1
00:00:06,148 --> 00:00:08,446
you got through!
Did you pass Chee on the road?

2
00:00:08,567 --> 00:00:09,910
No.
Where are the children?

3
00:00:10,027 --> 00:00:11,620
Kansas found a shelter for them.

4
00:00:11,737 --> 00:00:13,455
Get down, everybody!

5
00:00:16,492 --> 00:00:19,245
My older sister and I one time

6
00:00:19,370 --> 00:00:23,420
uh, we're watching the movie
So Proudly We Hail on TV.

7
00:00:23,541 --> 00:00:24,941
Listen, we still have
a few minutes!

8
00:00:25,042 --> 00:00:26,794
That's a story about the nurses

9
00:00:26,919 --> 00:00:31,720
who were trapped on Bataan and
Corregidor during World War II.

10
00:00:33,926 --> 00:00:37,556
It was the first, probably,
time in my life that...

11
00:00:37,680 --> 00:00:39,478
I, uh...

12
00:00:39,598 --> 00:00:43,774
I realized that women could do
brave and courageous things.

13
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It wasn't just something
men could do.

14
00:00:52,111 --> 00:00:54,955
Second Lieutenant Joan Furey

15
00:00:55,072 --> 00:00:59,873
had wanted to be a nurse ever
since she was a small child.

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She attended nursing school,

17
00:01:01,745 --> 00:01:05,045
and, when a high school
classmate was killed during Tet,

18
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joined the Army to do
what she could for the wounded.

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Furey was assigned
to the 71st Evacuation Hospital

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00:01:14,675 --> 00:01:18,305
at Pleiku, in the heart
of the Central Highlands.

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Nothing had prepared her
for what she saw and did

22
00:01:23,601 --> 00:01:25,899
over the next 12 months.

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Wounded men were choppered in

24
00:01:32,276 --> 00:01:34,904
at all times
of the day and night.

25
00:01:35,029 --> 00:01:37,953
So were Viet Cong
and NVA soldiers,

26
00:01:38,115 --> 00:01:41,039
who sometimes spat
at the medical personnel

27
00:01:41,160 --> 00:01:44,881
trying to save
their limbs or lives.

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Whenever the hospital
came under mortar fire,

29
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Furey stayed with
the most seriously wounded men

30
00:01:54,506 --> 00:01:55,723
in the ICU.

31
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We had flak vests and helmets,

32
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and we crawled
around on the floor.

33
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I mean, you really,

34
00:02:03,807 --> 00:02:05,650
you just could not leave them
unattended.

35
00:02:07,311 --> 00:02:10,531
We just kind of had to swallow
your own fear.

36
00:02:12,107 --> 00:02:14,826
A triage officer
made the grim decisions

37
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as to who might be saved

38
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and those for whom
there was no hope.

39
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One of the things that
initially was so difficult

40
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was what we called
"expected" patients.

41
00:02:26,622 --> 00:02:29,171
And these were patients
that would be brought in

42
00:02:29,333 --> 00:02:31,756
from the battlefield
and it was determined

43
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they had no chance to survive.

44
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But they weren't dead yet.

45
00:02:38,342 --> 00:02:39,639
They brought in a...

46
00:02:39,760 --> 00:02:43,105
a young soldier
who had a head injury,

47
00:02:43,222 --> 00:02:46,692
and they said, "He's expected."

48
00:02:46,809 --> 00:02:49,028
I kind of freaked out, uh,

49
00:02:49,186 --> 00:02:52,190
and I decided that,
no, they were wrong,

50
00:02:52,356 --> 00:02:55,360
and I was gonna take care
of this patient.

51
00:02:55,526 --> 00:02:57,995
I told the corpsman
to get me blood.

52
00:02:58,112 --> 00:02:59,739
And he's saying,
"Well, Lieutenant,

53
00:02:59,863 --> 00:03:01,536
the patient is expected."

54
00:03:01,699 --> 00:03:03,542
I said, "Get me blood."

55
00:03:03,701 --> 00:03:06,625
So, I take off
the dressing, and...

56
00:03:06,745 --> 00:03:10,249
the whole back of his head
had been gone.

57
00:03:10,374 --> 00:03:11,876
When that happened,

58
00:03:12,042 --> 00:03:15,216
all the blood
I had been giving him came out.

59
00:03:15,379 --> 00:03:19,600
A friend of mine who came over
just walked me out of there.

60
00:03:19,717 --> 00:03:23,267
And a few minutes later,
you walk right back in...

61
00:03:25,264 --> 00:03:27,232
and you get back
to doing it.

62
00:03:55,085 --> 00:03:57,929
Richard Nixon had
taken office as president

63
00:03:58,088 --> 00:04:01,012
in January of 1969,

64
00:04:01,133 --> 00:04:03,352
pledged to restore law and order

65
00:04:03,469 --> 00:04:05,688
and end the war with honor.

66
00:04:05,804 --> 00:04:07,932
Things were calmer at home,

67
00:04:08,098 --> 00:04:10,942
but in Vietnam,
peace was no closer.

68
00:04:14,730 --> 00:04:18,109
American soldiers still died
pursuing guerrillas

69
00:04:18,233 --> 00:04:21,032
who appeared and disappeared
like phantoms.

70
00:04:22,279 --> 00:04:25,203
Americans still died
capturing hills

71
00:04:25,324 --> 00:04:28,624
only to give them up and have
to take them back again.

72
00:04:28,744 --> 00:04:32,874
Men and materiel were
still flowing into the south

73
00:04:32,998 --> 00:04:36,502
despite the controversial
bombing of Cambodia.

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Through it all,
Hanoi remained immovable.

75
00:04:40,339 --> 00:04:43,309
The communists insisted
there could be no peace

76
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until the Saigon government
was replaced

77
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and the United States withdrew
from Vietnam.

78
00:04:51,809 --> 00:04:55,689
Meanwhile, the American public
was losing patience.

79
00:05:06,740 --> 00:05:11,541
Privately, Nixon knew that
military victory was impossible,

80
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that things would have
to be settled

81
00:05:13,330 --> 00:05:16,504
at the bargaining table
in Paris.

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He had to find a way

83
00:05:18,043 --> 00:05:20,341
to extricate Americans
from Vietnam

84
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without seeming to surrender.

85
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Nixon also believed

86
00:05:24,591 --> 00:05:27,435
his reputation
as an implacable anti-communist

87
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could work to his advantage
with Hanoi.

88
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"We'll just slip the word
to them," he said,

89
00:05:32,975 --> 00:05:36,821
"you know, 'Nixon's obsessed
about communism.

90
00:05:36,937 --> 00:05:39,190
"'We can't restrain him
when he's angry,

91
00:05:39,314 --> 00:05:42,193
"and he has his hand
on the nuclear button, '

92
00:05:42,317 --> 00:05:45,446
"and Ho Chi Minh
will be in Paris in two days

93
00:05:45,571 --> 00:05:48,450
begging for peace."

94
00:05:48,574 --> 00:05:52,624
But Ho Chi Minh
was old and ailing now.

95
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And Le Duan and the other men

96
00:05:54,913 --> 00:05:57,962
who had been calling the shots
in Hanoi for years

97
00:05:58,083 --> 00:06:00,461
had no intention
of giving up their goal

98
00:06:00,586 --> 00:06:04,216
of uniting their country
under communist control.

99
00:06:06,550 --> 00:06:10,054
Richard Nixon, having promised
a swift end to the war,

100
00:06:10,179 --> 00:06:13,274
would, like all the presidents
who came before him,

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00:06:13,390 --> 00:06:15,609
end up widening it.

102
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In the process, he would
re-ignite opposition to the war

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00:06:19,438 --> 00:06:21,065
on American campuses

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00:06:21,231 --> 00:06:24,735
that threatened to tear
the country apart again.

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The late '60s

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00:06:47,049 --> 00:06:51,099
were a kind of confluence
of several rivulets.

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00:06:53,180 --> 00:06:56,104
There was the
antiwar movement itself...

108
00:06:59,394 --> 00:07:04,025
the whole movement
towards racial equality,

109
00:07:04,149 --> 00:07:06,618
the environment...

110
00:07:06,735 --> 00:07:09,488
the role of women.

111
00:07:09,613 --> 00:07:11,991
And the anthems
for that counterculture

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00:07:12,115 --> 00:07:16,541
were provided by the most
brilliant rock-and-roll music

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00:07:16,662 --> 00:07:18,585
that you can imagine.

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I don't know how we
could exist today as a country

115
00:07:24,962 --> 00:07:29,012
without that experience.

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With all of its warts
and ups and downs,

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that produced
the America we have today,

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and we are better for it.

119
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And I felt that way in Vietnam.

120
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I turned the volume
up on all that stuff.

121
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That represented
what I was trying to defend.

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I never prayed

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the whole time
I was in the P.O.W. camp,

124
00:08:19,766 --> 00:08:22,565
but I had, like, a mantra.

125
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Every night
when I went to sleep,

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after a certain point,
I would say,

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"I'll be here
when the morning comes."

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And I felt if I could just live
one more day,

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00:08:34,865 --> 00:08:38,210
then I could live one more day,
and then one more day.

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00:08:38,368 --> 00:08:41,167
At the peace talks in Paris,

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00:08:41,288 --> 00:08:45,794
the Nixon administration
had introduced a new demand...

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U.S. troops would not withdraw

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00:08:48,045 --> 00:08:51,299
until all American prisoners
had come home

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00:08:51,423 --> 00:08:53,972
and Hanoi had provided
a strict accounting

135
00:08:54,092 --> 00:08:56,345
of those missing in action.

136
00:08:56,470 --> 00:08:59,815
No one knew
how many prisoners there were.

137
00:08:59,931 --> 00:09:03,777
Most were airmen
held in or around Hanoi,

138
00:09:03,894 --> 00:09:06,568
but a handful of others,
like Hal Kushner,

139
00:09:06,730 --> 00:09:10,109
were struggling to survive
in makeshift jungle camps

140
00:09:10,233 --> 00:09:12,907
in South Vietnam.

141
00:09:13,070 --> 00:09:16,574
Hanoi would not reveal
the names of the men they held,

142
00:09:16,740 --> 00:09:20,586
because they still insisted
they were not prisoners of war,

143
00:09:20,744 --> 00:09:22,792
but war criminals.

144
00:09:22,913 --> 00:09:26,133
They subjected many
to brutal torture,

145
00:09:26,249 --> 00:09:28,343
extracted "confessions,"

146
00:09:28,460 --> 00:09:30,588
and refused
to permit inspections

147
00:09:30,754 --> 00:09:33,633
by the International Red Cross.

148
00:09:33,757 --> 00:09:37,807
The Johnson administration had
generally downplayed the issue,

149
00:09:37,928 --> 00:09:41,899
hoping quiet diplomacy
might bring the men home.

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00:09:42,015 --> 00:09:43,608
The Nixon administration

151
00:09:43,725 --> 00:09:46,524
launched
a "go public" campaign instead,

152
00:09:46,645 --> 00:09:49,239
meant to put the plight
of American prisoners

153
00:09:49,356 --> 00:09:51,404
and those missing in action

154
00:09:51,525 --> 00:09:53,493
at the center of things.

155
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It also provided a rebuke

156
00:09:55,821 --> 00:09:57,869
to those in the antiwar movement

157
00:09:57,989 --> 00:10:00,037
who seemed more sympathetic

158
00:10:00,158 --> 00:10:03,287
to North Vietnamese civilians
who had been bombed

159
00:10:03,412 --> 00:10:05,039
than they were to U.S. airmen

160
00:10:05,163 --> 00:10:08,667
who had been shot down
doing that bombing.

161
00:10:08,792 --> 00:10:13,298
Sybil Stockdale, whose husband,
Commander James Stockdale,

162
00:10:13,422 --> 00:10:16,096
was the highest-ranking prisoner
in Hanoi,

163
00:10:16,216 --> 00:10:18,469
formed the National League
of Families

164
00:10:18,635 --> 00:10:22,014
of Prisoners and Missing
in Southeast Asia,

165
00:10:22,139 --> 00:10:24,767
and led delegations of wives
to Paris

166
00:10:24,891 --> 00:10:28,270
to confront
North Vietnamese negotiators.

167
00:10:28,395 --> 00:10:32,992
Five million Americans began
wearing tin or copper bracelets

168
00:10:33,108 --> 00:10:35,611
engraved
with a missing man's name

169
00:10:35,736 --> 00:10:38,114
and date of loss.

170
00:10:38,238 --> 00:10:42,459
More than 50 million
P.O.W./M.I.A. bumper stickers

171
00:10:42,576 --> 00:10:46,171
would be sold
over the next four years.

172
00:10:46,288 --> 00:10:48,586
Despite what their jailers
had told them,

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00:10:48,707 --> 00:10:52,883
the prisoners had not been
forgotten by their country.

174
00:10:53,003 --> 00:10:55,426
Eventually,
one journalist wrote,

175
00:10:55,547 --> 00:10:57,675
many "people began to speak

176
00:10:57,841 --> 00:11:01,812
"as though the North Vietnamese
had kidnapped 400 Americans

177
00:11:01,928 --> 00:11:06,354
and the United States had gone
to war to retrieve them."

178
00:11:06,475 --> 00:11:10,901
At the same time, the Saigon
government of Nguyen Van Thieu

179
00:11:11,021 --> 00:11:14,241
was holding prisoners
of its own.

180
00:11:14,357 --> 00:11:16,200
There would eventually be

181
00:11:16,318 --> 00:11:20,039
some 40,000 North Vietnamese
and Viet Cong soldiers

182
00:11:20,197 --> 00:11:22,074
in four crowded camps.

183
00:11:22,199 --> 00:11:26,124
Another 200,000
South Vietnamese civilians

184
00:11:26,244 --> 00:11:30,124
would also be held,
many without trial.

185
00:12:51,580 --> 00:12:54,550
There are certain
rules to tunnel warfare.

186
00:12:56,793 --> 00:12:59,467
Don't turn on the light

187
00:12:59,629 --> 00:13:02,599
unless you're really, really,
really sure you're alone.

188
00:13:02,716 --> 00:13:06,311
Use your senses.

189
00:13:06,428 --> 00:13:09,523
Do your first killing
as quietly as you can.

190
00:13:09,639 --> 00:13:11,687
That means don't shoot.

191
00:13:13,018 --> 00:13:15,692
I chased somebody into a tunnel,

192
00:13:15,812 --> 00:13:21,069
met them at a bend
in the corner, in the dark.

193
00:13:21,192 --> 00:13:22,660
I thought I was alone

194
00:13:22,819 --> 00:13:25,993
and then I smelled their breath.

195
00:13:26,114 --> 00:13:32,087
And we had a wrestling match
in the dark.

196
00:13:32,203 --> 00:13:34,547
And I got the upper hand

197
00:13:34,664 --> 00:13:37,884
and crushed
this person's trachea,

198
00:13:38,001 --> 00:13:40,629
held him down while he died...

199
00:13:42,380 --> 00:13:44,257
and then got out.

200
00:13:47,010 --> 00:13:49,684
I beat and strangled
someone to death

201
00:13:49,846 --> 00:13:51,598
in a tunnel

202
00:13:51,723 --> 00:13:53,691
in the dark.

203
00:13:53,808 --> 00:13:55,355
Um...

204
00:13:55,518 --> 00:13:57,896
But that wasn't
the only casualty.

205
00:13:58,021 --> 00:14:02,276
The other casualty was
the civilized version of me.

206
00:14:22,837 --> 00:14:25,716
April 1969

207
00:14:25,840 --> 00:14:28,764
marked the high point
of American military commitment

208
00:14:28,885 --> 00:14:30,307
to South Vietnam.

209
00:14:30,428 --> 00:14:37,778
543,482 men and women
were now in country,

210
00:14:37,894 --> 00:14:41,899
and tens of thousands more
were stationed

211
00:14:42,065 --> 00:14:45,035
at airbases and aboard ships
beyond its borders.

212
00:14:46,361 --> 00:14:51,037
40,794 had died.

213
00:14:51,157 --> 00:14:56,084
And more than $70 billion
had been spent.

214
00:14:59,791 --> 00:15:02,089
That spring, a new battle

215
00:15:02,252 --> 00:15:04,300
caught the attention
of the American public,

216
00:15:04,421 --> 00:15:09,097
a struggle to take still
another numbered hill...

217
00:15:09,259 --> 00:15:12,854
Hill 937 on military maps.

218
00:15:12,971 --> 00:15:14,848
For nine days,

219
00:15:14,973 --> 00:15:16,909
American and South Vietnamese
troops have been trying

220
00:15:16,933 --> 00:15:18,856
to take a mountain
near the Laotian border,

221
00:15:18,977 --> 00:15:21,821
and ten times
they have been thrown back.

222
00:15:46,463 --> 00:15:49,012
The casualties
have been so high-

223
00:15:49,132 --> 00:15:52,386
50 Americans and
250 North Vietnamese killed...

224
00:15:52,510 --> 00:15:55,138
that the mountain has come
to be known as "Hamburger Hill."

225
00:15:55,305 --> 00:15:58,900
Today, another 600 allied troops
were thrown into the battle.

226
00:16:10,653 --> 00:16:12,951
A weary G.I. told a reporter

227
00:16:13,073 --> 00:16:15,075
that his battalion commander

228
00:16:15,200 --> 00:16:20,047
"won't stop until he kills
every damn one of us."

229
00:16:26,461 --> 00:16:28,714
After 11 days of fighting,

230
00:16:28,838 --> 00:16:31,512
the Battle for Hamburger Hill
ended.

231
00:16:33,009 --> 00:16:35,683
56 Americans died.

232
00:16:35,845 --> 00:16:40,100
420 more were wounded.

233
00:16:40,225 --> 00:16:43,820
A week later, the Americans
abandoned the hill,

234
00:16:43,937 --> 00:16:46,816
just as they had abandoned
so many other hills

235
00:16:46,940 --> 00:16:51,446
they had taken at great cost
over the years in Vietnam.

236
00:16:53,613 --> 00:16:56,492
General, could you explain for
us again the strategy involved

237
00:16:56,616 --> 00:16:59,586
in the decision to
withdraw American troops

238
00:16:59,702 --> 00:17:02,831
after they had taken
Hill 937, or Hamburger Hill?

239
00:17:05,041 --> 00:17:08,921
No piece of ground, as such,

240
00:17:09,045 --> 00:17:11,423
is important to us.

241
00:17:11,548 --> 00:17:13,266
In the United States Senate,

242
00:17:13,383 --> 00:17:15,101
Senator Kennedy
of Massachusetts delivered

243
00:17:15,218 --> 00:17:17,016
a brief speech
criticizing what he called

244
00:17:17,137 --> 00:17:20,061
a "senseless and
irresponsible military pride

245
00:17:20,181 --> 00:17:22,559
"in which American men
are sent to their deaths

246
00:17:22,684 --> 00:17:25,403
in pointless battles like
this one for Hamburger Hill."

247
00:17:25,520 --> 00:17:27,568
Kennedy called
upon President Nixon

248
00:17:27,730 --> 00:17:29,824
to issue new orders
to commanders in Vietnam

249
00:17:29,941 --> 00:17:31,443
to halt such actions

250
00:17:31,568 --> 00:17:33,366
and he charged
that they contradict

251
00:17:33,486 --> 00:17:34,829
the president's
stated intentions

252
00:17:34,946 --> 00:17:36,619
of seeking a negotiated peace.

253
00:17:39,492 --> 00:17:42,792
There had been more
deadly weeks during the war,

254
00:17:42,912 --> 00:17:47,258
costlier battles,
larger numbers of casualties.

255
00:17:47,417 --> 00:17:53,595
But more and more Americans
seemed to have had enough.

256
00:17:53,715 --> 00:17:56,059
The following month,
Life magazine

257
00:17:56,176 --> 00:17:58,178
published the names
and photographs

258
00:17:58,303 --> 00:18:01,022
of all 242 Americans

259
00:18:01,139 --> 00:18:04,985
who had died in combat
in just one week.

260
00:18:05,101 --> 00:18:08,947
For the first time,
in a national publication,

261
00:18:09,105 --> 00:18:12,951
casualty statistics
came with human faces.

262
00:18:15,862 --> 00:18:18,581
The only way they could
measure success in Vietnam

263
00:18:18,698 --> 00:18:20,792
was, was was kill ratios...

264
00:18:20,909 --> 00:18:23,037
how many of them
versus how many of us.

265
00:18:23,161 --> 00:18:25,289
Well, the only thing
that's important

266
00:18:25,455 --> 00:18:27,708
to the American people
is the "us."

267
00:18:27,832 --> 00:18:31,382
You know, if there's three
us dead, that's the number.

268
00:18:31,502 --> 00:18:34,631
Not 30, you know,
Vietnamese dead.

269
00:18:34,756 --> 00:18:37,805
And, so, politically,
an attrition strategy

270
00:18:37,926 --> 00:18:40,054
just can't last very long.

271
00:18:40,178 --> 00:18:41,646
We don't care what the ratio is,

272
00:18:41,763 --> 00:18:43,043
we just want the absolute number

273
00:18:43,097 --> 00:18:45,691
of how many American kids died.

274
00:18:45,808 --> 00:18:49,062
A Gallup poll now
found that most Americans

275
00:18:49,187 --> 00:18:52,942
believed Vietnam
had been a mistake.

276
00:18:53,066 --> 00:18:55,990
Richard Nixon knew he needed
to signal to the public

277
00:18:56,152 --> 00:18:58,325
that an end was in sight.

278
00:19:00,240 --> 00:19:03,619
The National Security Council
had warned Nixon

279
00:19:03,743 --> 00:19:05,745
that the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

280
00:19:05,870 --> 00:19:08,498
the secretaries of state
and defense,

281
00:19:08,665 --> 00:19:13,546
the C.I.A.,
and the U.S. Embassy in Saigon

282
00:19:13,670 --> 00:19:16,674
all privately agreed that
without U.S. combat troops,

283
00:19:16,839 --> 00:19:18,386
the South Vietnamese

284
00:19:18,508 --> 00:19:23,059
"cannot now, or in
the foreseeable future,

285
00:19:23,179 --> 00:19:25,273
"stand up to both Viet Cong

286
00:19:25,390 --> 00:19:29,020
and sizeable
North Vietnamese forces."

287
00:19:29,143 --> 00:19:31,020
Nonetheless,

288
00:19:31,187 --> 00:19:34,191
Secretary of Defense
Melvin Laird said,

289
00:19:34,357 --> 00:19:37,736
the war was now
to be "Vietnamized."

290
00:19:37,860 --> 00:19:41,490
Saigon's troops would gradually
take over responsibility

291
00:19:41,614 --> 00:19:44,117
for engaging the enemy.

292
00:19:44,242 --> 00:19:47,337
It would be
General Creighton Abrams' task

293
00:19:47,453 --> 00:19:49,706
to ready the ARVN for that role,

294
00:19:49,872 --> 00:19:52,546
and to make sure
that American casualties

295
00:19:52,667 --> 00:19:54,761
were held down in the interim.

296
00:19:57,380 --> 00:20:02,557
Meanwhile, American troops
would start to go home.

297
00:20:07,974 --> 00:20:09,574
When Nixon came in

298
00:20:09,642 --> 00:20:13,397
and he announced
the phase withdrawal,

299
00:20:13,521 --> 00:20:15,899
turning over the fighting
to the Vietnamese,

300
00:20:16,065 --> 00:20:18,443
which was something
the French had tried before.

301
00:20:18,568 --> 00:20:20,320
They call it jaunissement...

302
00:20:20,445 --> 00:20:23,745
yellowizing the war.

303
00:20:23,865 --> 00:20:29,872
We knew that the Vietnamese Army
was not up to fighting this war.

304
00:20:29,996 --> 00:20:32,419
If they couldn't do it
with the Americans,

305
00:20:32,582 --> 00:20:35,586
how were they going
to do it without the Americans?

306
00:20:38,921 --> 00:20:41,720
Although Washington
planned to vastly increase

307
00:20:41,841 --> 00:20:44,765
military support
of the South Vietnamese Army,

308
00:20:44,886 --> 00:20:48,060
General Abrams knew
that Vietnamization alone

309
00:20:48,181 --> 00:20:50,434
could never defeat the enemy.

310
00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:52,978
But he had his orders.

311
00:20:53,102 --> 00:20:55,776
The reason I
was ordered home early

312
00:20:55,938 --> 00:20:57,736
was because Nixon...
President Nixon

313
00:20:57,857 --> 00:21:01,111
announced the policy
of Vietnamization.

314
00:21:01,277 --> 00:21:05,327
Now, Vietnamization was a lie,

315
00:21:05,448 --> 00:21:09,294
but it had
an element of truth in it.

316
00:21:09,452 --> 00:21:11,671
We were leaving, okay?

317
00:21:11,788 --> 00:21:13,631
And that sealed
the South's fate.

318
00:21:13,748 --> 00:21:15,125
I knew it.

319
00:21:15,249 --> 00:21:18,128
And I think anybody
who was conscious

320
00:21:18,294 --> 00:21:19,967
and could see what was going on

321
00:21:20,129 --> 00:21:21,301
knew it.

322
00:21:21,422 --> 00:21:23,891
Nixon then flew to Midway Island

323
00:21:24,008 --> 00:21:27,558
to meet with South Vietnamese
President Nguyen Van Thieu.

324
00:21:27,678 --> 00:21:30,807
He had not dared
invite Thieu to Washington

325
00:21:30,932 --> 00:21:33,811
for fear of sparking
mass demonstrations.

326
00:21:35,395 --> 00:21:37,489
President Thieu informed me

327
00:21:37,605 --> 00:21:41,360
that the progress
of the training program

328
00:21:41,484 --> 00:21:43,157
and the equipping program

329
00:21:43,277 --> 00:21:45,450
for South Vietnamese forces

330
00:21:45,571 --> 00:21:50,577
had been so successful, uh,
that he could now recommend

331
00:21:50,701 --> 00:21:54,001
that the United States
begin to replace

332
00:21:54,122 --> 00:21:58,377
U.S. combat forces
with Vietnamese forces.

333
00:22:03,673 --> 00:22:06,051
Thieu had said no such thing

334
00:22:06,175 --> 00:22:08,678
but felt he had to go along.

335
00:22:08,845 --> 00:22:11,519
"There is nothing I can do,"
he told a friend.

336
00:22:11,639 --> 00:22:13,937
"Just as we could
do nothing about it

337
00:22:14,058 --> 00:22:16,652
"when Eisenhower,
Kennedy, and Johnson

338
00:22:16,769 --> 00:22:19,693
decided to come in."

339
00:22:19,856 --> 00:22:22,780
"We were clearly
on the way out of Vietnam,"

340
00:22:22,900 --> 00:22:26,029
National Security Advisor
Henry Kissinger remembered,

341
00:22:26,154 --> 00:22:28,873
"by negotiation if possible,

342
00:22:28,990 --> 00:22:32,745
by unilateral withdrawal
if necessary."

343
00:22:32,869 --> 00:22:35,839
He and the president
were redefining

344
00:22:35,955 --> 00:22:38,799
what victory would look like.

345
00:22:38,916 --> 00:22:41,840
Nixon and Kissinger...

346
00:22:41,961 --> 00:22:43,963
They...

347
00:22:44,088 --> 00:22:46,341
Their job is to clean up.

348
00:22:46,466 --> 00:22:48,059
They're, they're...

349
00:22:48,176 --> 00:22:50,053
The war's over, okay?

350
00:22:50,219 --> 00:22:53,644
When Nixon and Kissinger,
when they come, they're...

351
00:22:53,764 --> 00:22:55,107
they're not gonna win the war.

352
00:22:55,224 --> 00:22:57,568
So they develop

353
00:22:57,685 --> 00:22:59,312
a secret strategy.

354
00:22:59,437 --> 00:23:03,283
They surrender without saying
they surrendered.

355
00:23:05,776 --> 00:23:08,950
This is not a bad strategy,
this is the only strategy.

356
00:23:17,288 --> 00:23:20,792
As American soldiers
began leaving South Vietnam,

357
00:23:20,917 --> 00:23:24,091
American weaponry
and materiel poured in.

358
00:23:30,218 --> 00:23:33,188
More than a million M16 rifles,

359
00:23:33,304 --> 00:23:39,232
40,000 grenade launchers,
thousands of wheeled vehicles...

360
00:23:39,352 --> 00:23:40,945
so many,
one congressman complained,

361
00:23:41,103 --> 00:23:44,277
that it seemed as if
the United States taxpayer

362
00:23:44,398 --> 00:23:48,574
was being asked to "put every
South Vietnamese soldier

363
00:23:48,694 --> 00:23:51,072
behind the wheel."

364
00:23:51,197 --> 00:23:53,325
It didn't
make any sense, of course,

365
00:23:53,449 --> 00:23:56,328
because we tried that
in 1962 and '63.

366
00:23:56,452 --> 00:23:58,250
The people hadn't changed.

367
00:23:58,371 --> 00:23:59,971
They were just
giving 'em more furniture.

368
00:24:23,062 --> 00:24:26,862
South Vietnamese
armed forces were expanded

369
00:24:26,983 --> 00:24:31,238
from 850,000 men
to over a million.

370
00:24:31,362 --> 00:24:33,285
But nothing could alter the fact

371
00:24:33,406 --> 00:24:34,828
that rampant corruption

372
00:24:34,991 --> 00:24:38,370
continually eroded
their effectiveness.

373
00:24:38,494 --> 00:24:40,588
The way it works is this:

374
00:24:40,705 --> 00:24:43,128
a man makes a deal
with his commanding officer,

375
00:24:43,249 --> 00:24:45,843
perhaps to pay the officer
his full salary.

376
00:24:46,002 --> 00:24:48,926
In exchange, you never have
to show up for duty,

377
00:24:49,046 --> 00:24:51,515
except perhaps once a week
at the ceremony.

378
00:24:51,674 --> 00:24:53,676
So while you're theoretically
in the Army,

379
00:24:53,801 --> 00:24:56,179
you can hold
a full-time civilian job.

380
00:25:16,282 --> 00:25:19,877
Many ARVN units did fight well.

381
00:25:22,997 --> 00:25:24,999
They had borne the brunt
of the fighting

382
00:25:25,124 --> 00:25:26,546
during the Tet Offensive,

383
00:25:26,667 --> 00:25:29,466
and, by the middle of 1969,

384
00:25:29,587 --> 00:25:34,184
90,000 of them
had been killed in combat.

385
00:25:34,300 --> 00:25:39,682
Their bravery was
often overlooked by Americans.

386
00:25:39,805 --> 00:25:43,400
We were disdainful of them.

387
00:25:43,559 --> 00:25:46,483
We overstated their incompetence

388
00:25:46,604 --> 00:25:50,325
because we wanted
to overstate our importance.

389
00:26:02,370 --> 00:26:07,501
Part of going to war in Vietnam
I, I enjoyed.

390
00:26:07,625 --> 00:26:12,381
If you survive it,
it's, it's quite thrilling.

391
00:26:12,505 --> 00:26:15,384
It's the history of the world.

392
00:26:16,884 --> 00:26:18,261
It's hard to survive.

393
00:26:18,386 --> 00:26:20,263
I mean, in, where I was,
survival is an issue.

394
00:26:20,429 --> 00:26:24,479
I would have loved to have been
in the National Guard.

395
00:26:26,727 --> 00:26:27,979
Period.

396
00:26:29,647 --> 00:26:32,446
I knew the core issue

397
00:26:32,608 --> 00:26:35,407
of what was acceptable in war
and what wasn't.

398
00:26:35,528 --> 00:26:36,780
I knew that.

399
00:26:36,946 --> 00:26:39,665
I didn't need to get that
from the Marine Corps.

400
00:26:39,782 --> 00:26:43,207
I got that from Sunday school.

401
00:26:43,327 --> 00:26:46,206
Thomas John
Vallely was born in Boston,

402
00:26:46,330 --> 00:26:47,673
the son of a judge,

403
00:26:47,790 --> 00:26:50,634
and brought up
in the suburb of Newton.

404
00:26:50,793 --> 00:26:56,141
Undiagnosed dyslexia kept him
from doing well in school.

405
00:26:56,298 --> 00:26:58,300
By 1969,

406
00:26:58,426 --> 00:27:01,976
Vallely was a radio operator
in the Marine Corps,

407
00:27:02,138 --> 00:27:05,142
part of a massive
search-and-destroy mission

408
00:27:05,307 --> 00:27:09,437
in Quang Nam Province in the
northern part of South Vietnam.

409
00:27:11,272 --> 00:27:12,865
On August 13,

410
00:27:12,982 --> 00:27:14,655
his company was ambushed

411
00:27:14,817 --> 00:27:18,287
and came
under heavy machine gun fire.

412
00:27:25,703 --> 00:27:29,833
It was a "grab 'em by
the belt" type of situation.

413
00:27:29,957 --> 00:27:32,836
And we lost a lot of people.

414
00:27:34,378 --> 00:27:35,675
So did they.

415
00:27:37,590 --> 00:27:39,638
Lot of people laying around.

416
00:27:42,303 --> 00:27:44,601
Vallely radioed
for reinforcements.

417
00:27:44,722 --> 00:27:48,226
Then he picked up a rifle
and ammunition

418
00:27:48,350 --> 00:27:50,728
from a wounded Marine,

419
00:27:50,853 --> 00:27:52,855
and, firing as he went,
took up a position

420
00:27:53,022 --> 00:27:55,821
just ten feet
from an enemy machine gun.

421
00:27:55,941 --> 00:28:01,368
He hurled a smoke grenade
to mark their position.

422
00:28:01,489 --> 00:28:05,369
And then, as enemy fire
swept back and forth

423
00:28:05,493 --> 00:28:07,621
across the field,

424
00:28:07,745 --> 00:28:09,292
he moved from Marine to Marine,

425
00:28:09,413 --> 00:28:11,040
pointing out targets
among the trees

426
00:28:11,207 --> 00:28:13,926
and encouraging his comrades.

427
00:28:19,965 --> 00:28:22,844
For his conspicuous gallantry,

428
00:28:22,968 --> 00:28:26,723
Tom Vallely was awarded
the Silver Star.

429
00:28:26,847 --> 00:28:29,066
You want to
tell your grandchildren

430
00:28:29,183 --> 00:28:32,278
it has a lot to do with courage,

431
00:28:32,394 --> 00:28:35,898
uh, but it, it's
really quite reactive.

432
00:28:36,023 --> 00:28:38,276
It's survival.

433
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:40,494
Either you're...

434
00:28:40,611 --> 00:28:43,160
It's, it's...

435
00:28:43,280 --> 00:28:45,624
There's no choice here.

436
00:28:45,741 --> 00:28:49,746
You react or you're not gonna
have grandchildren.

437
00:28:52,623 --> 00:28:53,934
Give me an "F"!

438
00:28:53,958 --> 00:28:54,834
"F"!

439
00:28:54,959 --> 00:28:56,176
Give me a "U"!

440
00:28:56,293 --> 00:28:57,169
"U"!

441
00:28:57,294 --> 00:28:58,386
Give me a "C"!

442
00:28:58,504 --> 00:29:00,256
"C"!
Give me a "K"!

443
00:29:00,422 --> 00:29:01,264
U Kn!

444
00:29:01,423 --> 00:29:02,595
What's that spell?

445
00:29:02,758 --> 00:29:04,601
Two days after the battle

446
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:06,888
in which Tom Vallely
distinguished himself,

447
00:29:07,012 --> 00:29:08,685
and while
half a million Americans

448
00:29:08,806 --> 00:29:11,104
were still in Vietnam,

449
00:29:11,225 --> 00:29:13,102
half a million Americans
gathered

450
00:29:13,227 --> 00:29:15,980
on a dairy farm
in upstate New York

451
00:29:16,105 --> 00:29:19,325
for a music festival: Woodstock.

452
00:30:39,021 --> 00:30:43,276
Ladies and gentlemen, Santana!

453
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:46,119
You've been told once,
you've been told twice.

454
00:30:46,236 --> 00:30:47,783
That's all...
spread it out!

455
00:30:51,325 --> 00:30:53,373
This guy from Arkansas

456
00:30:53,494 --> 00:30:57,795
told me he would not carry
the radio for me.

457
00:30:57,915 --> 00:31:02,796
He said, "I will not follow you
like Cheetah follows Tarzan.

458
00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:05,048
It's not gonna happen, Sarge."

459
00:31:05,172 --> 00:31:09,894
And I thought, "Oh, this is
gonna be a really long year."

460
00:31:10,010 --> 00:31:12,058
I've got people
down there sweeping,

461
00:31:12,179 --> 00:31:13,396
so get 'em down there.

462
00:31:15,265 --> 00:31:18,394
He evolved a little bit.

463
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:21,234
You know,
he, he kind of got the idea

464
00:31:21,355 --> 00:31:24,404
that the enemy's bullets
are colorblind.

465
00:31:24,525 --> 00:31:27,779
They would shoot anybody,
not just me.

466
00:31:30,406 --> 00:31:34,127
African-Americans had
served in every American war

467
00:31:34,243 --> 00:31:36,621
since the revolution.

468
00:31:36,745 --> 00:31:39,089
In the early years
of the Vietnam War,

469
00:31:39,248 --> 00:31:41,592
they suffered
a disproportionate number

470
00:31:41,709 --> 00:31:43,632
of combat deaths.

471
00:31:43,752 --> 00:31:46,926
When civil rights leaders
complained,

472
00:31:47,047 --> 00:31:49,846
the Defense Department
made a concerted effort

473
00:31:49,967 --> 00:31:52,015
to right that balance,

474
00:31:52,136 --> 00:31:55,606
and by 1969, it had succeeded.

475
00:31:55,764 --> 00:31:57,607
But behind the lines,

476
00:31:57,766 --> 00:32:01,270
African-American soldiers
were still treated differently

477
00:32:01,437 --> 00:32:03,656
from their white counterparts.

478
00:32:14,491 --> 00:32:16,761
And here there's all,
all these beast motherfuckers

479
00:32:16,785 --> 00:32:17,971
walking around here
with their hair

480
00:32:17,995 --> 00:32:20,464
looking like goddamn girls,

481
00:32:20,581 --> 00:32:21,798
and we can't wear our hair

482
00:32:21,915 --> 00:32:23,508
motherfucking three inches long.

483
00:32:23,625 --> 00:32:25,878
The motherfucking regulation
is three inches.

484
00:32:26,003 --> 00:32:28,631
And most of the brothers
can wear a afro,

485
00:32:28,797 --> 00:32:30,595
the hair gonna be
motherfucking two inches.

486
00:32:30,716 --> 00:32:32,309
And why we got to get
our hair cut?

487
00:32:32,468 --> 00:32:33,811
That's what I want to know.

488
00:32:35,971 --> 00:32:38,815
Vietnam was a microcosm.

489
00:32:38,974 --> 00:32:40,692
Everything that was happening
in America

490
00:32:40,809 --> 00:32:42,561
was happening in Vietnam,
really,

491
00:32:42,686 --> 00:32:44,814
in one way, shape, or form.

492
00:32:44,938 --> 00:32:46,736
In the rear,

493
00:32:46,857 --> 00:32:50,327
there were Confederate flags
flying.

494
00:32:50,486 --> 00:32:53,490
I mean, of all
things to have over here, man,

495
00:32:53,655 --> 00:32:55,828
why a Confederate flag?

496
00:32:55,991 --> 00:32:58,119
As a matter of fact,
I think there ought to be

497
00:32:58,243 --> 00:33:02,123
some goddamn law to fucking
outlaw them goddamn flags, man.

498
00:33:02,247 --> 00:33:06,343
The fucking Confederacy
is gone, man.

499
00:33:06,502 --> 00:33:08,846
When one is in an environment

500
00:33:09,004 --> 00:33:13,635
where everyone has a gun,
automatic weapon,

501
00:33:13,759 --> 00:33:16,353
I'll be goddamned if someone's
gonna call me a nigger

502
00:33:16,512 --> 00:33:18,435
or give me a bullshit order.

503
00:33:18,555 --> 00:33:22,435
I mean, that was the attitude,
to risk my life for what?

504
00:33:24,103 --> 00:33:26,982
There was all
kind of craziness happening,

505
00:33:27,106 --> 00:33:30,326
because white people were still
calling, you know, us niggers,

506
00:33:30,442 --> 00:33:33,321
and then there were some black
people calling us Uncle Toms.

507
00:33:33,445 --> 00:33:34,867
There were the antiwar folks

508
00:33:34,988 --> 00:33:37,207
who were calling us
baby killers, say...

509
00:33:37,324 --> 00:33:39,302
You know, you can say what you
want, but you can say it

510
00:33:39,326 --> 00:33:41,012
from over there
because if you get in range,

511
00:33:41,036 --> 00:33:44,916
you're gonna get serious damage
done to you.

512
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:46,587
Say what you want
from a distance,

513
00:33:46,708 --> 00:33:48,853
but if you get close to me,
I'm gonna rip your throat out.

514
00:33:48,877 --> 00:33:50,424
You know?

515
00:33:50,546 --> 00:33:54,096
But when we
walked outside that wire,

516
00:33:54,216 --> 00:33:57,140
we went out into the bush,
we were tight.

517
00:33:57,261 --> 00:33:59,480
Even with our differences.

518
00:33:59,596 --> 00:34:01,564
Maybe we had threatened
each other,

519
00:34:01,723 --> 00:34:04,727
we'd had a fight back
in the base,

520
00:34:04,893 --> 00:34:07,521
but when we were out there,
you know,

521
00:34:07,646 --> 00:34:11,196
we, we were a, a fighting unit.

522
00:34:12,693 --> 00:34:16,493
And it's almost like
an identity crisis.

523
00:34:16,613 --> 00:34:20,618
I was born here,
and my parents were born here.

524
00:34:20,742 --> 00:34:22,961
I felt, in a way,

525
00:34:23,078 --> 00:34:26,127
more American than Mexican.

526
00:34:26,248 --> 00:34:27,795
hand and repeat after me...

527
00:34:27,916 --> 00:34:32,217
The U.S. military did
not officially count Hispanics,

528
00:34:32,337 --> 00:34:36,934
but an estimated 170,000
would serve in Vietnam

529
00:34:37,092 --> 00:34:41,097
and more than 3,000
lost their lives.

530
00:34:41,221 --> 00:34:43,815
Like their fathers
and grandfathers,

531
00:34:43,932 --> 00:34:47,937
many saw military service
as both a patriotic duty

532
00:34:48,103 --> 00:34:50,822
and an opportunity to advance
their standing

533
00:34:50,939 --> 00:34:53,442
in the United States.

534
00:34:53,609 --> 00:34:56,658
But as casualties mounted

535
00:34:56,778 --> 00:34:58,780
and with a burgeoning
Chicano identity movement

536
00:34:58,947 --> 00:35:01,291
among farm workers
and college students,

537
00:35:01,408 --> 00:35:06,039
anti-war sentiment
in Hispanic communities grew.

538
00:35:06,163 --> 00:35:09,793
We're protesting against
the discriminatory draft laws

539
00:35:09,917 --> 00:35:11,965
that give deferments

540
00:35:12,085 --> 00:35:15,214
to all the Anglo middle-class
people of this country

541
00:35:15,339 --> 00:35:18,309
and make the heaviest burdens
of the war

542
00:35:18,467 --> 00:35:21,471
fall on the poor,
fall on the Mexicano.

543
00:35:21,637 --> 00:35:23,856
I had learned

544
00:35:23,972 --> 00:35:27,897
about my sister and my mother's
antiwar activities

545
00:35:28,018 --> 00:35:29,895
while I was still in Vietnam.

546
00:35:30,020 --> 00:35:32,148
In fact,
my sister wrote and said,

547
00:35:32,314 --> 00:35:34,692
"I hope you're okay with this."

548
00:35:34,816 --> 00:35:36,443
And she was honest with me.

549
00:35:36,568 --> 00:35:38,445
She told me
what they were doing.

550
00:35:38,570 --> 00:35:41,665
She says, "I'm doing it for you,
'cause I want you to come home."

551
00:35:50,123 --> 00:35:53,343
In line with our policy
of taking a stand

552
00:35:53,460 --> 00:35:55,178
on the pressing issues
of the day,

553
00:35:55,295 --> 00:35:58,174
we now present another in our
continuing series of editorials.

554
00:35:58,298 --> 00:35:59,174
The subject:

555
00:35:59,299 --> 00:36:02,098
are our draft laws unfair?

556
00:36:02,219 --> 00:36:04,267
Here again,
speaking for our program,

557
00:36:04,388 --> 00:36:06,937
is Mr. Patrick Paulsen,
vice president.

558
00:36:08,809 --> 00:36:11,062
Now, we don't claim
the draft is perfect,

559
00:36:11,186 --> 00:36:13,234
and we do have
a constructive proposal

560
00:36:13,355 --> 00:36:15,357
for a workable alternative.

561
00:36:15,524 --> 00:36:17,526
We propose a draft lottery

562
00:36:17,651 --> 00:36:19,995
in which the names
of all eligible males

563
00:36:20,112 --> 00:36:21,659
will be put into a hat,

564
00:36:21,780 --> 00:36:25,330
and the men will be drafted
according to their head sizes.

565
00:36:25,450 --> 00:36:28,954
The tiny heads will go
into the military service

566
00:36:29,079 --> 00:36:33,425
and the fat heads
will go into government.

567
00:36:33,542 --> 00:36:35,419
Roger, 3-1 is on his way.

568
00:36:35,544 --> 00:36:38,172
5-8-1.

569
00:36:38,297 --> 00:36:42,302
A 19-year-old
high school dropout says,

570
00:36:42,426 --> 00:36:45,225
"Why are we here?"

571
00:36:45,387 --> 00:36:47,105
And the, the standard response,

572
00:36:47,222 --> 00:36:49,145
at least on
an official level, was,

573
00:36:49,266 --> 00:36:52,110
to prevent
international communism

574
00:36:52,227 --> 00:36:55,106
from conquering the world.

575
00:36:55,230 --> 00:36:59,030
The men say, "Hey,
that, that's bullshit."

576
00:37:01,278 --> 00:37:02,780
So the other reason put forth,

577
00:37:02,904 --> 00:37:04,906
at least in the latter days
of the war,

578
00:37:05,073 --> 00:37:07,417
was to maintain America's
international credibility

579
00:37:07,576 --> 00:37:10,079
with our allies,
and our enemies.

580
00:37:10,245 --> 00:37:14,250
Uh, no 19, 20-year-old kid
wants to die to maintain

581
00:37:14,416 --> 00:37:17,590
the credibility of
Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon.

582
00:37:17,711 --> 00:37:21,090
And so, within a relatively
short time,

583
00:37:21,214 --> 00:37:23,308
the guys were saying,

584
00:37:23,425 --> 00:37:26,178
"Look, we shouldn't be here,
but we are.

585
00:37:26,303 --> 00:37:28,180
"So my only function in life

586
00:37:28,305 --> 00:37:31,434
"is to try and keep you alive,
buddy,

587
00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:34,604
"and to keep my precious ass
from being killed.

588
00:37:34,770 --> 00:37:38,400
And then to go home
and forget about this."

589
00:37:40,901 --> 00:37:43,529
The grunts, uh,

590
00:37:43,653 --> 00:37:46,782
don't always do what the captain
says, you know.

591
00:37:46,907 --> 00:37:50,332
We got, uh... the captain
will stay back,

592
00:37:50,452 --> 00:37:52,329
he'll tell the platoon
or something

593
00:37:52,454 --> 00:37:55,128
to go out so many
hundred meters, you know.

594
00:37:55,290 --> 00:37:56,963
We don't do it.

595
00:37:57,125 --> 00:37:58,877
We only go as far
as we get out of sight,

596
00:37:59,002 --> 00:38:00,424
sit down, and come back in.

597
00:38:00,545 --> 00:38:02,398
What happens
to an unpopular officer

598
00:38:02,422 --> 00:38:04,424
out in the field?

599
00:38:04,549 --> 00:38:07,473
Mostly unpopular officers,
from what I've heard,

600
00:38:07,594 --> 00:38:10,188
if they, if they mess with
a grunt too much,

601
00:38:10,305 --> 00:38:13,184
they get shot at.

602
00:38:13,308 --> 00:38:16,687
It had always
been a part of war.

603
00:38:16,812 --> 00:38:19,816
In Vietnam,
it was called "fragging,"

604
00:38:19,981 --> 00:38:24,157
after the fragmentation grenades
most often used.

605
00:38:24,319 --> 00:38:27,994
Beginning in the summer of 1969,

606
00:38:28,156 --> 00:38:32,002
as thousands of American troops
began going home,

607
00:38:32,119 --> 00:38:35,669
the number of reports of the
murder or attempted murder

608
00:38:35,789 --> 00:38:37,791
by enlisted men
of their superiors

609
00:38:37,916 --> 00:38:40,920
increased alarmingly.

610
00:38:41,044 --> 00:38:46,175
The Army would investigate
nearly 800 cases.

611
00:38:46,299 --> 00:38:48,222
Most took place
far from the fighting,

612
00:38:48,343 --> 00:38:51,017
usually the violent outcome
of arguments over race

613
00:38:51,179 --> 00:38:53,307
or women or drugs

614
00:38:53,432 --> 00:38:56,402
rather than the war itself.

615
00:38:56,518 --> 00:38:59,067
But there were exceptions.

616
00:38:59,187 --> 00:39:01,064
It's a totally different army

617
00:39:01,189 --> 00:39:05,035
than what we sent
to Vietnam in 1965.

618
00:39:05,152 --> 00:39:09,157
And the new lieutenant comes in,
all gung-ho for body count.

619
00:39:09,281 --> 00:39:12,706
He wants contact,
he goes crazy, and says,

620
00:39:12,868 --> 00:39:15,121
"1 want a volunteer for this."

621
00:39:17,956 --> 00:39:23,713
That new gung-ho officer
was a clear and present danger

622
00:39:23,837 --> 00:39:27,512
to the life and limb
of the grunts.

623
00:39:27,632 --> 00:39:30,181
They'd have subtle hints,
like a little note saying,

624
00:39:30,302 --> 00:39:32,896
"We're gonna kill your ass
if you keep this up."

625
00:39:33,054 --> 00:39:35,978
Or instead
of a fragmentation grenade,

626
00:39:36,099 --> 00:39:39,820
they may throw a smoke grenade
in an officer's hooch or bunker.

627
00:39:39,936 --> 00:39:43,907
And if they didn't correct
their behavior and outlook,

628
00:39:44,024 --> 00:39:47,403
yeah, they would frag them.

629
00:39:47,527 --> 00:39:51,157
I saw it happen in a very, uh,
strange way.

630
00:39:51,281 --> 00:39:59,416
We were in a base and a Marine
started running towards me.

631
00:39:59,539 --> 00:40:01,587
I didn't realize that what he...

632
00:40:01,708 --> 00:40:03,802
what he was doing back
in the dark over there

633
00:40:03,919 --> 00:40:06,092
was actually
throw a hand grenade

634
00:40:06,213 --> 00:40:09,638
underneath the space
that is underneath a hooch.

635
00:40:11,176 --> 00:40:13,429
And when it exploded,
I went, "Holy shit."

636
00:40:13,595 --> 00:40:16,895
And I knew right away
what he had done.

637
00:40:17,015 --> 00:40:20,269
And he was
an African-American Marine.

638
00:40:20,393 --> 00:40:22,270
African-Americans were treated

639
00:40:22,395 --> 00:40:24,739
with disrespect
by their superiors.

640
00:40:24,856 --> 00:40:28,702
This was not uncommon.

641
00:40:28,818 --> 00:40:33,699
So in a ways,
as bad as this sounds,

642
00:40:33,823 --> 00:40:36,201
maybe that guy
had it coming to him.

643
00:40:36,326 --> 00:40:37,794
I don't know.

644
00:40:41,039 --> 00:40:43,838
In Paris, the 29th session
of the so-called peace talks

645
00:40:43,959 --> 00:40:44,835
took place.

646
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:46,758
There was no progress.

647
00:40:46,878 --> 00:40:50,178
In Vietnam, it was announced
that 139 Americans

648
00:40:50,298 --> 00:40:51,800
lost their lives last week,

649
00:40:51,925 --> 00:40:54,474
bringing total deaths
in our longest war...

650
00:40:54,636 --> 00:40:57,480
The four-way
peace talks in Paris

651
00:40:57,639 --> 00:41:00,188
continued to go nowhere.

652
00:41:00,308 --> 00:41:03,858
To break the logjam,
Nixon directed Henry Kissinger

653
00:41:03,979 --> 00:41:06,653
to begin secret talks,

654
00:41:06,773 --> 00:41:09,367
the first in a series
of clandestine meetings

655
00:41:09,484 --> 00:41:12,237
with the North Vietnamese alone.

656
00:41:12,362 --> 00:41:14,581
They first met
in an apartment building

657
00:41:14,698 --> 00:41:16,700
on the Rue de Rivoli.

658
00:41:16,825 --> 00:41:19,749
The Viet Cong and the
South Vietnamese government

659
00:41:19,869 --> 00:41:22,543
were not included.

660
00:41:22,664 --> 00:41:25,588
Hanoi remained immovable.

661
00:41:25,709 --> 00:41:29,464
They would not even admit they
had troops in South Vietnam,

662
00:41:29,588 --> 00:41:33,513
let alone discuss
withdrawing them.

663
00:41:33,633 --> 00:41:35,351
Now Kissinger warned

664
00:41:35,510 --> 00:41:38,684
that if there were no change
in their position by November 1,

665
00:41:38,805 --> 00:41:40,682
the one-year anniversary

666
00:41:40,849 --> 00:41:43,147
of President Johnson's
bombing halt,

667
00:41:43,268 --> 00:41:44,941
President Nixon

668
00:41:45,061 --> 00:41:47,940
would "consider steps
of grave consequence."

669
00:42:00,535 --> 00:42:04,005
September 2, 1969,

670
00:42:04,122 --> 00:42:06,375
was the 24th anniversary

671
00:42:06,499 --> 00:42:10,254
of Ho Chi Minh's declaration
of Vietnamese independence

672
00:42:10,378 --> 00:42:12,722
in Hanoi's Ba Dinh Square.

673
00:42:14,758 --> 00:42:19,559
At 9:45 that morning, Ho died.

674
00:42:19,679 --> 00:42:24,276
He was said to be 79,
but like so much about him,

675
00:42:24,392 --> 00:42:29,694
the precise date of his birth
was shrouded in mystery.

676
00:42:29,814 --> 00:42:32,408
He had been "Uncle Ho"
for decades,

677
00:42:32,525 --> 00:42:35,779
the living embodiment of the
struggle against the Japanese,

678
00:42:35,904 --> 00:42:38,783
the French,
the Saigon government,

679
00:42:38,907 --> 00:42:41,751
and then the Americans.

680
00:42:43,995 --> 00:42:46,748
In a speech
to the National Assembly,

681
00:42:46,873 --> 00:42:51,253
Le Duan, the First Secretary
of the Communist Party,

682
00:42:51,419 --> 00:42:52,671
who had been the architect

683
00:42:52,796 --> 00:42:55,345
of North Vietnamese
military policy

684
00:42:55,465 --> 00:42:56,717
for a decade,

685
00:42:56,841 --> 00:43:00,812
promised to fulfill
what he said was Ho's vision:

686
00:43:00,929 --> 00:43:06,777
the reunification of the country
on communist terms.

687
00:43:08,395 --> 00:43:11,023
Nothing had changed.

688
00:43:11,147 --> 00:43:13,000
Hanoi has
given the false impression

689
00:43:13,024 --> 00:43:16,278
that all is wine and roses
and it isn't so.

690
00:43:16,403 --> 00:43:18,747
The same day Ho Chi Minh died,

691
00:43:18,863 --> 00:43:21,412
an unusual press conference
was held

692
00:43:21,533 --> 00:43:24,412
at the Bethesda Naval
Medical Center.

693
00:43:24,536 --> 00:43:27,164
Two ailing prisoners of war,

694
00:43:27,288 --> 00:43:30,758
Robert Frishman
and Douglas Hegdahl,

695
00:43:30,875 --> 00:43:33,128
who had recently been released
by the North Vietnamese,

696
00:43:33,253 --> 00:43:35,347
spoke in public
for the first time

697
00:43:35,463 --> 00:43:37,261
about the severe treatment

698
00:43:37,382 --> 00:43:40,727
they and their fellow prisoners
had received.

699
00:43:40,844 --> 00:43:43,313
I don't think
solitary confinement,

700
00:43:43,430 --> 00:43:47,185
forced statements, living in
a cage for three years,

701
00:43:47,308 --> 00:43:51,154
being put in straps, not being
allowed to sleep or eat,

702
00:43:51,271 --> 00:43:54,696
removal of fingernails,
being hung from a ceiling,

703
00:43:54,816 --> 00:43:57,069
having an infected arm
which was almost lost,

704
00:43:57,193 --> 00:43:59,412
not receiving medical care,

705
00:43:59,529 --> 00:44:01,657
being dragged along the ground
with a broken leg,

706
00:44:01,823 --> 00:44:04,702
or not allowing exchange of mail
to prisoners of war

707
00:44:04,826 --> 00:44:06,169
are humane.

708
00:44:06,286 --> 00:44:10,462
Douglas Hegdahl
was quiet, self-effacing,

709
00:44:10,582 --> 00:44:13,131
and so apparently clueless,

710
00:44:13,251 --> 00:44:15,299
his North Vietnamese guards

711
00:44:15,420 --> 00:44:18,139
had called him
the "stupid one."

712
00:44:18,256 --> 00:44:19,678
But once released,

713
00:44:19,841 --> 00:44:23,015
he was a gold mine
of information.

714
00:44:23,136 --> 00:44:27,016
He had memorized the names
of more than 200 prisoners

715
00:44:27,140 --> 00:44:30,735
to the tune of
"Old McDonald Had a Farm."

716
00:44:30,852 --> 00:44:33,696
Thanks to him,
scores of American families

717
00:44:33,813 --> 00:44:35,861
would find out
for the first time

718
00:44:36,024 --> 00:44:41,155
that their sons and husbands
and fathers were still alive.

719
00:44:41,279 --> 00:44:44,749
Within a few days
of the press conference,

720
00:44:44,866 --> 00:44:48,621
Hanoi's treatment of the
prisoners began to improve.

721
00:44:48,745 --> 00:44:52,591
"A lot less brutality,"
one captive remembered,

722
00:44:52,707 --> 00:44:55,210
"and larger bowls of rice."

723
00:45:10,058 --> 00:45:11,452
All right, who's wounded?

724
00:45:11,476 --> 00:45:14,070
All right, give me some cover!

725
00:45:14,229 --> 00:45:16,857
Devallier is
the lone medic in the platoon.

726
00:45:16,981 --> 00:45:18,107
He's scared,

727
00:45:18,233 --> 00:45:20,577
scared from the moment
he gets out of the chopper

728
00:45:20,693 --> 00:45:22,070
to the moment it picks him up.

729
00:45:22,237 --> 00:45:25,081
Scared that someday
he's going to get killed

730
00:45:25,240 --> 00:45:28,210
picking up a wounded buddy.

731
00:45:31,955 --> 00:45:34,128
I was the replacement

732
00:45:34,249 --> 00:45:37,844
for a medic who had been killed.

733
00:45:37,961 --> 00:45:41,511
First time out, we were assigned
to do a patrol.

734
00:45:41,631 --> 00:45:45,010
Remember to stop the bleeding!

735
00:45:45,134 --> 00:45:50,732
And we stumbled
actually into an ambush.

736
00:45:53,601 --> 00:45:56,946
And it was incredibly
terrifying.

737
00:45:57,063 --> 00:45:59,316
Guys were screaming and yelling.

738
00:45:59,440 --> 00:46:01,693
There was shooting everywhere.

739
00:46:01,818 --> 00:46:05,789
That first firefight,
I remember praying to God,

740
00:46:05,905 --> 00:46:12,003
if He got me through this
that I would make a difference.

741
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:16,421
That I really would make
a difference.

742
00:46:16,541 --> 00:46:19,590
Sometimes their lives
depend on you, I mean;

743
00:46:19,711 --> 00:46:22,635
you hold it in your hands,
as a medic.

744
00:46:22,755 --> 00:46:25,599
It's just hard to say
but right then,

745
00:46:25,717 --> 00:46:27,936
you hold life and death
in your hand.

746
00:46:28,052 --> 00:46:31,727
In Vietnam,
medics and navy corpsmen

747
00:46:31,848 --> 00:46:34,317
accompanied infantry units
on patrols,

748
00:46:34,434 --> 00:46:36,277
search and destroy missions,

749
00:46:36,394 --> 00:46:39,864
and large-scale
combat operations.

750
00:46:39,981 --> 00:46:43,736
Nearly 2,000
would lose their lives.

751
00:46:47,530 --> 00:46:50,079
Unlike in previous wars,

752
00:46:50,199 --> 00:46:53,499
many medics in Vietnam chose
to carry weapons,

753
00:46:53,620 --> 00:46:55,998
and when the shooting started,

754
00:46:56,122 --> 00:46:58,796
were willing to use them
to protect themselves

755
00:46:58,917 --> 00:47:01,761
and their wounded comrades.

756
00:47:01,878 --> 00:47:05,257
I carried an M16,

757
00:47:05,381 --> 00:47:08,430
but I did not know
if I could kill.

758
00:47:08,551 --> 00:47:12,146
Part of being a medic
was to save lives.

759
00:47:12,263 --> 00:47:18,487
I wondered, if the scenario
presented itself, would I?

760
00:47:18,603 --> 00:47:23,200
I did participate
in shooting at the enemy.

761
00:47:23,358 --> 00:47:25,736
We killed a lot of people.

762
00:47:25,860 --> 00:47:29,114
I feel that responsibility.

763
00:47:30,573 --> 00:47:33,417
I feel blood on my hands.

764
00:47:38,831 --> 00:47:43,428
When you kill someone
for your country,

765
00:47:43,544 --> 00:47:46,468
all things change.

766
00:47:57,934 --> 00:47:59,334
We believed it's possible

767
00:47:59,435 --> 00:48:01,483
to create a substantial
majority in this country

768
00:48:01,604 --> 00:48:03,197
for withdrawal from Vietnam,

769
00:48:03,314 --> 00:48:05,066
and that's what we're about
in the long run.

770
00:48:05,191 --> 00:48:07,034
In November,
we'll be back again,

771
00:48:07,151 --> 00:48:08,619
in December,
we'll be back again.

772
00:48:08,736 --> 00:48:10,579
And we intend to build
the movement,

773
00:48:10,738 --> 00:48:12,991
which will make it imperative

774
00:48:13,116 --> 00:48:15,414
that the United States
withdraw from Vietnam.

775
00:48:15,535 --> 00:48:18,379
The organizers of
the moratorium do not aim

776
00:48:18,496 --> 00:48:21,090
at confrontation
or scuffles with the police.

777
00:48:21,249 --> 00:48:24,173
Instead, they want to involve
the most people possible

778
00:48:24,293 --> 00:48:27,217
in some gesture of protest,
however modest,

779
00:48:27,338 --> 00:48:30,842
so as to show the administration
that a large bloc of Americans

780
00:48:30,967 --> 00:48:33,436
care not about winning
or losing the war,

781
00:48:33,594 --> 00:48:35,767
but only about ending it.

782
00:48:39,225 --> 00:48:40,351
Thank you.

783
00:48:40,476 --> 00:48:42,695
Now, I understand

784
00:48:42,812 --> 00:48:45,065
that there has been
and continues to be

785
00:48:45,189 --> 00:48:48,033
opposition to the war
in Vietnam on the campuses

786
00:48:48,151 --> 00:48:51,030
and also in the nation.

787
00:48:51,154 --> 00:48:52,155
Uh, we expect it.

788
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:54,157
However, under no circumstances

789
00:48:54,282 --> 00:48:57,456
will I be affected whatever
by it.

790
00:48:57,577 --> 00:49:01,377
Hoping to undercut
support for the moratorium,

791
00:49:01,497 --> 00:49:03,670
Nixon canceled the draft calls

792
00:49:03,791 --> 00:49:07,546
for the months
of November and December 1969.

793
00:49:07,670 --> 00:49:10,970
And he instituted
a random lottery system

794
00:49:11,090 --> 00:49:13,809
based on the date
of a young man's birth,

795
00:49:13,968 --> 00:49:16,812
intended
to treat rich and poor alike

796
00:49:16,971 --> 00:49:20,601
and do away
with unfair deferments.

797
00:49:20,725 --> 00:49:24,229
It was good policy and
a brilliant political maneuver.

798
00:49:25,772 --> 00:49:27,115
On the line,
brothers and sisters.

799
00:49:27,231 --> 00:49:28,608
On the line now.

800
00:49:30,401 --> 00:49:32,495
As people across
the country organized

801
00:49:32,653 --> 00:49:34,451
for the peaceful moratorium,

802
00:49:34,572 --> 00:49:36,495
members of a radical faction

803
00:49:36,657 --> 00:49:39,331
of the Students
for a Democratic Society...

804
00:49:39,494 --> 00:49:40,666
the "Weathermen"...

805
00:49:40,787 --> 00:49:41,834
took more direct action.

806
00:49:43,372 --> 00:49:45,966
Less interested
in ending the war

807
00:49:46,084 --> 00:49:48,553
than in sparking
a violent revolution,

808
00:49:48,669 --> 00:49:53,391
they staged what they called
four "Days of Rage" in Chicago.

809
00:49:55,718 --> 00:49:58,767
We no longer
simply resist the pigs.

810
00:49:58,888 --> 00:50:00,856
We no longer trap ourselves

811
00:50:00,973 --> 00:50:02,475
so that the only possible motion

812
00:50:02,600 --> 00:50:04,648
is in response to pig attacks.

813
00:50:04,769 --> 00:50:06,988
We have gone on the offensive.

814
00:50:07,105 --> 00:50:08,982
It is we who call the shots now.

815
00:50:09,107 --> 00:50:11,235
"Kill all the rich people,"

816
00:50:11,359 --> 00:50:12,576
one of their leaders said.

817
00:50:12,693 --> 00:50:15,663
"Break up
their cars and apartments.

818
00:50:15,780 --> 00:50:17,874
"Bring the revolution home.

819
00:50:18,032 --> 00:50:19,534
"Kill your parents.

820
00:50:19,659 --> 00:50:22,788
That's really where it's at."

821
00:50:22,912 --> 00:50:24,789
Weathermen takes
its name from a line

822
00:50:24,914 --> 00:50:26,541
in a Bob Dylan song which says,

823
00:50:26,707 --> 00:50:28,425
"You don't need a weatherman

824
00:50:28,543 --> 00:50:29,965
to know the way
the wind blows."

825
00:50:36,968 --> 00:50:39,221
The Weathermen assumed

826
00:50:39,387 --> 00:50:42,015
thousands would rally
to their cause.

827
00:50:42,140 --> 00:50:45,144
Only 600 did.

828
00:50:45,268 --> 00:50:48,738
They blew up a statue
honoring slain policemen,

829
00:50:48,896 --> 00:50:52,070
ran through the streets
wielding chains and pipes,

830
00:50:52,233 --> 00:50:54,327
smashing windows and windshields

831
00:50:54,443 --> 00:50:57,947
and charging police barriers.

832
00:50:58,072 --> 00:50:59,745
Six were shot.

833
00:50:59,866 --> 00:51:02,585
250 were jailed.

834
00:51:02,743 --> 00:51:05,917
75 policemen were injured;

835
00:51:06,080 --> 00:51:09,084
a city attorney
was paralyzed for life.

836
00:51:11,294 --> 00:51:14,673
The Black Panthers
denounced the Weathermen

837
00:51:14,797 --> 00:51:17,767
as "anarchistic,
opportunistic...

838
00:51:17,925 --> 00:51:21,395
Custeristic."

839
00:51:21,512 --> 00:51:24,561
Probably 1969 was the year

840
00:51:24,682 --> 00:51:26,810
in which most of us
were more alienated

841
00:51:26,934 --> 00:51:30,780
and felt
more like revolutionaries.

842
00:51:30,897 --> 00:51:35,573
And it led
to a lot of crazy responses.

843
00:51:35,693 --> 00:51:39,539
I wanted the country to undergo
a radical transformation,

844
00:51:39,655 --> 00:51:42,534
a redistribution
of wealth and power.

845
00:51:42,658 --> 00:51:44,911
But to try to bring that about

846
00:51:45,036 --> 00:51:47,755
through armed struggle
in the United States

847
00:51:47,872 --> 00:51:49,795
was insane.

848
00:51:49,957 --> 00:51:52,301
These were all
infantile fantasies

849
00:51:52,418 --> 00:51:55,171
that people came to
out of the frustration

850
00:51:55,296 --> 00:51:57,924
of not having
a workable strategy

851
00:51:58,049 --> 00:52:01,303
for ending the war.

852
00:52:01,427 --> 00:52:02,988
What do you think
people ought to do, governor,

853
00:52:03,012 --> 00:52:04,810
who are genuinely opposed
to the war

854
00:52:04,972 --> 00:52:07,100
but not in favor
of the Viet Cong?

855
00:52:07,225 --> 00:52:11,571
Well, I think that we have
had... experiences before

856
00:52:11,687 --> 00:52:14,156
of people who have been
opposed to wars,

857
00:52:14,315 --> 00:52:17,159
and I think they deal through
their own representatives,

858
00:52:17,276 --> 00:52:19,654
and it's dealt with
in government channels.

859
00:52:19,779 --> 00:52:22,157
But once the killing starts,

860
00:52:22,323 --> 00:52:24,166
the very difficult thing then
is,

861
00:52:24,283 --> 00:52:28,083
how do you register
these protests

862
00:52:28,204 --> 00:52:30,172
without lending comfort
and aid to the enemy,

863
00:52:30,289 --> 00:52:32,166
without strengthening
his resistance

864
00:52:32,291 --> 00:52:33,338
and his will to fight

865
00:52:33,501 --> 00:52:36,004
and thus
killing more of our men?

866
00:52:36,128 --> 00:52:40,178
And most Americans in the past
have always respected it.

867
00:52:40,341 --> 00:52:41,843
You see, the people
in this country

868
00:52:42,009 --> 00:52:43,932
aren't fighting a Vietnam War.

869
00:52:44,053 --> 00:52:45,521
The government's fighting it.

870
00:52:45,638 --> 00:52:46,758
Well, the government is, uh,

871
00:52:46,847 --> 00:52:48,941
the government is the
people, supposedly, No.

872
00:52:49,058 --> 00:52:51,218
But in this instance, it is not.
Not anymore, it's not.

873
00:52:51,352 --> 00:52:52,729
No, I agree with you, it is not.

874
00:52:52,853 --> 00:52:54,196
Not in this situation, it's not.

875
00:52:54,313 --> 00:52:55,690
Shouldn't I
let my government know

876
00:52:55,856 --> 00:52:56,948
that I think they're crazy?

877
00:52:57,066 --> 00:52:58,534
I think they are insane, really.

878
00:52:58,651 --> 00:53:00,574
This is an insane thing
we're doing.

879
00:53:00,695 --> 00:53:02,163
As a matter of fact,

880
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:04,328
Nixon said
he will not listen to us

881
00:53:04,448 --> 00:53:06,041
and that he will not
be dictated to

882
00:53:06,158 --> 00:53:07,910
from the people in the streets.

883
00:53:08,035 --> 00:53:11,881
The people in the streets
are me.

884
00:53:14,959 --> 00:53:19,214
The moratorium on October 15,

885
00:53:19,380 --> 00:53:20,848
held all across the country,

886
00:53:20,965 --> 00:53:23,764
was the largest outpouring
of public dissent

887
00:53:23,884 --> 00:53:25,306
in American history.

888
00:53:48,200 --> 00:53:50,919
It was peaceful, middle-class,

889
00:53:51,078 --> 00:53:54,048
carefully focused
on ending the war.

890
00:53:54,165 --> 00:53:56,543
"It's nice," one marcher said,

891
00:53:56,667 --> 00:53:58,385
"to go to a demonstration

892
00:53:58,502 --> 00:54:03,349
without having to swear
allegiance to Chairman Mao."

893
00:54:05,009 --> 00:54:07,512
Surely this is a
day unique in our history.

894
00:54:07,636 --> 00:54:10,606
Never have
so many of our people publicly

895
00:54:10,723 --> 00:54:13,021
and collectively
manifested opposition

896
00:54:13,142 --> 00:54:16,191
to this country's involvement
in a war.

897
00:54:16,312 --> 00:54:19,236
It is unlikely
we will remain unchanged.

898
00:54:19,357 --> 00:54:22,201
Hundreds and hundreds
of thousands

899
00:54:22,318 --> 00:54:24,478
in cities from New York,
with its eight million people,

900
00:54:24,528 --> 00:54:27,782
to Dubois, Wyoming,
with its 800 people,

901
00:54:27,948 --> 00:54:30,121
have sought to impress
upon the president

902
00:54:30,284 --> 00:54:32,286
their opposition to the war.

903
00:54:34,830 --> 00:54:41,634
The first large protest
march I went to was in Baltimore.

904
00:54:41,754 --> 00:54:45,304
I'd never been with that many
people at one time.

905
00:54:45,424 --> 00:54:51,477
Just the energy of the crowd
itself was tremendous.

906
00:54:51,597 --> 00:54:53,850
I wondered
if everybody was in it

907
00:54:53,974 --> 00:54:55,976
for the right reasons.

908
00:54:56,102 --> 00:55:00,653
I wasn't there to drink
or smoke pot.

909
00:55:00,773 --> 00:55:02,992
Not in those situations.

910
00:55:03,109 --> 00:55:06,613
These, to me,
were serious business.

911
00:55:06,737 --> 00:55:10,162
This was the business
of living life.

912
00:55:10,324 --> 00:55:11,621
This was not a party.

913
00:55:11,742 --> 00:55:14,370
I didn't just want
to be with the crowd.

914
00:55:14,495 --> 00:55:16,497
I didn't just want
to make noise.

915
00:55:16,622 --> 00:55:18,624
I wanted to make a difference.

916
00:55:18,749 --> 00:55:23,175
And I in no way
wanted to dishonor my brother.

917
00:55:24,964 --> 00:55:26,932
For most of the
government today,

918
00:55:27,049 --> 00:55:28,471
it was business as usual.

919
00:55:28,592 --> 00:55:30,344
But at noon
on the Capitol steps,

920
00:55:30,469 --> 00:55:32,847
a thousand young
congressional staff employees

921
00:55:32,972 --> 00:55:35,566
stood in silence for 45 minutes.

922
00:55:40,354 --> 00:55:43,733
The children of several
of the president's closest aides

923
00:55:43,858 --> 00:55:45,235
and cabinet members

924
00:55:45,359 --> 00:55:48,033
took part
in the national moratorium.

925
00:55:48,154 --> 00:55:51,408
Vice President Agnew's
14-year-old daughter

926
00:55:51,532 --> 00:55:53,159
wanted to march,

927
00:55:53,284 --> 00:55:54,786
but he wouldn't let her.

928
00:55:54,910 --> 00:55:56,878
Coretta Scott King,

929
00:55:57,037 --> 00:55:59,881
the widow
of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,

930
00:55:59,999 --> 00:56:02,673
led thousands
of silent demonstrators

931
00:56:02,793 --> 00:56:06,548
streaming past the White House,
where Nixon sat alone,

932
00:56:06,672 --> 00:56:09,972
writing notes to himself
on a yellow pad.

933
00:56:10,092 --> 00:56:11,969
"Don't get rattled.
Don't waver.

934
00:56:12,094 --> 00:56:14,643
Don't react."

935
00:56:17,266 --> 00:56:19,064
On November 3,

936
00:56:19,185 --> 00:56:22,530
the president sought
to seize back the initiative.

937
00:56:22,646 --> 00:56:24,398
Good evening,
my fellow Americans.

938
00:56:24,565 --> 00:56:28,411
He went on national
television and called for patience

939
00:56:28,527 --> 00:56:31,747
and asked Americans
to rally behind him.

940
00:56:31,864 --> 00:56:33,662
To you,

941
00:56:33,782 --> 00:56:38,083
the great silent majority
of my fellow Americans,

942
00:56:38,204 --> 00:56:40,081
I ask for your support.

943
00:56:40,206 --> 00:56:43,130
I pledged in my campaign
for the presidency

944
00:56:43,250 --> 00:56:44,752
to end the war

945
00:56:44,919 --> 00:56:47,843
in a way
that we could win the peace.

946
00:56:47,963 --> 00:56:51,593
The more support I can have
from the American people,

947
00:56:51,759 --> 00:56:53,761
the sooner that pledge
can be redeemed;

948
00:56:53,886 --> 00:56:57,265
for the more divided we are
at home,

949
00:56:57,431 --> 00:57:01,026
the less likely the enemy
is to negotiate at Paris.

950
00:57:02,478 --> 00:57:04,822
Let us be united for peace.

951
00:57:09,318 --> 00:57:11,446
The speech was a triumph.

952
00:57:11,570 --> 00:57:15,450
Nixon's approval rate
soared to 68%.

953
00:57:17,785 --> 00:57:20,129
All that's in the news

954
00:57:20,246 --> 00:57:22,340
is the fact that
the moratoriums are meeting,

955
00:57:22,456 --> 00:57:24,424
that our country's sick...

956
00:57:24,542 --> 00:57:26,294
sick of this and sick of that.

957
00:57:26,418 --> 00:57:29,012
It's young people are all
the ones that are standing up.

958
00:57:29,129 --> 00:57:32,474
And there is a silent majority,
which is no longer silent.

959
00:57:32,633 --> 00:57:35,807
We're the people
who are wanting to show

960
00:57:35,970 --> 00:57:38,814
that man deserves freedom
no matter where he is.

961
00:57:41,267 --> 00:57:43,816
Many brave men died in
this country to make it free...

962
00:57:43,936 --> 00:57:45,563
I believe that.

963
00:57:45,688 --> 00:57:47,861
And let you...
and let you have everything.

964
00:57:47,982 --> 00:57:51,202
Senator Fulbright
said some months ago

965
00:57:51,318 --> 00:57:53,821
that if the Vietnam War
went on much longer,

966
00:57:53,946 --> 00:57:57,746
the best of our young people
would be in Canada.

967
00:57:57,866 --> 00:58:00,665
Indeed, as for these deserters,

968
00:58:00,786 --> 00:58:04,711
malcontents, radicals,
incendiaries,

969
00:58:04,832 --> 00:58:07,176
the civil
and the uncivil disobedience

970
00:58:07,293 --> 00:58:09,136
among our young,

971
00:58:09,253 --> 00:58:11,096
SDS, PLP,

972
00:58:11,213 --> 00:58:12,440
Weatherman one, Weatherman two,

973
00:58:12,464 --> 00:58:14,637
the Revolutionary
Action Movement,

974
00:58:14,758 --> 00:58:16,852
Panthers, lions, hippies,

975
00:58:17,011 --> 00:58:19,764
yippies, tigers alike.

976
00:58:19,888 --> 00:58:22,357
I'd rather swap
the whole damn zoo

977
00:58:22,474 --> 00:58:24,897
for a single platoon
of the kind of young Americans

978
00:58:25,019 --> 00:58:26,316
I saw in Vietnam.

979
00:58:29,398 --> 00:58:32,572
"We've got the liberal
bastards on the run now,"

980
00:58:32,693 --> 00:58:35,196
Nixon told his aides,

981
00:58:35,362 --> 00:58:39,458
"and we're going to keep them
on the run."

982
00:58:54,089 --> 00:58:56,057
My doorbell rang,

983
00:58:56,175 --> 00:58:58,303
and it was this guy
standing there,

984
00:58:58,427 --> 00:59:01,522
and he said, "Ms. Howard,
we're marching in Memphis

985
00:59:01,639 --> 00:59:04,438
in protest of the Vietnam War."

986
00:59:04,558 --> 00:59:06,526
I said, "Really?"

987
00:59:06,644 --> 00:59:10,069
He said, "And we figured
in view of what happened..."

988
00:59:10,189 --> 00:59:13,318
I said, "Yeah, my son's death."

989
00:59:13,442 --> 00:59:16,195
He said, "Well, we thought
you'd like to join us."

990
00:59:16,320 --> 00:59:18,573
I said,
"One of the reasons he died

991
00:59:18,697 --> 00:59:20,074
"was so you have the right.

992
00:59:20,199 --> 00:59:22,918
"In this country,
you have a right.

993
00:59:23,077 --> 00:59:25,125
"Go right ahead and demonstrate.

994
00:59:25,245 --> 00:59:27,213
Have at it."

995
00:59:27,331 --> 00:59:29,675
I said, "But no,
I won't be joining you."

996
00:59:29,792 --> 00:59:31,419
I said, "But I'll tell you what.

997
00:59:31,543 --> 00:59:33,261
"If you ever
ring my doorbell again,

998
00:59:33,379 --> 00:59:36,349
I will blow your damn head off
with a.357 Magnum."

999
00:59:46,725 --> 00:59:48,944
Well, I was stationed in Vietnam

1000
00:59:49,103 --> 00:59:52,448
at a province called Quang Ngai.

1001
00:59:52,606 --> 00:59:54,166
Even back during the time
of the French,

1002
00:59:54,233 --> 00:59:58,204
it was a very heavily
Viet Minh area,

1003
00:59:58,320 --> 01:00:00,789
and, when I arrived,
heavily Viet Cong.

1004
01:00:02,449 --> 01:00:05,999
No province suffered
more during the American war

1005
01:00:06,120 --> 01:00:08,464
than the coastal province
of Quang Ngai.

1006
01:00:10,666 --> 01:00:15,388
More than 70% of its villages
had been shelled by Navy ships,

1007
01:00:15,504 --> 01:00:19,304
bombed, bulldozed,
or burned to the ground,

1008
01:00:19,466 --> 01:00:21,810
and more than 40% of its people

1009
01:00:21,927 --> 01:00:24,476
had been forced
into refugee camps

1010
01:00:24,596 --> 01:00:28,021
before Tim O'Brien
from Worthington, Minnesota,

1011
01:00:28,142 --> 01:00:30,520
got there in 1969.

1012
01:00:32,646 --> 01:00:34,286
It was a
province that was viewed

1013
01:00:34,398 --> 01:00:36,742
much as I guess
many Americans might view,

1014
01:00:36,859 --> 01:00:39,078
you know,
sort of redneck America.

1015
01:00:39,194 --> 01:00:42,539
Sort of country bumpkins.

1016
01:00:42,656 --> 01:00:44,050
And they may have been
country bumpkins,

1017
01:00:44,074 --> 01:00:46,497
but they were
fiercely independent.

1018
01:00:46,660 --> 01:00:50,005
Private O'Brien
served in Alpha Company,

1019
01:00:50,122 --> 01:00:54,673
3rd Platoon, 5th Battalion,
23rd Americal Division,

1020
01:00:54,835 --> 01:00:57,930
headquartered
at a landing zone called Gator,

1021
01:00:58,046 --> 01:01:01,220
"30 or 40 acres
of almost-America,"

1022
01:01:01,341 --> 01:01:02,968
O'Brien remembered,

1023
01:01:03,093 --> 01:01:06,313
with hot showers and cold beer.

1024
01:01:08,056 --> 01:01:09,729
There was no sense of mission.

1025
01:01:09,850 --> 01:01:11,352
There was no sense
of daily purpose.

1026
01:01:11,518 --> 01:01:13,520
We didn't know
why we were in a village

1027
01:01:13,687 --> 01:01:15,781
or what we were supposed
to accomplish.

1028
01:01:15,898 --> 01:01:18,026
So we'd kick around jugs of rice

1029
01:01:18,192 --> 01:01:21,036
and search houses
and frisk people,

1030
01:01:21,153 --> 01:01:23,451
and not knowing
what we were looking for

1031
01:01:23,572 --> 01:01:26,951
and rarely finding anything.

1032
01:01:27,075 --> 01:01:28,292
And somebody might die,

1033
01:01:28,410 --> 01:01:30,208
one of our guys,
and somebody might not.

1034
01:01:30,329 --> 01:01:32,673
Then we'd come back to
the same village a week later

1035
01:01:32,790 --> 01:01:35,009
or two weeks later,
do it all over again.

1036
01:01:35,125 --> 01:01:37,878
It was like chasing ghosts.

1037
01:01:42,007 --> 01:01:43,759
An American APC

1038
01:01:43,884 --> 01:01:47,388
accidentally crushed one man
from O'Brien's company.

1039
01:01:47,554 --> 01:01:51,730
An enemy grenade skittered off
O'Brien's helmet and exploded,

1040
01:01:51,850 --> 01:01:55,229
wounding a G.I. standing
a few feet away.

1041
01:01:58,190 --> 01:02:02,070
But mines and booby traps
were the greatest menace.

1042
01:02:08,617 --> 01:02:11,120
Somewhere around
80% of our casualties

1043
01:02:11,245 --> 01:02:13,623
came from land mines
of all sorts.

1044
01:02:15,374 --> 01:02:18,253
In Vietnam, for me,
just to get up in the morning

1045
01:02:18,418 --> 01:02:21,592
and look out at the land
and think,

1046
01:02:21,713 --> 01:02:24,466
"In a few minutes
I'll be walking out there,

1047
01:02:24,591 --> 01:02:27,435
"and will my corpse
be there or there?

1048
01:02:27,594 --> 01:02:30,768
Will I lose a leg out there?"

1049
01:02:30,889 --> 01:02:35,110
I'd always thought of courage
as charging enemy bunkers

1050
01:02:35,227 --> 01:02:37,446
or standing up under fire.

1051
01:02:37,604 --> 01:02:40,904
But just to walk
through Quang Ngai,

1052
01:02:41,024 --> 01:02:43,277
day after day,
from village to village,

1053
01:02:43,402 --> 01:02:47,748
and through the paddies
and up into the mountains,

1054
01:02:47,865 --> 01:02:51,369
just to make your legs move
was an act of courage

1055
01:02:51,493 --> 01:02:54,121
that if, say,
you were living in Sioux City,

1056
01:02:54,288 --> 01:02:55,881
it wouldn't be courageous

1057
01:02:55,998 --> 01:02:58,467
to walk to the grocery store
or down Main Street,

1058
01:02:58,625 --> 01:03:01,128
you know, just to have
your legs go back and forth.

1059
01:03:01,253 --> 01:03:02,846
But in Vietnam, for me,

1060
01:03:02,963 --> 01:03:05,057
just to walk felt
incredibly brave.

1061
01:03:05,173 --> 01:03:07,642
I would sometimes look
at my legs as I walked,

1062
01:03:07,759 --> 01:03:09,682
thinking, "How am I doing this?"

1063
01:03:42,044 --> 01:03:44,263
Bao Ninh was 17

1064
01:03:44,379 --> 01:03:47,223
when he was drafted
into the North Vietnamese Army

1065
01:03:47,341 --> 01:03:48,433
to fight the Americans,

1066
01:03:48,550 --> 01:03:51,850
just as his father
had fought the French.

1067
01:03:51,970 --> 01:03:55,190
His war would take place
in the Central Highlands

1068
01:03:55,307 --> 01:03:57,401
of South Vietnam.

1069
01:03:57,517 --> 01:03:59,611
It was American firepower

1070
01:03:59,728 --> 01:04:04,234
that Bao Ninh and his fellow
soldiers feared the most.

1071
01:06:29,753 --> 01:06:31,801
Back in the spring,

1072
01:06:31,922 --> 01:06:35,347
Tim O'Brien's outfit had been
sent into an area of operations

1073
01:06:35,467 --> 01:06:38,220
the Americans called
"Pinkville,"

1074
01:06:38,345 --> 01:06:40,188
clusters of villages

1075
01:06:40,305 --> 01:06:43,650
that included a hamlet
they called My Lai.

1076
01:06:45,602 --> 01:06:47,696
We hated going there.

1077
01:06:47,854 --> 01:06:50,573
When we'd get the word,
"You're headed for Pinkville,"

1078
01:06:50,690 --> 01:06:52,710
one guy would say to another,
"Somebody's gonna die,"

1079
01:06:52,734 --> 01:06:54,054
or, "Somebody's
gonna lose a leg."

1080
01:06:54,194 --> 01:06:56,162
We were terrified of the place.

1081
01:06:56,279 --> 01:06:59,704
It was littered with land mines.

1082
01:06:59,825 --> 01:07:01,623
The villagers were...

1083
01:07:01,743 --> 01:07:03,541
The expressions on their faces,

1084
01:07:03,662 --> 01:07:07,917
including the children
of, say, six or five years old,

1085
01:07:08,041 --> 01:07:13,138
had a mixture of hostility
and terror.

1086
01:07:15,507 --> 01:07:16,929
I can't say
many of the villagers

1087
01:07:17,050 --> 01:07:19,052
came with open arms to us,

1088
01:07:19,219 --> 01:07:21,221
but this place was special.

1089
01:07:21,346 --> 01:07:23,314
And I remember talking
to fellow soldiers,

1090
01:07:23,431 --> 01:07:25,684
thinking,
"What is it with this place?"

1091
01:07:27,060 --> 01:07:29,062
And then about three-quarters
of the way

1092
01:07:29,229 --> 01:07:30,822
through my tour in Vietnam,

1093
01:07:30,939 --> 01:07:34,113
the story of the My Lai Massacre
broke in the States.

1094
01:07:35,443 --> 01:07:38,413
On November 12, 1969,

1095
01:07:38,572 --> 01:07:41,075
the Dispatch News Service
in Washington

1096
01:07:41,199 --> 01:07:45,249
moved a story by investigative
journalist Seymour Hersh.

1097
01:07:46,621 --> 01:07:48,840
It was soon followed
by the publication

1098
01:07:48,957 --> 01:07:53,929
of graphic photos taken by Army
photographer Ronald Haeberle.

1099
01:07:55,422 --> 01:07:59,222
The story and the pictures
stunned the country.

1100
01:07:59,342 --> 01:08:00,889
Charges have been made

1101
01:08:01,011 --> 01:08:03,730
that troops
of the Americal Division

1102
01:08:03,847 --> 01:08:07,272
killed as many as
567 South Vietnamese civilians

1103
01:08:07,392 --> 01:08:10,521
during a sweep in March 1968.

1104
01:08:11,813 --> 01:08:13,781
20 months earlier,

1105
01:08:13,899 --> 01:08:17,324
on the morning
of March 16, 1968,

1106
01:08:17,444 --> 01:08:20,072
105 men from a rifle company

1107
01:08:20,197 --> 01:08:22,325
belonging
to the Americal Division,

1108
01:08:22,449 --> 01:08:24,543
and led by Captain Ernest Medina

1109
01:08:24,659 --> 01:08:26,787
and Lieutenant William Calley,

1110
01:08:26,912 --> 01:08:30,962
had been ordered to helicopter
into the village of My Lai 4.

1111
01:08:32,334 --> 01:08:35,554
Since arriving in Vietnam,
they had lost 28 men

1112
01:08:35,670 --> 01:08:40,517
to mines and booby traps
and unseen snipers.

1113
01:08:40,634 --> 01:08:45,481
Two days earlier, a popular
squad leader had been killed.

1114
01:08:45,639 --> 01:08:49,269
They had been told
a unit of main-force Viet Cong

1115
01:08:49,392 --> 01:08:51,019
was waiting for them,

1116
01:08:51,144 --> 01:08:53,897
and they were eager for revenge.

1117
01:08:55,232 --> 01:08:57,701
But they received
no hostile fire,

1118
01:08:57,817 --> 01:09:02,618
encountered no enemy soldiers.

1119
01:09:04,115 --> 01:09:07,369
Instead,
over the next four hours,

1120
01:09:07,494 --> 01:09:10,338
Medina, Calley,
and their men murdered

1121
01:09:10,455 --> 01:09:18,089
407 defenseless old men,
women, children, and infants.

1122
01:09:28,139 --> 01:09:30,767
Many of the women and girls
were raped

1123
01:09:30,892 --> 01:09:33,190
before they were shot.

1124
01:09:36,273 --> 01:09:38,526
There would have been
still more slaughter

1125
01:09:38,692 --> 01:09:42,822
had a helicopter pilot named
Hugh Thompson, Jr., not landed

1126
01:09:42,946 --> 01:09:46,325
between the men and some
of their intended targets

1127
01:09:46,449 --> 01:09:50,044
and ordered his crew to open
fire on their fellow Americans

1128
01:09:50,203 --> 01:09:53,423
if they did not stop
shooting civilians.

1129
01:09:56,710 --> 01:10:00,214
At the same time,
just a mile or so away,

1130
01:10:00,380 --> 01:10:05,056
another company murdered
97 more villagers.

1131
01:10:07,053 --> 01:10:10,057
And suddenly it was
like a window shade going up,

1132
01:10:10,223 --> 01:10:11,600
and then there's light,

1133
01:10:11,725 --> 01:10:13,727
and we understood
what had engendered

1134
01:10:13,852 --> 01:10:17,152
this horror in these kids' faces

1135
01:10:17,272 --> 01:10:19,991
and fear and the...
and the hatred.

1136
01:10:20,108 --> 01:10:23,612
Hundred and some American
soldiers in four hours or so

1137
01:10:23,737 --> 01:10:26,411
butchering innocent people,

1138
01:10:26,531 --> 01:10:28,579
in all kinds of ways...
machine-gunning them

1139
01:10:28,700 --> 01:10:30,953
and throwing them in wells
and scalping them

1140
01:10:31,077 --> 01:10:32,954
and killing them in ditches

1141
01:10:33,079 --> 01:10:35,673
and taking a lunch break
and then doing it some more.

1142
01:10:36,833 --> 01:10:38,927
Systematic homicide.

1143
01:10:39,085 --> 01:10:40,587
What kind of people?

1144
01:10:40,712 --> 01:10:41,712
Men, women, children?

1145
01:10:41,796 --> 01:10:43,218
Men, women, children.

1146
01:10:43,340 --> 01:10:45,013
- Babies?
- Babies.

1147
01:10:45,133 --> 01:10:47,010
Uh, Lieutenant Calley
came over and said,

1148
01:10:47,135 --> 01:10:49,012
"You know what to do with them,
don't you?"

1149
01:10:49,137 --> 01:10:50,605
And, uh, I said, "Yes."

1150
01:10:50,764 --> 01:10:54,735
So I took it for granted that
he just wanted us to watch them.

1151
01:10:54,851 --> 01:10:56,603
And he left and came back

1152
01:10:56,728 --> 01:10:59,277
about ten or...
ten or 15 minutes later,

1153
01:10:59,397 --> 01:11:03,527
and said, "How come you ain't,
uh, killed them yet?"

1154
01:11:03,651 --> 01:11:05,198
You killed how many
at that time?

1155
01:11:05,320 --> 01:11:07,823
Well, I fired my automatic,
so, uh...

1156
01:11:07,947 --> 01:11:10,575
you can't, uh...
you just spray the area on them,

1157
01:11:10,700 --> 01:11:13,044
so you really can't know
how many you killed

1158
01:11:13,161 --> 01:11:15,880
because it comes out
so doggone fast.

1159
01:11:15,997 --> 01:11:20,218
So I, I might've killed
about, uh, ten or 15 of them.

1160
01:11:21,378 --> 01:11:22,846
Men, women, and children?

1161
01:11:22,962 --> 01:11:24,509
Men, women, and children.

1162
01:11:24,631 --> 01:11:26,679
And babies?
And babies.

1163
01:11:28,176 --> 01:11:30,053
Why did I do it?

1164
01:11:30,178 --> 01:11:32,977
Because I felt like
I was ordered to do it.

1165
01:11:33,098 --> 01:11:35,647
And it seemed like, uh...

1166
01:11:38,353 --> 01:11:42,324
Well, at the time, I felt like
I was doing the right thing.

1167
01:11:42,440 --> 01:11:44,317
I really did.

1168
01:11:44,442 --> 01:11:47,537
Because, uh, like I said,
I lost buddies,

1169
01:11:47,654 --> 01:11:49,531
I lost... I lost a good...

1170
01:11:49,656 --> 01:11:54,002
damn good buddy...
Bobby Wilson...

1171
01:11:54,160 --> 01:11:57,790
and it was on my conscience,
and it was on...

1172
01:11:57,914 --> 01:11:59,837
So after I done it, I felt good.

1173
01:11:59,999 --> 01:12:04,129
But later on that day,
it was getting to me.

1174
01:12:04,254 --> 01:12:07,303
It's so hard, I think,
for a good many Americans

1175
01:12:07,424 --> 01:12:10,428
to understand
that young, capable,

1176
01:12:10,552 --> 01:12:13,772
brave American boys

1177
01:12:13,888 --> 01:12:16,812
could line up

1178
01:12:16,933 --> 01:12:21,530
old men, women,
children, and babies

1179
01:12:21,646 --> 01:12:24,365
and shoot them down
in cold blood.

1180
01:12:29,112 --> 01:12:31,331
How do you explain that?

1181
01:12:31,448 --> 01:12:33,371
I wouldn't know.

1182
01:12:43,501 --> 01:12:47,631
The killing of civilians
has happened in every war.

1183
01:12:47,755 --> 01:12:52,056
In Vietnam,
it was not policy or routine,

1184
01:12:52,177 --> 01:12:54,771
but it was not
an aberration, either.

1185
01:12:56,389 --> 01:13:01,190
Still, the scale
and deliberateness and intimacy

1186
01:13:01,311 --> 01:13:03,405
of what happened at My Lai

1187
01:13:03,563 --> 01:13:04,815
was different.

1188
01:13:04,939 --> 01:13:06,566
It was different

1189
01:13:06,691 --> 01:13:09,410
because they were killing
Vietnamese point-blank

1190
01:13:09,527 --> 01:13:10,870
with rifles and grenades.

1191
01:13:10,987 --> 01:13:13,285
They were murdering them
directly.

1192
01:13:13,406 --> 01:13:15,579
They weren't doing it
with bombs and artillery.

1193
01:13:15,742 --> 01:13:17,219
If they'd been doing it
with bombs and artillery,

1194
01:13:17,243 --> 01:13:18,387
nobody would have said a word,

1195
01:13:18,411 --> 01:13:19,851
because it was going on
all the time.

1196
01:13:20,914 --> 01:13:22,166
Not every soldier

1197
01:13:22,290 --> 01:13:24,008
participated in the killings
that day.

1198
01:13:24,125 --> 01:13:27,629
Some led villagers away
to safety.

1199
01:13:27,754 --> 01:13:30,507
But a failure
of military leadership

1200
01:13:30,632 --> 01:13:33,727
at nearly every level had
created the conditions

1201
01:13:33,843 --> 01:13:37,222
that made the massacre possible.

1202
01:13:37,347 --> 01:13:41,568
The My Lai story might have
shocked the American public,

1203
01:13:41,684 --> 01:13:43,857
but it was not news to the Army.

1204
01:13:43,978 --> 01:13:47,107
It had occurred
almost two years before,

1205
01:13:47,273 --> 01:13:50,277
just after the Tet Offensive.

1206
01:13:50,443 --> 01:13:52,787
Hugh Thompson,
the helicopter pilot

1207
01:13:52,946 --> 01:13:54,948
who had tried
to stop the massacre,

1208
01:13:55,114 --> 01:13:57,913
reported what he had seen,

1209
01:13:58,034 --> 01:13:59,911
but no one
in the chain of command

1210
01:14:00,036 --> 01:14:01,162
was willing to act.

1211
01:14:01,287 --> 01:14:04,917
The slaughter was covered up.

1212
01:14:05,041 --> 01:14:08,796
Later, an ex-corporal
named Ronald Ridenhour,

1213
01:14:08,920 --> 01:14:10,547
who had heard
about what had happened

1214
01:14:10,672 --> 01:14:12,595
from several men
who had been there,

1215
01:14:12,715 --> 01:14:16,094
wrote letters to the
president of the United States,

1216
01:14:16,219 --> 01:14:17,971
the secretary of defense,

1217
01:14:18,137 --> 01:14:21,983
and more than two dozen other
high-ranking officials.

1218
01:14:22,141 --> 01:14:25,270
Personally,
what decision-making process

1219
01:14:25,395 --> 01:14:28,194
did you go through before
you decided to take your action?

1220
01:14:28,314 --> 01:14:31,989
I guess I just wrestled
with my own conscience

1221
01:14:32,110 --> 01:14:34,329
to try to decide
what action to take.

1222
01:14:34,487 --> 01:14:36,489
I felt that I had
to take some action.

1223
01:14:36,614 --> 01:14:37,957
I had to do something.

1224
01:14:38,074 --> 01:14:39,291
I couldn't just...

1225
01:14:39,409 --> 01:14:41,912
just rest with this knowledge
for the rest of my life

1226
01:14:42,036 --> 01:14:44,835
that I couldn't... I couldn't
live with myself if I did.

1227
01:14:44,998 --> 01:14:47,922
President Nixon's first reaction

1228
01:14:48,042 --> 01:14:52,172
was to investigate those
who reported the slaughter.

1229
01:14:52,297 --> 01:14:54,971
"It's those dirty rotten Jews
from New York

1230
01:14:55,091 --> 01:14:56,343
who are behind it,"

1231
01:14:56,467 --> 01:14:57,844
he told an aide.

1232
01:14:58,011 --> 01:15:02,266
Eventually, Lieutenant General
William R. Peers,

1233
01:15:02,390 --> 01:15:06,190
a veteran of 30 months as
a troop commander in Vietnam,

1234
01:15:06,352 --> 01:15:08,025
was assigned to head a panel

1235
01:15:08,146 --> 01:15:10,899
to look into
what had really happened.

1236
01:15:11,024 --> 01:15:14,073
Peers found that 30 persons,

1237
01:15:14,193 --> 01:15:16,537
including
the division commander,

1238
01:15:16,654 --> 01:15:18,873
General Samuel W. Koster,

1239
01:15:18,990 --> 01:15:21,243
had either committed atrocities

1240
01:15:21,367 --> 01:15:25,338
or had conspired
to cover them up.

1241
01:15:29,375 --> 01:15:33,096
Peers had wanted to call My Lai
a "massacre."

1242
01:15:33,212 --> 01:15:36,466
His superiors
made him use the phrase,

1243
01:15:36,591 --> 01:15:40,596
"a tragedy
of major proportions."

1244
01:15:40,720 --> 01:15:46,227
In the end, the Army indicted
25 officers and men,

1245
01:15:46,351 --> 01:15:51,482
including the platoon leader,
Lieutenant William Calley.

1246
01:15:54,067 --> 01:15:56,069
Calley's a killer.

1247
01:15:56,194 --> 01:15:58,071
Calley's a murderer

1248
01:15:58,237 --> 01:16:00,410
and a... a sick person.

1249
01:16:02,533 --> 01:16:05,537
I'm not gonna be
in any, you know, uh,

1250
01:16:05,662 --> 01:16:08,085
propaganda movie for
the United States Marine Corps,

1251
01:16:08,247 --> 01:16:10,124
but we didn't have that guy.

1252
01:16:12,418 --> 01:16:14,841
We had individuals who, who...

1253
01:16:14,962 --> 01:16:16,930
who committed war crimes,
of course.

1254
01:16:17,048 --> 01:16:20,973
And, um, you know,
I wanted to kill them.

1255
01:16:21,094 --> 01:16:23,597
I sometimes wish I did kill 'em.

1256
01:16:26,432 --> 01:16:30,187
But... I was afraid to kill 'em.

1257
01:16:41,739 --> 01:16:44,834
I never considered
the Vietnamese our enemy.

1258
01:16:44,951 --> 01:16:46,624
They had never done anything

1259
01:16:46,744 --> 01:16:49,293
to threaten the security
of the United States.

1260
01:16:49,414 --> 01:16:52,133
They were off 10,000 miles away,

1261
01:16:52,250 --> 01:16:53,968
minding their own business,

1262
01:16:54,085 --> 01:16:56,429
and we went there
to their country,

1263
01:16:56,546 --> 01:16:57,968
told them
what kind of government

1264
01:16:58,131 --> 01:17:00,350
we wanted them to have.

1265
01:17:00,466 --> 01:17:04,596
Well, when
I see the war protesters,

1266
01:17:04,721 --> 01:17:06,473
I react on a couple of levels.

1267
01:17:06,597 --> 01:17:09,100
Intellectually, I certainly
understand their right

1268
01:17:09,225 --> 01:17:10,898
to the freedom of speech.

1269
01:17:11,018 --> 01:17:12,395
But I will tell you

1270
01:17:12,520 --> 01:17:15,444
that when I see them
waving NLF flags,

1271
01:17:15,565 --> 01:17:18,785
the enemy that I and my friends
had to fight,

1272
01:17:18,901 --> 01:17:22,075
and some of my friends
had to die fighting,

1273
01:17:22,196 --> 01:17:23,823
that doesn't sit very well
with me.

1274
01:17:27,160 --> 01:17:30,084
On November 15, 1969,

1275
01:17:30,204 --> 01:17:32,423
half a million citizens
turned out

1276
01:17:32,540 --> 01:17:35,043
against the war in Washington,
again.

1277
01:17:37,587 --> 01:17:40,807
This time, buses
provided an impenetrable wall

1278
01:17:40,923 --> 01:17:43,096
around the White House.

1279
01:17:43,217 --> 01:17:45,561
President Nixon claimed
he was too busy

1280
01:17:45,678 --> 01:17:47,851
watching football on television

1281
01:17:47,972 --> 01:17:49,189
to pay attention,

1282
01:17:49,307 --> 01:17:53,687
but he did suggest that
Army helicopters might be used

1283
01:17:53,853 --> 01:17:55,696
to blow out
the marchers' candles.

1284
01:17:59,484 --> 01:18:01,503
Hundreds of thousands
of others demonstrated

1285
01:18:01,527 --> 01:18:05,031
in San Francisco and New York.

1286
01:18:12,330 --> 01:18:14,674
The most striking
antiwar protest

1287
01:18:14,791 --> 01:18:16,008
of this Thanksgiving Day

1288
01:18:16,125 --> 01:18:18,548
occurred not in this country,
but in Vietnam,

1289
01:18:18,711 --> 01:18:21,089
though its form was
uniquely American.

1290
01:18:21,214 --> 01:18:23,308
About 100 American soldiers

1291
01:18:23,424 --> 01:18:25,802
stationed at a hospital
in Pleiku

1292
01:18:25,927 --> 01:18:28,476
refused to eat their traditional
turkey dinner.

1293
01:18:28,596 --> 01:18:32,567
They described their fast as a
passive protest against the war.

1294
01:18:41,359 --> 01:18:42,986
The Army did what the Army does.

1295
01:18:43,110 --> 01:18:44,630
Every year, you know,
for Thanksgiving,

1296
01:18:44,695 --> 01:18:45,821
they make a big deal.

1297
01:18:45,947 --> 01:18:47,147
They're gonna bring in turkey,

1298
01:18:47,240 --> 01:18:48,675
they're gonna bring in
mashed potatoes,

1299
01:18:48,699 --> 01:18:50,997
and apple pie and whatever.

1300
01:18:51,118 --> 01:18:52,995
And by this point, I think,

1301
01:18:53,120 --> 01:18:56,090
a lot of us were very,
very cynical about the war

1302
01:18:56,207 --> 01:18:58,005
and what was going on.

1303
01:18:58,125 --> 01:19:01,504
But we weren't gonna make
a big deal about it.

1304
01:19:01,629 --> 01:19:04,178
We knew there were gonna be
TV people there.

1305
01:19:04,298 --> 01:19:07,427
And a couple of the organizers
were looking for people to talk.

1306
01:19:07,552 --> 01:19:09,145
They came to me, I said, "No."

1307
01:19:09,262 --> 01:19:11,606
I said, "Look, I'm gonna fast
and do my thing."

1308
01:19:11,722 --> 01:19:13,565
I said,
"But I, I really don't want

1309
01:19:13,683 --> 01:19:15,981
to be involved
with any media thing."

1310
01:19:16,102 --> 01:19:20,482
That Thanksgiving Day,
Lieutenant Furey was on duty

1311
01:19:20,606 --> 01:19:24,656
when one of her patients took
a sudden turn for the worse.

1312
01:19:24,777 --> 01:19:27,781
Some patients, they
just get into your heart.

1313
01:19:27,947 --> 01:19:29,494
And this kid, I think he was 18.

1314
01:19:29,615 --> 01:19:31,037
His name was Timmy.

1315
01:19:31,158 --> 01:19:35,584
It was unlikely
he was gonna survive.

1316
01:19:35,705 --> 01:19:39,130
And I just got so angry.

1317
01:19:39,292 --> 01:19:42,671
I just lost it.

1318
01:19:42,795 --> 01:19:44,889
I remember walking out
of the O.R.,

1319
01:19:45,006 --> 01:19:46,900
I ripped off the gown,
and I ripped off the mask,

1320
01:19:46,924 --> 01:19:50,144
I walked outside, I said,
"Where are those reporters?"

1321
01:20:03,357 --> 01:20:05,502
I mean, you know, you don't
demonstrate against the war

1322
01:20:05,526 --> 01:20:06,652
in a war zone.

1323
01:20:06,777 --> 01:20:09,656
By that time, of course,
you, you had the attitude,

1324
01:20:09,780 --> 01:20:11,578
"What are they gonna do?

1325
01:20:11,699 --> 01:20:13,576
Send me to Vietnam?"

1326
01:20:22,543 --> 01:20:25,467
Let's just say that
being a Marine combat veteran

1327
01:20:25,588 --> 01:20:29,513
on a college campus
in 1969 and 1970...

1328
01:20:29,675 --> 01:20:31,393
it wasn't a real good thing
to be

1329
01:20:31,510 --> 01:20:33,558
if you wanted to get dates
and be popular.

1330
01:20:36,390 --> 01:20:39,860
When I came home, it seemed like

1331
01:20:39,977 --> 01:20:43,277
I didn't have anything
to give to anybody else.

1332
01:20:46,734 --> 01:20:50,739
Marine Corporal John
Musgrave had very nearly died

1333
01:20:50,863 --> 01:20:55,494
in combat below the DMZ
in the autumn of 1967.

1334
01:20:55,618 --> 01:20:58,371
Wounded in the jaw and shoulder,

1335
01:20:58,537 --> 01:21:02,212
his ribs shattered,
lung pierced, nerves cut,

1336
01:21:02,333 --> 01:21:06,634
he had spent 17 months
in Navy hospitals.

1337
01:21:06,754 --> 01:21:09,803
He was now studying
at Baker University

1338
01:21:09,924 --> 01:21:12,677
in Baldwin City, Kansas.

1339
01:21:15,137 --> 01:21:19,517
But wherever he went,
the war was never far away.

1340
01:21:21,769 --> 01:21:26,070
And the peace movement,
for a while, got real nasty,

1341
01:21:26,232 --> 01:21:28,200
calling veterans baby killers.

1342
01:21:30,277 --> 01:21:32,075
It did more than piss us off.

1343
01:21:32,238 --> 01:21:34,036
It broke our hearts.

1344
01:21:34,156 --> 01:21:36,409
What were they thinking?

1345
01:21:36,534 --> 01:21:41,791
You don't turn your backs
on your warriors.

1346
01:21:41,914 --> 01:21:44,417
I didn't trust anybody anymore.

1347
01:21:45,918 --> 01:21:48,216
Just my family.

1348
01:21:48,337 --> 01:21:50,760
Musgrave was so hurt

1349
01:21:50,923 --> 01:21:52,891
by the way
some people treated him

1350
01:21:53,009 --> 01:21:56,309
that he volunteered
to return to Vietnam.

1351
01:21:56,429 --> 01:22:00,059
Because of his injuries,
the Marines turned him down,

1352
01:22:00,182 --> 01:22:04,028
and asked him
to help recruit men instead.

1353
01:22:04,145 --> 01:22:06,068
He did for a time,

1354
01:22:06,188 --> 01:22:09,158
but when students asked him
questions about the war

1355
01:22:09,275 --> 01:22:11,027
he couldn't answer,

1356
01:22:11,152 --> 01:22:12,244
he also began to read

1357
01:22:12,361 --> 01:22:16,616
about how and why
it was being fought.

1358
01:22:16,782 --> 01:22:20,412
I had friends in
country on a second tour,

1359
01:22:20,536 --> 01:22:23,631
and, you know, I, I was still...
considered myself a Marine.

1360
01:22:23,748 --> 01:22:26,501
And... and the more I read,

1361
01:22:26,625 --> 01:22:31,847
the less I found to be able
to defend our presence there.

1362
01:22:31,964 --> 01:22:35,969
So then, I, I just stopped
talking to everybody.

1363
01:22:38,262 --> 01:22:42,187
Musgrave gradually felt
as if he were being torn in two.

1364
01:22:42,308 --> 01:22:46,188
And he was still haunted
by the memory of those Marines

1365
01:22:46,312 --> 01:22:50,909
who had died while he had lived.

1366
01:22:51,025 --> 01:22:54,154
I was dating my.45
in those years, you know.

1367
01:22:54,278 --> 01:22:56,952
Coming home at night
after drinking,

1368
01:22:57,073 --> 01:22:59,075
and pressing it up
against my temple,

1369
01:22:59,200 --> 01:23:01,999
or putting it under my chin,

1370
01:23:02,161 --> 01:23:04,414
wondering if this was gonna be
the night

1371
01:23:04,538 --> 01:23:06,506
I was gonna have the guts
to do it.

1372
01:23:08,292 --> 01:23:10,437
I'd had a round chambered,
and I'd taken the safety off.

1373
01:23:10,461 --> 01:23:12,680
Same kind of pistol
I carried in Vietnam.

1374
01:23:15,299 --> 01:23:18,599
And I thought, "I'm really gonna
do it tonight."

1375
01:23:18,719 --> 01:23:22,519
You know, like, "Whew, I'm
really gonna do it," you know.

1376
01:23:22,681 --> 01:23:24,558
And my dogs...
I'd let my dogs out.

1377
01:23:24,683 --> 01:23:26,185
I had two dogs.

1378
01:23:26,352 --> 01:23:27,854
And they jumped
on the front door

1379
01:23:27,978 --> 01:23:29,258
and scratched on the front door.

1380
01:23:29,355 --> 01:23:31,107
They wanted in.

1381
01:23:31,232 --> 01:23:32,417
And I put the safety
back on the pistol

1382
01:23:32,441 --> 01:23:34,193
and set it down
and went and let 'em in.

1383
01:23:36,028 --> 01:23:38,702
And they were so open
in their love for me

1384
01:23:38,823 --> 01:23:40,450
that I literally said out loud,

1385
01:23:40,574 --> 01:23:45,705
"Whoa, if I really want to do
this, I can do this tomorrow."

1386
01:23:45,871 --> 01:23:47,214
And I went back in the room,

1387
01:23:47,331 --> 01:23:49,174
and I put the pistol
in the drawer, and...

1388
01:23:49,291 --> 01:23:52,215
and I... I think
that was the closest I came.

1389
01:23:52,336 --> 01:23:53,929
I think maybe
I would have killed...

1390
01:23:54,046 --> 01:23:56,299
k-k-killed myself that night.

1391
01:23:56,423 --> 01:23:57,766
But something as simple

1392
01:23:57,883 --> 01:24:00,306
as my dogs wanting back in...

1393
01:24:00,427 --> 01:24:03,681
stopped that thought, you know.

1394
01:24:06,433 --> 01:24:09,403
I'm really glad
that it didn't happen.

1395
01:24:09,562 --> 01:24:12,691
But at the time,
it just made so much sense.

1396
01:24:17,570 --> 01:24:19,493
Richard Nixon's
troop withdrawals

1397
01:24:19,613 --> 01:24:22,787
finally turned Musgrave
against the war.

1398
01:24:22,908 --> 01:24:25,627
"If it ain't worth winning,"
he said,

1399
01:24:25,744 --> 01:24:28,088
"it ain't worth dying for."

1400
01:24:28,205 --> 01:24:30,754
His loyalty to the Marines

1401
01:24:30,916 --> 01:24:33,760
would not yet let him
openly say that,

1402
01:24:33,878 --> 01:24:36,301
but he told a campus
antiwar meeting

1403
01:24:36,422 --> 01:24:39,266
that they should stop acting
as if they didn't give a damn

1404
01:24:39,383 --> 01:24:42,136
about the men
who had been asked to fight,

1405
01:24:42,261 --> 01:24:44,605
and received a standing ovation.

1406
01:24:48,934 --> 01:24:51,232
The turning
point for me, I think,

1407
01:24:51,353 --> 01:24:54,323
was one evening I spent
with my friend Sonny Walter,

1408
01:24:54,440 --> 01:24:56,943
who had been, uh... just been
discharged from the Army,

1409
01:24:57,109 --> 01:24:59,612
and had come home
and spent an evening

1410
01:24:59,778 --> 01:25:02,281
before I went in
pleading with me not to go.

1411
01:25:02,448 --> 01:25:04,951
He even offered
to drive me to Canada.

1412
01:25:05,117 --> 01:25:07,620
He was showing me some
horrible pictures of Vietnam

1413
01:25:07,786 --> 01:25:09,459
from his own service there.

1414
01:25:11,415 --> 01:25:13,292
I think everything
that happened after it

1415
01:25:13,459 --> 01:25:14,961
had its seeds in that evening.

1416
01:25:17,171 --> 01:25:20,471
While attending
the University of Nebraska,

1417
01:25:20,591 --> 01:25:24,346
Jack Todd had undergone
Marine officer training,

1418
01:25:24,470 --> 01:25:27,849
but bad knees
had forced him to drop out

1419
01:25:27,973 --> 01:25:30,021
and he believed
that exempted him

1420
01:25:30,142 --> 01:25:32,691
from having to take part
in a war

1421
01:25:32,811 --> 01:25:35,405
he had come to see as immoral.

1422
01:25:35,522 --> 01:25:39,572
He began work as a reporter
on The Miami Herald.

1423
01:25:39,693 --> 01:25:44,324
But in the autumn of 1969
he received a draft notice

1424
01:25:44,448 --> 01:25:46,746
from the Army anyway.

1425
01:25:48,327 --> 01:25:49,670
So I went into my physical

1426
01:25:49,828 --> 01:25:51,868
and I showed them my discharge
from the Marine Corps

1427
01:25:51,956 --> 01:25:53,629
and I actually remember
a sergeant,

1428
01:25:53,749 --> 01:25:55,143
or whoever
I was talking to, saying,

1429
01:25:55,167 --> 01:25:57,340
"But, uh, you were discharged
from an officer program.

1430
01:25:57,461 --> 01:25:58,883
We're drafting you
as a private."

1431
01:26:01,131 --> 01:26:03,509
In late November 1969,

1432
01:26:03,676 --> 01:26:07,977
Todd reported for basic training
at Fort Lewis, Washington.

1433
01:26:10,182 --> 01:26:12,105
Morale just could
not have been worse.

1434
01:26:12,226 --> 01:26:14,024
And-and it seemed to include

1435
01:26:14,144 --> 01:26:16,943
even the sergeants
and the officers.

1436
01:26:17,064 --> 01:26:20,944
Nobody wanted to go.
Nobody wanted to go.

1437
01:26:21,068 --> 01:26:24,368
America just seemed to have
shifted from the Woodstock high

1438
01:26:24,530 --> 01:26:25,577
of the summer to this...

1439
01:26:25,698 --> 01:26:28,872
this sort of bitter
Nixonian low.

1440
01:26:28,993 --> 01:26:32,338
Jack Todd and
another member of his unit

1441
01:26:32,454 --> 01:26:35,378
began to talk at night
about what it meant

1442
01:26:35,541 --> 01:26:37,043
to be true to one's conscience.

1443
01:26:41,338 --> 01:26:43,716
Some 170,000 men

1444
01:26:43,882 --> 01:26:46,180
were granted
conscientious objector status

1445
01:26:46,302 --> 01:26:48,851
during the Vietnam era.

1446
01:26:48,971 --> 01:26:50,644
But because Jack Todd

1447
01:26:50,764 --> 01:26:52,937
questioned the existence of God,

1448
01:26:53,058 --> 01:26:56,733
that avenue was closed to him.

1449
01:26:56,854 --> 01:26:58,071
There were really two choices.

1450
01:26:58,230 --> 01:26:59,948
It was go to jail
or go to Canada.

1451
01:27:00,065 --> 01:27:02,534
And, for me,
going to jail was just...

1452
01:27:02,651 --> 01:27:04,528
That one, I couldn't face.

1453
01:27:04,653 --> 01:27:06,530
So I went to Canada.

1454
01:27:14,413 --> 01:27:16,586
I remember that
last beautiful drive,

1455
01:27:16,749 --> 01:27:19,252
from Seattle to Vancouver,

1456
01:27:19,376 --> 01:27:23,882
all the towering Douglas firs
along the road.

1457
01:27:24,006 --> 01:27:26,179
And I remember,
after we crossed the border...

1458
01:27:26,300 --> 01:27:28,769
it was a breeze, they just
sort of waved us through...

1459
01:27:28,927 --> 01:27:31,021
and just looking in the
rearview mirror, thinking,

1460
01:27:31,138 --> 01:27:32,390
"Man, there goes my country.

1461
01:27:32,514 --> 01:27:35,518
I'll never see it again."

1462
01:27:46,528 --> 01:27:49,202
I get called a coward
all the time.

1463
01:27:49,323 --> 01:27:52,418
It took me a long time

1464
01:27:52,534 --> 01:27:54,957
not to feel that what I had done

1465
01:27:55,120 --> 01:27:57,669
was-was cowardly,
because I still had

1466
01:27:57,790 --> 01:28:01,169
that military ingrained
feeling inside.

1467
01:28:02,795 --> 01:28:05,890
That was the bravest thing
I ever did.

1468
01:28:06,006 --> 01:28:07,974
It was
the bravest thing I ever did.

1469
01:28:10,803 --> 01:28:14,353
Jack Todd eventually
found work as a reporter,

1470
01:28:14,473 --> 01:28:17,477
which allowed him to gain
"landed immigrant status,"

1471
01:28:17,601 --> 01:28:20,901
a step toward
Canadian citizenship.

1472
01:28:21,021 --> 01:28:25,527
Only a quarter of the estimated
30,000 Americans

1473
01:28:25,651 --> 01:28:28,495
who crossed into Canada
managed to do so.

1474
01:28:34,743 --> 01:28:37,917
At the same time,
some 30,000 Canadians

1475
01:28:38,038 --> 01:28:41,508
would volunteer to fight
in Vietnam.

1476
01:29:00,394 --> 01:29:03,694
I thought about...

1477
01:29:03,814 --> 01:29:05,737
my parents and my siblings

1478
01:29:05,858 --> 01:29:09,488
and my wife and my little girl.

1479
01:29:09,611 --> 01:29:13,036
And one of the things
that bothered me, is that I...

1480
01:29:13,157 --> 01:29:17,754
I couldn't really remember what
they looked like after a while.

1481
01:29:17,870 --> 01:29:20,214
I remembered what
their pictures looked like.

1482
01:29:20,372 --> 01:29:24,718
And when I imaged them
in my mind's eye

1483
01:29:24,877 --> 01:29:28,302
I would image a picture,
a photograph.

1484
01:29:31,049 --> 01:29:32,402
Valerie Kushner
arrived on the...

1485
01:29:32,426 --> 01:29:34,520
Hal Kushner's wife, Valerie,

1486
01:29:34,636 --> 01:29:36,730
had heard virtually nothing
of her husband

1487
01:29:36,847 --> 01:29:40,522
since his capture
by the Viet Cong in 1967,

1488
01:29:40,642 --> 01:29:43,236
and she had traveled
to the Far East

1489
01:29:43,395 --> 01:29:45,739
to try to improve
conditions for him.

1490
01:29:45,856 --> 01:29:49,110
I think my period
of greatest frustration

1491
01:29:49,234 --> 01:29:52,113
was just before and just after
the birth of our son.

1492
01:29:52,237 --> 01:29:54,786
He was born in April of 1968

1493
01:29:54,907 --> 01:29:58,753
and my husband was captured
in November of 1967.

1494
01:29:58,911 --> 01:30:02,757
So my husband does not yet
know of his birth.

1495
01:30:02,873 --> 01:30:05,073
With their father
gone, the Kushner children

1496
01:30:05,125 --> 01:30:08,220
rely heavily on their
mother and their grandparents.

1497
01:30:08,337 --> 01:30:09,777
Young Mike has never
seen his father,

1498
01:30:09,922 --> 01:30:12,220
but six-year-old
Toni-Jean remembers.

1499
01:30:12,341 --> 01:30:13,781
And the remembrances
of Major Kushner

1500
01:30:13,926 --> 01:30:15,553
are everywhere in their house.

1501
01:30:15,677 --> 01:30:17,771
Toni, however,
knows only that he's away,

1502
01:30:17,888 --> 01:30:19,574
that he's been captured,
that grandfather fills in

1503
01:30:19,598 --> 01:30:20,850
until Dad comes home.

1504
01:30:20,974 --> 01:30:24,820
The Kushners worry,
but they do not grieve.

1505
01:30:24,937 --> 01:30:26,905
Don Farmer, ABC News, reporting.

1506
01:30:33,820 --> 01:30:35,914
In February 1970,

1507
01:30:36,031 --> 01:30:39,160
in a house in an industrial
suburb of Paris,

1508
01:30:39,284 --> 01:30:41,787
Henry Kissinger
began a new series

1509
01:30:41,912 --> 01:30:45,337
of secret negotiations...
talks so secret

1510
01:30:45,457 --> 01:30:49,678
even the secretary of state
was not told about them.

1511
01:30:49,795 --> 01:30:51,797
His negotiating partner

1512
01:30:51,964 --> 01:30:55,639
would be Le Duan's close
political ally, Le Duc Tho,

1513
01:30:55,801 --> 01:30:59,305
a veteran of 40 years
of revolutionary warfare

1514
01:30:59,429 --> 01:31:03,150
and party intrigue...
shrewd, implacable,

1515
01:31:03,308 --> 01:31:06,983
and openly scornful
of Vietnamization.

1516
01:31:07,104 --> 01:31:09,778
If the United States
could not win

1517
01:31:09,898 --> 01:31:13,072
with half a million of its own
troops, he asked Kissinger,

1518
01:31:13,193 --> 01:31:15,787
"How can you succeed
when you let your puppet troops

1519
01:31:15,904 --> 01:31:18,157
do the fighting?"

1520
01:31:18,323 --> 01:31:21,497
The American admitted
he had no answer.

1521
01:31:27,291 --> 01:31:29,464
Despite the impasse in Paris,

1522
01:31:29,585 --> 01:31:33,180
Nixon's first year
had been a triumph.

1523
01:31:33,297 --> 01:31:39,350
He had withdrawn
115,000 troops from Vietnam.

1524
01:31:40,679 --> 01:31:43,899
American casualty figures
were down.

1525
01:31:44,016 --> 01:31:46,565
Reduced draft calls

1526
01:31:46,685 --> 01:31:48,858
and the president's
new lottery system

1527
01:31:49,021 --> 01:31:52,025
had blunted some opposition
to the war.

1528
01:31:54,943 --> 01:31:57,366
And the violent actions
of some revolutionaries

1529
01:31:57,529 --> 01:32:01,033
were tarnishing
the antiwar cause itself.

1530
01:32:01,158 --> 01:32:05,004
Between September 1969
and May 1970,

1531
01:32:05,120 --> 01:32:07,714
there would be
hundreds of bombings...

1532
01:32:07,831 --> 01:32:09,629
banks and courthouses,

1533
01:32:09,750 --> 01:32:12,879
induction centers
and ROTC buildings.

1534
01:32:14,921 --> 01:32:16,798
One police officer was killed.

1535
01:32:18,091 --> 01:32:19,468
Three would-be bombers

1536
01:32:19,593 --> 01:32:23,268
accidentally blew themselves up
in Greenwich Village.

1537
01:32:25,682 --> 01:32:29,562
The antiwar
movement split apart.

1538
01:32:29,728 --> 01:32:32,447
And there were people who felt
that the only way

1539
01:32:32,564 --> 01:32:36,285
we were ever gonna end the war
was by becoming more violent.

1540
01:32:36,401 --> 01:32:39,245
You know, that we had to match
violence with violence.

1541
01:32:39,363 --> 01:32:44,085
How that was gonna happen
wasn't spoken about openly.

1542
01:32:44,201 --> 01:32:46,875
But there was just
this undercurrent.

1543
01:32:46,995 --> 01:32:49,248
This is a plumbing pipe

1544
01:32:49,373 --> 01:32:52,798
completely full of gunpowder.

1545
01:32:55,170 --> 01:32:57,548
My fellow Americans,

1546
01:32:57,673 --> 01:33:00,142
we live in an age of anarchy,

1547
01:33:00,258 --> 01:33:02,761
both abroad and at home.

1548
01:33:04,304 --> 01:33:09,276
We see mindless attacks
on all the great institutions,

1549
01:33:09,393 --> 01:33:11,737
which have been created
by free civilizations

1550
01:33:11,853 --> 01:33:14,447
in the last 500 years.

1551
01:33:15,816 --> 01:33:17,944
Even here in the United States,

1552
01:33:18,068 --> 01:33:21,618
great universities are being
systematically destroyed.

1553
01:33:24,741 --> 01:33:27,460
If, when the chips are down,

1554
01:33:27,577 --> 01:33:30,046
the world's
most powerful nation,

1555
01:33:30,163 --> 01:33:31,836
the United States of America,

1556
01:33:31,957 --> 01:33:36,804
acts like a pitiful,
helpless giant,

1557
01:33:36,962 --> 01:33:40,637
the forces of totalitarianism
and anarchy

1558
01:33:40,757 --> 01:33:43,385
will threaten free nations
and free institutions

1559
01:33:43,510 --> 01:33:45,057
throughout the world.

1560
01:33:45,178 --> 01:33:49,183
On April 30, 1970,

1561
01:33:49,307 --> 01:33:51,059
President Nixon
shocked the world

1562
01:33:51,184 --> 01:33:54,233
by announcing that he had sent
30,000 American troops

1563
01:33:54,354 --> 01:33:57,984
storming into Cambodia.

1564
01:33:58,150 --> 01:34:01,120
The previous month,
Prince Norodom Sihanouk

1565
01:34:01,236 --> 01:34:03,409
had been overthrown in a coup.

1566
01:34:03,530 --> 01:34:05,828
For years, he had allowed
the North Vietnamese

1567
01:34:05,991 --> 01:34:08,494
to keep sanctuaries
in his country,

1568
01:34:08,660 --> 01:34:10,537
but he had not protested

1569
01:34:10,662 --> 01:34:14,087
when American planes
bombed them.

1570
01:34:14,207 --> 01:34:16,801
The new president, Lon Nol,

1571
01:34:16,918 --> 01:34:20,764
was an anticommunist,
backed by the United States.

1572
01:34:20,881 --> 01:34:23,179
Nixon now felt he could do

1573
01:34:23,300 --> 01:34:26,895
what American generals had been
wanting to do for years...

1574
01:34:27,012 --> 01:34:30,767
pursue the enemy beyond
the borders of South Vietnam.

1575
01:34:32,350 --> 01:34:35,149
The 30,000 American troops

1576
01:34:35,270 --> 01:34:40,401
were joined by 50,000
ARVN soldiers.

1577
01:34:40,525 --> 01:34:42,448
The objective was to attack

1578
01:34:42,569 --> 01:34:45,197
North Vietnamese
base camps and supply lines

1579
01:34:45,363 --> 01:34:48,583
and to buy time
for the South Vietnamese Army

1580
01:34:48,700 --> 01:34:51,078
as it got ready to fight
on its own.

1581
01:34:53,121 --> 01:34:55,374
Nixon told the public

1582
01:34:55,499 --> 01:34:59,049
he had ordered an "incursion,"
not an "invasion,"

1583
01:34:59,169 --> 01:35:03,640
intended only to protect
American boys in South Vietnam

1584
01:35:03,757 --> 01:35:07,887
and in response to North
Vietnamese "aggression."

1585
01:35:10,847 --> 01:35:14,602
I wasn't worried
about political conflict.

1586
01:35:14,726 --> 01:35:17,354
I was worried about,
"Am I gonna be alive

1587
01:35:17,479 --> 01:35:18,901
in the next ten minutes?"

1588
01:35:20,565 --> 01:35:23,865
We were on the Western edge
of the invasion.

1589
01:35:23,985 --> 01:35:27,239
We went as far
as anybody went in Cambodia.

1590
01:35:28,615 --> 01:35:29,992
And it was a hot LZ.

1591
01:35:30,116 --> 01:35:34,792
I got holes shot in my backpack.

1592
01:35:34,913 --> 01:35:36,290
I was laying on my face

1593
01:35:36,414 --> 01:35:38,587
and they were shooting holes
in my backpack,

1594
01:35:38,708 --> 01:35:41,632
which means they missed my head
by maybe four inches.

1595
01:35:43,588 --> 01:35:46,933
I really didn't think I would
see the end of that week.

1596
01:35:53,390 --> 01:35:56,894
The sight of American
troops crossing the border

1597
01:35:57,018 --> 01:36:00,864
into Cambodia reignited
the antiwar movement.

1598
01:36:00,981 --> 01:36:02,153
Come on, let's go!

1599
01:36:02,274 --> 01:36:04,368
If the troops were coming home,

1600
01:36:04,484 --> 01:36:06,486
if the war was winding down,

1601
01:36:06,611 --> 01:36:10,536
why had Nixon decided
to widen it?

1602
01:36:10,657 --> 01:36:13,376
How could invading
another country

1603
01:36:13,493 --> 01:36:17,339
help bring peace
to Southeast Asia?

1604
01:36:17,455 --> 01:36:19,128
The reaction on the campuses

1605
01:36:19,291 --> 01:36:20,759
was swift and predictable.

1606
01:36:20,876 --> 01:36:22,469
The students
and many of their teachers

1607
01:36:22,586 --> 01:36:24,054
were against the president.

1608
01:36:24,170 --> 01:36:27,299
Princeton students called
for a nationwide student strike.

1609
01:36:27,465 --> 01:36:31,140
Antiwar rallies were planned
at Harvard, MIT, Indiana,

1610
01:36:31,261 --> 01:36:33,355
Purdue Universities
and other colleges.

1611
01:36:38,643 --> 01:36:41,863
On Monday morning, May 4, 1970,

1612
01:36:41,980 --> 01:36:44,483
some 2,000 students
gathered on the commons

1613
01:36:44,649 --> 01:36:48,449
at Kent State University
in Kent, Ohio.

1614
01:36:48,570 --> 01:36:52,291
Some were simply
moving from class to class.

1615
01:36:52,407 --> 01:36:55,786
Others planned to attend
a rally called to protest

1616
01:36:55,911 --> 01:36:58,505
Nixon's widening of the war

1617
01:36:58,622 --> 01:37:04,300
and the presence of the Ohio
National Guard on campus.

1618
01:37:04,419 --> 01:37:07,423
Governor James Rhodes
had called in the guardsmen

1619
01:37:07,547 --> 01:37:08,890
two days earlier

1620
01:37:09,007 --> 01:37:14,389
after a mob set the old wooden
ROTC building on fire

1621
01:37:14,512 --> 01:37:16,389
and then prevented
the fire department

1622
01:37:16,514 --> 01:37:18,858
from putting out the flames.

1623
01:37:21,895 --> 01:37:25,900
Rhodes had compared protestors
to Nazi brownshirts

1624
01:37:26,024 --> 01:37:29,449
and promised to use
"every weapon to eradicate

1625
01:37:29,569 --> 01:37:33,790
the worst sort of people
we harbor in America."

1626
01:37:38,453 --> 01:37:43,675
The guardsmen's weapons were
loaded with live ammunition,

1627
01:37:43,792 --> 01:37:45,510
though no one in the crowd
knew it.

1628
01:37:45,627 --> 01:37:48,847
Why do you have to have a gun?
I don't understand!

1629
01:37:48,964 --> 01:37:51,843
Leave this area immediately!

1630
01:37:51,967 --> 01:37:55,722
The students
were ordered to disperse.

1631
01:37:55,845 --> 01:37:57,438
They stood their ground.

1632
01:38:03,520 --> 01:38:06,649
Tear gas scattered some of them.

1633
01:38:26,001 --> 01:38:29,847
The guardsmen seemed
to fall back.

1634
01:38:29,963 --> 01:38:34,059
But then members of Troop G
wheeled around and opened fire

1635
01:38:34,175 --> 01:38:38,180
on students gathered in
and around a parking lot.

1636
01:39:09,753 --> 01:39:11,881
Somebody call for an ambulance!

1637
01:39:13,673 --> 01:39:16,552
There's people dying down here!
Get an ambulance up here!

1638
01:39:23,266 --> 01:39:26,611
67 rounds in 13 seconds

1639
01:39:26,728 --> 01:39:31,108
killed two young women
and two young men...

1640
01:39:34,069 --> 01:39:37,198
Including
an ROTC scholarship student

1641
01:39:37,322 --> 01:39:39,791
who had simply been an onlooker.

1642
01:39:45,497 --> 01:39:50,173
That dead child on the ground

1643
01:39:50,335 --> 01:39:53,589
was one of ours.

1644
01:39:53,713 --> 01:39:57,013
If we could kill
our own students,

1645
01:39:57,133 --> 01:40:02,185
uh, what had happened
to our country?

1646
01:40:04,349 --> 01:40:07,193
Nine more students were wounded,

1647
01:40:07,352 --> 01:40:11,277
one of whom
was permanently paralyzed.

1648
01:40:22,617 --> 01:40:26,963
Several hundred angry,
grieving students sat down

1649
01:40:27,080 --> 01:40:29,082
and demanded to know
why the guardsmen

1650
01:40:29,207 --> 01:40:31,084
had fired on their friends.

1651
01:40:34,629 --> 01:40:37,428
Sir, you've got a
couple hundred students...

1652
01:40:37,549 --> 01:40:38,926
An officer ordered them

1653
01:40:39,050 --> 01:40:40,802
to "disperse
or we will shoot again."

1654
01:40:40,927 --> 01:40:43,806
How long will you give us?
You've got five minutes.

1655
01:40:43,930 --> 01:40:46,809
Please listen to me right now!

1656
01:40:46,933 --> 01:40:49,482
Only the anguished pleas

1657
01:40:49,602 --> 01:40:54,153
of geology professor Glenn Frank
averted further tragedy.

1658
01:40:54,274 --> 01:40:55,947
Talk, Dr. Frank. Talk.

1659
01:41:21,301 --> 01:41:24,100
That just symbolized for me

1660
01:41:24,262 --> 01:41:28,108
what this war was doing
to our culture.

1661
01:41:28,224 --> 01:41:29,942
These were kids on both sides,

1662
01:41:30,101 --> 01:41:32,820
young National Guard boys

1663
01:41:32,937 --> 01:41:36,191
who had very little training
and probably scared,

1664
01:41:36,316 --> 01:41:38,444
and not well led

1665
01:41:38,568 --> 01:41:40,328
and-and young men and women
on the other side

1666
01:41:40,445 --> 01:41:41,913
protesting the war out there

1667
01:41:42,030 --> 01:41:44,249
for, you know,
idealistic reasons.

1668
01:41:44,365 --> 01:41:46,914
And look at what happens

1669
01:41:47,035 --> 01:41:53,133
when we let things get as bad
as they got.

1670
01:41:54,959 --> 01:41:57,508
According to one national poll,

1671
01:41:57,629 --> 01:42:00,303
58% of the American people

1672
01:42:00,465 --> 01:42:03,264
thought the killings justified.

1673
01:42:06,262 --> 01:42:09,482
The parents
of the dead ROTC student

1674
01:42:09,599 --> 01:42:12,193
received a flood of hate mail,

1675
01:42:12,310 --> 01:42:15,610
suggesting that they should be
grateful their boy was dead

1676
01:42:15,730 --> 01:42:20,281
since he'd been
"just another communist."

1677
01:42:25,531 --> 01:42:29,001
During the days that followed,
all across the country,

1678
01:42:29,160 --> 01:42:31,663
more than four million
college students

1679
01:42:31,829 --> 01:42:33,672
demonstrated against the war

1680
01:42:33,831 --> 01:42:36,710
and what had happened
at Kent State.

1681
01:42:56,312 --> 01:43:00,863
448 campuses closed down,

1682
01:43:01,025 --> 01:43:06,532
and the National Guard
was called out in 16 states.

1683
01:43:10,159 --> 01:43:13,629
At Jackson State
University in Mississippi,

1684
01:43:13,746 --> 01:43:17,876
state police opened fire
on a dormitory.

1685
01:43:18,042 --> 01:43:19,840
Two students died.

1686
01:43:19,961 --> 01:43:22,840
12 more were wounded.

1687
01:43:24,882 --> 01:43:26,884
Jackson State,
those were my people.

1688
01:43:27,051 --> 01:43:28,849
Those were black kids.

1689
01:43:28,970 --> 01:43:31,189
And they died.

1690
01:43:34,809 --> 01:43:37,062
Army private Tim O'Brien

1691
01:43:37,228 --> 01:43:40,903
was now back home in Minnesota.

1692
01:43:41,024 --> 01:43:44,449
There was a huge march

1693
01:43:44,569 --> 01:43:46,367
after the Kent State shootings
in St. Paul,

1694
01:43:46,487 --> 01:43:48,785
and I joined the march.

1695
01:43:48,906 --> 01:43:54,083
I just wanted to put my body
amidst these 100,000 people,

1696
01:43:54,203 --> 01:43:57,332
that word "no" being uttered
by my body, if not by my mouth,

1697
01:43:57,457 --> 01:43:58,879
by just making that march.

1698
01:43:59,000 --> 01:44:02,425
That same march
I was doing in Vietnam

1699
01:44:02,545 --> 01:44:04,764
that seemed senseless
and purposeless

1700
01:44:04,922 --> 01:44:06,014
and without direction,

1701
01:44:06,132 --> 01:44:08,931
here it felt sensible
and purposeful

1702
01:44:09,093 --> 01:44:12,313
and with direction,
heading for that state capital

1703
01:44:12,430 --> 01:44:15,730
to say no.

1704
01:44:15,850 --> 01:44:19,024
And, boy, did it feel good.

1705
01:44:23,983 --> 01:44:25,781
Marine Corporal Bill Ehrhart

1706
01:44:25,943 --> 01:44:28,321
was a student
at Swarthmore College

1707
01:44:28,446 --> 01:44:32,542
near his hometown
in eastern Pennsylvania.

1708
01:44:32,658 --> 01:44:37,084
And here's this
very famous photograph.

1709
01:44:37,205 --> 01:44:40,004
And I just looked at this thing.

1710
01:44:44,295 --> 01:44:45,797
And I came unglued.

1711
01:44:48,132 --> 01:44:51,477
I don't know
how long I sat down on the curb,

1712
01:44:51,636 --> 01:44:55,015
and I don't know
if I was there for 15 minutes

1713
01:44:55,139 --> 01:44:56,561
or an hour and a half.

1714
01:44:56,682 --> 01:44:58,901
Just had a breakdown.

1715
01:44:59,018 --> 01:45:02,613
Just crying,
sobbing uncontrollably.

1716
01:45:02,730 --> 01:45:04,583
All I could think was,
"It's not enough to send us

1717
01:45:04,607 --> 01:45:06,951
"halfway around
the world to die.

1718
01:45:07,068 --> 01:45:09,821
"Now they're killing us in
the streets of our own country.

1719
01:45:09,946 --> 01:45:11,289
I have to do something."

1720
01:45:13,282 --> 01:45:14,374
And I finally...

1721
01:45:14,492 --> 01:45:16,290
whenever
I finally cried myself out,

1722
01:45:16,411 --> 01:45:18,834
I got up and I joined
the antiwar movement.

1723
01:45:22,166 --> 01:45:26,512
I remember when the
kids were killed at Kent State,

1724
01:45:26,629 --> 01:45:29,303
and I thought,

1725
01:45:29,424 --> 01:45:32,553
"My God, we're killing
our own children now.

1726
01:45:32,677 --> 01:45:34,395
We've really gone mad."

1727
01:45:34,512 --> 01:45:35,809
And I wasn't...

1728
01:45:35,930 --> 01:45:38,809
That's when I was hiding
from things.

1729
01:45:38,933 --> 01:45:40,856
I wasn't
in anybody's movement then.

1730
01:45:41,018 --> 01:45:42,645
I was just drinking.

1731
01:45:44,772 --> 01:45:50,154
But that was one of the things
that told me

1732
01:45:50,278 --> 01:45:52,531
America needed a wake-up call.