:26:37,123
but who had the support of the
Americans and the White House.

386
00:26:37,243 --> 00:26:40,588
Ellsworth Bunker,
the American ambassador,

387
00:26:40,704 --> 00:26:44,208
called both men to his residence
and warned that

388
00:26:44,333 --> 00:26:48,088
the United States would not
tolerate another power struggle:

389
00:26:48,212 --> 00:26:51,762
Thieu and Ky needed to meet
with their fellow generals

390
00:26:51,882 --> 00:26:54,351
and decide who would run
for president

391
00:26:54,468 --> 00:26:56,971
and who would be
his running mate.

392
00:26:57,096 --> 00:26:59,519
Thieu emerged on top.

393
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:02,564
He was unassuming
and unflappable,

394
00:27:02,685 --> 00:27:05,234
interested largely
in accumulating power

395
00:27:05,354 --> 00:27:08,449
and personal wealth
and was thought unlikely

396
00:27:08,607 --> 00:27:11,281
ever to embarrass Washington.

397
00:27:11,443 --> 00:27:14,788
Ky would be his vice president.

398
00:27:14,947 --> 00:27:19,874
Together, they won with only
35% of the vote.

399
00:27:19,994 --> 00:27:23,089
No one who had called
for an end to the war

400
00:27:23,205 --> 00:27:25,424
had been allowed to run.

401
00:27:25,541 --> 00:27:28,044
Many Buddhists had boycotted
the election,

402
00:27:28,168 --> 00:27:33,299
and Viet Cong intimidation had
kept many more from the polls.

403
00:27:33,424 --> 00:27:36,348
But the State Department
immediately declared

404
00:27:36,468 --> 00:27:39,347
the election
an important "step forward."

405
00:27:41,307 --> 00:27:44,777
Some South Vietnamese
did believe that a measure

406
00:27:44,894 --> 00:27:47,989
of stability had finally
been achieved.

407
00:27:48,147 --> 00:27:51,151
Others were not so sure.

408
00:27:52,735 --> 00:27:56,956
In terms of corruption,
yes, they were corrupt.

409
00:27:57,072 --> 00:28:01,669
Both Thieu and Ky,
they abused their position.

410
00:28:01,785 --> 00:28:05,631
We pay a very high price
for having leaders

411
00:28:05,748 --> 00:28:08,422
like a Ky and Thieu.

412
00:28:08,542 --> 00:28:10,920
And we continue
to pay the price.

413
00:28:16,300 --> 00:28:19,099
My father
was in the United States Army.

414
00:28:19,219 --> 00:28:21,847
And then when the Air Force
came about he switched over

415
00:28:21,972 --> 00:28:24,270
to the Air Force.

416
00:28:24,391 --> 00:28:29,192
I grew up out of the country in
desegregated settings.

417
00:28:29,313 --> 00:28:32,157
I was usually the only
little black girl in the class.

418
00:28:32,274 --> 00:28:34,242
If you look
at my class pictures I look

419
00:28:34,360 --> 00:28:37,955
like the little chocolate chip
in the vanilla ice cream.

420
00:28:38,072 --> 00:28:40,996
I was always a good student.

421
00:28:41,116 --> 00:28:43,835
I remember people saying,
"Oh, you speak so well."

422
00:28:43,953 --> 00:28:45,876
And the unstated part
is "for a black girl,"

423
00:28:45,996 --> 00:28:48,670
probably a Negro girl
or colored girl, at that point.

424
00:28:48,791 --> 00:28:53,388
Eva Jefferson's father
had served a year on airbases

425
00:28:53,545 --> 00:28:57,095
in Vietnam and returned home
convinced the United States

426
00:28:57,216 --> 00:28:59,719
had no business being there.

427
00:28:59,885 --> 00:29:03,389
But when his daughter entered
Northwestern University

428
00:29:03,514 --> 00:29:08,566
in the Chicago suburb
of Evanston in September 1967,

429
00:29:08,686 --> 00:29:12,941
the war was not uppermost
in students' minds.

430
00:29:13,065 --> 00:29:16,319
The war was not really an issue.

431
00:29:16,443 --> 00:29:18,241
It's like,
"Well, no, the president has

432
00:29:18,404 --> 00:29:20,327
"our best interests at heart.

433
00:29:20,447 --> 00:29:22,245
"He, of course,
would only prosecute a war

434
00:29:22,366 --> 00:29:23,709
that made sense."

435
00:29:23,826 --> 00:29:26,579
And I think most of America
felt that way.

436
00:29:28,747 --> 00:29:30,749
At the University of Nebraska,

437
00:29:30,916 --> 00:29:33,795
Jack Todd also supported
the war.

438
00:29:33,919 --> 00:29:38,265
He had felt so strongly about it
in 1966 that he had signed up

439
00:29:38,424 --> 00:29:41,348
for Marine officer training.

440
00:29:41,468 --> 00:29:44,062
I went into the Marine Corps

441
00:29:44,179 --> 00:29:46,432
thinking this was
all I wanted to do.

442
00:29:46,598 --> 00:29:48,521
I mean my...
my goal was to be commander,

443
00:29:48,642 --> 00:29:49,939
a platoon commander in Vietnam.

444
00:29:51,478 --> 00:29:54,778
But as time went
by and the war went on,

445
00:29:54,940 --> 00:29:57,284
Todd and many of his
fellow students

446
00:29:57,401 --> 00:29:59,028
began to change their minds.

447
00:30:00,404 --> 00:30:02,782
All young people
go through changes.

448
00:30:02,948 --> 00:30:05,747
But we were going through
astronomical changes

449
00:30:05,868 --> 00:30:08,087
at such a rapid rate.

450
00:30:09,997 --> 00:30:13,592
All the music, the culture,
everything that we listened to,

451
00:30:13,709 --> 00:30:15,803
everything that we thought
was transforming

452
00:30:15,919 --> 00:30:19,674
and the core of it all
was Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam.

453
00:30:19,798 --> 00:30:21,641
It just kept going
in the background.

454
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:23,560
First, it was kind of like
a background noise

455
00:30:23,594 --> 00:30:25,437
and then it got to be
the elephant in the room.

456
00:30:25,554 --> 00:30:27,477
And then it was the elephant
sitting on your head

457
00:30:27,639 --> 00:30:29,232
and we...
we couldn't escape this.

458
00:30:29,349 --> 00:30:32,649
Todd attended
officer training school

459
00:30:32,811 --> 00:30:35,485
at Camp Upshur
in Quantico, Virginia.

460
00:30:35,606 --> 00:30:38,485
But doubts about the war
followed him there, too.

461
00:30:41,570 --> 00:30:43,423
I guess the emotional
things that were happening

462
00:30:43,447 --> 00:30:45,996
on the ground, the photographs
that we saw, the news images,

463
00:30:46,116 --> 00:30:49,040
and the fact that there
was no discernible progress,

464
00:30:49,161 --> 00:30:52,506
that really started to eat away
at what we thought.

465
00:30:52,623 --> 00:30:55,718
In the summer of '67,
I was at Camp Upshur, you know,

466
00:30:55,834 --> 00:30:58,212
wanting to go
kill Vietnamese people.

467
00:30:58,337 --> 00:31:02,638
And in October, I was
completely against the war.

468
00:31:05,969 --> 00:31:08,518
Westmoreland came
in last night to me...

469
00:31:08,639 --> 00:31:12,644
And he says that he has
concentrated more firepower

470
00:31:12,768 --> 00:31:16,238
and bombing in the last week
on the DMZ

471
00:31:16,355 --> 00:31:20,201
and they've concentrated more
on us than has ever been

472
00:31:20,317 --> 00:31:22,365
concentrated
in any equivalent period

473
00:31:22,528 --> 00:31:24,030
in the history of warfare...

474
00:31:24,154 --> 00:31:25,280
Yeah.

475
00:31:25,405 --> 00:31:26,674
much more
than was ever poured on

476
00:31:26,698 --> 00:31:28,041
Berlin or Tokyo,

477
00:31:28,158 --> 00:31:32,538
and that his only defense
of the DMZ to stop

478
00:31:32,663 --> 00:31:35,542
this aggression up there
with the North Vietnamese

479
00:31:35,666 --> 00:31:39,296
trying to come in
is bombing their gun positions.

480
00:31:39,419 --> 00:31:40,887
Yeah.

481
00:31:41,004 --> 00:31:42,857
And it would just be
suicide if we stopped the bombing

482
00:31:42,881 --> 00:31:45,179
as these idiots talking about.

483
00:31:45,300 --> 00:31:46,927
When you say stop the bombing

484
00:31:47,052 --> 00:31:49,805
you say,
"Kill more American Marines."

485
00:31:49,930 --> 00:31:50,806
That's all it means.

486
00:31:50,931 --> 00:31:52,183
Yeah.

487
00:31:52,307 --> 00:31:55,527
Now if we stop
bombing, without their talking

488
00:31:55,644 --> 00:31:58,397
and without any reciprocity
on their part,

489
00:31:58,522 --> 00:32:00,524
it just means we kill more
Americans, that's all.

490
00:32:00,649 --> 00:32:01,649
Yeah.

491
00:32:08,699 --> 00:32:12,249
Neither the ongoing
bombing of the North,

492
00:32:12,369 --> 00:32:15,714
nor the concentrated bombing
around the DMZ,

493
00:32:15,831 --> 00:32:17,754
nor the behind-the-scenes offers

494
00:32:17,875 --> 00:32:20,424
made by President Johnson
to stop it

495
00:32:20,586 --> 00:32:23,465
had any discernible effect
on Le Duan

496
00:32:23,589 --> 00:32:26,934
and the other men
who ran North Vietnam.

497
00:32:27,092 --> 00:32:30,016
But Le Duan,
like Lyndon Johnson,

498
00:32:30,137 --> 00:32:32,105
was in trouble that summer.

499
00:32:32,222 --> 00:32:35,101
The war with the Americans
had produced little more

500
00:32:35,225 --> 00:32:37,102
than a bloody stalemate.

501
00:32:37,269 --> 00:32:40,193
Some Viet Cong commanders
in the South

502
00:32:40,314 --> 00:32:44,615
resented Hanoi's insistence
on directing their tactics.

503
00:32:44,776 --> 00:32:48,952
Many North Vietnamese civilians
were weary of the war

504
00:32:49,072 --> 00:32:51,951
and of the bombing
that had disrupted their lives

505
00:32:52,075 --> 00:32:55,579
and destroyed so much
of their infrastructure.

506
00:32:55,704 --> 00:32:58,253
The country's most revered
figures,

507
00:32:58,373 --> 00:33:02,799
Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap,
were urging patience,

508
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:06,970
continuing to wage a war of
attrition, they still believed,

509
00:33:07,132 --> 00:33:10,181
would pay off in the end.

510
00:33:10,302 --> 00:33:13,772
Hanoi's Soviet and Chinese
patrons offered

511
00:33:13,889 --> 00:33:16,768
conflicting advice, as well.

512
00:33:16,892 --> 00:33:21,113
To silence his critics
and break the stalemate,

513
00:33:21,230 --> 00:33:23,653
Le Duan began to devise
and promote

514
00:33:23,815 --> 00:33:27,160
a new and riskier version
of the plan for victory

515
00:33:27,277 --> 00:33:30,702
he had tried in 1964.

516
00:33:30,822 --> 00:33:36,295
He called it the "General
Offensive, General Uprising."

517
00:33:36,411 --> 00:33:40,166
North Vietnamese and Viet Cong
units would launch

518
00:33:40,290 --> 00:33:44,545
scores of coordinated attacks
on South Vietnamese cities

519
00:33:44,670 --> 00:33:47,799
and towns and military bases.

520
00:33:47,923 --> 00:33:50,142
That offensive,
Le Duan believed,

521
00:33:50,259 --> 00:33:53,763
would ignite
a mass civilian uprising.

522
00:33:53,887 --> 00:33:58,358
These simultaneous blows
would destroy the Saigon regime

523
00:33:58,475 --> 00:34:02,321
and leave Washington with
no choice but to withdraw.

524
00:34:53,572 --> 00:34:55,132
We talk about our own hubris.

525
00:34:55,198 --> 00:34:57,292
There's some hubris
on their side as well.

526
00:34:57,409 --> 00:34:59,252
And once they had
convinced themselves

527
00:34:59,411 --> 00:35:02,039
that this was going to be
a great success,

528
00:35:02,164 --> 00:35:05,134
it is what some wags have called
drinking your own bathwater.

529
00:35:06,585 --> 00:35:07,979
They decided it's going to be
a victory,

530
00:35:08,003 --> 00:35:09,971
even though there are people
in the South saying,

531
00:35:10,088 --> 00:35:11,510
"Hey, this is not a great idea."

532
00:35:11,631 --> 00:35:15,306
But these people are charged
with subjectivism

533
00:35:15,427 --> 00:35:18,055
and basically are told
to shut up and keep rolling.

534
00:35:18,180 --> 00:35:22,481
Le Duan neutralized
those who opposed his plan.

535
00:35:22,601 --> 00:35:25,730
Members of General Giap's staff
were arrested.

536
00:35:25,854 --> 00:35:28,403
So was Ho Chi Minh's secretary.

537
00:35:45,165 --> 00:35:49,841
Hundreds of less prominent
figures-journalists, students,

538
00:35:49,961 --> 00:35:53,181
even highly decorated heroes
of the French War...

539
00:35:53,298 --> 00:35:55,471
were also rounded up.

540
00:35:55,592 --> 00:35:58,391
Many were locked up
in the old French prison

541
00:35:58,512 --> 00:36:02,142
that the American POWs
also confined there called

542
00:36:02,265 --> 00:36:04,688
the "Hanoi Hilton."

543
00:36:04,810 --> 00:36:08,531
The date eventually chosen
for the attack would be

544
00:36:08,647 --> 00:36:12,197
January 31, 1968,

545
00:36:12,317 --> 00:36:16,288
the first day of the Vietnamese
Lunar New Year celebration,

546
00:36:16,405 --> 00:36:19,249
known as Tet.

547
00:36:19,366 --> 00:36:23,337
Hundreds, then thousands,
of North Vietnamese regulars

548
00:36:23,453 --> 00:36:26,502
in civilian clothes
began slipping southward

549
00:36:26,665 --> 00:36:31,262
to join tens of thousands
of Viet Cong already in place.

550
00:37:42,365 --> 00:37:44,663
In preparation
for the coming offensive,

551
00:37:44,784 --> 00:37:47,458
the North Vietnamese hoped
to lure American

552
00:37:47,579 --> 00:37:50,753
and South Vietnamese forces
away from cities

553
00:37:50,874 --> 00:37:53,093
and big military bases.

554
00:37:53,251 --> 00:37:56,630
To do that, they would mount
a series of assaults

555
00:37:56,755 --> 00:38:02,228
on remote outposts near
Cambodia, Laos, and the DMZ.

556
00:38:02,344 --> 00:38:07,316
These preliminary attacks became
known as the "Border Battles."

557
00:38:07,432 --> 00:38:10,777
Con Thien would be the first.

558
00:38:14,064 --> 00:38:16,237
In September and October,

559
00:38:16,358 --> 00:38:19,328
John Musgrave's
and Roger Harris's outfits

560
00:38:19,444 --> 00:38:21,913
took turns defending Con Thien

561
00:38:22,030 --> 00:38:25,910
as the North Vietnamese
tightened the noose around them.

562
00:38:26,034 --> 00:38:29,629
The only way in or out
was by helicopter.

563
00:38:31,957 --> 00:38:36,303
Con Thien in Vietnamese means
"Hill of Angels."

564
00:38:38,463 --> 00:38:41,967
Time at Con Thien
was time in the barrel.

565
00:38:46,388 --> 00:38:49,392
We were the fish,
they had the shotguns,

566
00:38:49,516 --> 00:38:51,564
they stuck in the barrel
and blasted away.

567
00:38:51,685 --> 00:38:54,359
And they were gonna hit
something every shot.

568
00:38:54,479 --> 00:38:57,483
Because Con Thien
was such a small area,

569
00:38:57,607 --> 00:38:59,484
and they pounded it
with that artillery

570
00:38:59,651 --> 00:39:01,528
from North Vietnam,
they couldn't miss.

571
00:39:08,535 --> 00:39:12,711
I've never been, uh, as afraid.

572
00:39:12,831 --> 00:39:15,050
In fact that's why I'm not
afraid of anything now.

573
00:39:15,166 --> 00:39:17,510
I mean...

574
00:39:17,669 --> 00:39:18,966
there's nothing you can do.

575
00:39:19,087 --> 00:39:22,717
You just listen to the sounds
of the rockets coming over.

576
00:39:22,841 --> 00:39:26,345
And you just pray
that they don't land on you.

577
00:39:26,511 --> 00:39:29,105
The big question really seems
to be whether or not

578
00:39:29,222 --> 00:39:32,476
the North Vietnamese
intend to overrun Con Thien.

579
00:39:32,601 --> 00:39:35,400
The Marines have tripled
the number of troops

580
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:36,863
guarding the outpost,

581
00:39:36,980 --> 00:39:38,541
and they've moved up more
battalions to be ready

582
00:39:38,565 --> 00:39:40,112
to reinforce.

583
00:39:40,233 --> 00:39:42,156
I sat in water.

584
00:39:42,277 --> 00:39:44,029
I slept in water.

585
00:39:44,195 --> 00:39:47,870
I ate in water,
because our holes were full.

586
00:39:47,991 --> 00:39:50,119
I mean a flooded foxhole
could drown a wounded man.

587
00:39:50,243 --> 00:39:52,837
Spend your clay
filling up sand bags,

588
00:39:52,954 --> 00:39:56,584
trying to create barriers that
you just put another layer on,

589
00:39:56,708 --> 00:39:58,381
put another layer on.

590
00:39:58,501 --> 00:40:02,927
A lot of mud, blood, uh...

591
00:40:03,048 --> 00:40:04,220
and artillery.

592
00:40:05,425 --> 00:40:06,722
It's red clay up there.

593
00:40:06,843 --> 00:40:09,437
And it's real sticky
and it could just grab onto you

594
00:40:09,554 --> 00:40:11,352
and pull your boots off.

595
00:40:11,473 --> 00:40:12,816
It's hard to run in that stuff.

596
00:40:12,932 --> 00:40:14,559
And running,
when you're at a place

597
00:40:14,684 --> 00:40:16,287
where they're firing
heavy artillery at you,

598
00:40:16,311 --> 00:40:17,483
running's pretty important.

599
00:40:19,272 --> 00:40:21,366
During the siege
in the fall of 1967,

600
00:40:21,483 --> 00:40:23,577
we were getting newspaper
articles in the mail

601
00:40:23,735 --> 00:40:27,035
from our families and we were
being called the Alamo.

602
00:40:27,155 --> 00:40:29,999
You know, hey,
we knew what the Alamo was.

603
00:40:30,116 --> 00:40:32,164
We knew what happened there.

604
00:40:40,210 --> 00:40:43,089
Like almost like every
hour there'd be a barrage.

605
00:40:45,256 --> 00:40:48,886
People get blown to bits,
literally blown to bits.

606
00:40:49,010 --> 00:40:52,685
You find a...
a boot with a leg in it, right.

607
00:40:52,806 --> 00:40:55,229
And so is the leg
white or black?

608
00:40:55,350 --> 00:40:57,273
So who... who was
the white Marine that was here?

609
00:40:57,394 --> 00:40:58,441
Who was the black?

610
00:40:58,561 --> 00:41:00,563
So then you try to remember
and you tag it

611
00:41:00,689 --> 00:41:02,032
and put that in the green bag.

612
00:41:02,148 --> 00:41:04,776
And that's what goes back,
you know,

613
00:41:04,943 --> 00:41:07,162
as Marine Lance Corporal
so and so.

614
00:41:07,278 --> 00:41:10,282
And so, but sometimes you're not
even sure because the body

615
00:41:10,448 --> 00:41:12,488
has literally been blown
to bits, and the only thing

616
00:41:12,534 --> 00:41:15,003
that's left is a foot
or a piece of an arm.

617
00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:19,671
I carried a wallet calendar
from Clifford Forlow Insurance.

618
00:41:19,791 --> 00:41:21,919
He was my dad's insurance agent.

619
00:41:22,043 --> 00:41:25,547
And I marked off
each of the days religiously.

620
00:41:25,672 --> 00:41:30,269
And then in October,
we went up to Con Thien again.

621
00:41:30,385 --> 00:41:35,232
I just stopped, because
I thought, "This is pointless.

622
00:41:35,348 --> 00:41:37,476
"I'm not getting...
I'm not gonna go home.

623
00:41:37,600 --> 00:41:38,977
"I'm not gonna make it home.

624
00:41:39,102 --> 00:41:40,979
What...
you know, what's the point?"

625
00:41:41,146 --> 00:41:42,989
So I just quit marking them off.

626
00:41:44,649 --> 00:41:46,930
I had the opportunity
to call my mother, you know.

627
00:41:46,985 --> 00:41:49,534
And I was telling my mother
what was happening over there

628
00:41:49,654 --> 00:41:51,782
and I was telling her
how she shouldn't believe

629
00:41:51,906 --> 00:41:55,661
what she sees in the newspaper
and-and sees on television

630
00:41:55,827 --> 00:41:58,000
because we're losing the war.

631
00:41:58,121 --> 00:42:00,624
And I said, "You'll probably
never see me again

632
00:42:00,749 --> 00:42:03,923
"because we're the most northern
outpost that the Marines have,

633
00:42:04,043 --> 00:42:05,420
"you know.

634
00:42:05,545 --> 00:42:07,745
"We could literally could look
right into North Vietnam.

635
00:42:07,797 --> 00:42:10,220
We could see the sparks
when the guns fired on us."

636
00:42:10,341 --> 00:42:13,515
And I said, "And everybody
in my unit is dying, you know.

637
00:42:13,678 --> 00:42:15,521
And I probably won't be
coming back."

638
00:42:15,638 --> 00:42:17,686
And my mother said,
"No, you're coming back."

639
00:42:17,849 --> 00:42:20,648
She said, "I talk to God
every day and you're special.

640
00:42:20,769 --> 00:42:22,988
You're coming back."

641
00:42:23,104 --> 00:42:25,448
And I said, "Ma, everybody's
mother thinks that

642
00:42:25,565 --> 00:42:27,158
"they're special, you know.

643
00:42:27,275 --> 00:42:29,198
I'm putting pieces
of special people in bags."

644
00:42:31,362 --> 00:42:33,122
And I was feeling
that my mother's in denial.

645
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:35,537
She just doesn't want to face
the fact that her only son

646
00:42:35,658 --> 00:42:37,535
is gonna die in Vietnam.

647
00:42:37,702 --> 00:42:39,170
And I said,
"Ma, this isn't a joke."

648
00:42:39,287 --> 00:42:40,973
I said, "Everybody's dying
over here, you know.

649
00:42:40,997 --> 00:42:42,044
Everybody's dying."

650
00:42:42,165 --> 00:42:43,667
And she said,
"You're not gonna die.

651
00:42:43,792 --> 00:42:45,214
You're not gonna die."

652
00:42:45,376 --> 00:42:47,549
And, uh, the last thing
she said to me was,

653
00:42:47,712 --> 00:42:49,714
"God has a plan for you."

654
00:42:49,881 --> 00:42:50,973
And I said, "Yeah, right."

655
00:42:51,090 --> 00:42:52,090
And I hung up.

656
00:42:56,971 --> 00:42:59,690
Mr. Stout, during what period
of time were you in Vietnam?

657
00:42:59,808 --> 00:43:02,903
I was in Vietnam
from September of 1966

658
00:43:03,019 --> 00:43:05,192
to September of 1967, one year.

659
00:43:05,313 --> 00:43:06,656
And with what unit?

660
00:43:06,773 --> 00:43:08,571
With the 1st Brigade
of the 101st Airborne.

661
00:43:08,691 --> 00:43:11,035
During the time
that you were in Vietnam,

662
00:43:11,152 --> 00:43:13,075
did you personally witness
any atrocities

663
00:43:13,238 --> 00:43:15,115
on the part of American troops?

664
00:43:15,240 --> 00:43:16,240
Yes, I did.

665
00:43:17,826 --> 00:43:21,205
Dennis Stout from
Phoenix, Arizona, had enlisted

666
00:43:21,329 --> 00:43:26,085
in the Army at 20, and
served nine months in combat.

667
00:43:26,251 --> 00:43:29,721
Wounded three times,
he became an Army reporter

668
00:43:29,838 --> 00:43:35,595
covering the 327th Regiment
of the 101st Airborne.

669
00:43:35,718 --> 00:43:40,019
He would spend most of his time
with a unique commando platoon

670
00:43:40,139 --> 00:43:41,561
called "Tiger Force"...

671
00:43:41,683 --> 00:43:44,937
small, handpicked teams,
capable of remaining

672
00:43:45,103 --> 00:43:47,777
in the jungle
for weeks at a time,

673
00:43:47,939 --> 00:43:50,533
fast-moving and deadly,

674
00:43:50,650 --> 00:43:54,405
intended to
"out-guerrilla the guerrillas."

675
00:43:55,780 --> 00:43:58,454
Tiger Force fought in six
different provinces,

676
00:43:58,575 --> 00:44:01,579
repeatedly suffering
heavy losses.

677
00:44:04,831 --> 00:44:08,085
If you've lost your
best friend and you want revenge,

678
00:44:08,209 --> 00:44:11,429
it's the officers who say,
"No, you can't do that."

679
00:44:11,546 --> 00:44:14,595
And if you do it,
then there's consequences.

680
00:44:14,716 --> 00:44:17,435
But when the officers, and
it includes the platoon leader

681
00:44:17,552 --> 00:44:20,476
and the battalion commander,
are telling you that this is

682
00:44:20,597 --> 00:44:25,194
what you're supposed to do, then
it gets completely out of hand.

683
00:44:25,310 --> 00:44:29,315
Some at MACV worried
that such a freewheeling outfit,

684
00:44:29,439 --> 00:44:33,160
operating on its own,
would be difficult to control.

685
00:44:34,986 --> 00:44:38,490
But General Westmoreland
and commanders in the field

686
00:44:38,656 --> 00:44:43,162
admired Tiger Force
for its reliable ferocity.

687
00:44:43,286 --> 00:44:47,382
In the summer of 1967,
Tiger Force was sent

688
00:44:47,498 --> 00:44:50,001
to the fertile Song Ve Valley.

689
00:44:50,126 --> 00:44:53,005
The entire population
had already been herded

690
00:44:53,171 --> 00:44:57,677
from their homes and crowded
into a refugee camp.

691
00:44:57,842 --> 00:45:00,971
But some had come back
to resume the farming

692
00:45:01,095 --> 00:45:03,348
they had always done.

693
00:45:04,849 --> 00:45:08,023
The valley had officially been
declared a free-fire zone,

694
00:45:08,144 --> 00:45:12,194
and Tiger Force's
officers took that literally.

695
00:45:12,357 --> 00:45:16,112
"There are no friendlies,"
one lieutenant told his men.

696
00:45:16,235 --> 00:45:19,034
"Shoot anything that moves."

697
00:45:22,617 --> 00:45:25,541
Over a seven-month period,
they killed scores

698
00:45:25,703 --> 00:45:28,172
of unarmed civilians.

699
00:45:28,289 --> 00:45:31,759
Among their victims
were two blind brothers;

700
00:45:31,876 --> 00:45:36,382
an elderly Buddhist monk;
women, children, and old people

701
00:45:36,506 --> 00:45:38,634
hiding in underground shelters;

702
00:45:38,758 --> 00:45:42,012
and three farmers
trying to plant rice.

703
00:45:42,136 --> 00:45:46,562
All were reported as
"enemy... killed in action."

704
00:45:49,477 --> 00:45:53,402
These atrocities
were committed by soldiers

705
00:45:53,523 --> 00:45:55,742
of units I was assigned to
as a reporter

706
00:45:55,900 --> 00:45:57,698
for the Army newspapers,
such as...

707
00:45:57,819 --> 00:46:01,198
Tiger Force was
not the only platoon

708
00:46:01,322 --> 00:46:04,872
Dennis Stout covered
that crossed the line.

709
00:46:04,993 --> 00:46:08,042
One such incident was
the rape and killing

710
00:46:08,162 --> 00:46:09,914
of a Vietnamese girl.

711
00:46:10,081 --> 00:46:14,757
She was captured,
kept for interrogation.

712
00:46:14,919 --> 00:46:17,763
Over a two-day period,
she was raped, then,

713
00:46:17,880 --> 00:46:19,692
on the morning of the third day,
she was killed.

714
00:46:19,716 --> 00:46:23,095
Was she raped
by more than one person?

715
00:46:23,219 --> 00:46:26,769
Yes, all but the medic
and myself,

716
00:46:26,889 --> 00:46:28,609
and possibly one other man
from the platoon.

717
00:46:28,766 --> 00:46:29,766
Did you protest?

718
00:46:29,851 --> 00:46:31,899
Did you try in any way
to have them stopped?

719
00:46:32,020 --> 00:46:35,274
Yes. After the rape incident,
I complained

720
00:46:35,398 --> 00:46:39,778
to the battalion sergeant major,
and his response was that

721
00:46:39,902 --> 00:46:42,121
this type of thing happens
in all wars,

722
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:45,625
and that I was not to mention
it; it was a common occurrence.

723
00:46:45,742 --> 00:46:49,997
Then later, I went to
the chaplain, told him about it,

724
00:46:50,121 --> 00:46:52,340
he made
an investigation himself,

725
00:46:52,457 --> 00:46:54,710
found that this was true,
went with me

726
00:46:54,834 --> 00:46:56,256
to the sergeant major.

727
00:46:56,377 --> 00:47:00,473
The sergeant major then
said that...

728
00:47:00,590 --> 00:47:02,443
well, he told the chaplain
to stick to religion,

729
00:47:02,467 --> 00:47:05,971
sent him away, and then
he told me to keep quiet,

730
00:47:06,137 --> 00:47:09,767
that I did not have to return
from the next operation.

731
00:47:11,309 --> 00:47:14,313
Years later,
another soldier came forward

732
00:47:14,437 --> 00:47:17,111
with more allegations
of war crimes,

733
00:47:17,231 --> 00:47:20,656
and an Army investigation
would find probable cause

734
00:47:20,818 --> 00:47:25,665
to try 18 members of Tiger Force
for murder or assault.

735
00:47:26,824 --> 00:47:29,293
But no charges
were ever brought.

736
00:47:29,410 --> 00:47:32,505
The official records were buried
in the archives.

737
00:47:34,499 --> 00:47:36,342
They should
have all gone to jail.

738
00:47:36,501 --> 00:47:37,923
They were guilty of murder.

739
00:47:38,044 --> 00:47:39,387
Period.

740
00:47:39,504 --> 00:47:42,929
At the same time,
I felt like that incident,

741
00:47:43,049 --> 00:47:46,269
which I think was an aberration,
not the norm,

742
00:47:46,385 --> 00:47:48,979
tarred all veterans, and
there are hundreds of thousands

743
00:47:49,097 --> 00:47:50,849
of veterans who went
and did their duty,

744
00:47:50,973 --> 00:47:53,351
and as honorable
as they possibly could,

745
00:47:53,518 --> 00:47:55,236
and they're tarred
with the same brush.

746
00:47:57,355 --> 00:48:00,609
One of the things
that I learned in the war is that

747
00:48:00,733 --> 00:48:05,284
we're not the top species on
the planet because we're nice.

748
00:48:05,404 --> 00:48:08,578
We are a very aggressive
species.

749
00:48:08,699 --> 00:48:10,372
It is in us.

750
00:48:10,493 --> 00:48:13,793
And people talk a lot about
how, "Well, the military turns

751
00:48:13,913 --> 00:48:16,883
kids into killing machines"
and stuff.

752
00:48:18,501 --> 00:48:21,220
And I'll always argue that
it's just finishing school.

753
00:48:21,337 --> 00:48:25,934
What we do with civilization
is that we learn to inhibit

754
00:48:26,050 --> 00:48:29,395
and rope in these
aggressive tendencies.

755
00:48:29,512 --> 00:48:31,810
And we have to recognize them.

756
00:48:31,931 --> 00:48:35,731
I worry about a whole country
that doesn't recognize it.

757
00:48:35,852 --> 00:48:37,788
'Cause you think of how
many times we get ourselves

758
00:48:37,812 --> 00:48:41,157
in scrapes as a nation because
we're always the good guys.

759
00:48:41,274 --> 00:48:44,118
Sometimes, I think if we thought
that we weren't always

760
00:48:44,235 --> 00:48:46,613
the good guys, we might actually
get in less wars.

761
00:48:51,075 --> 00:48:52,327
Mr. Rubin,

762
00:48:52,451 --> 00:48:55,170
how do you realistically expect
to shut down the Pentagon?

763
00:48:55,288 --> 00:48:58,383
The Pentagon represents
the murder of people

764
00:48:58,499 --> 00:48:59,751
throughout the world.

765
00:48:59,876 --> 00:49:01,924
And the American people
have no control

766
00:49:02,044 --> 00:49:03,421
of what their government's
doing.

767
00:49:03,546 --> 00:49:06,971
And so we're going to go there
in the scores of thousands,

768
00:49:07,091 --> 00:49:10,140
and block doors
and fill hallways,

769
00:49:10,261 --> 00:49:12,263
so the work
of the Pentagon stops.

770
00:49:12,430 --> 00:49:14,478
Because the work
of the Pentagon should stop.

771
00:49:14,599 --> 00:49:16,880
The only thing to do with
the Pentagon is to shut it down.

772
00:49:41,876 --> 00:49:45,506
There was a major
demonstration either in New York

773
00:49:45,630 --> 00:49:50,227
or in Washington
every fall and every spring.

774
00:49:50,343 --> 00:49:53,347
We decided that we would go to
the demonstration

775
00:49:53,471 --> 00:49:57,021
in Washington at the Lincoln
Memorial in the fall of '67,

776
00:49:57,141 --> 00:49:59,735
but we would take as many
people out of that demonstration

777
00:49:59,852 --> 00:50:03,652
as we could and lead them
to the Pentagon.

778
00:50:03,773 --> 00:50:08,199
And at the Pentagon, try to do
something more militant

779
00:50:08,319 --> 00:50:11,949
than simply stand around and
make speeches opposing the war,

780
00:50:12,073 --> 00:50:14,952
which is what these
demonstrations had become.

781
00:50:16,577 --> 00:50:19,831
And when the time
came to lead people away

782
00:50:19,997 --> 00:50:22,170
from the Lincoln Memorial
toward the Pentagon,

783
00:50:22,291 --> 00:50:24,840
50,000 people marched.

784
00:50:33,511 --> 00:50:37,266
Bill Zimmerman, now an
assistant professor of psychology

785
00:50:37,390 --> 00:50:40,018
at Brooklyn College,
had been against the war

786
00:50:40,142 --> 00:50:41,940
since the beginning.

787
00:50:42,061 --> 00:50:46,532
Then we found when we got
there concentric defense perimeters

788
00:50:46,691 --> 00:50:49,740
that had been set up
around the Pentagon to keep us

789
00:50:49,860 --> 00:50:51,453
at a distance from the building.

790
00:50:51,570 --> 00:50:55,996
We pushed against them,
we tore down their fences.

791
00:50:59,787 --> 00:51:02,506
I was working that weekend day.

792
00:51:02,623 --> 00:51:06,878
The secretaries who were working
in my area were frightened

793
00:51:07,003 --> 00:51:11,509
to hell what these
Vietnam protesters would do.

794
00:51:11,632 --> 00:51:13,026
They thought they were
going to come into the building

795
00:51:13,050 --> 00:51:14,097
and rape them.

796
00:51:14,218 --> 00:51:16,562
Some of them actually
came over the walls.

797
00:51:18,723 --> 00:51:22,102
It was a sense of revolution.

798
00:51:32,361 --> 00:51:36,582
God knows what we were going
to do when we got in the building.

799
00:51:36,699 --> 00:51:38,576
Some people, the hippies,

800
00:51:38,743 --> 00:51:40,543
said they were going
to levitate the building.

801
00:51:40,661 --> 00:51:44,006
Other people wanted to commit
vandalism in the building.

802
00:51:44,123 --> 00:51:46,546
Other people wanted to
distribute antiwar literature

803
00:51:46,667 --> 00:51:48,920
in the building, talk to people.

804
00:51:49,045 --> 00:51:52,424
Just the idea of getting
into the headquarters

805
00:51:52,548 --> 00:51:54,596
of the United States military...

806
00:51:56,427 --> 00:51:59,681
It was the first time
that antiwar demonstrators

807
00:51:59,805 --> 00:52:04,151
had confronted active-duty
military personnel.

808
00:52:04,268 --> 00:52:06,862
We didn't consider them
the enemy.

809
00:52:06,979 --> 00:52:10,449
We considered them
victims of the war.

810
00:52:10,566 --> 00:52:15,572
But we began to see our own
government as the enemy.

811
00:52:15,696 --> 00:52:19,951
President Johnson believed
that international communism

812
00:52:20,076 --> 00:52:22,545
was somehow behind
the demonstration.

813
00:52:22,661 --> 00:52:26,006
He had directed the CIA
to come up with the evidence,

814
00:52:26,123 --> 00:52:29,878
and was furious
when it found none.

815
00:52:32,171 --> 00:52:33,047
Mr. President?

816
00:52:33,172 --> 00:52:34,048
Yes.

817
00:52:34,173 --> 00:52:35,049
This is General Eisenhower.

818
00:52:35,174 --> 00:52:36,374
How've you been,
Mr. President?

819
00:52:36,425 --> 00:52:39,304
I'm doing fine
under the circumstances.

820
00:52:39,470 --> 00:52:42,064
But we just had hell,
and these college students,

821
00:52:42,181 --> 00:52:44,024
I've had Hoover in after them.

822
00:52:44,141 --> 00:52:47,645
They came marched here,
and we arrested 600 of them,

823
00:52:47,770 --> 00:52:50,819
and we gave 29 of them
pretty tough times.

824
00:52:50,981 --> 00:52:54,281
We found most of them
really were mentally diseased.

825
00:52:54,402 --> 00:52:58,452
Hoover's taken 256 that turned
in supposedly their draft cards.

826
00:52:58,572 --> 00:53:00,825
So, you're dealing
with mental problems,

827
00:53:00,991 --> 00:53:03,085
I think that we talk
too damn much

828
00:53:03,202 --> 00:53:05,375
about civil liberties
and constitutional rights

829
00:53:05,496 --> 00:53:06,964
of the individual and not enough

830
00:53:07,081 --> 00:53:08,503
about the rights of the masses.

831
00:53:08,666 --> 00:53:09,976
That's why we have it.

832
00:53:10,000 --> 00:53:11,968
We have freely elected people
and we've got to

833
00:53:12,086 --> 00:53:13,463
stand behind them.

834
00:53:13,587 --> 00:53:15,965
I think your
government's in trouble, General.

835
00:53:16,090 --> 00:53:17,933
I think it's in...
I don't want to say this.

836
00:53:18,050 --> 00:53:19,723
But I think we're in more danger

837
00:53:19,844 --> 00:53:21,721
from these
left-wing influences now

838
00:53:21,846 --> 00:53:24,690
than we've ever been
in 37 years I've been here.

839
00:53:24,849 --> 00:53:27,853
And they're working
in my party from within.

840
00:53:27,977 --> 00:53:30,526
And Bobby thinks he's going
to get the nomination.

841
00:53:30,646 --> 00:53:34,867
Allard Lowenstein, a
38-year-old attorney from New York,

842
00:53:34,984 --> 00:53:37,988
shared the antiwar fervor
of the protestors,

843
00:53:38,112 --> 00:53:39,864
but he believed
the most effective way

844
00:53:40,030 --> 00:53:43,705
to end the fighting was to work
within the political system,

845
00:53:43,868 --> 00:53:45,711
not outside it.

846
00:53:45,828 --> 00:53:48,547
The answer, he said,
was to stop Lyndon Johnson

847
00:53:48,664 --> 00:53:52,214
from getting
a second full term as president.

848
00:53:52,334 --> 00:53:56,464
He had traveled the country
all year in search of someone

849
00:53:56,589 --> 00:53:59,217
willing to challenge
the president in the upcoming

850
00:53:59,341 --> 00:54:01,184
Democratic primaries.

851
00:54:01,302 --> 00:54:04,476
He asked Senator Robert Kennedy
of New York,

852
00:54:04,597 --> 00:54:07,567
who had begun to criticize
the Johnson administration

853
00:54:07,725 --> 00:54:09,068
over the war.

854
00:54:09,226 --> 00:54:12,480
He asked
Lieutenant General James Gavin.

855
00:54:12,605 --> 00:54:16,530
He asked Senator George McGovern
of South Dakota.

856
00:54:16,650 --> 00:54:18,744
They all turned him down.

857
00:54:18,903 --> 00:54:22,498
Lowenstein kept looking.

858
00:54:27,536 --> 00:54:32,588
At Fort Sill, Oklahoma,
on November 17, 1967,

859
00:54:32,750 --> 00:54:35,924
friends and family
of a fallen soldier gathered

860
00:54:36,086 --> 00:54:39,511
for a funeral,
one of five military funerals

861
00:54:39,632 --> 00:54:42,010
held there that month.

862
00:54:42,134 --> 00:54:46,935
First Sergeant Pascal Cleatus
Poolaw had been killed

863
00:54:47,056 --> 00:54:49,559
as he tried to drag
one of his wounded men

864
00:54:49,683 --> 00:54:54,439
off the battlefield near
the village of Loc Ninh.

865
00:54:54,563 --> 00:54:59,660
He was a remarkable soldier,
had been awarded one Silver Star

866
00:54:59,777 --> 00:55:05,159
in World War II, two more in
Korea, and was awarded a fourth,

867
00:55:05,282 --> 00:55:09,503
posthumously,
for his gallantry in Vietnam.

868
00:55:09,620 --> 00:55:12,669
He was a Kiowa Indian.

869
00:55:12,790 --> 00:55:15,589
He and three of his sons
were among

870
00:55:15,709 --> 00:55:20,715
the 42,000 Native Americans
who would serve in Vietnam,

871
00:55:20,839 --> 00:55:24,514
the highest per capita
service rate of any ethnic group

872
00:55:24,635 --> 00:55:26,808
in the United States.

873
00:55:26,929 --> 00:55:31,810
Pascal Poolaw's widow spoke
at the ceremony.

874
00:55:31,976 --> 00:55:35,571
"He has followed the trail
of the great chiefs," she said.

875
00:55:35,688 --> 00:55:40,865
"His people hold him in honor
and highest esteem.

876
00:55:40,985 --> 00:55:45,161
"He has given his life
for the people and the country

877
00:55:45,322 --> 00:55:49,498
he loved so much."

878
00:56:28,032 --> 00:56:30,911
I didn't hear the word
"hippie" until I was at Con Thien

879
00:56:31,035 --> 00:56:32,470
and we got a Playboy, somebody
got a Playboy in the mail,

880
00:56:32,494 --> 00:56:35,373
which was obviously very
important to us.

881
00:56:35,497 --> 00:56:37,545
And there was an article
on Haight-Ashbury

882
00:56:37,708 --> 00:56:39,268
and pictures of the girls
running around

883
00:56:39,376 --> 00:56:40,969
without their tops,
you know, free love.

884
00:56:41,086 --> 00:56:42,463
And they were hippies.

885
00:56:42,588 --> 00:56:45,057
And we thought it was
"hip pie" cause it had two Ps.

886
00:56:45,215 --> 00:56:47,013
You know,
"Hey, I'm gonna go home

887
00:56:47,134 --> 00:56:48,431
"and be one of these hip pies

888
00:56:48,552 --> 00:56:50,152
"because the girls
don't wear no clothes.

889
00:56:50,179 --> 00:56:52,557
You know, and they'll
go to bed with anybody."

890
00:56:52,681 --> 00:56:53,898
You know, even I could score.

891
00:56:54,058 --> 00:56:57,938
But the only information I had
of the peace movement

892
00:56:58,062 --> 00:56:59,689
came from Stars and Stripes.

893
00:56:59,813 --> 00:57:03,283
And that wasn't
a real objective newspaper.

894
00:57:03,400 --> 00:57:05,744
And so I hated them

895
00:57:05,861 --> 00:57:07,738
before I ever even knew
anything about them.

896
00:57:14,078 --> 00:57:18,083
The monsoon rains
continued to make life miserable

897
00:57:18,207 --> 00:57:21,586
for John Musgrave and
the other Marines at Con Thien.

898
00:57:21,710 --> 00:57:25,681
But by early November, the
worst of the shelling had ended.

899
00:57:25,798 --> 00:57:29,268
American airstrikes,
artillery, and Navy fire

900
00:57:29,426 --> 00:57:32,680
had taken a fearful toll
on the besieging enemy.

901
00:57:34,556 --> 00:57:39,983
Before dawn on November 7, two
companies of Musgrave's outfit

902
00:57:40,104 --> 00:57:42,823
were sent half a mile
into the countryside

903
00:57:42,940 --> 00:57:46,285
northwest of the base
to sweep the area again.

904
00:57:48,195 --> 00:57:51,790
We got into an
area that was old hedgerows

905
00:57:51,949 --> 00:57:53,997
that's grown over with jungle.

906
00:57:54,118 --> 00:57:56,462
Very difficult to see very far.

907
00:57:56,620 --> 00:57:59,624
In the clear area, we had three
NVA show themselves

908
00:57:59,790 --> 00:58:03,169
and start just spraying
30 rounds out of their AKs

909
00:58:03,293 --> 00:58:04,294
and then booking.

910
00:58:05,629 --> 00:58:09,600
The company commander himself
said, "I want their bodies.

911
00:58:09,717 --> 00:58:11,139
Bring me their bodies."

912
00:58:11,260 --> 00:58:14,480
Everything's about body count,
right?

913
00:58:14,638 --> 00:58:17,608
We said, "Man, this is as
old as Custer.

914
00:58:17,725 --> 00:58:20,103
"These guys are showing
themselves to draw us

915
00:58:20,227 --> 00:58:21,319
"into an ambush.

916
00:58:21,478 --> 00:58:23,981
"Lieutenant, don't do this,"
you know.

917
00:58:24,106 --> 00:58:27,656
"Please, these guys are bait."

918
00:58:27,818 --> 00:58:29,991
Well, the skipper says,
"We got to go.

919
00:58:30,112 --> 00:58:32,114
We got to go."

920
00:58:32,239 --> 00:58:35,493
And... we went.

921
00:58:38,495 --> 00:58:40,839
And I can't tell you
a whole lot about the ambush.

922
00:58:40,998 --> 00:58:43,000
I was one of the first people
to be shot.

923
00:58:43,125 --> 00:58:44,877
One round put me down.

924
00:58:46,712 --> 00:58:50,182
And my grenadier was down, and
we were trying to get him back.

925
00:58:50,299 --> 00:58:54,349
And Marines, from the first day
in boot camp,

926
00:58:54,511 --> 00:58:56,980
you learn that Marines
don't leave their dead,

927
00:58:57,097 --> 00:59:00,522
and they never,
never leave their wounded.

928
00:59:02,019 --> 00:59:04,693
And that's why I'm alive today.

929
00:59:04,813 --> 00:59:09,034
First guy that came for me...
I was lying on my face...

930
00:59:10,694 --> 00:59:13,072
he reached down and stuck his
arms under my shoulders

931
00:59:13,197 --> 00:59:17,543
and lifted me up and the machine
gun wasn't any far,

932
00:59:17,659 --> 00:59:23,211
was maybe nine feet, ten feet
at the most, away from me.

933
00:59:23,373 --> 00:59:24,875
This is a very intimate ambush.

934
00:59:25,000 --> 00:59:26,000
It's a brawl.

935
00:59:27,586 --> 00:59:31,636
And he fired a burst into my
chest that blew me out

936
00:59:31,757 --> 00:59:35,261
of the Marine's arms that was
holding me and then he was shot.

937
00:59:37,971 --> 00:59:44,195
Another very brave young Marine,
this 18-year-old from Louisiana,

938
00:59:44,311 --> 00:59:47,360
his first firefight,
had seen what happened

939
00:59:47,481 --> 00:59:50,610
and still came for me.

940
00:59:50,734 --> 00:59:55,410
And he reached for me, and he
was shot I think in the forearm.

941
00:59:55,531 --> 00:59:58,284
And he was laying beside me.

942
00:59:58,408 --> 01:00:00,261
Now, I've got a hole
through my chest big enough

943
01:00:00,285 --> 01:00:01,832
to stick your fist through.

944
01:00:02,830 --> 01:00:04,002
I'm dying and I know it.

945
01:00:05,374 --> 01:00:07,923
And I heard this horrible
screaming going on,

946
01:00:08,085 --> 01:00:11,715
and I was trying to figure out
who was screaming like that,

947
01:00:11,839 --> 01:00:13,091
because it sounded so...

948
01:00:19,012 --> 01:00:20,639
And then I realized it was me.

949
01:00:23,433 --> 01:00:25,856
When they began to drag us out,
they were being pursued

950
01:00:25,978 --> 01:00:29,778
by the North Vietnamese,
and they would drop us

951
01:00:29,898 --> 01:00:31,525
and lay on top of us.

952
01:00:31,650 --> 01:00:32,947
They knew... we were both dying.

953
01:00:33,110 --> 01:00:36,410
The grenadier had been shot
in the right side of his chest.

954
01:00:36,530 --> 01:00:38,624
They knew... we were both dead.

955
01:00:38,740 --> 01:00:41,368
But we were still alive.

956
01:00:41,493 --> 01:00:42,995
So, they weren't gonna leave us.

957
01:00:43,120 --> 01:00:45,214
They would die before
they would leave us.

958
01:00:45,330 --> 01:00:47,370
And they covered us with their
bodies and fired back

959
01:00:47,457 --> 01:00:50,677
at the NVA and then they'd jump
up and drag us a little farther

960
01:00:50,794 --> 01:00:53,138
and then drop us and
lay back on top of us.

961
01:00:53,255 --> 01:00:56,134
And I kept telling them
to leave me.

962
01:00:56,258 --> 01:00:57,851
And I meant it.
I meant it.

963
01:00:57,968 --> 01:01:02,018
But all of a sudden I got scared
that they might really leave me.

964
01:01:04,516 --> 01:01:06,985
I was triaged three times.

965
01:01:07,102 --> 01:01:09,901
And the senior corpsman said,

966
01:01:10,022 --> 01:01:11,749
"He's either shot through
the heart or the lungs.

967
01:01:11,773 --> 01:01:12,959
There's nothing
I can do for him."

968
01:01:12,983 --> 01:01:14,576
And he just turned away.

969
01:01:14,693 --> 01:01:16,787
I went, "Well, okay."

970
01:01:17,779 --> 01:01:21,409
And then, a helicopter came in.

971
01:01:21,533 --> 01:01:23,080
And they threw me into the bird.

972
01:01:25,621 --> 01:01:28,841
And the corpsman on the bird
straddled me, stood over me,

973
01:01:28,999 --> 01:01:31,969
and looked down at me, and then
looked up at the door gunner

974
01:01:32,085 --> 01:01:35,840
and went...
get me out of the way

975
01:01:36,006 --> 01:01:37,066
because he couldn't work on me.

976
01:01:37,090 --> 01:01:38,592
I was a dead man.

977
01:01:40,677 --> 01:01:42,554
And they flew me
to Delta Med at Dong Ha.

978
01:01:42,679 --> 01:01:46,775
And I thought,
"Okay, I made it this far."

979
01:01:46,892 --> 01:01:48,532
And this doctor comes
over and looks at me

980
01:01:48,644 --> 01:01:50,191
and I'm conscious.

981
01:01:50,312 --> 01:01:52,531
I'm lucid.

982
01:01:52,648 --> 01:01:54,025
And he checks
a couple of things.

983
01:01:54,149 --> 01:01:55,418
And I've got this huge hole
in me.

984
01:01:55,442 --> 01:01:57,003
And he looks at me
right in the eye, and he says,

985
01:01:57,027 --> 01:01:58,745
"What's your religion, Marine?"

986
01:01:58,862 --> 01:02:00,864
And I said,
"Well, I'm a Protestant."

987
01:02:01,031 --> 01:02:02,175
And he says,
"Get a chaplain over here.

988
01:02:02,199 --> 01:02:03,746
I can't help this man."

989
01:02:03,867 --> 01:02:04,867
And then he walked away.

990
01:02:06,244 --> 01:02:11,501
Another surgeon walks by,
and he looked at me,

991
01:02:11,625 --> 01:02:15,630
and I was raised
to always be nice to people.

992
01:02:15,754 --> 01:02:19,554
And when he looked at me,
I smiled at him and nodded.

993
01:02:19,675 --> 01:02:23,805
And he said, "Why isn't
somebody helping this man?"

994
01:02:23,929 --> 01:02:25,226
And inside I'm going,

995
01:02:25,347 --> 01:02:27,067
"Yeah, why isn't somebody
helping this man?"

996
01:02:28,183 --> 01:02:31,062
When they put me to sleep,
I thought,

997
01:02:31,228 --> 01:02:34,232
"Boy, this is really it,"
you know.

998
01:02:34,398 --> 01:02:36,947
And it was kind of, "Okay, God,

999
01:02:37,067 --> 01:02:39,661
into your hands,
I deliver my spirit."

1000
01:02:40,904 --> 01:02:42,747
And I thought that was it.

1001
01:02:44,741 --> 01:02:46,994
And when I woke up in the
surgical intensive care ward,

1002
01:02:47,119 --> 01:02:49,497
which was a Quonset hut,

1003
01:02:49,621 --> 01:02:52,124
I thought, "Holy mackerel."

1004
01:02:52,249 --> 01:02:56,254
I just couldn't...
I couldn't believe it.

1005
01:03:00,007 --> 01:03:01,429
Yesterday over Hanoi,

1006
01:03:01,550 --> 01:03:03,268
three American planes
were shot down

1007
01:03:03,427 --> 01:03:06,021
and at least two
of their pilots captured.

1008
01:03:06,138 --> 01:03:09,688
One of them was Lieutenant
Commander John McCain III,

1009
01:03:09,808 --> 01:03:12,903
the son of the U.S. Naval
commander in Europe.

1010
01:03:50,599 --> 01:03:54,149
Hanoi was so pleased
to have captured the son

1011
01:03:54,269 --> 01:03:57,648
of an American admiral that they
allowed a French journalist

1012
01:03:57,773 --> 01:04:00,276
to interview McCain
in the hospital.

1013
01:04:00,400 --> 01:04:04,621
He had just had his broken bones
set without even an aspirin

1014
01:04:04,738 --> 01:04:06,160
for the pain.

1015
01:04:06,281 --> 01:04:07,481
What is your name?

1016
01:04:07,574 --> 01:04:10,623
Lieutenant Commander
John McCain.

1017
01:04:10,744 --> 01:04:13,714
How many raids have you done
until the last one?

1018
01:04:13,830 --> 01:04:15,628
About 23.

1019
01:04:15,749 --> 01:04:20,425
In which circumstances
have you been shot down?

1020
01:04:20,545 --> 01:04:25,301
I was on a flight
over the city of Hanoi,

1021
01:04:25,425 --> 01:04:32,525
and I was bombing and I was hit
by either a missile

1022
01:04:32,641 --> 01:04:34,314
or anti-aircraft fire.

1023
01:04:34,434 --> 01:04:41,409
I'm not sure which, and the
plane continued straight down,

1024
01:04:41,525 --> 01:04:50,206
and I ejected
and broke my leg and both arms

1025
01:04:50,325 --> 01:04:57,049
and went into a lake;
parachuted into a lake.

1026
01:04:57,207 --> 01:05:01,963
And I was picked up by some
North Vietnamese

1027
01:05:02,087 --> 01:05:08,140
and taken to the hospital,
where I almost died.

1028
01:05:08,260 --> 01:05:10,513
I would just like to tell...

1029
01:05:14,850 --> 01:05:17,228
my wife...

1030
01:05:18,061 --> 01:05:20,610
I will get well...

1031
01:05:23,233 --> 01:05:29,912
and I love her
and I hope to see her soon.

1032
01:05:31,449 --> 01:05:34,043
After the
interview, McCain was beaten

1033
01:05:34,161 --> 01:05:38,211
for not expressing sufficient
gratitude to his captors.

1034
01:05:46,047 --> 01:05:50,518
All through the fall
of 1967, the North Vietnamese

1035
01:05:50,635 --> 01:05:54,390
and the Viet Cong continued
their series of "Border Battles"

1036
01:05:54,514 --> 01:05:57,017
in preparation
for their surprise offensive,

1037
01:05:57,142 --> 01:05:59,065
still months away.

1038
01:05:59,186 --> 01:06:02,907
Con Thien, where John Musgrave
was wounded,

1039
01:06:03,023 --> 01:06:04,445
had been the first.

1040
01:06:04,608 --> 01:06:08,283
Then came the ARVN base
at Song Be.

1041
01:06:08,445 --> 01:06:10,868
The South Vietnamese outpost
adjacent to

1042
01:06:10,989 --> 01:06:14,038
the provincial capital
of Loc Ninh was next.

1043
01:06:14,159 --> 01:06:17,083
There, large units of
North Vietnamese

1044
01:06:17,204 --> 01:06:20,959
and Viet Cong regulars
mounted a coordinated attack,

1045
01:06:21,124 --> 01:06:24,469
and then fought for five days
to hold on to the ground

1046
01:06:24,586 --> 01:06:28,466
they'd gained, something they
had never done before.

1047
01:06:28,590 --> 01:06:32,140
American commanders
were puzzled.

1048
01:06:32,302 --> 01:06:36,899
Then, in early November,
reports reached MACV

1049
01:06:37,015 --> 01:06:39,268
that five North Vietnamese
regiments

1050
01:06:39,392 --> 01:06:43,647
and a Viet Cong battalion...
some 7,000 men in all...

1051
01:06:43,813 --> 01:06:46,441
had begun massing
in the Central Highlands

1052
01:06:46,566 --> 01:06:51,197
around the U.S. Special Forces
camp at Dak To again.

1053
01:06:51,321 --> 01:06:55,952
Among the North Vietnamese
regulars was Nguyen Thanh Son,

1054
01:06:56,076 --> 01:06:59,330
who had been so eager to fight
that he too had filled

1055
01:06:59,496 --> 01:07:03,501
his pockets with rocks
to pass his physical.

1056
01:07:17,639 --> 01:07:21,064
As the NVA
deployed their troops,

1057
01:07:21,184 --> 01:07:24,108
Westmoreland sent his to Dak To,

1058
01:07:24,229 --> 01:07:27,779
exactly what
the enemy wanted him to do.

1059
01:07:27,899 --> 01:07:33,121
Among the Americans were the
men of the elite 173rd Airborne,

1060
01:07:33,238 --> 01:07:36,833
Westmoreland's Fire Brigade.

1061
01:07:41,288 --> 01:07:45,464
We all knew in a general
sense that we wouldn't be brought back

1062
01:07:45,583 --> 01:07:48,553
if there wasn't something big
going on.

1063
01:07:48,712 --> 01:07:54,094
You just knew that the area was
crawling with North Vietnamese,

1064
01:07:54,217 --> 01:07:58,723
and that they were there
not to avoid contact with us,

1065
01:07:58,888 --> 01:08:01,516
but they were there
to have contact with us.

1066
01:08:02,934 --> 01:08:05,187
First Lieutenant
Matthew Harrison was now

1067
01:08:05,312 --> 01:08:08,065
with Alpha Company
of the 2nd Battalion,

1068
01:08:08,231 --> 01:08:10,734
the same rifle company
that had been ambushed

1069
01:08:10,859 --> 01:08:16,081
and so badly shattered back in
June on the slopes of Hill 1338,

1070
01:08:16,197 --> 01:08:18,825
just 14 miles to the east.

1071
01:08:18,950 --> 01:08:22,580
This wasn't like the Viet
Cong where if you could find them,

1072
01:08:22,704 --> 01:08:23,921
you could kill them.

1073
01:08:24,080 --> 01:08:25,360
Our problem wasn't finding them.

1074
01:08:25,457 --> 01:08:27,697
Our problem was what to do
with them once you found them.

1075
01:08:27,792 --> 01:08:32,923
The 174th NVA
Regiment was waiting.

1076
01:08:33,089 --> 01:08:36,844
Nguyen Thanh Son and his men
were already dug in

1077
01:08:36,968 --> 01:08:40,017
on the high ground they knew
the Americans would want

1078
01:08:40,138 --> 01:08:44,894
to command: Hill 875.

1079
01:09:06,122 --> 01:09:11,299
On Sunday
morning, November 19, 1967,

1080
01:09:11,461 --> 01:09:14,886
Alpha, Charlie, and
Delta Companies were ordered

1081
01:09:15,006 --> 01:09:17,885
to take Hill 875.

1082
01:09:18,009 --> 01:09:21,479
Matt Harrison had been wounded
in an earlier fight

1083
01:09:21,596 --> 01:09:24,395
and was not permitted
to accompany his men.

1084
01:09:24,516 --> 01:09:28,817
He anxiously followed
their progress over the radio.

1085
01:09:28,937 --> 01:09:33,613
Heavy artillery and flights
of F-100s blasted the hillside

1086
01:09:33,733 --> 01:09:37,533
ahead of them, meant to
knock out enemy positions

1087
01:09:37,654 --> 01:09:40,828
before the paratroopers
ever got within range.

1088
01:09:57,799 --> 01:10:00,177
The three companies
moved up the slope,

1089
01:10:00,301 --> 01:10:02,679
Charlie and Delta in the lead,

1090
01:10:02,846 --> 01:10:06,020
Alpha bringing up the rear.

1091
01:10:06,141 --> 01:10:09,566
The paratroopers stepped warily
into a clearing

1092
01:10:09,686 --> 01:10:12,906
filled with fallen trees
from the morning's bombardment

1093
01:10:13,022 --> 01:10:17,744
and only a little over 300 yards
from the summit.

1094
01:10:33,042 --> 01:10:36,012
Thousands of automatic
weapon rounds ripped through the air.

1095
01:10:36,129 --> 01:10:39,178
Chinese-made grenades came
rolling and bumping

1096
01:10:39,299 --> 01:10:40,676
down the slopes.

1097
01:10:40,800 --> 01:10:45,021
The Americans sought cover where
they could behind fallen trees,

1098
01:10:45,138 --> 01:10:47,766
scrabbled at the earth
with their helmets,

1099
01:10:47,891 --> 01:10:50,064
trying to dig fighting holes.

1100
01:10:56,941 --> 01:10:59,820
Charlie and Delta companies
were pinned down

1101
01:10:59,944 --> 01:11:02,743
and being torn to pieces.

1102
01:11:04,240 --> 01:11:06,038
Meanwhile,
near the foot of the hill,

1103
01:11:06,159 --> 01:11:09,254
other North Vietnamese troops
surprised Alpha Company

1104
01:11:09,370 --> 01:11:10,667
from behind.

1105
01:11:10,788 --> 01:11:13,837
They were first spotted
moving up through the trees

1106
01:11:13,958 --> 01:11:17,588
by a private from the Bronx
named Carlos Lozada.

1107
01:11:17,712 --> 01:11:20,841
As the men of his
company scrambled up the slope,

1108
01:11:20,965 --> 01:11:22,763
dragging their wounded
with them,

1109
01:11:22,884 --> 01:11:25,433
Lozada provided
what cover he could,

1110
01:11:25,553 --> 01:11:28,306
firing his M-60 machine gun
from his hip...

1111
01:11:28,431 --> 01:11:31,150
before a bullet
hit him in the head.

1112
01:11:32,560 --> 01:11:37,361
He would be awarded
a posthumous Medal of Honor.

1113
01:11:37,482 --> 01:11:41,362
Back home, the battle led
the nightly news.

1114
01:11:43,196 --> 01:11:46,075
The Battle of
Dak To is now on its 19th day,

1115
01:11:46,199 --> 01:11:48,543
and already ranks
among the bloodiest campaigns

1116
01:11:48,660 --> 01:11:50,082
of the Vietnam War.

1117
01:11:50,203 --> 01:11:51,796
There's no sign yet
of any let-up.

1118
01:11:51,955 --> 01:11:53,457
Over the weekend,
three companies

1119
01:11:53,581 --> 01:11:57,552
of the 173rd Airborne Brigade
moved down this river valley,

1120
01:11:57,669 --> 01:12:00,468
up which North Vietnamese
normally infiltrate,

1121
01:12:00,630 --> 01:12:03,679
until they got down here
by Hill 875.

1122
01:12:03,800 --> 01:12:06,144
Then, they came under heavy fire
from the hill.

1123
01:12:06,261 --> 01:12:08,309
Two of the three companies
charged the hill,

1124
01:12:08,471 --> 01:12:10,314
the other stayed back
as a rear guard.

1125
01:12:10,431 --> 01:12:11,728
They found a...

1126
01:12:11,849 --> 01:12:14,898
By early afternoon,
the three companies

1127
01:12:15,019 --> 01:12:17,272
had basically been decapitated.

1128
01:12:17,397 --> 01:12:19,149
The company commanders
were dead;

1129
01:12:19,315 --> 01:12:22,319
most of the officers and
most of the NCOs were dead.

1130
01:12:24,279 --> 01:12:26,953
The survivors from
all three companies clustered

1131
01:12:27,073 --> 01:12:29,747
in the clearing
and did their best to set up

1132
01:12:29,867 --> 01:12:31,494
a defensive circle.

1133
01:12:31,661 --> 01:12:36,292
American bombs and napalm
pounded enemy positions

1134
01:12:36,416 --> 01:12:39,886
until it grew
almost too dark to see.

1135
01:13:08,239 --> 01:13:13,040
Then, another American plane
roared in and dropped two bombs.

1136
01:13:13,202 --> 01:13:16,081
One landed among
the hidden enemy troops.

1137
01:13:17,373 --> 01:13:21,879
The other fell directly
on the Americans.

1138
01:13:22,045 --> 01:13:26,801
In a fraction of a second,
42 were killed.

1139
01:13:26,924 --> 01:13:30,849
A badly hit lieutenant managed
to find a working radio.

1140
01:13:30,970 --> 01:13:34,395
"No more fucking planes,"
he shouted into it.

1141
01:13:34,515 --> 01:13:37,234
"You're killing us up here."

1142
01:13:38,811 --> 01:13:41,064
The fighting
on the hillside continued.

1143
01:13:41,230 --> 01:13:45,610
The men ran out of water,
began to run out of ammunition.

1144
01:13:45,735 --> 01:13:50,536
Helicopters that tried to ferry
in supplies were shot down.

1145
01:13:51,908 --> 01:13:58,006
The following day, Matt Harrison
was able to chopper in.

1146
01:13:58,122 --> 01:13:59,715
It was chaos.

1147
01:13:59,832 --> 01:14:02,551
It was collections of guys
who had who had tunneled

1148
01:14:02,669 --> 01:14:04,842
and dug down behind trees.

1149
01:14:04,962 --> 01:14:08,387
These were guys who had gone
without water in that heat

1150
01:14:08,508 --> 01:14:09,976
for two days.

1151
01:14:10,093 --> 01:14:14,018
And almost every one of them
was wounded.

1152
01:14:14,138 --> 01:14:18,188
And then all around were bodies,

1153
01:14:18,309 --> 01:14:22,610
guys who had been shot
and blown up.

1154
01:14:22,730 --> 01:14:24,323
It was the third circle of hell.

1155
01:14:27,110 --> 01:14:31,581
On November 23, two
fresh battalions of the 173rd

1156
01:14:31,698 --> 01:14:34,201
finally made it
to the top of the hill,

1157
01:14:34,325 --> 01:14:37,124
for which so many had died.

1158
01:14:37,286 --> 01:14:39,004
But the night before,

1159
01:14:39,122 --> 01:14:42,001
the surviving North Vietnamese
troops had slipped down

1160
01:14:42,125 --> 01:14:48,474
the other side and disappeared
into Cambodia and Laos.

1161
01:14:48,589 --> 01:14:51,183
The powers that be
decided it would be important

1162
01:14:51,300 --> 01:14:55,771
to our morale for us to be in on
the taking the top of the hill.

1163
01:14:55,888 --> 01:15:01,019
I had 26 guys left out of a
company that started out of 140,

1164
01:15:01,144 --> 01:15:03,818
and all 26 had been wounded.

1165
01:15:03,938 --> 01:15:08,193
Then Harrison and his
exhausted men were helicoptered

1166
01:15:08,317 --> 01:15:10,069
to the top of yet another hill.

1167
01:15:15,783 --> 01:15:18,002
It was Thanksgiving.

1168
01:15:18,119 --> 01:15:21,373
Chinook helicopters clattered
down out of the sky,

1169
01:15:21,497 --> 01:15:25,127
carrying huge containers of
hot turkey and mashed potatoes

1170
01:15:25,251 --> 01:15:29,722
and cranberry sauce so that
the 173rd could have

1171
01:15:29,839 --> 01:15:31,762
their Thanksgiving dinner.

1172
01:15:31,883 --> 01:15:34,432
If there are any more remote
or dangerous spots

1173
01:15:34,552 --> 01:15:36,552
to spend Thanksgiving Day
in Vietnam than this one,

1174
01:15:36,637 --> 01:15:38,731
then most of these men
have never seen them.

1175
01:15:38,848 --> 01:15:42,227
There was a TV cameraman
and reporter off to the side

1176
01:15:42,351 --> 01:15:43,944
using us as a backdrop.

1177
01:15:44,061 --> 01:15:46,735
And I remember hearing
the reporter intone,

1178
01:15:46,856 --> 01:15:49,985
"Today is November 23,
Thanksgiving Day,"

1179
01:15:50,109 --> 01:15:53,864
and I was really angry.

1180
01:15:53,988 --> 01:15:57,868
It's as though
we were entertainers.

1181
01:15:59,410 --> 01:16:05,133
107 Americans
had died taking Hill 875;

1182
01:16:05,249 --> 01:16:08,093
another 282 were wounded.

1183
01:16:08,211 --> 01:16:09,929
Ten more were missing.

1184
01:16:10,046 --> 01:16:13,801
The number of North Vietnamese
casualties is unknown,

1185
01:16:13,925 --> 01:16:17,896
but their losses are thought
to have been staggering.

1186
01:16:19,472 --> 01:16:23,818
Back in June, Matt Harrison had
lost two West Point classmates

1187
01:16:23,935 --> 01:16:26,563
on Hill 1338.

1188
01:16:26,687 --> 01:16:29,736
He lost two more on Hill 875.

1189
01:16:29,857 --> 01:16:33,452
Of the eight with whom he had
served in the 2nd Battalion,

1190
01:16:33,569 --> 01:16:37,870
four were now dead
and two had been wounded.

1191
01:16:40,451 --> 01:16:43,921
To take tops of mountains
in a triple canopy jungle

1192
01:16:44,038 --> 01:16:47,212
along the Cambodian-Laotian
border accomplished nothing

1193
01:16:47,333 --> 01:16:49,461
of any importance.

1194
01:16:51,254 --> 01:16:55,760
The Battle for Hill 875 was,
in my thinking today,

1195
01:16:55,925 --> 01:16:59,270
a microcosm of what we were
doing and what went wrong

1196
01:16:59,387 --> 01:17:00,730
in Vietnam.

1197
01:17:00,847 --> 01:17:04,602
There was no reason to take
that hill.

1198
01:17:04,725 --> 01:17:08,400
We literally got to the top
of the hill

1199
01:17:08,521 --> 01:17:15,200
about mid-day on November 23
and sat there for,

1200
01:17:15,319 --> 01:17:17,117
I don't know,
half an hour, an hour,

1201
01:17:17,280 --> 01:17:21,205
just kind of gathering ourselves
and everything together.

1202
01:17:21,325 --> 01:17:24,579
Chinooks came in,
took us off the hill.

1203
01:17:24,704 --> 01:17:28,550
And I doubt that there's been
an American on Hill 875

1204
01:17:28,666 --> 01:17:30,714
since November 23.

1205
01:17:30,835 --> 01:17:33,088
We accomplished nothing.

1206
01:17:33,212 --> 01:17:36,762
A new phase is now starting.

1207
01:17:36,883 --> 01:17:39,807
We have reached an important
point when the end

1208
01:17:39,927 --> 01:17:42,146
begins to come into view.

1209
01:17:43,890 --> 01:17:47,485
As Matt Harrison and
his men fought for Hill 875,

1210
01:17:47,643 --> 01:17:50,237
the Johnson administration
was in the midst

1211
01:17:50,354 --> 01:17:52,152
of a "Success Offensive,"

1212
01:17:52,273 --> 01:17:57,120
a PR campaign aimed at
shoring up support for the war

1213
01:17:57,236 --> 01:17:59,705
and the way it was being waged.

1214
01:17:59,822 --> 01:18:04,043
MACV released a new and
surprisingly low estimate

1215
01:18:04,160 --> 01:18:08,131
of enemy forces to show how much
damage the United States

1216
01:18:08,247 --> 01:18:09,590
had done to them.

1217
01:18:09,707 --> 01:18:14,053
It was only two-thirds of the
total suggested by the CIA,

1218
01:18:14,170 --> 01:18:16,593
because, after a bitter
and prolonged debate

1219
01:18:16,714 --> 01:18:19,558
behind the scenes,
Westmoreland had chosen

1220
01:18:19,675 --> 01:18:22,724
to exclude from it
the part-time guerrillas...

1221
01:18:22,845 --> 01:18:26,850
farmers, old men, women,
even children...

1222
01:18:27,016 --> 01:18:30,691
who helped place the mines,
grenades, and booby traps

1223
01:18:30,853 --> 01:18:32,855
that accounted
for more than a third

1224
01:18:33,022 --> 01:18:35,525
of all American casualties.

1225
01:18:35,650 --> 01:18:38,654
General Westmoreland
also told the press

1226
01:18:38,778 --> 01:18:42,328
that the impressive body counts
his commanders reported

1227
01:18:42,448 --> 01:18:45,042
were "very, very conservative."

1228
01:18:45,159 --> 01:18:47,662
It probably represented,
he said,

1229
01:18:47,787 --> 01:18:52,338
"50 percent or even less of the
enemy that has been killed."

1230
01:18:52,458 --> 01:18:56,133
Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker
joined the chorus,

1231
01:18:56,253 --> 01:18:59,928
using a metaphor first used
13 years earlier

1232
01:19:00,049 --> 01:19:02,518
by the French commander
in Vietnam,

1233
01:19:02,635 --> 01:19:07,186
not long before their great
defeat at Dien Bien Phu.

1234
01:19:07,306 --> 01:19:10,526
And I think we're now
beginning to see light

1235
01:19:10,643 --> 01:19:11,986
at the end of the tunnel.

1236
01:19:12,103 --> 01:19:15,198
Mr. Ambassador, you talk about
light at the end of the tunnel.

1237
01:19:15,314 --> 01:19:16,816
How long is this tunnel?

1238
01:19:16,941 --> 01:19:19,490
Well, I don't think that
you can put it

1239
01:19:19,610 --> 01:19:25,413
into any particular timeframe,
a situation like this.

1240
01:19:26,951 --> 01:19:31,252
LBJ's Success
Offensive succeeded.

1241
01:19:31,414 --> 01:19:34,714
The number of Americans
who believed the United States

1242
01:19:34,834 --> 01:19:39,465
was making real progress
in the war grew.

1243
01:19:39,588 --> 01:19:42,933
Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara

1244
01:19:43,050 --> 01:19:47,100
did not take part in
the public relations campaign.

1245
01:19:47,221 --> 01:19:50,851
He had become so disillusioned
with the war he'd done so much

1246
01:19:50,975 --> 01:19:53,444
to plan and prosecute
that he wrote

1247
01:19:53,602 --> 01:19:55,900
another secret memo
to the president,

1248
01:19:56,022 --> 01:19:59,947
advising Johnson to freeze
American troop levels,

1249
01:20:00,067 --> 01:20:03,662
turn over ground operations
to the South Vietnamese,

1250
01:20:03,779 --> 01:20:06,157
and halt the bombing
of North Vietnam

1251
01:20:06,282 --> 01:20:09,286
"in order to bring about
negotiations."

1252
01:20:09,410 --> 01:20:13,005
There was no reason to believe,
McNamara wrote,

1253
01:20:13,122 --> 01:20:16,752
that the prolonged "infliction
of grievous casualties,

1254
01:20:16,876 --> 01:20:19,504
"or the heavy punishment
of air bombardment,

1255
01:20:19,628 --> 01:20:22,632
"will suffice to break the will
of the North Vietnamese

1256
01:20:22,757 --> 01:20:24,134
"and Viet Cong.

1257
01:20:24,300 --> 01:20:27,395
"The continuation of our
present course of action

1258
01:20:27,511 --> 01:20:32,358
"in Southeast Asia would be
dangerous, costly in lives,

1259
01:20:32,475 --> 01:20:35,695
and unsatisfactory
to the American people."

1260
01:20:35,811 --> 01:20:38,985
Johnson never responded.

1261
01:20:39,148 --> 01:20:42,152
Instead, he arranged
for McNamara to become

1262
01:20:42,276 --> 01:20:45,155
the president of the World Bank.

1263
01:20:45,321 --> 01:20:49,167
McNamara would keep silent
about the doubts he had harbored

1264
01:20:49,325 --> 01:20:51,373
since the beginning
of the ground war

1265
01:20:51,494 --> 01:20:54,998
for the next 28 years.

1266
01:20:55,164 --> 01:20:58,134
His successor as
defense secretary would be

1267
01:20:58,250 --> 01:20:59,467
Clark Clifford,

1268
01:20:59,585 --> 01:21:03,055
a prominent Washington lawyer
and trusted counselor

1269
01:21:03,172 --> 01:21:06,642
to Democratic presidents,
whom Johnson was sure would be

1270
01:21:06,759 --> 01:21:08,477
supportive of the war.

1271
01:21:08,594 --> 01:21:10,642
Students of Harvard...

1272
01:21:10,763 --> 01:21:13,983
Meanwhile, Allard
Lowenstein's yearlong search

1273
01:21:14,100 --> 01:21:16,523
for a Democratic challenger
to the president

1274
01:21:16,644 --> 01:21:18,646
had finally succeeded.

1275
01:21:18,771 --> 01:21:24,699
On November 30, 1967, Minnesota
senator Eugene McCarthy

1276
01:21:24,860 --> 01:21:26,703
announced that he would run.

1277
01:21:26,821 --> 01:21:29,449
This is an issue
which has to be taken

1278
01:21:29,573 --> 01:21:32,998
to the people of the country
in the campaign of 1968.

1279
01:21:36,205 --> 01:21:39,209
By the end of 1967,

1280
01:21:39,333 --> 01:21:44,760
20,057 Americans
had died in Vietnam.

1281
01:21:44,880 --> 01:21:48,225
The time had come,
General Westmoreland said,

1282
01:21:48,342 --> 01:21:52,188
for an "all-out offensive
on all fronts."

1283
01:21:55,850 --> 01:21:59,445
But the enemy was just a month
away from launching

1284
01:21:59,562 --> 01:22:02,532
an all-out offensive
of its own.