1
00:00:09,356 --> 00:00:10,875
This is 2-3 arriving.

2
00:00:10,899 --> 00:00:13,197
We have them in sight and
we're engaging at present time.

3
00:00:13,318 --> 00:00:14,444
Rogen.

4
00:00:19,491 --> 00:00:22,665
Helicopters
are phenomenal machines.

5
00:00:22,786 --> 00:00:25,130
You could float in the air.

6
00:00:25,247 --> 00:00:26,794
You can be like God.

7
00:00:34,047 --> 00:00:36,846
I flew below 500 feet.

8
00:00:36,967 --> 00:00:39,971
Above 500 feet was a kill zone.

9
00:00:40,095 --> 00:00:44,817
You better be below 200 feet,
the lower the better.

10
00:00:47,227 --> 00:00:48,695
My job was to get shot at.

11
00:00:48,812 --> 00:00:50,439
My job was to draw enemy fire.

12
00:00:50,564 --> 00:00:52,157
I was a duck, a decoy.

13
00:00:53,358 --> 00:00:54,985
I got shot at a lot.

14
00:00:55,110 --> 00:00:57,112
I engaged the enemy a lot.

15
00:01:04,036 --> 00:01:07,666
You're screaming as loud as you
can to try to cover up the sound

16
00:01:07,789 --> 00:01:09,837
of the incoming bullets

17
00:01:09,958 --> 00:01:11,551
because when they pass
by your ear

18
00:01:11,668 --> 00:01:13,045
you could hear
the popping sound.

19
00:01:13,212 --> 00:01:15,886
You don't hear the gunshot.

20
00:01:16,048 --> 00:01:18,016
That a 50-caliber
just opened up on you,

21
00:01:18,133 --> 00:01:20,682
shooting a half-inch
piece of lead flying at you...

22
00:01:20,802 --> 00:01:22,002
And the aircraft was... vroom!

23
00:01:23,931 --> 00:01:26,525
You're flying,
you're 90 degrees the other way

24
00:01:26,683 --> 00:01:28,606
and you're-you're shooting
yourself down

25
00:01:28,769 --> 00:01:30,663
because the rotor blades
are right in front of you

26
00:01:30,687 --> 00:01:32,487
and you're trying
to keep the gun from jamming

27
00:01:32,606 --> 00:01:34,984
because you're running around
like this.

28
00:01:35,108 --> 00:01:37,236
And if your gun jams,
you're done.

29
00:01:44,034 --> 00:01:48,631
Vietnam was the
first real helicopter war.

30
00:01:48,747 --> 00:01:53,924
Helicopter pilots flew
more than 36 million sorties.

31
00:01:54,044 --> 00:01:57,799
Their crews scattered propaganda
leaflets over the enemy

32
00:01:57,923 --> 00:02:02,224
and poured lethal fire
into their positions;

33
00:02:02,386 --> 00:02:06,732
carried troops and supplies
and artillery into battle;

34
00:02:06,848 --> 00:02:11,194
and lifted the wounded off
the battlefield so swiftly

35
00:02:11,270 --> 00:02:15,650
that most reached a field
hospital within 15 minutes.

36
00:02:21,405 --> 00:02:24,579
Ron Ferrizzi, a policeman's son

37
00:02:24,700 --> 00:02:27,874
from the Swampoodle neighborhood
of North Philadelphia,

38
00:02:27,995 --> 00:02:31,716
got to Vietnam
in November of 1967.

39
00:02:31,790 --> 00:02:34,760
He was a crew chief
in a scout helicopter

40
00:02:34,918 --> 00:02:36,761
with the 1st Air Cavalry,

41
00:02:36,878 --> 00:02:42,009
flying out of Landing Zone Two-
Bits in the Central Highlands.

42
00:02:42,175 --> 00:02:45,019
One day, after returning
from a combat mission,

43
00:02:45,178 --> 00:02:49,274
he was approached
by a journalist.

44
00:02:49,349 --> 00:02:50,976
And there was this...

45
00:02:51,101 --> 00:02:54,071
there was a beautiful woman.

46
00:02:54,187 --> 00:02:57,236
You know, round eye woman...
statuesque, round eye woman

47
00:02:57,357 --> 00:03:01,863
with nice hair
and she looked pretty.

48
00:03:01,987 --> 00:03:04,160
Wow!

49
00:03:04,323 --> 00:03:07,042
She said, "Can I ask you
a couple of questions?

50
00:03:07,159 --> 00:03:09,628
"What was it like out there?

51
00:03:09,786 --> 00:03:12,460
"How does it feel that
a SO-caliber just opened up

52
00:03:12,581 --> 00:03:15,209
shooting a half-inch
piece of lead at you?"

53
00:03:17,169 --> 00:03:19,217
When you... it's hard
to describe.

54
00:03:19,379 --> 00:03:22,474
It's shitty.

55
00:03:22,591 --> 00:03:26,061
I mean, isn't it... isn't it
apparent what it's like?

56
00:03:27,095 --> 00:03:28,893
You want to know what it's like?

57
00:03:29,014 --> 00:03:30,186
Go look at it.

58
00:03:30,307 --> 00:03:31,183
Go out there.

59
00:03:31,308 --> 00:03:33,060
Go see the bodies.

60
00:03:33,185 --> 00:03:34,858
I was ready to whack her.

61
00:03:34,978 --> 00:03:36,480
I wanted to blast her.

62
00:03:36,605 --> 00:03:37,606
I was ready to... whoa!

63
00:03:37,731 --> 00:03:38,791
"You want to know
what it's like?

64
00:03:38,815 --> 00:03:39,815
"Boom! There it is.

65
00:03:39,858 --> 00:03:41,098
"I'll give it to you right now!

66
00:03:41,151 --> 00:03:42,751
"You want to feel it?
You want to see it?

67
00:03:42,778 --> 00:03:44,380
"I'll give it to you
if that's what you want.

68
00:03:44,404 --> 00:03:46,077
Is that what you want?"

69
00:03:46,198 --> 00:03:47,825
I don't want to tell you
what it's like

70
00:03:47,949 --> 00:03:49,371
because I don't want
to remember it.

71
00:03:49,493 --> 00:03:52,872
That's the insanity
that it brings out.

72
00:04:22,234 --> 00:04:26,785
The enemy has been
defeated in battle after battle.

73
00:04:26,905 --> 00:04:31,081
He continues to hope that
America's will to persevere

74
00:04:31,243 --> 00:04:32,745
can be broken.

75
00:04:34,955 --> 00:04:38,550
Well, he is wrong.

76
00:04:40,877 --> 00:04:45,257
1968 would prove
to be a watershed year

77
00:04:45,382 --> 00:04:50,183
in the history of the Vietnam
War and the United States.

78
00:04:50,303 --> 00:04:52,146
As the year began,

79
00:04:52,264 --> 00:04:57,270
there were 485,600
American troops in Vietnam

80
00:04:57,394 --> 00:04:59,692
and American leaders promised

81
00:04:59,813 --> 00:05:02,191
that victory was finally
in sight,

82
00:05:02,315 --> 00:05:06,195
that there really was "light
at the end of the tunnel."

83
00:05:11,241 --> 00:05:15,121
But then, North Vietnam
would mount a massive offensive

84
00:05:15,287 --> 00:05:18,541
that would result in
a terrible defeat for them,

85
00:05:18,707 --> 00:05:21,426
that in the long run
would turn out to have been

86
00:05:21,585 --> 00:05:24,805
a still-greater victory.

87
00:05:24,963 --> 00:05:28,684
America itself would be
convulsed by assassinations

88
00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:32,976
and battles in the streets
over the war and civil rights.

89
00:05:35,265 --> 00:05:36,687
An American president,

90
00:05:36,850 --> 00:05:40,275
a master politician used
to getting things done,

91
00:05:40,437 --> 00:05:44,067
would continue to find himself
besieged by problems

92
00:05:44,191 --> 00:05:47,161
he could not solve.

93
00:05:49,279 --> 00:05:52,123
Robert Kennedy, the
brother of the slain president

94
00:05:52,240 --> 00:05:55,790
who had escalated
American presence in Vietnam,

95
00:05:55,911 --> 00:06:00,792
wrote an editorial that year
that seemed to speak for many.

96
00:06:00,874 --> 00:06:04,629
"Mere anarchy is loosed upon
the world," he said,

97
00:06:04,711 --> 00:06:08,466
quoting the poet
William Butler Yeats.

98
00:06:08,590 --> 00:06:12,470
"Things fall apart;
the center cannot hold."

99
00:06:30,153 --> 00:06:31,339
General Westmoreland,
when you said

100
00:06:31,363 --> 00:06:32,990
that you'd never been more
encouraged

101
00:06:33,114 --> 00:06:36,038
in the four years
that you have been in Vietnam,

102
00:06:36,201 --> 00:06:37,623
some critics, on the other hand,

103
00:06:37,744 --> 00:06:39,838
have never been more
discouraged.

104
00:06:39,955 --> 00:06:42,458
I wonder if you could detail
one or two or three things

105
00:06:42,624 --> 00:06:45,252
that cause you
to be so encouraged.

106
00:06:45,377 --> 00:06:48,506
I could quote a number
of meaningful statistics

107
00:06:48,630 --> 00:06:51,600
such as the roads
that are being opened,

108
00:06:51,716 --> 00:06:55,061
increasing number of enemy
that have been killed

109
00:06:55,178 --> 00:06:58,478
and other statistical
information,

110
00:06:58,598 --> 00:07:00,201
which suggests
that we are making progress

111
00:07:00,225 --> 00:07:01,477
and we are winning.

112
00:07:01,601 --> 00:07:07,199
And I find an attitude of
confidence and growing optimism.

113
00:07:07,315 --> 00:07:09,568
It prevails
all over the country.

114
00:07:09,693 --> 00:07:12,196
And, to me, this is the most
significant evidence

115
00:07:12,320 --> 00:07:17,872
I can give you that constant,
real progress is being made.

116
00:07:26,793 --> 00:07:29,763
On the evening
of January 1, 1968,

117
00:07:29,921 --> 00:07:34,176
Ho Chi Minh broadcast
a poem over Radio Hanoi.

118
00:07:43,268 --> 00:07:45,270
Communist
commanders took this to mean

119
00:07:45,395 --> 00:07:47,272
that the ultimate battle,

120
00:07:47,439 --> 00:07:50,067
the General Offensive
and General Uprising

121
00:07:50,191 --> 00:07:54,697
they had been planning
for months, was imminent.

122
00:07:54,863 --> 00:07:57,412
Party First Secretary Le Duan,

123
00:07:57,532 --> 00:08:00,081
who had insisted
on the offensive

124
00:08:00,201 --> 00:08:02,579
and had purged those opposed,

125
00:08:02,746 --> 00:08:06,421
believed it would finally
bring about an end to the war.

126
00:08:06,541 --> 00:08:10,887
Viet Cong units supported
by North Vietnamese troops

127
00:08:11,004 --> 00:08:14,383
were to simultaneously
attack cities and bases

128
00:08:14,507 --> 00:08:16,305
all over the South.

129
00:08:16,426 --> 00:08:20,181
Le Duan promised those troops
that when the fighting started,

130
00:08:20,305 --> 00:08:23,479
the people of South Vietnam
would rise up

131
00:08:23,642 --> 00:08:26,020
and overthrow
the Saigon government,

132
00:08:26,144 --> 00:08:29,398
just as the Vietnamese had risen
up against the Japanese

133
00:08:29,522 --> 00:08:32,742
in August of 1945.

134
00:08:32,901 --> 00:08:37,327
With Saigon defeated, the
Americans would have no choice

135
00:08:37,489 --> 00:08:40,368
but to withdraw from Vietnam.

136
00:08:40,533 --> 00:08:43,662
The surprise attacks would begin
at the end of the month,

137
00:08:43,787 --> 00:08:50,011
at the start of the Lunar New
Year celebration called Tet.

138
00:09:01,972 --> 00:09:04,896
The Viet Cong
were already infiltrating

139
00:09:05,016 --> 00:09:07,769
scores of cities and towns.

140
00:09:07,936 --> 00:09:10,940
Tens of thousands
of North Vietnamese troops

141
00:09:11,106 --> 00:09:14,360
were now in place
in South Vietnam.

142
00:09:14,484 --> 00:09:18,785
Tons of smuggled Chinese
and Soviet-made weapons

143
00:09:18,947 --> 00:09:22,952
had been spirited towards
intended targets in sampans

144
00:09:23,076 --> 00:09:26,000
and flower carts and
false-bottomed trucks,

145
00:09:26,121 --> 00:09:31,469
and then buried in paddy fields
and garbage dumps and cemeteries

146
00:09:31,626 --> 00:09:34,505
until the moment came
for them to be retrieved.

147
00:10:05,118 --> 00:10:07,667
More than
10,000 American military

148
00:10:07,787 --> 00:10:10,210
and civilian intelligence
officers were at work

149
00:10:10,331 --> 00:10:12,550
in South Vietnam,

150
00:10:12,709 --> 00:10:16,213
and here and there,
hints of what was to come

151
00:10:16,337 --> 00:10:18,806
filtered up the chain
of command.

152
00:10:18,923 --> 00:10:22,769
Enemy units were moving around
in inexplicable ways;

153
00:10:22,886 --> 00:10:26,060
captured enemy reports described
coming attacks

154
00:10:26,181 --> 00:10:27,353
on different cities;

155
00:10:27,432 --> 00:10:31,278
11 agents were caught
in the city of Qui Nhon

156
00:10:31,394 --> 00:10:35,319
carrying prerecorded tapes
calling on the local people

157
00:10:35,440 --> 00:10:38,569
to rise up against
the Saigon government.

158
00:10:38,693 --> 00:10:40,912
All of these things
were saying to us,

159
00:10:41,071 --> 00:10:42,493
"Something's going to happen."

160
00:10:42,655 --> 00:10:44,953
But we don't know exactly what.

161
00:10:45,075 --> 00:10:48,921
General
Westmoreland thought he knew.

162
00:10:49,079 --> 00:10:50,922
"I believe that the enemy
will attempt

163
00:10:51,081 --> 00:10:54,756
a country-wide show of strength
just prior to Tet,"

164
00:10:54,876 --> 00:10:59,256
he cabled Washington, "with Khe
Sanh being the main event."

165
00:11:01,216 --> 00:11:03,719
Some 30,000 North Vietnamese
troops had gathered

166
00:11:03,843 --> 00:11:08,269
near Khe Sanh, the westernmost
strongpoint below the DMZ

167
00:11:08,389 --> 00:11:12,144
that was being held
by just 6,000 Marines.

168
00:11:12,268 --> 00:11:15,397
Westmoreland believed North
Vietnam wanted to isolate

169
00:11:15,522 --> 00:11:18,492
and annihilate
the U.S. forces there,

170
00:11:18,650 --> 00:11:22,905
just as the Viet Minh had done
to the French at Dien Bien Phu

171
00:11:23,029 --> 00:11:25,077
14 years earlier.

172
00:11:25,198 --> 00:11:29,374
Enemy attacks elsewhere,
Westmoreland was sure,

173
00:11:29,494 --> 00:11:31,713
would only be a diversion.

174
00:11:31,830 --> 00:11:36,461
One American general, Frederick
C. Weyand, was not so sure.

175
00:11:36,626 --> 00:11:40,347
He was able to persuade
Westmoreland to let him pull

176
00:11:40,463 --> 00:11:43,342
half his troops back
from the Cambodian border

177
00:11:43,466 --> 00:11:49,439
to take up defensive positions
outside Saigon just in case.

178
00:11:49,556 --> 00:11:51,934
This is an
underground bunker at Khe Sanh,

179
00:11:52,100 --> 00:11:53,852
one of two cement havens left

180
00:11:53,977 --> 00:11:55,320
from the earlier days of the war

181
00:11:55,436 --> 00:11:57,109
when the Special Forces
held this base.

182
00:11:57,230 --> 00:11:59,904
It is dark, dank, dreary.

183
00:12:00,024 --> 00:12:05,906
You feel something in the air,
about the buildup.

184
00:12:06,030 --> 00:12:07,373
I don't know, you could...

185
00:12:07,490 --> 00:12:10,289
you could almost feel them
working around you at night.

186
00:12:10,410 --> 00:12:11,707
Who?

187
00:12:11,828 --> 00:12:13,626
Uh, the NVA.

188
00:12:15,456 --> 00:12:17,254
On January 21,

189
00:12:17,375 --> 00:12:20,424
the North Vietnamese began
shelling Khe Sanh.

190
00:13:26,277 --> 00:13:29,872
When he learned
of the attack on Khe Sanh,

191
00:13:29,989 --> 00:13:32,959
Lyndon Johnson made
the Joint Chiefs sign a pledge

192
00:13:33,076 --> 00:13:35,078
that the base would never fall.

193
00:13:35,203 --> 00:13:39,379
"I don't want any damn
'Dinbinphoo,"' he said.

194
00:13:39,540 --> 00:13:43,716
The president had a scale-model
of the battlefield installed

195
00:13:43,836 --> 00:13:47,136
in the White House so that he
could follow the fighting there

196
00:13:47,257 --> 00:13:49,476
hour by hour.

197
00:13:51,594 --> 00:13:57,192
But Westmoreland's and
Johnson's basic assumption was wrong.

198
00:13:57,308 --> 00:13:59,936
Khe Sanh was the sideshow;

199
00:14:00,061 --> 00:14:03,986
the attacks on cities and towns
that were about to begin

200
00:14:04,107 --> 00:14:08,112
throughout South Vietnam
would be the main event.

201
00:14:13,908 --> 00:14:17,037
But First Secretary Le Duan's
basic assumptions

202
00:14:17,161 --> 00:14:20,290
were about to be tested, too.

203
00:14:20,415 --> 00:14:22,668
For the coming offensive
to succeed,

204
00:14:22,792 --> 00:14:27,172
the South Vietnamese Army, the
would have to collapse,

205
00:14:27,297 --> 00:14:29,265
and the people of the South

206
00:14:29,382 --> 00:14:32,056
would have to join
the revolution.

207
00:14:55,408 --> 00:14:59,288
"All our thinking was
focused on finishing off the enemy,"

208
00:14:59,412 --> 00:15:02,006
one North Vietnamese general
remembered.

209
00:15:02,123 --> 00:15:06,674
"We were intoxicated
by that thought."

210
00:15:33,279 --> 00:15:36,203
Okay, we've got our
three wounded GIs on board.

211
00:15:36,324 --> 00:15:39,419
At least one of them
is hit pretty bad.

212
00:15:39,535 --> 00:15:43,085
Medic's got a busy, busy few
minutes ahead of him

213
00:15:43,206 --> 00:15:44,799
before we get back.

214
00:15:44,916 --> 00:15:48,671
As the date for the
Tet Offensive approached,

215
00:15:48,753 --> 00:15:51,472
the war continued for the
hundreds of thousands

216
00:15:51,589 --> 00:15:54,763
of Americans in country.

217
00:15:56,552 --> 00:15:59,305
I did see the reality of war,

218
00:15:59,430 --> 00:16:03,105
a real education
for a young doctor.

219
00:16:05,311 --> 00:16:09,487
The war seemed to be going very
well from our point of view.

220
00:16:11,651 --> 00:16:16,157
The war seemed to be going
just fine, thank you.

221
00:16:16,280 --> 00:16:21,002
Captain Hal Kushner was
a 26-year-old recent graduate

222
00:16:21,119 --> 00:16:24,623
of medical school
from Danville, Virginia.

223
00:16:24,747 --> 00:16:26,624
The father of
a three-year-old girl,

224
00:16:26,749 --> 00:16:28,922
with another baby on the way,

225
00:16:29,043 --> 00:16:31,387
he had volunteered to serve
in Vietnam

226
00:16:31,504 --> 00:16:36,601
and became a flight surgeon
with the 1st Air Cavalry.

227
00:16:36,717 --> 00:16:38,435
And I was supposed to give

228
00:16:38,511 --> 00:16:41,390
a lecture on the dangers
of night flying, ironically.

229
00:16:41,472 --> 00:16:42,472
And I did.

230
00:16:42,515 --> 00:16:46,065
We had terrible
weather that night.

231
00:16:46,185 --> 00:16:49,940
And it was dark and it was rainy
and it was windy.

232
00:16:50,106 --> 00:16:51,278
As we were flying

233
00:16:51,399 --> 00:16:54,744
I saw that we had drifted west
of the highway.

234
00:16:54,861 --> 00:16:58,035
And I knew that was wrong.

235
00:16:58,114 --> 00:17:00,037
In the fog and rain,

236
00:17:00,158 --> 00:17:03,958
Kushner's helicopter slammed
into a mountain.

237
00:17:06,789 --> 00:17:08,666
And the next thing I knew

238
00:17:08,791 --> 00:17:11,715
I was hanging upside down
in a burning helicopter.

239
00:17:11,836 --> 00:17:14,635
Major Porcella was dead.

240
00:17:14,797 --> 00:17:17,391
I just jumped away
from the helicopter,

241
00:17:17,508 --> 00:17:21,638
and it just went whoosh,
and it just burned up.

242
00:17:21,762 --> 00:17:24,606
There was an M60 machine gun
on the helicopter

243
00:17:24,724 --> 00:17:28,854
and the rounds had... cooking
off and it was exploding.

244
00:17:28,978 --> 00:17:32,778
And one or several of the rounds
went through my shoulder,

245
00:17:32,940 --> 00:17:34,066
my left shoulder.

246
00:17:36,068 --> 00:17:39,368
On the ground I saw
Warrant Officer Bedworth.

247
00:17:39,489 --> 00:17:42,538
And he was hurt very badly.

248
00:17:42,658 --> 00:17:47,630
I took some branches
and splinted his leg.

249
00:17:47,788 --> 00:17:54,171
So the rule is you wait with the
aircraft until you get rescued.

250
00:17:54,295 --> 00:17:55,717
And we just sat there.

251
00:17:55,880 --> 00:17:58,383
So we waited one day.

252
00:17:58,508 --> 00:18:00,260
We waited two days.

253
00:18:00,384 --> 00:18:03,604
We had no food or water.

254
00:18:03,721 --> 00:18:07,442
On the morning of the
third day, Bedworth died.

255
00:18:07,558 --> 00:18:10,437
And he just slipped away.

256
00:18:10,561 --> 00:18:12,063
It was very, very sad.

257
00:18:13,773 --> 00:18:17,619
And I thought that my best
choice was to leave the aircraft

258
00:18:17,777 --> 00:18:20,121
and try to go down the mountain.

259
00:18:20,238 --> 00:18:22,991
It took the
wounded Kushner four hours

260
00:18:23,074 --> 00:18:25,748
to stagger down the hill.

261
00:18:25,868 --> 00:18:29,293
When he finally reached level
ground, he looked back up

262
00:18:29,455 --> 00:18:33,710
and saw two American helicopters
hovering above the crash site.

263
00:18:35,127 --> 00:18:38,097
Their pilots did not see him.

264
00:18:42,134 --> 00:18:44,387
And I saw this peasant
working in a rice paddy.

265
00:18:44,512 --> 00:18:46,514
And he saw me.

266
00:18:46,639 --> 00:18:50,269
And I had captain's bars and
a Caduceus, a medical symbol,

267
00:18:50,393 --> 00:18:52,191
on my collar.

268
00:18:52,270 --> 00:18:55,069
And he said.

269
00:18:55,189 --> 00:18:57,157
Captain, doctor.

270
00:18:57,275 --> 00:19:03,078
He took me about another mile to
a little hooch, a little house,

271
00:19:03,239 --> 00:19:06,083
and he sat me down
on the front of it

272
00:19:06,242 --> 00:19:09,462
and he brought out a can
of condensed milk.

273
00:19:09,579 --> 00:19:12,002
And as I was eating the stuff...

274
00:19:12,123 --> 00:19:15,002
it was just the best stuff I've
ever eaten in my whole life...

275
00:19:15,167 --> 00:19:19,968
I hear another person say,

276
00:19:20,089 --> 00:19:22,512
"Surrender, no kill."

277
00:19:22,592 --> 00:19:25,937
There was a squad
of Viet Cong there.

278
00:19:26,053 --> 00:19:28,647
And I put my one arm up.

279
00:19:28,764 --> 00:19:32,610
And he shot me
with an M2 carbine.

280
00:19:32,727 --> 00:19:34,695
And I think he was more nervous
than I was.

281
00:19:34,854 --> 00:19:38,324
And he shot me right
where the M60 had shot me.

282
00:19:38,482 --> 00:19:41,531
And it went right through
my neck and came out the back.

283
00:19:41,694 --> 00:19:46,120
And they tied my arms
very tightly in commo wire.

284
00:19:46,240 --> 00:19:49,995
He went through my wallet and he
took my Geneva Convention card,

285
00:19:50,161 --> 00:19:52,334
which was white
with a red cross.

286
00:19:52,455 --> 00:19:53,798
And he tore it up.

287
00:19:53,956 --> 00:19:59,634
And he said, in English,
"No P.O.W.

288
00:19:59,712 --> 00:20:01,635
Criminal.
Criminal."

289
00:20:01,756 --> 00:20:05,226
So then they took my boots.

290
00:20:05,343 --> 00:20:07,721
And we started marching.

291
00:20:07,887 --> 00:20:10,185
And then we walked for a month.

292
00:20:12,391 --> 00:20:16,817
30 days, almost always at night.

293
00:20:16,937 --> 00:20:20,407
And my feet were just lacerated.

294
00:20:20,524 --> 00:20:23,869
I didn't think
I could possibly survive.

295
00:20:53,057 --> 00:20:54,684
By January 30,

296
00:20:54,809 --> 00:20:59,815
an informal 36-hour truce
for Tet was in effect.

297
00:20:59,980 --> 00:21:04,486
Thousands of ARVN troops had
gone home for the holiday.

298
00:21:07,029 --> 00:21:08,872
The enemy had not.

299
00:21:36,308 --> 00:21:39,608
That same day,
Marine Corporal Roger Harris

300
00:21:39,729 --> 00:21:43,029
was scheduled
to fly out of Vietnam.

301
00:21:43,149 --> 00:21:46,119
His 13-month tour was over.

302
00:21:46,235 --> 00:21:49,455
But he and his unit were
still hunkered down

303
00:21:49,572 --> 00:21:55,204
under constant shelling at Camp
Carroll, just south of the DMZ.

304
00:21:57,121 --> 00:21:58,919
Well, once I had
my orders, you know,

305
00:21:59,039 --> 00:22:01,258
I said goodbye
to all my friends.

306
00:22:01,375 --> 00:22:04,595
And then I went over
to the landing zone.

307
00:22:04,670 --> 00:22:07,594
So when the helicopters come in,

308
00:22:07,715 --> 00:22:10,559
I put the body bags
on the helicopter.

309
00:22:10,676 --> 00:22:12,849
And I got on with the bodies.

310
00:22:14,972 --> 00:22:17,475
We landed in Dong Ha,
which was division headquarters.

311
00:22:17,641 --> 00:22:21,066
And we got about 200 meters
from the airstrip,

312
00:22:21,187 --> 00:22:23,656
the airstrip started
getting hit.

313
00:22:26,108 --> 00:22:29,533
I'm just thinking
personally that God realizes

314
00:22:29,653 --> 00:22:32,247
that he made a mistake because
some of the guys that got killed

315
00:22:32,364 --> 00:22:35,334
that were with me were good
Christians that never had sex,

316
00:22:35,451 --> 00:22:37,203
didn't swear, you know.

317
00:22:37,369 --> 00:22:40,088
And, you know,
I had been this sinner.

318
00:22:40,206 --> 00:22:43,085
And I'm thinking
God realized he made a mistake.

319
00:22:43,209 --> 00:22:46,338
He killed the Christians
and I got away.

320
00:22:46,462 --> 00:22:48,715
And so now
Death is following me.

321
00:22:50,424 --> 00:22:52,104
And they told us
that in another hour or so

322
00:22:52,218 --> 00:22:53,720
a plane was going to come in.

323
00:22:53,844 --> 00:22:57,269
When it came in, then the
artillery started coming in.

324
00:22:57,389 --> 00:22:59,983
And we jumped on and took off.

325
00:23:02,144 --> 00:23:04,021
And it landed in Danang.

326
00:23:04,146 --> 00:23:06,990
And then the sun came up
and we went to the airstrip

327
00:23:07,149 --> 00:23:08,071
and we boarded airplanes.

328
00:23:08,150 --> 00:23:09,902
And we were sitting there.

329
00:23:10,027 --> 00:23:13,122
Everybody's giving each other
pounds and slapping five.

330
00:23:13,239 --> 00:23:14,616
We made it.

331
00:23:14,782 --> 00:23:16,250
And then all of a sudden...

332
00:23:19,620 --> 00:23:25,548
Danang airstrip starts getting
hit, artillery's coming in.

333
00:23:25,668 --> 00:23:29,593
And I'm thinking,
"It's all coming after me."

334
00:23:29,672 --> 00:23:32,391
It's all about me, you know.

335
00:23:32,508 --> 00:23:35,182
God doesn't want me to make it
out of here.

336
00:23:36,846 --> 00:23:41,977
In the early morning
hours of January 31, 1968,

337
00:23:42,101 --> 00:23:46,698
84,000 Viet Cong and North
Vietnamese troops attacked

338
00:23:46,814 --> 00:23:51,365
36 of South Vietnam's
44 provincial capitals,

339
00:23:51,485 --> 00:23:54,659
dozens of American and ARVN
military bases

340
00:23:54,822 --> 00:23:57,871
and the six largest cities
in the country,

341
00:23:57,992 --> 00:24:01,121
including Hue, Danang,
and Saigon.

342
00:24:02,872 --> 00:24:05,125
Their goal, their commanders
told them,

343
00:24:05,291 --> 00:24:08,716
was to "crack the sky
and shake the earth."

344
00:24:20,556 --> 00:24:25,153
In Saigon, General Westmoreland
mistook the first explosions

345
00:24:25,269 --> 00:24:26,896
as holiday firecrackers.

346
00:24:30,858 --> 00:24:34,283
His deputy commander,
General Creighton W. Abrams,

347
00:24:34,445 --> 00:24:38,825
was asleep, and his aides did
not bother to wake him.

348
00:24:38,949 --> 00:24:43,250
Not a single top commander was
present at "Pentagon East,"

349
00:24:43,370 --> 00:24:47,000
the sprawling MACV headquarters
at Tan Son Nhut Air Base

350
00:24:47,124 --> 00:24:49,297
on the outskirts of Saigon,

351
00:24:49,418 --> 00:24:53,343
when mortars and rockets began
cratering the runways.

352
00:25:17,863 --> 00:25:19,240
It's moving.

353
00:25:33,879 --> 00:25:38,385
Viet Cong soldiers spread
out to attack specific targets

354
00:25:38,509 --> 00:25:40,182
in and around the capital.

355
00:25:40,302 --> 00:25:45,229
The war had come to the streets
of Saigon.

356
00:25:45,349 --> 00:25:49,274
Had General Weyand not insisted
on stationing troops

357
00:25:49,395 --> 00:25:50,612
around the city,

358
00:25:50,729 --> 00:25:54,734
Saigon itself would have been
in far greater danger.

359
00:25:57,778 --> 00:26:00,577
We heard gunfire

360
00:26:00,739 --> 00:26:04,494
and our first reaction was,
"Must be another coup d'état."

361
00:26:06,078 --> 00:26:10,379
And then we heard that the
Viet Cong had attacked Saigon

362
00:26:10,499 --> 00:26:11,921
and were still attacking.

363
00:26:12,042 --> 00:26:16,013
It came as a total shock
because we always thought

364
00:26:16,130 --> 00:26:21,102
Saigon was safe, the safest
place in all of South Vietnam.

365
00:26:26,140 --> 00:26:28,609
One Viet Cong squad made it

366
00:26:28,767 --> 00:26:30,485
all the way to the
Presidential Palace,

367
00:26:30,602 --> 00:26:33,776
but was stopped by
South Vietnamese tanks.

368
00:26:37,151 --> 00:26:40,405
The survivors holed up in
a building across the street

369
00:26:40,571 --> 00:26:44,872
and were shot by ARVN troops
and American MPs.

370
00:26:48,579 --> 00:26:55,212
All over Saigon, nothing was
going according to plan.

371
00:26:55,335 --> 00:26:59,761
Viet Cong units were taking
heavy losses from U.S. troops

372
00:26:59,923 --> 00:27:02,972
and determined South Vietnamese
forces.

373
00:28:02,820 --> 00:28:04,714
This is the main
Vietnamese language radio station

374
00:28:04,738 --> 00:28:05,955
in Saigon.

375
00:28:06,073 --> 00:28:09,122
And right now there are an
undisclosed number of VC inside

376
00:28:09,243 --> 00:28:10,369
occupying the station.

377
00:28:10,494 --> 00:28:13,043
The Viet Cong managed to seize

378
00:28:13,163 --> 00:28:15,882
South Vietnam's national
radio station

379
00:28:15,999 --> 00:28:19,970
and prepared to broadcast a
taped message from Ho Chi Minh

380
00:28:20,087 --> 00:28:23,216
calling upon the people
to rise up.

381
00:28:24,633 --> 00:28:27,807
But a technician radioed
to the transmitting tower

382
00:28:27,928 --> 00:28:31,649
to cut them off and broadcast
Viennese waltzes

383
00:28:31,765 --> 00:28:34,109
and Beatles songs instead.

384
00:29:16,018 --> 00:29:20,774
The Saigon suburb of
Bien Hoa was under attack, too.

385
00:29:20,898 --> 00:29:24,448
Enemy forces were assaulting
both the airbase there

386
00:29:24,610 --> 00:29:26,078
and Long Binh,

387
00:29:26,195 --> 00:29:30,291
the largest American
installation in Vietnam.

388
00:29:32,868 --> 00:29:38,295
There were VC moving on
the house, moving everywhere.

389
00:29:38,457 --> 00:29:42,587
A lot of shooting,
a lot of confusion going on.

390
00:29:42,711 --> 00:29:45,339
And we were shooting
out the window.

391
00:29:45,505 --> 00:29:48,258
And my wife was reloading.

392
00:29:48,383 --> 00:29:50,852
When we ran out of ammunition,
we'd sli...

393
00:29:50,969 --> 00:29:54,599
slide the magazine
down the tiles

394
00:29:54,765 --> 00:29:56,517
and she was down there
at the other end

395
00:29:56,642 --> 00:29:59,236
filling 'em up
and sliding 'em back.

396
00:30:01,271 --> 00:30:04,070
Viet Cong commandos
managed to slip through the wire

397
00:30:04,191 --> 00:30:08,492
at Long Binh and blow up
a huge ammunition dump.

398
00:30:08,654 --> 00:30:12,249
A mushroom cloud rose above
the airfield,

399
00:30:12,366 --> 00:30:14,915
so vast that some of the
Americans thought there had been

400
00:30:14,993 --> 00:30:16,995
a nuclear explosion.

401
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:20,590
The blast blew off the door
of Brady's building.

402
00:30:23,252 --> 00:30:27,382
They went up against
the wire in Long Binh

403
00:30:27,506 --> 00:30:29,224
and paid a frightful price.

404
00:30:31,093 --> 00:30:33,187
There were just layers
of bodies.

405
00:30:33,303 --> 00:30:35,806
The Americans
just cut them down.

406
00:30:38,433 --> 00:30:39,559
Hi, this is Johnny Carson.

407
00:30:39,685 --> 00:30:41,246
As you know, this is
the usual starting time

408
00:30:41,270 --> 00:30:42,487
for the Tonight Show.

409
00:30:42,646 --> 00:30:46,321
But because of the critical
war situation in Vietnam,

410
00:30:46,483 --> 00:30:49,532
especially around Saigon,
NBC, for the next 15 minutes,

411
00:30:49,695 --> 00:30:52,619
is going to bring you a special
news program via satellite.

412
00:30:52,739 --> 00:30:54,616
Just after midnight their time,

413
00:30:54,741 --> 00:30:57,494
a band of Viet Cong raiders
blew up a power installation

414
00:30:57,619 --> 00:30:59,792
and attacked two police stations
in Saigon.

415
00:30:59,913 --> 00:31:02,462
It all amounts to the most
ambitious series

416
00:31:02,624 --> 00:31:04,422
of communist attacks
yet mounted,

417
00:31:04,543 --> 00:31:07,171
spreading violence into at least
ten provincial capitals,

418
00:31:07,296 --> 00:31:10,049
plus American air bases
and civilian installations

419
00:31:10,215 --> 00:31:12,263
stretching the entire
length of the country.

420
00:31:12,384 --> 00:31:15,137
None had greater
psychological impact

421
00:31:15,304 --> 00:31:17,853
than the assault on the
American embassy in Saigon.

422
00:31:21,143 --> 00:31:23,441
In the first few
hours of the fighting,

423
00:31:23,562 --> 00:31:27,533
19 specially trained commandos
had blasted their way

424
00:31:27,649 --> 00:31:32,155
into the sprawling compound
of the United States embassy.

425
00:31:34,448 --> 00:31:37,918
There's a... there's a
rush, they're rushing the embassy.

426
00:31:37,993 --> 00:31:40,291
That's fire coming from the
other side of the street now,

427
00:31:40,412 --> 00:31:41,629
outside the embassy.

428
00:31:41,788 --> 00:31:43,290
They're exchanging
across the street.

429
00:31:43,457 --> 00:31:45,255
You can see the tracer
bullets going past.

430
00:31:47,669 --> 00:31:49,797
That's outside the embassy.

431
00:31:53,342 --> 00:31:55,265
Uh, this is Waco, roger.

432
00:31:55,385 --> 00:31:57,888
Uh, can you get in
the gates now?

433
00:31:58,013 --> 00:31:59,907
Are the gates open and
can you take a force in there

434
00:31:59,931 --> 00:32:01,808
and clean out
that embassy right now?

435
00:32:17,574 --> 00:32:19,997
Apparently the Viet Cong
are trapped in the basement

436
00:32:20,118 --> 00:32:24,339
of this side building,
an incredible situation.

437
00:32:30,796 --> 00:32:33,549
Heavy firing,
incoming and outgoing.

438
00:32:33,632 --> 00:32:37,728
Don North, ABC News,
at the U.S. embassy, in Saigon.

439
00:32:37,844 --> 00:32:43,021
All of the intruders were
eventually killed or captured.

440
00:32:44,518 --> 00:32:46,691
What a sight.

441
00:32:46,812 --> 00:32:50,988
A small frog hopping through
a pool of blood

442
00:32:51,108 --> 00:32:55,454
that's issuing from the head
of a Viet Cong,

443
00:32:55,570 --> 00:33:01,498
lying on the green grassy lawn
of the U.S. embassy.

444
00:33:24,307 --> 00:33:28,528
An American Marine
and four Army MPs were killed

445
00:33:28,687 --> 00:33:30,189
at the embassy.

446
00:33:31,898 --> 00:33:34,276
General, how would you assess

447
00:33:34,443 --> 00:33:35,945
yesterday's activities
and today's?

448
00:33:36,111 --> 00:33:38,031
What is the enemy doing?
Are these major attacks?

449
00:33:38,113 --> 00:33:39,706
Or...

450
00:33:41,658 --> 00:33:47,461
That's E.O.D. setting off a
couple of M-79 duds, I believe.

451
00:33:47,581 --> 00:33:51,336
The enemy, very deceitfully,

452
00:33:51,460 --> 00:33:54,805
has taken advantage
of the Tet truce,

453
00:33:54,921 --> 00:34:01,679
in order to, uh... create
maximum consternation.

454
00:34:01,845 --> 00:34:04,189
In my opinion,
this is diversionary...

455
00:34:04,306 --> 00:34:08,106
Early wire service
dispatches reported incorrectly

456
00:34:08,268 --> 00:34:12,774
that the Viet Cong had made it
inside the embassy itself.

457
00:34:12,939 --> 00:34:15,943
Embassy ID cards were
found on some of the Viet Cong.

458
00:34:16,067 --> 00:34:18,490
And the first
television footage did little

459
00:34:18,612 --> 00:34:22,617
to reassure the American public.

460
00:34:22,782 --> 00:34:24,177
Is Saigon secure right now?

461
00:34:24,201 --> 00:34:27,205
Saigon's secure
as far as I know.

462
00:34:27,329 --> 00:34:28,681
There's no more
fighting in the streets?

463
00:34:28,705 --> 00:34:29,974
There may be some
in the outskirts still.

464
00:34:29,998 --> 00:34:32,797
I'm not sure, don't know.

465
00:34:32,918 --> 00:34:34,261
I'm not sure about that, no.

466
00:34:36,213 --> 00:34:38,932
Saigon was far from secure.

467
00:35:09,704 --> 00:35:11,581
Viet Cong assassination squads,

468
00:35:11,706 --> 00:35:15,631
some guided by
North Vietnamese spies,

469
00:35:15,710 --> 00:35:19,681
moved through the streets with
orders to kill what they called

470
00:35:19,798 --> 00:35:21,675
"blood" enemies of the people...

471
00:35:24,010 --> 00:35:29,767
bureaucrats, intelligence
officers, ARVN commanders,

472
00:35:29,891 --> 00:35:34,237
and ordinary soldiers home on
leave, and their families.

473
00:35:34,354 --> 00:35:38,609
I went home to visit my parents

474
00:35:38,733 --> 00:35:42,488
and I found them kind of huddled
in their house, the doors shut,

475
00:35:42,612 --> 00:35:44,865
the windows shut, very dark.

476
00:35:44,990 --> 00:35:48,039
They were very afraid because
our house was located

477
00:35:48,159 --> 00:35:49,832
near a slum.

478
00:35:49,911 --> 00:35:53,666
And we always assumed that there
were a lot of Viet Cong agents

479
00:35:53,790 --> 00:35:58,466
living among the poor where
they could hide very easily,

480
00:35:58,587 --> 00:36:01,466
and that they were
going to come out

481
00:36:01,590 --> 00:36:04,469
and look for
government officials,

482
00:36:04,593 --> 00:36:07,597
military personnel to kill.

483
00:36:07,762 --> 00:36:10,811
So my parents were very afraid.

484
00:36:48,970 --> 00:36:50,690
On the second
day of the fighting,

485
00:36:50,722 --> 00:36:54,352
a Viet Cong agent named
Nguyen Van Lem

486
00:36:54,476 --> 00:36:57,446
was brought before
Nguyen Ngoc Loan,

487
00:36:57,562 --> 00:37:00,782
the head of the South Vietnamese
National Police.

488
00:37:00,940 --> 00:37:05,286
As an AP photographer
and an NBC cameraman watched,

489
00:37:05,403 --> 00:37:09,249
Loan ordered another officer
to shoot the captive.

490
00:37:09,407 --> 00:37:13,207
When he hesitated,
Loan did the job himself.

491
00:37:27,884 --> 00:37:31,104
The Chief of South
Vietnam's National Police Force,

492
00:37:31,221 --> 00:37:34,896
Brigadier General Nguyen Ngoc
Loan, was waiting for him.

493
00:37:55,745 --> 00:37:57,839
Good morning, Mr.
President.

494
00:37:57,914 --> 00:37:59,541
Hi, Jack.

495
00:37:59,708 --> 00:38:01,460
Uh, we need guidance
this morning, sir.

496
00:38:01,584 --> 00:38:04,133
Guidance?
Uh, is that all you want?

497
00:38:04,254 --> 00:38:05,676
Yes, sir.
No quotation?

498
00:38:05,797 --> 00:38:07,299
That's right.
No attribution.

499
00:38:07,424 --> 00:38:08,425
No connection.

500
00:38:08,550 --> 00:38:09,927
Give it absolutely none.

501
00:38:10,051 --> 00:38:11,473
Absolutely none.

502
00:38:11,594 --> 00:38:14,143
Your press is lying
like drunken sailors every day.

503
00:38:14,264 --> 00:38:19,612
Uh, first thing I wake up this
morning was trying to figure out

504
00:38:19,728 --> 00:38:21,947
after seeing CBS,
watching the networks,

505
00:38:22,063 --> 00:38:25,283
reading the morning papers,
was how can we win...

506
00:38:25,442 --> 00:38:27,865
possibly win...
and survive as a nation

507
00:38:28,027 --> 00:38:29,825
and have to fight
the press's lies.

508
00:38:29,946 --> 00:38:31,198
Yes, sir.

509
00:38:31,322 --> 00:38:32,602
I'm trying
to protect my country,

510
00:38:32,657 --> 00:38:33,909
and they're all whipping me.

511
00:38:33,992 --> 00:38:36,711
Not a son of a bitch said
a word about Ho Chi Minh.

512
00:38:36,828 --> 00:38:39,707
They talk about us bombing,
yet these sons of bitches

513
00:38:39,789 --> 00:38:43,089
come in and bomb our embassy
and 19 of them try a raid on it.

514
00:38:43,209 --> 00:38:47,510
All 19 get killed and
yet they blame the embassy.

515
00:38:48,757 --> 00:38:50,555
I don't understand it.

516
00:38:50,675 --> 00:38:53,394
We think we've killed 20,000;
we think we lost 400.

517
00:38:53,470 --> 00:38:57,270
We think that of course
it's bad to lose anybody,

518
00:38:57,390 --> 00:38:59,017
any one of the 400,

519
00:38:59,142 --> 00:39:01,520
but we think that the Good Lord
has been so good to us

520
00:39:01,644 --> 00:39:05,194
that it is a major,
dramatic victory.

521
00:39:05,273 --> 00:39:06,900
And I think what
would have happened

522
00:39:07,066 --> 00:39:09,114
if I'd lost 20,000
and they'd lost 400?

523
00:39:09,235 --> 00:39:10,077
I ask you that.

524
00:39:10,195 --> 00:39:11,395
Oh, it would've been terrible.

525
00:39:12,614 --> 00:39:16,494
It appears that a mortar
or a rocket shell came in

526
00:39:16,618 --> 00:39:20,839
and, well,
there's blood on my pants.

527
00:39:20,955 --> 00:39:23,083
And I guess I'm... I'm hit.

528
00:39:23,208 --> 00:39:25,882
Well, this is
the streets of Saigon,

529
00:39:26,002 --> 00:39:29,222
and that's where the war is now.

530
00:39:29,339 --> 00:39:30,932
Howard Tuckner, NBC News.

531
00:39:34,093 --> 00:39:38,143
The American press
focused almost entirely

532
00:39:38,306 --> 00:39:40,650
on the fighting in Saigon.

533
00:39:40,767 --> 00:39:44,522
But the Tet Offensive was
happening almost everywhere.

534
00:39:46,689 --> 00:39:49,909
Most assaults were being quickly
beaten back by ARVN

535
00:39:50,026 --> 00:39:52,575
and American forces.

536
00:39:52,737 --> 00:39:57,208
Everywhere the enemy was
suffering terrible losses.

537
00:40:44,956 --> 00:40:49,257
The Americans called in
massive air and artillery firepower

538
00:40:49,377 --> 00:40:53,598
to dislodge a Viet Cong regiment
from the city of Ben Tre

539
00:40:53,715 --> 00:40:56,059
in the Mekong Delta.

540
00:40:56,175 --> 00:41:00,976
Afterwards, a reporter quoted an
American major as having said,

541
00:41:01,097 --> 00:41:07,651
"It became necessary
to destroy the town to save it."

542
00:41:07,812 --> 00:41:14,115
Right now, the Navy and the Army
boats that also bring supplies

543
00:41:14,235 --> 00:41:17,956
up the Perfume River are having
to undergo heavy small arms

544
00:41:18,072 --> 00:41:20,291
and mortar fire as they turn
the bend in the river

545
00:41:20,408 --> 00:41:22,285
here around Hue itself.

546
00:41:22,410 --> 00:41:24,754
And the landing zone on this
the south side of the river

547
00:41:24,871 --> 00:41:28,045
has been under almost constant
mortar and small arms fire.

548
00:41:28,166 --> 00:41:31,420
And today, at any rate,
Hue is cut off.

549
00:41:35,798 --> 00:41:38,972
The longest, bloodiest
battle of the Tet Offensive

550
00:41:39,093 --> 00:41:41,016
was being fought in the streets

551
00:41:41,137 --> 00:41:43,856
of one of the country's
loveliest cities,

552
00:41:44,015 --> 00:41:47,736
the former imperial capital Hue.

553
00:42:03,868 --> 00:42:06,997
The Perfume River
divided Hue in two.

554
00:42:07,163 --> 00:42:10,212
The enemy...
North Vietnamese regulars

555
00:42:10,375 --> 00:42:12,127
and Viet Cong guerrillas...

556
00:42:12,251 --> 00:42:15,130
had taken over both sides
of the city.

557
00:42:15,254 --> 00:42:19,054
Only the American advisers'
compound on the south bank

558
00:42:19,217 --> 00:42:21,640
and the 1st ARVN division
headquarters

559
00:42:21,803 --> 00:42:25,023
within the thick-walled Citadel
on the north side

560
00:42:25,139 --> 00:42:26,891
held out against them.

561
00:43:04,262 --> 00:43:08,017
Marine Corporal Bill
Ehrhart was at the end of his tour

562
00:43:08,141 --> 00:43:10,360
and was preparing to go home.

563
00:43:10,476 --> 00:43:12,570
But when his company was ordered

564
00:43:12,687 --> 00:43:16,191
to relieve the besieged
American compound in Hue,

565
00:43:16,357 --> 00:43:19,486
he chose to go
with his comrades.

566
00:43:19,610 --> 00:43:23,581
I had spent 12 months in Vietnam
looking for somebody to shoot at

567
00:43:23,698 --> 00:43:26,542
and there was nobody there.

568
00:43:26,659 --> 00:43:29,629
And then all of a sudden

569
00:43:29,746 --> 00:43:33,125
it seemed like here's
every NVA in the world

570
00:43:33,291 --> 00:43:35,794
trying to kill me and my pals.

571
00:43:35,918 --> 00:43:39,889
It was an entirely different
kind of fight.

572
00:43:49,891 --> 00:43:53,236
Ehrhart and his
unit endured a bloody ambush,

573
00:43:53,311 --> 00:43:56,941
finally fought their way through
to the MACV compound,

574
00:43:57,065 --> 00:44:01,320
and then began days of
brutal block-by-block battle

575
00:44:01,444 --> 00:44:04,072
to retake the surrounding
neighborhoods.

576
00:44:05,281 --> 00:44:07,625
Every house became
a battlefield.

577
00:44:18,086 --> 00:44:21,431
"It was exhilarating,"
Ehrhart remembered.

578
00:44:21,589 --> 00:44:24,638
"1 was scared utterly witless,

579
00:44:24,801 --> 00:44:27,224
"but it was the greatest
adrenaline high

580
00:44:27,345 --> 00:44:29,848
I'd ever experienced."

581
00:44:31,390 --> 00:44:34,394
It was ugly, ugly fighting.

582
00:44:34,519 --> 00:44:37,773
You literally have to clear
houses a room at a time,

583
00:44:37,897 --> 00:44:40,650
a floor at a time,
a house at a time.

584
00:44:40,775 --> 00:44:43,779
And then you go to the next one.

585
00:45:41,836 --> 00:45:45,386
February 5, I was wounded
by a B40 rocket.

586
00:45:47,008 --> 00:45:48,885
I was utterly stone deaf.

587
00:45:52,180 --> 00:45:56,230
Under any other circumstances
I would have been evacuated.

588
00:45:56,350 --> 00:46:00,776
But I could see, I could walk,
and I could shoot.

589
00:46:00,938 --> 00:46:02,110
So I stayed.

590
00:46:31,135 --> 00:46:33,012
The fighting continued.

591
00:46:38,935 --> 00:46:43,566
"We had to blow our way through
every wall of every house,"

592
00:46:43,689 --> 00:46:45,236
one Marine remembered.

593
00:46:45,358 --> 00:46:50,706
"It's a shame we had to damage
such a beautiful city."

594
00:46:52,865 --> 00:46:55,368
Of course, all these
civilians have been herded

595
00:46:55,493 --> 00:46:57,336
into the university.

596
00:46:57,453 --> 00:47:00,548
They had all gone there
to get the hell away

597
00:47:00,706 --> 00:47:02,643
from having grenades
thrown in their living rooms.

598
00:47:02,667 --> 00:47:05,170
And one of the guys
comes in and says,

599
00:47:05,294 --> 00:47:11,677
"I found this-this girl who will
fuck us all for C rations."

600
00:47:11,801 --> 00:47:13,348
And I'm thinking,

601
00:47:13,469 --> 00:47:15,471
"Wait, we're in the middle
of this big battle

602
00:47:15,596 --> 00:47:18,770
and I'm gonna go and..."

603
00:47:20,434 --> 00:47:26,567
But I'm 19 years old and my
buddies are gonna, and I just...

604
00:47:26,691 --> 00:47:31,197
I demonstrated to myself how
little courage I actually had.

605
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:36,121
I've lived with it ever since,
but I-I-I did it

606
00:47:36,242 --> 00:47:37,710
because I wasn't gonna say,

607
00:47:37,827 --> 00:47:41,297
"You guys, we shouldn't do
something like this."

608
00:47:41,414 --> 00:47:45,715
Even more than the killings,

609
00:47:45,793 --> 00:47:48,922
the thing I think I'm most
ashamed of

610
00:47:49,046 --> 00:47:53,517
when I think back on the time
I spent there.

611
00:47:53,634 --> 00:48:01,143
I think it's because my mother's
a woman, my wife's a woman,

612
00:48:01,309 --> 00:48:04,153
my daughter's a woman.

613
00:48:11,110 --> 00:48:14,705
Somebody gets shot,
not a good thing.

614
00:48:14,822 --> 00:48:17,416
You see somebody running away,

615
00:48:17,575 --> 00:48:21,000
I don't know,
it could've been a VC.

616
00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:22,793
But that woman?

617
00:48:24,373 --> 00:48:26,751
Nah.

618
00:48:26,876 --> 00:48:29,595
I had every opportunity
to say no.

619
00:48:32,506 --> 00:48:36,682
The next day, in the
midst of still another firefight,

620
00:48:36,802 --> 00:48:40,181
a lieutenant in a jeep pulled up
in front of the building

621
00:48:40,348 --> 00:48:43,773
from which Ehrhart and five
fellow Marines were firing

622
00:48:43,893 --> 00:48:45,361
at the enemy.

623
00:48:45,478 --> 00:48:48,402
"Come on, Ehrhart!" he shouted.

624
00:48:48,564 --> 00:48:50,407
"Chopper's on the LZ right now.

625
00:48:50,524 --> 00:48:53,118
You want to go home or not?"

626
00:48:55,237 --> 00:48:58,207
From the helicopter that lifted
him up and away

627
00:48:58,324 --> 00:49:00,201
from the ruined, smoking city,

628
00:49:00,326 --> 00:49:02,670
he could see a farmer
and his water buffalo

629
00:49:02,828 --> 00:49:05,126
working a flooded field

630
00:49:05,289 --> 00:49:09,089
and women in conical hats
carrying twin baskets

631
00:49:09,210 --> 00:49:14,137
hurrying along between the
paddies as if there were no war.

632
00:49:17,885 --> 00:49:21,765
Back in Hue, the Viet Cong
and North Vietnamese troops

633
00:49:21,931 --> 00:49:26,027
now found themselves
trapped inside the city.

634
00:49:47,665 --> 00:49:49,042
It would take two weeks

635
00:49:49,166 --> 00:49:51,840
for the Marines to fight
their way across the river

636
00:49:51,961 --> 00:49:54,589
to support the ARVN:

637
00:49:54,713 --> 00:49:56,090
who had stubbornly
kept the enemy

638
00:49:56,215 --> 00:50:00,595
from overwhelming their division
headquarters in the Citadel.

639
00:50:20,489 --> 00:50:23,459
What's the hardest part of it?

640
00:50:23,576 --> 00:50:25,954
Not knowing where they are,
that's the worst of it.

641
00:50:26,120 --> 00:50:28,098
Riding around and running
in the sewers, in the gutters,

642
00:50:28,122 --> 00:50:29,169
anywhere.

643
00:50:29,290 --> 00:50:30,792
Could be anywhere.

644
00:50:30,958 --> 00:50:32,676
Just hoping to stay alive
and day to day.

645
00:50:32,793 --> 00:50:34,729
Everybody just wants to go back
home and go to school.

646
00:50:34,753 --> 00:50:35,970
That's about it.

647
00:50:36,088 --> 00:50:37,107
Have you lost any friends?

648
00:50:37,131 --> 00:50:38,257
Quite a few.

649
00:50:38,382 --> 00:50:40,510
We lost one the other day,
good buddy of mine.

650
00:50:40,634 --> 00:50:41,977
The whole thing stinks, really.

651
00:51:07,620 --> 00:51:08,621
He's still alive.

652
00:51:41,570 --> 00:51:44,870
After 26 days of
bitter, bloody fighting,

653
00:51:44,990 --> 00:51:50,167
the flag of South Vietnam
flew again above the Citadel.

654
00:51:50,287 --> 00:51:54,087
The surviving North Vietnamese
and Viet Cong

655
00:51:54,250 --> 00:51:56,594
were finally permitted
by their commanders

656
00:51:56,710 --> 00:51:58,553
to pull out of the city.

657
00:51:58,671 --> 00:52:03,268
Some 6,000 civilians
had died in the rubble.

658
00:52:03,384 --> 00:52:11,110
Of the city's 135,000 citizens,
110,000 had lost their homes.

659
00:52:14,478 --> 00:52:17,448
All that was left of Hue,
one reporter wrote,

660
00:52:17,565 --> 00:52:20,660
was "ruins divided by a river."

661
00:52:22,987 --> 00:52:24,534
The biggest fact is

662
00:52:24,697 --> 00:52:28,543
that the stated purposes
of the General Uprising...

663
00:52:28,701 --> 00:52:32,501
a military victory
or a psychological victory...

664
00:52:32,621 --> 00:52:34,043
have failed.

665
00:52:35,583 --> 00:52:37,227
The attack on the radio station

666
00:52:37,251 --> 00:52:39,128
started at 2:30 in the morning.

667
00:52:39,253 --> 00:52:42,257
Night after night for weeks,

668
00:52:42,381 --> 00:52:46,227
American television screens had
been filled with images

669
00:52:46,385 --> 00:52:49,138
of blood and violence
and devastation

670
00:52:49,263 --> 00:52:51,891
the public had
rarely seen before.

671
00:52:52,057 --> 00:52:54,901
The enemy
was nowhere and everywhere.

672
00:52:55,060 --> 00:52:58,690
But it was one
photograph that for many people

673
00:52:58,856 --> 00:53:01,735
would come to define
the Tet Offensive.

674
00:53:06,155 --> 00:53:09,955
I remember he was
wearing a checked shirt.

675
00:53:10,075 --> 00:53:14,581
And the photographer
had come up very close

676
00:53:14,747 --> 00:53:16,124
and had pressed his shutter

677
00:53:16,248 --> 00:53:20,754
just as the officer
pulled his trigger.

678
00:53:20,878 --> 00:53:23,597
So camera and gun
went off together

679
00:53:23,672 --> 00:53:27,472
and you could see the man's head
bulging at the side

680
00:53:27,551 --> 00:53:31,306
where the bullet was
about to come out.

681
00:53:31,430 --> 00:53:34,934
We were there, face-to-face
with this man who was dying,

682
00:53:35,100 --> 00:53:36,317
right now, dead.

683
00:53:36,435 --> 00:53:40,030
It's a devastating thing to see.

684
00:53:40,147 --> 00:53:42,821
And I think many Americans began
to ask themselves,

685
00:53:42,941 --> 00:53:45,945
"Are we supporting
the wrong guys here?"

686
00:53:46,070 --> 00:53:50,826
And it sort of brings home,
I think to, to the dinner table,

687
00:53:50,949 --> 00:53:53,168
or the breakfast table if you
see it in the papers,

688
00:53:53,285 --> 00:53:55,333
the brutality of this war

689
00:53:55,454 --> 00:53:58,503
and the fact that it looks like
it's never going to end.

690
00:53:58,666 --> 00:54:04,673
But what we know is the
price that we pay for that picture.

691
00:54:04,838 --> 00:54:06,761
It was the turning point.

692
00:54:06,882 --> 00:54:10,682
Because that put the gov...
Americans to position and say,

693
00:54:10,803 --> 00:54:13,226
"Hey, look,
we want to spend money

694
00:54:13,347 --> 00:54:14,769
"and the lives
of our young people

695
00:54:14,932 --> 00:54:16,809
to protect such a system?"

696
00:54:25,943 --> 00:54:29,322
For a month, Hal Kushner's
captors had made him walk

697
00:54:29,446 --> 00:54:32,541
deeper and deeper
into the Central Highlands,

698
00:54:32,658 --> 00:54:34,251
always moving at night

699
00:54:34,368 --> 00:54:36,871
so that they would not be
spotted from the air.

700
00:54:38,997 --> 00:54:43,343
They took me to this place
that I assume was a hospital.

701
00:54:43,502 --> 00:54:44,754
It was just a series of caves

702
00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:47,890
but there were a lot
of wounded lying around.

703
00:54:48,006 --> 00:54:55,561
And this female nurse came out
and inspected my wound.

704
00:54:55,681 --> 00:54:59,982
And then she gave me
a bamboo stick to bite on.

705
00:55:00,102 --> 00:55:03,356
She laid me down and she gave me
this bamboo stick to bite on.

706
00:55:03,480 --> 00:55:05,778
And then she took this
rifle-cleaning rod

707
00:55:05,899 --> 00:55:08,448
and she heated it up in a fire
until it was red hot.

708
00:55:10,487 --> 00:55:12,364
And she took it and put it
through my wound

709
00:55:12,489 --> 00:55:14,332
through and through.

710
00:55:14,491 --> 00:55:16,084
And it really hurt.

711
00:55:16,201 --> 00:55:19,080
It really, really, really hurt.

712
00:55:19,204 --> 00:55:21,832
And then she put
Mercurochrome on the wound.

713
00:55:21,957 --> 00:55:26,178
And she gave me
an aspirin tablet.

714
00:55:26,295 --> 00:55:31,051
And I... I thought,
what else can they do to me?

715
00:55:31,216 --> 00:55:35,596
Kushner would eventually
arrive at a remote jungle camp,

716
00:55:35,763 --> 00:55:39,939
joining a handful of other
American prisoners.

717
00:55:42,102 --> 00:55:44,651
And this Vietnamese officer
came to me and he spoke English.

718
00:55:44,772 --> 00:55:47,901
And that was the first real
English speaker that I had seen.

719
00:55:48,066 --> 00:55:50,410
And he had a little reel-to-reel
tape recorder,

720
00:55:50,527 --> 00:55:53,030
battery-powered tape recorder.

721
00:55:53,155 --> 00:55:55,954
And he asked me to make
a message to my family

722
00:55:56,074 --> 00:55:58,748
to let them know
that I was safe.

723
00:55:58,869 --> 00:56:00,997
And I could do that if I would
make a statement

724
00:56:01,163 --> 00:56:03,257
against the war.

725
00:56:03,415 --> 00:56:06,794
And I told... I told him
with great bravado

726
00:56:06,919 --> 00:56:08,717
that I would rather die
than make a statement

727
00:56:08,837 --> 00:56:10,339
against my country.

728
00:56:10,464 --> 00:56:12,262
And he said to me,

729
00:56:12,424 --> 00:56:17,271
"You will find
dying is very easy.

730
00:56:17,387 --> 00:56:20,687
"Living will be
the difficult thing.

731
00:56:20,849 --> 00:56:23,272
Living is the difficult thing."

732
00:56:26,688 --> 00:56:31,865
In early March, two weeks
after Hue had finally been recaptured,

733
00:56:31,985 --> 00:56:35,990
Second Lieutenant Phil Gioia
of the 82nd Airborne Division

734
00:56:36,073 --> 00:56:39,577
led his platoon
along the Perfume River,

735
00:56:39,701 --> 00:56:41,829
looking for weapons that might
have been buried

736
00:56:41,912 --> 00:56:43,960
by the retreating enemy.

737
00:56:44,081 --> 00:56:48,052
Gioia's sergeant, Reuben Torres,

738
00:56:48,168 --> 00:56:51,012
saw something sticking up
from the sandy soil.

739
00:56:51,129 --> 00:56:54,759
It was an elbow.

740
00:56:54,883 --> 00:56:58,979
So to us it seemed as though
this was going to be a grave

741
00:56:59,137 --> 00:57:01,640
where the enemy had buried
some of his own people

742
00:57:01,765 --> 00:57:03,517
on the withdrawal from Hue.

743
00:57:03,642 --> 00:57:06,566
Sergeant Torres said,
"You know, sir,

744
00:57:06,728 --> 00:57:09,698
I think we better start
to dig here."

745
00:57:09,815 --> 00:57:13,695
We found the first body
and it was a woman.

746
00:57:13,819 --> 00:57:17,790
She was wearing a white blouse
and black trousers.

747
00:57:17,906 --> 00:57:19,874
She had her hands tied
behind her back

748
00:57:19,992 --> 00:57:22,916
and she'd been shot
in the back of the head.

749
00:57:23,036 --> 00:57:26,540
Next to her was a child,
who'd also been shot.

750
00:57:26,707 --> 00:57:31,759
The next person coming up
was another woman.

751
00:57:31,920 --> 00:57:35,140
At that point it was clear
that this-this wasn't

752
00:57:35,299 --> 00:57:37,267
enemy North Vietnamese
or Viet Cong.

753
00:58:02,618 --> 00:58:04,586
Before they abandoned the city,

754
00:58:04,745 --> 00:58:07,589
the communists had
systematically executed

755
00:58:07,748 --> 00:58:12,174
at least 2,800 people
they called "hooligans"

756
00:58:12,294 --> 00:58:14,922
and "reactionaries."

757
00:58:15,047 --> 00:58:16,594
Hanoi would always deny

758
00:58:16,757 --> 00:58:20,057
that any innocent civilians
had been killed.

759
00:59:26,034 --> 00:59:30,005
President Johnson insisted
that the Tet Offensive had been

760
00:59:30,163 --> 00:59:33,417
"a devastating defeat
for the communists."

761
00:59:33,542 --> 00:59:36,261
Militarily, he was right.

762
00:59:36,420 --> 00:59:40,425
The basic assumptions on which
the North Vietnamese mounted

763
00:59:40,549 --> 00:59:43,974
their offensive had all
proved to be wrong.

764
00:59:44,136 --> 00:59:47,936
Hanoi's leaders had assumed
the ARVN would crumble,

765
00:59:48,098 --> 00:59:52,899
that South Vietnamese soldiers
would come over to their side.

766
00:59:53,020 --> 00:59:56,820
Instead, not a single unit
defected.

767
00:59:58,483 --> 01:00:02,408
The civilian populace
Hanoi expected to rise up

768
01:00:02,571 --> 01:00:04,994
may have been unhappy
with their government,

769
01:00:05,073 --> 01:00:08,953
but they had little sympathy
for communism,

770
01:00:09,077 --> 01:00:13,253
and when the fighting began,
they had hidden in their homes

771
01:00:13,373 --> 01:00:17,423
to escape the fury
in the streets.

772
01:00:31,475 --> 01:00:35,981
North Vietnamese
general Vo Nguyen Giap,

773
01:00:36,104 --> 01:00:38,732
who had opposed the offensive
from the beginning,

774
01:00:38,857 --> 01:00:42,737
later remembered that Tet
had been a "costly lesson,

775
01:00:42,861 --> 01:00:47,116
paid for in blood and bone."

776
01:01:07,719 --> 01:01:11,394
Of the 84,000 enemy
troops who are estimated

777
01:01:11,515 --> 01:01:14,860
to have taken part in the
Tet Offensive, more than half...

778
01:01:14,976 --> 01:01:20,574
as many as 58,000 men and women,
most of them Viet Cong...

779
01:01:20,690 --> 01:01:25,070
are thought to have been killed
or wounded or captured.

780
01:01:27,072 --> 01:01:30,292
The American military
command celebrated the Tet Offensive

781
01:01:30,408 --> 01:01:31,830
as a victory.

782
01:01:31,952 --> 01:01:35,001
You know, "They finally came at
us, and we blew them away,"

783
01:01:35,163 --> 01:01:37,541
which was basically true.

784
01:01:37,666 --> 01:01:41,011
But the administration had been
telling the American public

785
01:01:41,169 --> 01:01:45,800
for most of the end of '67 and
for the first month of 1968

786
01:01:45,924 --> 01:01:47,722
that the war was being won;

787
01:01:47,843 --> 01:01:52,849
that the NLF and the North
Vietnamese were ground down

788
01:01:52,973 --> 01:01:55,817
to such an extent that we could
see the end of the war,

789
01:01:55,934 --> 01:01:57,277
a victory.

790
01:01:57,352 --> 01:02:00,856
The Tet Offensive has forced
our generals to re-evaluate...

791
01:02:00,981 --> 01:02:04,827
So when Tet hit,
it contradicted everything

792
01:02:04,985 --> 01:02:07,829
that the administration
and the Saigon country team

793
01:02:07,988 --> 01:02:10,616
had been telling the American
public through its journalists

794
01:02:10,782 --> 01:02:12,830
for the previous
four or five months.

795
01:02:12,951 --> 01:02:15,670
John Laurence, CBS News, Saigon.

796
01:02:17,747 --> 01:02:22,719
It broke the will of the
United States to fight that war.

797
01:02:22,836 --> 01:02:28,388
It was such a shock that it
stripped away the last vestiges

798
01:02:28,508 --> 01:02:32,229
of the fiction and fanciful
interpretations

799
01:02:32,345 --> 01:02:36,225
that had led us down this
primrose path into disaster.

800
01:02:36,349 --> 01:02:41,196
After that nobody
could be convinced.

801
01:02:41,313 --> 01:02:45,193
And then the most ferocious
possible argument erupted

802
01:02:45,358 --> 01:02:46,735
inside the U.S. government

803
01:02:46,860 --> 01:02:51,787
because the hawks on the war
were saying,

804
01:02:51,907 --> 01:02:57,209
"Tet was North Vietnam's
last gasp.

805
01:02:57,329 --> 01:03:00,458
"It was their last shot
at winning the war,

806
01:03:00,582 --> 01:03:02,300
"and they failed.

807
01:03:02,417 --> 01:03:06,638
We beat them,
and that's the end of them."

808
01:03:06,713 --> 01:03:11,514
And we said,
"After all these years of war,

809
01:03:11,593 --> 01:03:14,096
"if that's what
they are able to do,

810
01:03:14,221 --> 01:03:18,397
"we ought to learn some lesson
about their commitment

811
01:03:18,516 --> 01:03:21,235
to this war as well
and the cost to us."

812
01:03:21,311 --> 01:03:24,986
On March 10, the
New York Times reported

813
01:03:25,106 --> 01:03:29,782
that the Army was requesting
206,000 additional troops

814
01:03:29,903 --> 01:03:31,621
for Vietnam.

815
01:03:31,738 --> 01:03:34,412
But if the United States had
been winning the war,

816
01:03:34,532 --> 01:03:38,708
many Americans asked, if Tet had
in fact been a disaster

817
01:03:38,828 --> 01:03:42,878
for the enemy,
why were still more men needed?

818
01:03:42,999 --> 01:03:46,594
More and more members
of the president's own party

819
01:03:46,670 --> 01:03:50,174
now felt free
to express their doubts.

820
01:03:50,298 --> 01:03:54,223
"Our enemy has finally shattered
the mask of official illusion,"

821
01:03:54,386 --> 01:03:56,730
Senator Robert Kennedy said.

822
01:03:56,846 --> 01:03:59,941
"Unable to defeat him
or break his will,

823
01:04:00,058 --> 01:04:03,904
we must actively seek
a peaceful settlement."

824
01:04:04,062 --> 01:04:05,689
can cope with its problems.

825
01:04:05,855 --> 01:04:10,326
Walter Cronkite, the respected
anchor of the CBS Evening News,

826
01:04:10,485 --> 01:04:13,204
had come home from covering
the Tet Offensive

827
01:04:13,321 --> 01:04:17,371
convinced victory was
no longer possible.

828
01:04:17,492 --> 01:04:19,995
We have been too often
disappointed by the optimism

829
01:04:20,161 --> 01:04:23,256
of the American leaders,
both in Vietnam and Washington,

830
01:04:23,373 --> 01:04:26,718
to have faith any longer
in the silver linings they find

831
01:04:26,793 --> 01:04:28,295
in the darkest clouds.

832
01:04:28,420 --> 01:04:32,596
To say that we are closer to
victory today is to believe,

833
01:04:32,716 --> 01:04:34,138
in the face of the evidence,

834
01:04:34,259 --> 01:04:37,058
the optimists who have been
wrong in the past.

835
01:04:37,178 --> 01:04:39,727
To suggest we are
on the edge of defeat

836
01:04:39,889 --> 01:04:42,893
is to yield
to unreasonable pessimism.

837
01:04:43,018 --> 01:04:45,487
To say that we are mired
in stalemate

838
01:04:45,603 --> 01:04:49,403
seems the only realistic if
unsatisfactory conclusion.

839
01:04:49,524 --> 01:04:52,903
But it is increasingly clear
to this reporter

840
01:04:53,028 --> 01:04:57,408
that the only rational way out
then will be to negotiate,

841
01:04:57,574 --> 01:05:01,795
not as victors, but as an
honorable people who lived up

842
01:05:01,870 --> 01:05:03,838
to their pledge
to defend democracy

843
01:05:03,913 --> 01:05:06,632
and did the best they could.

844
01:05:06,750 --> 01:05:08,343
This is Walter Cronkite.

845
01:05:08,460 --> 01:05:09,837
Goodnight.

846
01:05:09,961 --> 01:05:12,635
In 1966, in '67,

847
01:05:12,714 --> 01:05:14,682
and again in '68,

848
01:05:14,799 --> 01:05:17,723
most recently we hear the same
hollow claims of progress

849
01:05:17,886 --> 01:05:21,140
and of advance toward victory.

850
01:05:21,264 --> 01:05:24,393
The fact is, however, as we know
from events of recent weeks,

851
01:05:24,559 --> 01:05:27,984
events which one is almost
saddened to report,

852
01:05:28,146 --> 01:05:30,444
that the enemy has become
bolder than ever.

853
01:05:30,607 --> 01:05:34,077
On the evening of March 12,

854
01:05:34,194 --> 01:05:36,788
President Johnson watched
the returns come in

855
01:05:36,905 --> 01:05:40,409
from the New Hampshire
Democratic presidential primary,

856
01:05:40,533 --> 01:05:44,288
where he was facing
an unexpected challenge.

857
01:05:44,454 --> 01:05:46,548
The most recent poll
had suggested

858
01:05:46,706 --> 01:05:49,880
he would beat Eugene McCarthy
two to one.

859
01:05:50,043 --> 01:05:54,719
But Johnson won
just 49.6% of the vote

860
01:05:54,839 --> 01:05:58,514
against 41.9% for his opponent,

861
01:05:58,593 --> 01:06:02,723
even though most of those who
voted against the president

862
01:06:02,847 --> 01:06:07,398
actually wanted him to prosecute
the war more vigorously.

863
01:06:07,519 --> 01:06:10,648
Johnson knew he was in trouble.

864
01:06:10,772 --> 01:06:12,833
for the
presidency of the United States...

865
01:06:12,857 --> 01:06:14,825
And there was more to come.

866
01:06:14,943 --> 01:06:18,538
I do not run for the presidency
merely to oppose any man...

867
01:06:18,696 --> 01:06:22,075
Just four clays after
the New Hampshire primary,

868
01:06:22,200 --> 01:06:27,707
Robert F. Kennedy declared his
candidacy for the presidency,

869
01:06:27,831 --> 01:06:31,756
and polls suggested he was more
popular than Lyndon Johnson.

870
01:06:31,918 --> 01:06:33,761
“About what must be done.

871
01:06:33,878 --> 01:06:37,473
I run because it is now
unmistakably clear

872
01:06:37,590 --> 01:06:42,847
that we can change these
disastrous, divisive policies

873
01:06:43,012 --> 01:06:46,983
only by changing the men
who are now making them.

874
01:06:55,400 --> 01:06:57,823
I think
what we've got to do, too,

875
01:06:57,944 --> 01:07:02,245
is get out of the posture of
just being the war candidate

876
01:07:02,365 --> 01:07:05,369
that McCarthy has put us in,
and Bobby's putting us in,

877
01:07:05,535 --> 01:07:06,615
the kids are putting us in,

878
01:07:06,744 --> 01:07:08,337
and the papers are
putting us in.

879
01:07:08,455 --> 01:07:10,833
We've got to come up
with something.

880
01:07:10,999 --> 01:07:14,173
What it is: we're out to win,

881
01:07:14,294 --> 01:07:16,763
but we're not out to win
the war.

882
01:07:16,880 --> 01:07:18,006
We're out to win the peace.

883
01:07:18,131 --> 01:07:19,428
That's right.

884
01:07:19,549 --> 01:07:20,818
And that's what we give them,

885
01:07:20,842 --> 01:07:22,361
and what our slogan
could very well be...

886
01:07:22,385 --> 01:07:24,638
win the peace with honor.

887
01:07:24,762 --> 01:07:28,938
But we've got to have something
new and fresh that goes in there

888
01:07:29,100 --> 01:07:31,148
along with the statement
that we're going to win.

889
01:07:31,311 --> 01:07:32,904
Right.

890
01:07:33,021 --> 01:07:34,898
But we have to be very careful

891
01:07:35,023 --> 01:07:36,741
what it is we say
we're going to win.

892
01:07:36,858 --> 01:07:38,576
That's right.

893
01:07:38,735 --> 01:07:41,284
They think, well hell,
that means we're just going

894
01:07:41,404 --> 01:07:43,998
to keep pouring men in
until we win militarily.

895
01:07:44,115 --> 01:07:46,209
And that isn't what
we're after, really.

896
01:07:46,367 --> 01:07:49,291
Uh, we're not
going to get these doves,

897
01:07:49,412 --> 01:07:51,540
but we can neutralize
the country;

898
01:07:51,664 --> 01:07:52,766
that way it won't follow them,

899
01:07:52,790 --> 01:07:54,070
if we can come up
with something.

900
01:07:58,671 --> 01:08:03,928
On March 26, the Wise Men,
a group of veteran cold warriors

901
01:08:04,093 --> 01:08:06,892
who had earlier urged the
president to hold steady

902
01:08:07,013 --> 01:08:11,063
in Vietnam, now advised him
to change course.

903
01:08:11,184 --> 01:08:15,030
Dean Acheson, Harry Truman's
secretary of state,

904
01:08:15,188 --> 01:08:16,861
spoke for the majority.

905
01:08:16,981 --> 01:08:20,406
"We can no longer do the job
we set out to do

906
01:08:20,527 --> 01:08:22,871
in the time we have left,"
he said,

907
01:08:23,029 --> 01:08:27,079
"and we must begin to take steps
to disengage."

908
01:08:27,242 --> 01:08:33,591
The president agreed to send
just 13,500 more troops,

909
01:08:33,706 --> 01:08:38,086
not the 206,000
the generals had requested,

910
01:08:38,211 --> 01:08:41,715
and decided to recall William
Westmoreland to Washington

911
01:08:41,881 --> 01:08:44,054
as chief of staff of the Army,

912
01:08:44,175 --> 01:08:49,432
replacing him with his deputy,
General Creighton W. Abrams.

913
01:08:51,266 --> 01:08:55,942
His face was a... was
a mask of exhaustion and defeat.

914
01:08:56,062 --> 01:08:58,781
It was very sad to see the man.

915
01:08:58,898 --> 01:09:02,118
He-he was broken by it.

916
01:09:03,778 --> 01:09:05,906
On March 30, Gallup reported

917
01:09:06,030 --> 01:09:09,284
that 63% of the public
disapproved

918
01:09:09,450 --> 01:09:12,124
of Johnson's handling
of the war,

919
01:09:12,245 --> 01:09:16,125
the lowest point
of his presidency.

920
01:09:16,291 --> 01:09:21,172
The following evening,
March 31, 1968,

921
01:09:21,337 --> 01:09:25,843
the president asked for time
on all three networks.

922
01:09:27,135 --> 01:09:30,139
Good evening,
my fellow Americans.

923
01:09:30,263 --> 01:09:33,312
Tonight, I want to speak to you

924
01:09:33,433 --> 01:09:36,357
of peace in Vietnam
and Southeast Asia.

925
01:09:38,396 --> 01:09:41,275
Johnson announced that
he had decided to stop bombing

926
01:09:41,399 --> 01:09:45,996
the densely populated areas
around Hanoi and Haiphong

927
01:09:46,112 --> 01:09:48,956
in the hope that North Vietnam
would finally be willing

928
01:09:49,032 --> 01:09:51,581
to come to the
negotiating table.

929
01:09:51,701 --> 01:09:54,329
Only the southern half
of the country,

930
01:09:54,454 --> 01:09:56,957
the staging areas
north of the DMZ,

931
01:09:57,081 --> 01:10:00,927
would continue to be targeted.

932
01:10:01,044 --> 01:10:05,470
Then he stunned the country
and the world.

933
01:10:05,590 --> 01:10:10,892
I do not believe that
I should devote an hour

934
01:10:11,054 --> 01:10:16,811
or a day of my time
to any personal partisan causes

935
01:10:16,934 --> 01:10:25,365
or to any duties other than the
awesome duties of this office,

936
01:10:25,485 --> 01:10:29,285
the presidency of your country.

937
01:10:29,405 --> 01:10:38,211
Accordingly, I shall not seek,
and I will not accept,

938
01:10:38,331 --> 01:10:42,256
the nomination of my party for
another term as your president.

939
01:10:52,720 --> 01:10:56,270
I land in California and
take a plane from California to Boston.

940
01:10:56,391 --> 01:10:59,986
And I'm feeling good because
I've survived

941
01:11:00,103 --> 01:11:02,697
and, you know,
I fought for my country.

942
01:11:02,814 --> 01:11:05,658
I got off the plane at Logan
and I stepped out there

943
01:11:05,817 --> 01:11:07,615
and I'm just happy to be home.

944
01:11:07,777 --> 01:11:14,456
And I had my uniform on
and walked out to the curb,

945
01:11:14,617 --> 01:11:19,339
and the cabs just kept going
by me, kept going by me.

946
01:11:19,497 --> 01:11:22,296
And there was a state trooper
that was standing there.

947
01:11:22,458 --> 01:11:25,052
And I didn't realize
what was happening.

948
01:11:25,169 --> 01:11:28,548
And then he stepped in the
street and he stopped a cab

949
01:11:28,631 --> 01:11:30,554
and he says,
"You have to take this man.

950
01:11:30,717 --> 01:11:32,936
You have to take this soldier."

951
01:11:33,052 --> 01:11:35,054
And the driver looked over
at me and he said,

952
01:11:35,179 --> 01:11:37,682
"I don't want to go to Roxbury."

953
01:11:37,807 --> 01:11:40,185
They don't see me as a soldier.

954
01:11:40,309 --> 01:11:43,062
You know, they see me
as a nigger coming home here

955
01:11:43,229 --> 01:11:44,856
and I live in Roxbury.

956
01:11:45,022 --> 01:11:46,069
You know?

957
01:11:46,190 --> 01:11:47,988
I'm thinking, "I'm a Marine.

958
01:11:48,109 --> 01:11:49,452
I'm a Marine," you know.

959
01:11:49,569 --> 01:11:52,914
"I just fought for my country
13 months in the combat zone.

960
01:11:53,030 --> 01:11:55,078
And I can't get a cab
to get home."

961
01:11:57,326 --> 01:12:00,125
I have some
very sad news for all of you,

962
01:12:00,246 --> 01:12:05,343
and, I think, sad news for all
of our fellow citizens,

963
01:12:05,460 --> 01:12:09,385
and people who love peace
all over the world;

964
01:12:09,547 --> 01:12:13,142
and that is that
Martin Luther King was shot

965
01:12:13,259 --> 01:12:15,019
and was killed tonight
in Memphis, Tennessee.

966
01:12:18,848 --> 01:12:20,942
In this difficult day,

967
01:12:21,058 --> 01:12:24,653
in this difficult time
for the United States,

968
01:12:24,771 --> 01:12:29,277
it's perhaps well to ask
what kind of a nation we are

969
01:12:29,442 --> 01:12:31,820
and what direction
we want to move in.

970
01:12:33,321 --> 01:12:36,871
Over the next
week, African Americans-

971
01:12:36,949 --> 01:12:39,953
grieving, frustrated, angry...

972
01:12:40,077 --> 01:12:44,958
poured into the streets of more
than 100 towns and cities,

973
01:12:45,082 --> 01:12:49,679
including New York and Oakland,
Newark and Nashville,

974
01:12:49,796 --> 01:12:54,848
Chicago and Cincinnati
and Baltimore,

975
01:12:55,009 --> 01:12:57,478
and in Washington, D.C.,

976
01:12:57,553 --> 01:13:00,807
where fires came within
two blocks of the White House.

977
01:13:03,226 --> 01:13:06,150
When they killed Dr.
King they just opened up the eyes

978
01:13:06,270 --> 01:13:09,114
of a lot of black people
who were afraid to pick up guns.

979
01:13:09,190 --> 01:13:11,989
Now they will pick up
those guns.

980
01:13:12,109 --> 01:13:13,986
We're living in a sick world.

981
01:13:14,111 --> 01:13:16,990
This racist society
in which we live

982
01:13:17,156 --> 01:13:18,783
is that that really
pulled the trigger.

983
01:13:18,908 --> 01:13:24,665
Violence breeds violence,
repression breeds retaliation,

984
01:13:24,789 --> 01:13:29,215
and only a cleansing
of our whole society

985
01:13:29,335 --> 01:13:33,056
can remove this sickness
from our souls.

986
01:13:33,172 --> 01:13:36,551
Tens of thousands
of National Guardsmen,

987
01:13:36,676 --> 01:13:39,475
regular Army troops
and the Marines,

988
01:13:39,595 --> 01:13:43,441
including Roger Harris's
stateside unit,

989
01:13:43,558 --> 01:13:46,402
were ordered to patrol
American streets.

990
01:13:48,354 --> 01:13:50,527
And I was ready to go.

991
01:13:50,648 --> 01:13:53,822
Until I saw what they
were giving out.

992
01:13:53,943 --> 01:13:55,866
I thought they were going
to give us billy clubs

993
01:13:56,028 --> 01:13:58,451
and I thought we were going to
stand in front of buildings,

994
01:13:58,573 --> 01:14:01,747
you know, and protect,
you know, businesses.

995
01:14:01,868 --> 01:14:05,463
And they were passing out
flak jackets, helmets,

996
01:14:05,580 --> 01:14:06,832
M-16s with live ammunition.

997
01:14:06,914 --> 01:14:10,714
You know, same things
we had in Vietnam.

998
01:14:10,835 --> 01:14:15,557
And when I saw that I said...
I said, "I'm not going.

999
01:14:15,673 --> 01:14:16,799
I'm not going."

1000
01:14:16,924 --> 01:14:20,724
I said, "I got family
in Washington, D.C."

1001
01:14:20,845 --> 01:14:24,440
And my company commander said,
"Get on the truck, Marine."

1002
01:14:27,310 --> 01:14:28,812
I said, "I'm not going."

1003
01:14:31,439 --> 01:14:34,784
I didn't make sergeant
because I refused to go.

1004
01:14:36,402 --> 01:14:42,830
Forty-six Americans
died, 2,600 were injured,

1005
01:14:42,950 --> 01:14:44,827
20,000 were arrested.

1006
01:14:49,373 --> 01:14:50,750
Later that same month,

1007
01:14:50,917 --> 01:14:53,796
antiwar students seized
several buildings

1008
01:14:53,961 --> 01:14:57,465
at Columbia University
in Manhattan.

1009
01:14:57,590 --> 01:15:01,436
The occupation lasted a week,

1010
01:15:01,552 --> 01:15:04,476
the first time in American
history that students forced

1011
01:15:04,639 --> 01:15:08,815
a major university to shut down.

1012
01:15:08,935 --> 01:15:12,109
Policemen eventually drove
the demonstrators

1013
01:15:12,229 --> 01:15:13,606
out of the buildings

1014
01:15:13,731 --> 01:15:17,452
and sent more than 100 students
to the hospital.

1015
01:15:17,568 --> 01:15:21,823
The United States now appeared
to be more divided

1016
01:15:21,948 --> 01:15:25,168
than at any time
since the Civil War.

1017
01:15:26,702 --> 01:15:31,708
That spring, protestors also
took to the streets of London,

1018
01:15:31,791 --> 01:15:33,964
Paris...

1019
01:15:34,085 --> 01:15:35,883
Berlin...

1020
01:15:36,003 --> 01:15:37,971
Prague...

1021
01:15:38,089 --> 01:15:39,682
Rio...

1022
01:15:39,840 --> 01:15:42,059
Jakarta.

1023
01:15:42,176 --> 01:15:45,180
The world seemed
to be coming apart.

1024
01:16:09,996 --> 01:16:12,590
President Johnson's
partial bombing halt

1025
01:16:12,707 --> 01:16:14,709
had had the desired effect.

1026
01:16:14,834 --> 01:16:21,137
Hanoi agreed, for the first
time, to talk with Washington.

1027
01:16:21,298 --> 01:16:26,646
Negotiators began meeting
at the Hotel Majestic in Paris.

1028
01:16:26,762 --> 01:16:30,767
But the communists had now
adopted a new double policy.

1029
01:16:30,933 --> 01:16:32,310
They called it

1030
01:16:32,435 --> 01:16:36,485
"talking while fighting,
fighting while talking."

1031
01:16:36,605 --> 01:16:39,905
Incoming!

1032
01:16:40,026 --> 01:16:43,621
On May 5, they
launched another offensive

1033
01:16:43,779 --> 01:16:46,248
that Le Duan hoped
would somehow achieve

1034
01:16:46,407 --> 01:16:48,660
what the Tet Offensive had not.

1035
01:16:48,784 --> 01:16:54,917
The enemy hit 119 targets in
what came to be called Mini-Tet.

1036
01:16:58,586 --> 01:17:01,135
There was new fighting
in the streets of Saigon.

1037
01:17:05,342 --> 01:17:08,266
Half the city was now leveled.

1038
01:17:17,188 --> 01:17:21,659
But the Viet Cong and the North
Vietnamese Army failed again.

1039
01:17:21,776 --> 01:17:23,744
They were still no closer

1040
01:17:23,861 --> 01:17:26,660
to overthrowing the
South Vietnamese government,

1041
01:17:26,781 --> 01:17:31,412
and they had suffered some
36,000 more casualties.

1042
01:17:35,790 --> 01:17:40,887
For the United States, May of
1968 proved the bloodiest month

1043
01:17:41,003 --> 01:17:43,927
of the Vietnam War.

1044
01:17:44,048 --> 01:17:49,270
2,416 Americans lost their lives

1045
01:17:49,428 --> 01:17:51,772
in places whose names
Americans back home

1046
01:17:51,889 --> 01:17:55,439
would have a hard time

1047
01:17:55,601 --> 01:18:00,027
Dai Do, Phu Lam, Kham Duc,

1048
01:18:00,147 --> 01:18:04,402
Cholon, and the Plain of Reeds.

1049
01:18:06,821 --> 01:18:10,542
A total military
victory is not within sight

1050
01:18:10,699 --> 01:18:12,576
and is not around the corner;

1051
01:18:12,701 --> 01:18:16,205
that, in fact, it is probably
beyond our grasp.

1052
01:18:16,372 --> 01:18:18,420
For a time that spring,

1053
01:18:18,582 --> 01:18:20,676
it looked as if Robert Kennedy
might win

1054
01:18:20,793 --> 01:18:24,514
the Democratic nomination
for president.

1055
01:18:24,630 --> 01:18:29,477
He pledged to bring the war
to an end and seemed to embody

1056
01:18:29,593 --> 01:18:32,221
the hope of bridging
the growing gulf

1057
01:18:32,346 --> 01:18:35,270
between black
and white Americans.

1058
01:18:37,893 --> 01:18:41,238
But in June, after defeating
Eugene McCarthy

1059
01:18:41,313 --> 01:18:45,659
in the California primary,
he too was assassinated.

1060
01:18:45,776 --> 01:18:49,280
Oh, God damn! Why?

1061
01:19:03,669 --> 01:19:06,764
People were
stunned, and people were scared.

1062
01:19:06,881 --> 01:19:13,105
The people we'd looked up to
were being taken away from us.

1063
01:19:17,349 --> 01:19:22,230
It definitely put those of us
who were heading off on our own

1064
01:19:22,354 --> 01:19:26,200
on a path that felt uncertain.

1065
01:19:32,990 --> 01:19:34,958
When Martin Luther
King was assassinated

1066
01:19:35,034 --> 01:19:37,628
and Bobby Kennedy
was assassinated,

1067
01:19:37,745 --> 01:19:41,750
they made a big huge deal
about that.

1068
01:19:41,874 --> 01:19:47,552
They said that was part of the
struggle of the American people

1069
01:19:47,630 --> 01:19:49,428
against their government.

1070
01:19:49,548 --> 01:19:51,550
And that there
were riots in the streets.

1071
01:19:52,885 --> 01:19:54,979
And the camp commander
actually told us,

1072
01:19:55,137 --> 01:19:57,640
"You can kill ten of us
to one of you,

1073
01:19:57,765 --> 01:20:01,770
"but your people will turn
against this.

1074
01:20:01,894 --> 01:20:06,024
"And we will be here for ten
years or 20 years or 30 years,

1075
01:20:06,148 --> 01:20:07,365
"as long as it takes.

1076
01:20:07,483 --> 01:20:09,531
"And unless you kill
every one of us,

1077
01:20:09,652 --> 01:20:13,077
we're gonna win this war."

1078
01:20:17,117 --> 01:20:18,460
And on July the Fourth,

1079
01:20:18,577 --> 01:20:22,207
we recognized it was
July the Fourth.

1080
01:20:22,331 --> 01:20:25,380
And they would not let us sing
patriotic songs.

1081
01:20:25,542 --> 01:20:30,298
But sometimes we would softly
sing at night.

1082
01:20:30,422 --> 01:20:33,926
And...

1083
01:20:35,511 --> 01:20:40,267
we understood that despite
different backgrounds

1084
01:20:40,391 --> 01:20:42,314
and different socioeconomic
backgrounds,

1085
01:20:42,434 --> 01:20:44,562
different races,
different religions,

1086
01:20:44,687 --> 01:20:46,610
that we were Americans.

1087
01:20:52,111 --> 01:20:55,081
The American people
would be choosing new leadership

1088
01:20:55,197 --> 01:20:58,371
that fall,
and everyone seemed to agree,

1089
01:20:58,492 --> 01:21:00,369
a British correspondent wrote,

1090
01:21:00,494 --> 01:21:03,919
"that whoever captures the
presidency this November

1091
01:21:04,039 --> 01:21:06,542
"will be obliged
to end the conflict

1092
01:21:06,667 --> 01:21:09,420
"within a matter of months.

1093
01:21:09,586 --> 01:21:13,261
"How this is to be done or
what concessions are to be made

1094
01:21:13,382 --> 01:21:16,727
is very much a matter
of detail."

1095
01:21:16,844 --> 01:21:20,599
Before those details were
finally worked out,

1096
01:21:20,723 --> 01:21:24,273
almost seven more years
would pass.

1097
01:21:24,351 --> 01:21:27,901
And 27,184 more Americans,

1098
01:21:28,022 --> 01:21:32,323
and hundreds of thousands
more Laotians, Cambodians,

1099
01:21:32,443 --> 01:21:37,574
and Vietnamese... North and
South... would have to die.