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- Original file by zfeet -
- Resynced by Ornlu Wolfjarl -
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JEAN-MARIE CROCKER: Sometimes I would
hear a car crunch up in the snow,
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and I'd think maybe it
would be somebody coming
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to give us bad news.
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Which was not good for me to think.
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It was an underlying anxiety
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that I really think was there all the time.
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NARRATOR: All his young
life, Denton Crocker, Jr....
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known as "Mogie" to his family...
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had dreamed of serving his country,
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of putting his own life on the line
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in defense of what he called
"individual freedom."
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He'd wanted to serve in Vietnam so much
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he'd pressured his parents
into granting their permission
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for him to join the Army before he was 18.
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He was eager for combat and
pleased when he was assigned
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to the 1st Brigade of the
celebrated 101st Airborne,
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the "Screaming Eagles" who
had led the way on D-Day.
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But he was quickly disappointed
to find himself attached
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to battalion headquarters,
repairing weapons, making lists,
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keeping records.
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It was "boring," he wrote home.
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MOGIE CROCKER (dramatized): I think perhaps
you will understand my disappointment
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when you see that there is
little sense in being over here
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unless one faces the main objective,
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the destruction of the VC.
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Certainly one feels no
sense of accomplishment
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when one's friends are
facing all the dangers.
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JEAN-MARIE CROCKER: I had a map on
the back of the living room door.
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And I put pins in it every
time Denton Jr. moved.
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And he moved a lot.
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And I knew those names at one time
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as well as any area of our own world.
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LYNDON JOHNSON: Well, how'd
you have a good weekend?
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ROBERT McNAMARA: (laughs)
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Yeah, I did, Mr. President.
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I hope you did too.
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JOHNSON: What's your thinking these days?
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I haven't talked to you.
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What's happening to our pause?
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What are our generals saying?
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McNAMARA: See, I think you'll
find some foreign leaders
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will criticize you if you resume bombing.
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As a matter of fact, no
other intelligence source
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that I've seen indicates that
Hanoi is even considering
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moving toward negotiation
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in order to lead us to extend the pause.
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Intelligence information...
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NARRATOR: As 1966 began, the
president of the United States
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was just learning the name of the man
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who was the most powerful member
of the Politburo in Hanoi...
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Le Duan.
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McNAMARA: ...First Secretary
of the Communist Party,
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a man named Le Duan... L-E capital D-U-A-N...
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who today is putting considerable pressure
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on Ho Chi Minh and others
to ensure continuing a war
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that he thinks they either
are winning or can win.
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("Masters of War" by The
Staple Singers playing)
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♪ They're masters of war
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♪ You build all the big guns
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♪ You build the big planes. ♪
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NARRATOR: As they continued
to escalate the war,
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Johnson and McNamara were frustrated
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that American commanders in
Vietnam, who had come of age
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during World War II and Korea,
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were having a hard time making sense
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of what was happening on the ground.
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In the months and years to come,
as the American presence grew,
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Hanoi would escalate too,
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sending more and more soldiers south,
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strengthening its own air defenses,
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and recruiting more fighters
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from the alienated South
Vietnamese countryside.
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The Johnson administration
was desperately trying
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to prop up the government in
Saigon and, at the same time,
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help that government to
somehow win the loyalty
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of its own people.
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Johnson had tried to forge
an international coalition
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to defend South Vietnam.
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But only five other countries
would ever send combat troops...
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Australia and New Zealand,
Thailand, the Philippines,
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and South Korea.
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America's most important allies,
Britain, France and Canada,
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refused to take part and were
calling instead for peace talks.
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And more and more Americans,
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including some of the
country's most respected
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foreign policy experts,
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were beginning to question the
way the war was being fought,
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whether it could ever be won,
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and if the United States
should be in Vietnam at all.
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(explosion)
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As 1966 began, 2,344 Americans
had died in Vietnam.
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Nearly 200,000 were stationed there,
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and more were on their way.
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Those soldiers would quickly discover
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that the war they were being asked to fight
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was not their father's war.
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SAM WILSON: We tend to fight the next war
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in the same way we fought the last one.
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We are prisoners of our own experience.
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And many of the things that
we learned that worked
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in World War II
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were not applicable to the war in Vietnam.
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We simply thought we'd go
in with a sledgehammer
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and knock things down, clean them up,
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and it would be all over.
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It was a kind of an oversimplification
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of the problem
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combined with our
overconfidence that caused us,
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I think, to be arrogant.
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And it's very, very difficult
to dispel ignorance
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if you retain arrogance.
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STAPLES SINGERS: ♪ I'll stand over your
body and make sure that you're dead. ♪
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(gavel pounding)
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NARRATOR: In early February of 1966,
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President Johnson got more bad news.
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His old friend, J. William Fulbright,
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the powerful chairman
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of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
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planned to hold hearings
on the Vietnam War,
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and the television networks
intended to cover the hearings
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from gavel to gavel.
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Fulbright, who had once supported the war,
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now opposed it.
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LBJ was alarmed.
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His own advisers had been
giving him conflicting advice
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about Vietnam for years.
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But a public debate about
how he was running the war
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in front of millions of Americans
filled him with dread.
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As the hearings got underway,
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the president tried to deflect attention
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by suddenly announcing he was
going to a military conference
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in Honolulu, to meet for the
first time the two generals
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who now headed the Saigon government.
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ED HERLIHY: It is a meeting
without precedent,
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and is designed to strengthen
United States determination
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to pursue to the end the drive
against communist domination
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in South Vietnam.
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NARRATOR: General Nguyen Van
Thieu was the chief of state,
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but real power lay with
Thieu's bitter rival,
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the former head of the South
Vietnamese Air Force,
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Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky.
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Ky was "an unguided missile,"
according to one U.S. diplomat,
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known for his flamboyant uniforms,
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his gaudy private life, and
his public pronouncements.
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He once told a reporter that
what Vietnam really needed
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was "five Hitlers."
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PHAN QUANG TUE: How could we
allow and accept that to happen?
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He was a charlatan.
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The man not only has no training,
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has no education, but
doesn't seem to inter...
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be interested in being educated,
and proud of his ignorance.
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NARRATOR: President Johnson spent
most of his time in Honolulu
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urging Ky to focus on pacification...
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earning the support of the
South Vietnamese people
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by undertaking economic and social reforms
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Americans had been calling
for for more than a decade.
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Johnson wasn't interested
in "high-sounding words"
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about progress, he said.
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He wanted genuine achievements...
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what they called in Texas,
"coonskins on the wall."
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BUI DIEM: Well, nobody understood
what does it mean "coonskin."
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And people the Vietnamese at
the delegation they ask me,
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"You understand what it is?"
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And myself I said, "Well,
I don't understand."
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I have to ask some Americans
to explain to me.
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And some American friends,
they explain to me later on
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and only by then the Vietnamese understood.
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I happen to hold the point of view
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that it isn't going to be too long
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before the American people, as a people,
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will repudiate our war in Southeast Asia.
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MAXWELL TAYLOR: That,
of course, is good news
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to Hanoi, Senator.
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MORSE: Oh, I know that
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that's the smear artist that you
militarists give to those of us
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that have honest differences
of opinion with you.
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But I don't intend to get
down in the gutter with you
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and engage in that kind of debate, General.
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NARRATOR: Johnson's trip to
Honolulu had not distracted
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the American public.
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They were riveted to the hearings.
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And I also think that great countries,
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especially this country,
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is quite strong enough to
engage in a compromise
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without losing its standing in the world,
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without losing its prestige
as a great nation.
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On the contrary, I think it would be
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one of the greatest victories
for us and our prestige
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if we could-could be ingenious
enough and magnanimous enough
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to bring about some kind of a settlement
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of this particular struggle.
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NARRATOR: Fulbright invited the
respected diplomat George Kennan
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to testify.
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00:11:13,661 --> 00:11:16,628
For two decades, his
doctrine of containment...
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00:11:16,728 --> 00:11:18,628
stopping Soviet expansion...
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had been the basis of
American foreign policy,
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and had in some ways been the justification
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for leading the United States
into its proxy war in Vietnam.
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KENNAN: The first point
I would like to make
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is that if we were not already
involved as we are today
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in Vietnam,
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00:11:37,963 --> 00:11:39,430
I would know of no reason
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why we should wish to become so involved,
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and I could think of several reasons
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00:11:43,930 --> 00:11:45,363
why we should wish not to.
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You have referred to containment here.
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How... how can we contain in Vietnam?
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We would do better if we
really would show ourselves
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00:11:58,831 --> 00:12:02,297
a little more relaxed and less
terrified of what happens
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00:12:02,397 --> 00:12:04,364
in the...
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00:12:04,464 --> 00:12:08,263
certainly in the smaller
countries of Asia and Africa,
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00:12:08,364 --> 00:12:12,398
and not jump around like an
elephant frightened by a mouse
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00:12:12,498 --> 00:12:14,697
every time these things occur.
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00:12:14,798 --> 00:12:18,465
NARRATOR: Johnson was relieved
when, at the last moment,
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00:12:18,564 --> 00:12:21,532
instead of airing Kennan's testimony,
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CBS showed reruns ofThe Real McCoys,
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00:12:25,131 --> 00:12:29,131
The Andy Griffith Show andl Love Lucy.
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00:12:29,231 --> 00:12:33,298
But NBC kept the cameras running.
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00:12:33,398 --> 00:12:36,198
This is not only not our business,
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00:12:36,299 --> 00:12:38,198
but I don't think we can
do it successfully.
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00:12:38,299 --> 00:12:41,165
And I take it by this you mean that
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00:12:41,265 --> 00:12:44,265
this is simply not a practicable objective,
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00:12:44,366 --> 00:12:46,833
as I understand it, in this country.
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00:12:46,933 --> 00:12:49,198
We can't achieve it even
with the best of will.
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This is correct, and I have a fear
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00:12:52,033 --> 00:12:57,566
that our thinking about this
whole problem is still affected
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00:12:57,666 --> 00:13:02,300
by some sort of illusions about
invincibility on our part.
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NARRATOR: Just before the hearings began,
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the president had decided to
resume the bombing of targets
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00:13:17,500 --> 00:13:19,367
in North Vietnam.
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00:13:19,467 --> 00:13:25,267
The 37-day pause that had
begun on Christmas Eve 1965
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had yielded no hint of Hanoi's willingness
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00:13:28,535 --> 00:13:30,667
to come to the negotiating table.
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00:13:32,835 --> 00:13:36,734
In South Vietnam, Viet Cong
guerrillas were now believed
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00:13:36,835 --> 00:13:40,835
to control nearly
three-quarters of the country.
237
00:13:40,935 --> 00:13:43,735
But General William Westmoreland,
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00:13:43,836 --> 00:13:47,635
the American commander,
thought his most urgent task
239
00:13:47,735 --> 00:13:51,436
was to destroy the North
Vietnamese regular army units
240
00:13:51,536 --> 00:13:53,336
Hanoi was sending South.
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00:13:55,336 --> 00:13:58,201
Westmoreland's target
for the next two years
242
00:13:58,302 --> 00:14:02,469
would be reaching what he
called the "crossover point"...
243
00:14:02,568 --> 00:14:05,437
the point at which U.S. and ARVN forces
244
00:14:05,537 --> 00:14:09,437
were killing more enemy troops
than could be replaced.
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00:14:10,437 --> 00:14:14,102
It would be a war of attrition.
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00:14:14,202 --> 00:14:19,102
But that would require still
more American soldiers.
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00:14:21,202 --> 00:14:24,470
They came from every corner of the country.
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00:14:27,670 --> 00:14:31,170
MATT HARRISON: I was born at West Point
when my dad was on the faculty there.
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00:14:31,270 --> 00:14:33,770
From my earliest recollection,
250
00:14:33,871 --> 00:14:36,137
West Point was what I wanted to do,
251
00:14:36,237 --> 00:14:39,004
not even particularly
because I had an inkling
252
00:14:39,103 --> 00:14:41,270
or a strong desire for a military career.
253
00:14:41,371 --> 00:14:42,471
It's just...
254
00:14:42,570 --> 00:14:44,479
West Point was kind of the
height of my ambition.
255
00:14:44,503 --> 00:14:46,603
("On, Brave Old Army Team" playing)
256
00:14:46,703 --> 00:14:49,770
NARRATOR: The son of a colonel
who had served in World War II,
257
00:14:49,871 --> 00:14:54,638
Matt Harrison had grown up on
Army bases around the world.
258
00:14:54,738 --> 00:14:56,738
For him and his four siblings,
259
00:14:56,839 --> 00:15:01,204
the military was always at
the center of their lives.
260
00:15:01,305 --> 00:15:05,439
ANNE HARRISON BOWMAN: You addressed
parents "sir" and "ma'am,"
261
00:15:05,539 --> 00:15:08,339
and you said "yes" and not "yeah."
262
00:15:08,439 --> 00:15:11,704
And you answered the phone,
"Colonel Harrison's quarters."
263
00:15:11,805 --> 00:15:14,605
We got up every Saturday morning
and we dusted the house.
264
00:15:14,705 --> 00:15:17,639
My dad would put on the
West Point marching band
265
00:15:17,740 --> 00:15:19,900
and my sister and I would
dust around the living room.
266
00:15:21,272 --> 00:15:22,906
NARRATOR: It seemed to Matt's parents
267
00:15:23,005 --> 00:15:25,205
that he could do no wrong.
268
00:15:25,305 --> 00:15:28,572
He was the embodiment of the
values they had hoped to instill
269
00:15:28,673 --> 00:15:33,705
in all their children:
duty, honor, and country.
270
00:15:35,240 --> 00:15:37,640
HARRISON: The strongest
impression I have from my class
271
00:15:37,741 --> 00:15:42,073
and my classmates was they were
guys who just were idealists.
272
00:15:42,174 --> 00:15:45,107
And I think guys drawn from little towns
273
00:15:45,206 --> 00:15:48,541
all across the United
States had that in common.
274
00:15:48,640 --> 00:15:51,541
It was a time before the questions
275
00:15:51,640 --> 00:15:53,706
about American exceptionalism.
276
00:15:53,806 --> 00:15:55,741
We didn't question.
277
00:15:55,841 --> 00:15:58,975
We believed in what this country stood for,
278
00:15:59,074 --> 00:16:03,307
and we believed that
people who had the ability
279
00:16:03,408 --> 00:16:06,542
to lead soldiers should do that.
280
00:16:08,007 --> 00:16:10,742
("Mustang Sally" by Wilson Pickett playing)
281
00:16:15,707 --> 00:16:18,207
PICKETT: ♪ Mustang Sally
282
00:16:18,307 --> 00:16:19,774
♪ Huh!
283
00:16:19,874 --> 00:16:21,909
ROGER HARRIS: I wanted to
go with the gladiators.
284
00:16:22,008 --> 00:16:23,875
I wanted to go with the tough guys.
285
00:16:26,508 --> 00:16:30,508
I was born in Boston, in the
Roxbury section of Boston.
286
00:16:30,609 --> 00:16:33,676
There were those who would
recruit you for gangs
287
00:16:33,775 --> 00:16:37,043
and try to entice you to do things
288
00:16:37,142 --> 00:16:40,708
that-that weren't in the
best interest of society.
289
00:16:40,808 --> 00:16:41,843
Let's put it like that.
290
00:16:43,243 --> 00:16:45,443
NARRATOR: Roger Harris
dreamed of going to college
291
00:16:45,544 --> 00:16:48,209
on a football scholarship,
but was not big enough
292
00:16:48,309 --> 00:16:50,744
to play for his team in high school.
293
00:16:50,844 --> 00:16:53,009
HARRIS: And so I enlisted
in the Marine Corps.
294
00:16:53,110 --> 00:16:57,076
And I felt that... that it was a win-win
295
00:16:57,177 --> 00:17:01,977
because, one, if I died,
then my mother would be able
296
00:17:02,076 --> 00:17:05,244
to receive the $10,000 insurance policy.
297
00:17:05,344 --> 00:17:07,045
I thought that was a lot of money,
298
00:17:07,144 --> 00:17:08,710
that my mother will be rich if I die.
299
00:17:08,810 --> 00:17:09,810
You know, she'll be rich.
300
00:17:11,444 --> 00:17:14,210
If I live, then I'll be a hero, you know,
301
00:17:14,310 --> 00:17:16,577
and I can come back and get a job.
302
00:17:16,678 --> 00:17:19,045
Naive, dumb, you know?
303
00:17:20,678 --> 00:17:23,144
NARRATOR: John Musgrave was
from the Fairmount neighborhood
304
00:17:23,245 --> 00:17:25,611
of Independence, Missouri.
305
00:17:25,710 --> 00:17:29,078
MUSGRAVE: I was 17 and my best friend and I
306
00:17:29,179 --> 00:17:31,311
went down and enlisted in the Marine Corps.
307
00:17:31,412 --> 00:17:34,346
I had always dreamed of being a Marine.
308
00:17:34,445 --> 00:17:36,078
And...
309
00:17:38,979 --> 00:17:42,811
Well, I knew I wasn't going
to be a man right away
310
00:17:42,912 --> 00:17:45,412
but I was going to be a
Marine, and that was enough.
311
00:17:45,511 --> 00:17:49,711
I'd be doing something mature.
312
00:17:49,811 --> 00:17:52,379
And I'd be doing something
that was important.
313
00:17:52,480 --> 00:17:57,279
And there was a war on and
I wanted a piece of it.
314
00:17:59,180 --> 00:18:01,347
BILL EHRHART: I grew up in
Perkasie, Pennsylvania.
315
00:18:01,446 --> 00:18:03,579
And every Memorial Day
316
00:18:03,680 --> 00:18:06,779
all that generation of World
War II would dress up
317
00:18:06,879 --> 00:18:08,959
in their American Legion
uniforms and parade around.
318
00:18:10,413 --> 00:18:14,280
And I'd put red, white, and
blue crepe paper on my bicycle.
319
00:18:14,380 --> 00:18:16,681
And the kids could ride behind the parade.
320
00:18:18,414 --> 00:18:21,914
NARRATOR: Bill Ehrhart would sign
up in part because his father,
321
00:18:22,013 --> 00:18:24,848
a pastor, had not served.
322
00:18:24,947 --> 00:18:27,981
Ehrhart was a gifted student
323
00:18:28,080 --> 00:18:30,013
and in his senior year in high school
324
00:18:30,114 --> 00:18:33,114
was accepted by four colleges.
325
00:18:33,213 --> 00:18:35,013
Had he attended any one of them,
326
00:18:35,114 --> 00:18:38,381
he would have been deferred from the draft.
327
00:18:38,482 --> 00:18:40,014
It all came down to this notion
328
00:18:40,115 --> 00:18:43,049
of I was going to serve
my country and be a hero
329
00:18:43,148 --> 00:18:46,615
and have that gorgeous
Marine Corps uniform.
330
00:18:46,714 --> 00:18:49,682
And the girls would just
be draped around my neck
331
00:18:49,781 --> 00:18:52,415
and nobody would beat me up again.
332
00:18:52,514 --> 00:18:53,814
But at the same time
333
00:18:53,915 --> 00:18:57,349
I would really be serving my country.
334
00:18:57,448 --> 00:19:00,183
It was my chance to be... (sighs)
335
00:19:00,282 --> 00:19:02,850
one doesn't want to trivialize
it, but it was my chance to be
336
00:19:02,949 --> 00:19:04,782
the star of my own John Wayne movie.
337
00:19:04,882 --> 00:19:10,082
It was my chance to do what that
World War II generation had done
338
00:19:10,183 --> 00:19:12,416
and seemed to be so proud of.
339
00:19:12,515 --> 00:19:15,483
Now I had my turn.
340
00:19:16,882 --> 00:19:18,191
NARRATOR: Wherever they came from,
341
00:19:18,215 --> 00:19:21,183
whatever their reasons for
joining the military,
342
00:19:21,282 --> 00:19:23,684
training transformed them.
343
00:19:23,783 --> 00:19:28,150
(United States Marine Band
playing "Semper Fidelis" march)
344
00:19:32,650 --> 00:19:34,917
For about the first five
weeks at Parris Island,
345
00:19:35,016 --> 00:19:38,516
I was convinced that I
was going to die there.
346
00:19:39,984 --> 00:19:42,144
The drill instructors said
they were going to kill me.
347
00:19:42,184 --> 00:19:43,751
And they certainly sounded serious.
348
00:19:46,384 --> 00:19:49,084
MUSGRAVE: I grew up in segregated
neighborhoods all my life.
349
00:19:49,185 --> 00:19:52,951
So, I'd never met a black person
till I arrived at boot camp.
350
00:19:53,052 --> 00:19:56,752
Never stood next to a black
person or a Hispanic
351
00:19:56,852 --> 00:19:58,517
or anyone who was Jewish.
352
00:19:58,618 --> 00:20:01,752
I just... they didn't mix where I grew up.
353
00:20:01,852 --> 00:20:04,317
So that was just eye opening.
354
00:20:04,418 --> 00:20:07,885
But when I got to talking to
everybody, we were all the same.
355
00:20:07,986 --> 00:20:10,585
We were all working class and poor.
356
00:20:10,686 --> 00:20:13,919
And we all wanted to be Marines real bad.
357
00:20:15,085 --> 00:20:17,619
EHRHART: By the time I graduated,
358
00:20:17,718 --> 00:20:21,018
I felt like I was king of the world.
359
00:20:21,119 --> 00:20:23,053
I was God.
360
00:20:23,152 --> 00:20:25,419
I could do anything.
361
00:20:25,518 --> 00:20:28,753
On that day I became a Marine.
362
00:20:28,853 --> 00:20:32,653
You know, the Marine Corps
trains you to be a fighter.
363
00:20:32,754 --> 00:20:34,819
They train you to fight,
they train you to kill.
364
00:20:34,920 --> 00:20:38,054
They used to say that if
you're a Marine, you can't die
365
00:20:38,153 --> 00:20:40,754
until you kill three Vietnamese.
366
00:20:42,086 --> 00:20:43,987
And I said, "Well, I'm from Roxbury.
367
00:20:44,086 --> 00:20:48,987
If the expectation is three, I'll do ten."
368
00:20:50,786 --> 00:20:52,421
You know, craziness.
369
00:20:52,520 --> 00:20:54,488
(gunshot)
370
00:21:01,355 --> 00:21:04,355
LESLIE GELB: The tendency
for a great power is to use
371
00:21:04,454 --> 00:21:06,355
what it's greatest at...
372
00:21:06,454 --> 00:21:09,654
namely its firepower, destructive power.
373
00:21:09,755 --> 00:21:12,988
Dropping a lot of bombs and
shooting a lot of artillery
374
00:21:13,087 --> 00:21:14,855
at a distance.
375
00:21:14,955 --> 00:21:16,221
You save lives.
376
00:21:16,321 --> 00:21:18,922
You kill a lot of them, you
don't lose a lot of us.
377
00:21:20,521 --> 00:21:23,288
NARRATOR: The central coastal
province of Binh Dinh
378
00:21:23,388 --> 00:21:26,288
was home to more than
half a million people.
379
00:21:26,388 --> 00:21:29,989
For decades, it had been
a guerrilla stronghold,
380
00:21:30,088 --> 00:21:32,955
and in early 1966,
381
00:21:33,056 --> 00:21:38,190
the Viet Cong had been augmented
by North Vietnamese regulars,
382
00:21:38,289 --> 00:21:40,889
some 8,000 men in all.
383
00:21:44,389 --> 00:21:47,257
General Westmoreland sent 20,000 American,
384
00:21:47,357 --> 00:21:50,222
South Vietnamese and South Korean troops
385
00:21:50,322 --> 00:21:53,623
storming across the province
in pursuit of the enemy
386
00:21:53,722 --> 00:21:56,289
and their sources of supply.
387
00:21:56,389 --> 00:22:00,957
They first dropped leaflets and
broadcast from loudspeakers
388
00:22:01,058 --> 00:22:03,090
to warn villagers of the terrible fate
389
00:22:03,191 --> 00:22:06,890
that awaited anyone who
fired on their helicopters,
390
00:22:06,991 --> 00:22:09,223
urged them to leave their homes,
391
00:22:09,323 --> 00:22:12,558
promised safe passage to any Viet Cong
392
00:22:12,657 --> 00:22:14,223
who wished to surrender.
393
00:22:14,323 --> 00:22:17,890
Then they called in
airstrikes and artillery
394
00:22:17,991 --> 00:22:21,758
and blew the hamlets to bits.
395
00:22:21,858 --> 00:22:26,259
It was the first large-scale
search-and-destroy campaign
396
00:22:26,359 --> 00:22:28,192
of the war.
397
00:22:28,291 --> 00:22:29,692
(shouting, gunfire)
398
00:22:32,359 --> 00:22:35,458
The offensive lasted 42 days.
399
00:22:35,559 --> 00:22:42,158
The Army reported 2,389
enemy soldiers killed.
400
00:22:42,259 --> 00:22:45,192
Westmoreland was pleased.
401
00:22:45,291 --> 00:22:47,892
But commanders on the scene were concerned
402
00:22:47,993 --> 00:22:51,659
that despite all the American
firepower brought against them,
403
00:22:51,760 --> 00:22:55,592
most of the North Vietnamese
regulars had still managed
404
00:22:55,693 --> 00:22:59,325
to escape back into the Central Highlands.
405
00:22:59,426 --> 00:23:04,025
The operation would drive
more than 100,000 civilians
406
00:23:04,126 --> 00:23:05,792
from their homes.
407
00:23:07,092 --> 00:23:10,160
Similar search-and-destroy
and bombing campaigns...
408
00:23:10,261 --> 00:23:15,427
17 large-scale U.S.
offensives in 1966 alone...
409
00:23:15,526 --> 00:23:16,960
would produce a total
410
00:23:17,061 --> 00:23:20,026
of more than three million homeless people
411
00:23:20,127 --> 00:23:21,694
all across the country,
412
00:23:21,793 --> 00:23:27,026
roughly one-fifth of South
Vietnam's population.
413
00:23:31,294 --> 00:23:34,628
Since there was no front in Vietnam,
414
00:23:34,727 --> 00:23:38,227
as there had been in the
first and second World Wars,
415
00:23:38,327 --> 00:23:42,661
since no ground was ever
permanently won or lost,
416
00:23:42,762 --> 00:23:46,394
the American military
command in Vietnam... MACV...
417
00:23:46,495 --> 00:23:50,928
fell back more and more on
a single grisly measure
418
00:23:51,027 --> 00:23:52,794
of supposed success:
419
00:23:52,894 --> 00:23:55,129
counting corpses.
420
00:23:55,228 --> 00:23:57,895
Body count.
421
00:24:03,063 --> 00:24:04,472
JAMES WILLBANKS: The problem with the war,
422
00:24:04,496 --> 00:24:07,129
as it often is, are the metrics.
423
00:24:07,228 --> 00:24:12,095
It is a situation where if you
can't count what's important,
424
00:24:12,196 --> 00:24:14,696
you make what you can count important.
425
00:24:16,029 --> 00:24:17,906
So, in this particular
case what you could count
426
00:24:17,930 --> 00:24:20,396
was dead enemy bodies.
427
00:24:22,329 --> 00:24:25,064
JOE GALLOWAY: You don't get
details with a body count.
428
00:24:25,163 --> 00:24:26,997
You get numbers.
429
00:24:27,096 --> 00:24:31,864
And the numbers are lies, most of 'em.
430
00:24:31,963 --> 00:24:36,497
If body count is your success mark,
431
00:24:36,596 --> 00:24:42,664
then you're pushing otherwise
honorable men, warriors,
432
00:24:42,765 --> 00:24:44,097
to become liars.
433
00:24:45,931 --> 00:24:47,765
ROBERT GARD: If body count
434
00:24:47,865 --> 00:24:49,097
is the measure of success,
435
00:24:49,198 --> 00:24:52,765
then there's the tendency
to count every body
436
00:24:52,865 --> 00:24:54,998
as an enemy soldier.
437
00:24:55,097 --> 00:24:59,565
There's a tendency to want
to pile up dead bodies
438
00:24:59,664 --> 00:25:05,731
and perhaps to use less
discriminate firepower
439
00:25:05,831 --> 00:25:07,298
than you otherwise might
440
00:25:07,398 --> 00:25:10,866
in order to achieve the result
441
00:25:10,965 --> 00:25:14,632
that you're charged with trying to obtain.
442
00:25:28,232 --> 00:25:30,666
(man shouting)
443
00:25:35,067 --> 00:25:40,599
MERRILL McPEAK: Just think about the
problem from the North's point of view.
444
00:25:40,700 --> 00:25:43,966
They had to supply the South.
445
00:25:44,067 --> 00:25:47,300
I'm talking about bringing in
people, equipment, supplies,
446
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:49,300
and so forth.
447
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:54,368
They started from nothing and
pushed a road through that...
448
00:25:54,467 --> 00:25:57,400
through an area the size of Massachusetts.
449
00:25:57,501 --> 00:26:01,434
So this is not a trivial
amount of real estate
450
00:26:01,533 --> 00:26:04,701
that they took over, built a road on,
451
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:06,400
and then maintained it.
452
00:26:09,135 --> 00:26:12,801
NARRATOR: For years, Hanoi had
smuggled most of its arms and supplies
453
00:26:12,901 --> 00:26:16,234
to the South aboard an
improvised fleet of junks,
454
00:26:16,334 --> 00:26:18,702
trawlers and freighters.
455
00:26:18,801 --> 00:26:21,334
But when the U.S. Navy
effectively blockaded
456
00:26:21,435 --> 00:26:23,202
the Southern coastline,
457
00:26:23,301 --> 00:26:25,635
the North Vietnamese
would be forced to move
458
00:26:25,734 --> 00:26:28,502
almost all of their supplies overland,
459
00:26:28,601 --> 00:26:30,702
through Laos and Cambodia,
460
00:26:30,801 --> 00:26:33,136
neutral countries Hanoi considered
461
00:26:33,235 --> 00:26:35,602
part of the greater battlefield.
462
00:26:35,703 --> 00:26:39,302
Americans called it the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
463
00:26:39,402 --> 00:26:43,402
The North Vietnamese called it Route 559,
464
00:26:43,503 --> 00:26:47,469
after the men and women
of the 559th Army Corps,
465
00:26:47,570 --> 00:26:50,969
who were turning it from a
braided web of footpaths
466
00:26:51,070 --> 00:26:55,236
into 12,000 tangled miles
of jungle roadways
467
00:26:55,336 --> 00:26:59,036
down which men and materiel streamed south.
468
00:27:00,271 --> 00:27:01,571
When they had fought the French,
469
00:27:01,670 --> 00:27:05,736
the Viet Minh had depended on
tens of thousands of porters,
470
00:27:05,836 --> 00:27:08,803
then on legions of bicycles.
471
00:27:08,903 --> 00:27:12,071
Now, to offset the growing
American presence,
472
00:27:12,170 --> 00:27:15,903
the North Vietnamese used
more mechanized transport...
473
00:27:16,004 --> 00:27:19,104
relays of six-wheeled Russian-built trucks
474
00:27:19,205 --> 00:27:22,837
traveling under cover of darkness.
475
00:27:22,938 --> 00:27:25,904
MACV reasoned that if the Ho Chi Minh Trail
476
00:27:26,005 --> 00:27:28,505
could somehow be sufficiently damaged,
477
00:27:28,604 --> 00:27:32,904
the enemy would be unable
to sustain itself.
478
00:27:35,471 --> 00:27:39,037
Three million tons of explosives
would eventually be dropped
479
00:27:39,138 --> 00:27:41,738
on the Laos portion of the trail alone...
480
00:27:41,838 --> 00:27:45,972
a million more tons than
fell on Germany and Japan
481
00:27:46,073 --> 00:27:48,873
during all of World War II.
482
00:27:48,972 --> 00:27:52,972
Some key choke-points
were hit so many times
483
00:27:53,073 --> 00:27:56,472
the workers gave them names...
"the Gate of Death,"
484
00:27:56,573 --> 00:28:02,274
"Fried Flesh Hill" and
"the Gorge of Lost Souls."
485
00:28:04,406 --> 00:28:06,940
To expose enemy traffic,
486
00:28:07,039 --> 00:28:09,906
other aircraft dropped chemical defoliants,
487
00:28:10,007 --> 00:28:11,940
including Agent Orange,
488
00:28:12,039 --> 00:28:14,973
that destroyed thousands of acres of jungle
489
00:28:15,074 --> 00:28:18,839
and turned the earth into what
one American pilot called
490
00:28:18,940 --> 00:28:21,539
"bony, lunar dust."
491
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:25,775
McPEAK: We'd punch a hole
in the road and say,
492
00:28:25,875 --> 00:28:27,484
"Ha ha, they'll never get around that one."
493
00:28:27,508 --> 00:28:30,107
And the next day you'd come up,
and the hole wouldn't be there;
494
00:28:30,208 --> 00:28:32,941
and there'd be dust on the trees
back, you know, 50 meters
495
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:35,907
in both directions, saying,
heavy traffic all night.
496
00:28:53,175 --> 00:28:58,041
NARRATOR: As many as 230,000
teenagers, many of them volunteers,
497
00:28:58,142 --> 00:29:02,175
worked to keep the roads
open and the traffic moving.
498
00:29:02,276 --> 00:29:05,209
More than half of them were women.
499
00:29:07,776 --> 00:29:10,777
Le Minh Khue, who had left
her home in the North
500
00:29:10,877 --> 00:29:13,809
with a novel by Ernest
Hemingway in her backpack,
501
00:29:13,909 --> 00:29:17,476
observed her 17th birthday on the trail.
502
00:29:33,711 --> 00:29:38,810
NARRATOR: Thousands died on the trail
from starvation and accidents,
503
00:29:38,910 --> 00:29:42,511
fevers and snakebite and sheer exhaustion,
504
00:29:42,610 --> 00:29:45,444
as well as from the relentless bombing.
505
00:30:52,447 --> 00:30:54,746
(Doug Wamble's "A Hard Rain's
A-Gonna Fall" playing)
506
00:30:57,413 --> 00:30:59,822
HOWARD K. SMITH (on television): But
in this kind of war you never know.
507
00:30:59,846 --> 00:31:01,613
You have to be constantly alert
508
00:31:01,714 --> 00:31:04,148
because you can't tell
friends from enemies.
509
00:31:04,247 --> 00:31:07,715
Relax for a moment and your
reward may be a grenade
510
00:31:07,814 --> 00:31:09,247
or a hail of bullets.
511
00:31:09,347 --> 00:31:11,515
CAROL CROCKER: I couldn't watch the news.
512
00:31:11,614 --> 00:31:14,782
My parents would be sitting
in front of the television
513
00:31:14,882 --> 00:31:17,282
and I would hide in the kitchen.
514
00:31:19,414 --> 00:31:22,981
Of course you don't tell
anybody, but it was too much.
515
00:31:23,082 --> 00:31:25,015
I really didn't want to know.
516
00:31:25,114 --> 00:31:28,048
("Smokestack Lightnin'"
by Howlin' Wolf playing)
517
00:31:35,016 --> 00:31:39,016
HOWLIN' WOLF: ♪ Oh-oh,
smokestack lightnin'.
518
00:31:39,115 --> 00:31:42,482
NARRATOR: Mogie Crocker had
spent most of his boyhood
519
00:31:42,583 --> 00:31:44,248
reading about war.
520
00:31:44,348 --> 00:31:47,682
But nothing had prepared him
for what he would experience
521
00:31:47,783 --> 00:31:50,749
in Quang Duc Province on
the Cambodian border.
522
00:31:52,816 --> 00:31:54,450
He had deliberately fouled up his work
523
00:31:54,549 --> 00:31:56,950
at battalion headquarters so badly
524
00:31:57,049 --> 00:31:58,616
that he had finally been reassigned
525
00:31:58,717 --> 00:32:02,150
to what he wanted most... a combat unit.
526
00:32:02,249 --> 00:32:06,249
HOWLIN' WOLF: ♪ Whoa-oh, tell me, baby
527
00:32:06,349 --> 00:32:10,349
♪ What's the matter with you?
528
00:32:10,450 --> 00:32:13,617
♪ Why don't you hear me cryin'?
529
00:32:13,718 --> 00:32:15,417
♪ Oooh
530
00:32:15,518 --> 00:32:18,550
JEAN-MARIE CROCKER: Not hearing
in those days was so difficult.
531
00:32:18,651 --> 00:32:23,051
There'd be at least eight to ten
days usually between letters.
532
00:32:23,151 --> 00:32:27,084
So knowing he was in action,
you just didn't know what,
533
00:32:27,185 --> 00:32:28,984
you know, might be going on.
534
00:32:30,817 --> 00:32:32,850
NARRATOR: Mogie's battalion commander,
535
00:32:32,950 --> 00:32:35,152
Lieutenant Colonel Henry Emerson,
536
00:32:35,251 --> 00:32:36,751
known as "The Gunfighter,"
537
00:32:36,851 --> 00:32:40,585
was courageous, implacable, relentless.
538
00:32:41,985 --> 00:32:43,886
A few months before Mogie got there,
539
00:32:43,985 --> 00:32:47,386
he had offered a case of whiskey
to the first of his men
540
00:32:47,485 --> 00:32:51,552
to bring him the hacked-off
head of an enemy soldier.
541
00:32:51,652 --> 00:32:54,518
They did.
542
00:32:57,352 --> 00:33:01,452
For nine days in early May of 1966,
543
00:33:01,553 --> 00:33:05,887
Mogie and his outfit battled
nothing but the terrain.
544
00:33:05,986 --> 00:33:08,986
They struggled through a
labyrinth of elephant grass
545
00:33:09,086 --> 00:33:10,419
and thorn bushes,
546
00:33:10,519 --> 00:33:13,319
bamboo taller than three men
547
00:33:13,419 --> 00:33:16,153
and triple-canopied jungle so thick
548
00:33:16,252 --> 00:33:20,288
it sometimes took an hour to move 100 feet.
549
00:33:20,388 --> 00:33:21,554
(thunder rumbles)
550
00:33:21,654 --> 00:33:23,087
The monsoon had begun.
551
00:33:23,188 --> 00:33:26,654
Sunlight rarely reached the forest floor.
552
00:33:26,753 --> 00:33:28,788
Finger-long black leeches
553
00:33:28,888 --> 00:33:32,520
caused wounds that quickly became infected.
554
00:33:32,621 --> 00:33:35,920
When Colonel Emerson learned
that four companies
555
00:33:36,020 --> 00:33:38,621
of North Vietnamese were
preparing an ambush,
556
00:33:38,721 --> 00:33:41,821
he decided to ambush the ambushers.
557
00:33:43,021 --> 00:33:46,588
On May 11, he ordered his men to attack,
558
00:33:46,689 --> 00:33:50,189
backed by massive air
and artillery strikes.
559
00:33:52,588 --> 00:33:54,588
Before the fighting ended,
560
00:33:54,689 --> 00:34:00,722
some 2,000 shells had slammed
into the enemy positions.
561
00:34:00,821 --> 00:34:04,623
Blood was everywhere, pooled on the ground,
562
00:34:04,723 --> 00:34:08,190
smeared on leaves and grass and bamboo.
563
00:34:08,290 --> 00:34:10,723
There were scores of corpses,
564
00:34:10,822 --> 00:34:15,290
torn to pieces or blown into
the earth, hidden in thickets,
565
00:34:15,390 --> 00:34:18,522
half-buried in scooped-out graves.
566
00:34:18,623 --> 00:34:20,955
The earth-shaking concussions
567
00:34:21,056 --> 00:34:24,955
had blown the eyeballs of some
of them from their heads.
568
00:34:26,422 --> 00:34:27,756
In the midst of the fighting,
569
00:34:27,856 --> 00:34:30,523
Mogie's squad was moving
along a narrow path
570
00:34:30,624 --> 00:34:33,791
when two enemy machine
guns opened up on them.
571
00:34:33,891 --> 00:34:36,657
(gunfire)
572
00:34:40,157 --> 00:34:43,356
His closest friend was fatally wounded.
573
00:34:43,456 --> 00:34:48,124
Mogie crouched in front of him,
radioed for suppressive fire,
574
00:34:48,224 --> 00:34:52,125
and then, as both machine
guns continued shooting,
575
00:34:52,225 --> 00:34:56,625
he carried his dying friend
off the battlefield.
576
00:34:57,725 --> 00:34:58,924
For his courage,
577
00:34:59,024 --> 00:35:03,257
he would be awarded the
Army Commendation Medal.
578
00:35:05,457 --> 00:35:08,757
In his letters home, Mogie told his family
579
00:35:08,857 --> 00:35:12,758
nothing of what he'd seen or done.
580
00:35:12,858 --> 00:35:16,626
(David Cieri playing "Sound of Silence")
581
00:35:20,092 --> 00:35:23,458
JEAN-MARIE CROCKER: One day when I was
at the post office mailing something,
582
00:35:23,559 --> 00:35:27,458
I asked the clerk, "How
do they let you know
583
00:35:27,559 --> 00:35:29,425
if your son is wounded?"
584
00:35:29,525 --> 00:35:32,559
It was very hard for me
to form those words.
585
00:35:32,659 --> 00:35:35,259
But I just felt I've got to know.
586
00:35:35,359 --> 00:35:39,660
I just felt so suspended
in space, in anxiety.
587
00:35:41,560 --> 00:35:44,993
And the man said, "Now, don't ask that.
588
00:35:45,093 --> 00:35:47,526
Don't think about that."
589
00:35:47,627 --> 00:35:50,294
I said, "Well, I have to know."
590
00:35:50,394 --> 00:35:53,993
And he said, "Don't
worry, they'll tell you."
591
00:35:57,227 --> 00:36:01,494
(Pete Seeger playing
"The Willing Conscript")
592
00:36:01,594 --> 00:36:03,760
SEEGER: ♪ Oh sergeant, I'm a draftee
593
00:36:03,860 --> 00:36:06,460
♪ And I've just arrived in camp ♪
594
00:36:06,561 --> 00:36:11,094
♪ I've come to wear the uniform
and join the martial tramp ♪
595
00:36:11,195 --> 00:36:15,927
♪ And I want to do my duty,
but one thing I do implore ♪
596
00:36:16,027 --> 00:36:17,707
♪ You must give me lessons, sergeant ♪
597
00:36:17,795 --> 00:36:20,961
♪ For I've never killed before. ♪
598
00:36:22,861 --> 00:36:27,562
PHILIP CAPUTO: I didn't like
the war protesters whatever.
599
00:36:27,662 --> 00:36:30,796
I kind of felt that they were
privileged, spoiled kids
600
00:36:30,896 --> 00:36:37,662
who may have been protesting
because they didn't want to go.
601
00:36:37,761 --> 00:36:40,196
So they leave it to some guy
602
00:36:40,296 --> 00:36:42,595
that maybe got through
two years of high school
603
00:36:42,696 --> 00:36:43,962
to go do it for 'em.
604
00:36:45,163 --> 00:36:47,630
BILL ZIMMERMAN: The war by 1966
605
00:36:47,730 --> 00:36:50,197
began to impact the middle class
606
00:36:50,297 --> 00:36:53,462
because the draft calls had to be enlarged.
607
00:36:53,563 --> 00:36:56,563
They couldn't get enough
people to volunteer
608
00:36:56,663 --> 00:36:58,897
or draft people out of the working class.
609
00:36:58,996 --> 00:37:00,862
They started drafting
people out of college.
610
00:37:00,962 --> 00:37:05,130
And that's when the
antiwar movement shifted
611
00:37:05,230 --> 00:37:08,830
from a moral movement to
a self-interest movement
612
00:37:08,930 --> 00:37:12,030
driven by people who
didn't want to go to war
613
00:37:12,131 --> 00:37:16,463
and their loved ones who
didn't want them to go to war.
614
00:37:16,564 --> 00:37:18,963
SEEGER: ♪ And I know
that it won't matter ♪
615
00:37:19,064 --> 00:37:22,463
♪ That I've never killed before. ♪
616
00:37:22,564 --> 00:37:23,863
(school bell rings)
617
00:37:23,963 --> 00:37:26,231
NARRATOR: Bill Zimmerman
was a graduate student
618
00:37:26,330 --> 00:37:30,699
at the University of
Chicago in May of 1966.
619
00:37:30,799 --> 00:37:33,431
The son of Eastern European refugees,
620
00:37:33,531 --> 00:37:36,098
he'd worked for civil rights in Mississippi
621
00:37:36,199 --> 00:37:39,498
and had been opposed to
American involvement in Vietnam
622
00:37:39,598 --> 00:37:42,331
since 1963.
623
00:37:42,431 --> 00:37:44,899
The draft was a consuming issue
624
00:37:44,998 --> 00:37:47,531
for young men of Zimmerman's generation.
625
00:37:47,632 --> 00:37:51,932
Since 1942, every male
citizen of the United States
626
00:37:52,032 --> 00:37:55,733
had been required to register at age 18.
627
00:37:55,832 --> 00:37:59,300
But of the nearly 27 million American men
628
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:02,133
who came of age during the Vietnam War,
629
00:38:02,233 --> 00:38:05,233
more than half avoided military service
630
00:38:05,332 --> 00:38:07,800
through exemptions and deferments.
631
00:38:07,900 --> 00:38:11,566
Nearly 500,000 Americans applied
632
00:38:11,666 --> 00:38:13,901
for conscientious objector status
633
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:16,167
on religious or moral grounds,
634
00:38:16,266 --> 00:38:19,266
six times as many as in World War II.
635
00:38:19,366 --> 00:38:25,533
In all, 170,000 were allowed
to perform alternative service
636
00:38:25,634 --> 00:38:30,000
in hospitals, homeless
shelters, and schools.
637
00:38:30,100 --> 00:38:34,167
Some were trained as medics
and sent to Vietnam.
638
00:38:34,266 --> 00:38:36,767
At least two were killed;
639
00:38:36,867 --> 00:38:40,635
both received the
Congressional Medal of Honor.
640
00:38:40,735 --> 00:38:45,101
A million young men served in
the Reserves or National Guard
641
00:38:45,202 --> 00:38:48,802
with the expectation they would
never be sent into combat.
642
00:38:48,902 --> 00:38:53,434
Reservists and Guardsmen
were almost always white,
643
00:38:53,534 --> 00:38:56,235
generally better educated,
better connected,
644
00:38:56,334 --> 00:38:58,968
and better paid than draftees.
645
00:38:59,069 --> 00:39:02,669
Interrupting their lives,
President Johnson felt,
646
00:39:02,768 --> 00:39:05,602
would have increased opposition to the war.
647
00:39:05,703 --> 00:39:11,236
"If you've got the dough," Gis
said, "you don't have to go."
648
00:39:11,335 --> 00:39:12,879
("Backlash Blues" by Nina Simone playing)
649
00:39:12,903 --> 00:39:15,102
The result was an Army heavily skewed
650
00:39:15,203 --> 00:39:17,968
toward minorities and the underprivileged.
651
00:39:18,069 --> 00:39:21,102
SIMONE: ♪ Mr. Backlash, Mr. Backlash
652
00:39:21,204 --> 00:39:23,804
♪ Just who do you think I am?
653
00:39:23,904 --> 00:39:26,836
♪ You raise my taxes, freeze my wages ♪
654
00:39:26,936 --> 00:39:30,003
♪ And send my son to Vietnam.
655
00:39:30,103 --> 00:39:33,869
NARRATOR: For a time, African Americans,
656
00:39:33,969 --> 00:39:37,570
though they represented
only 12% of the population,
657
00:39:37,670 --> 00:39:41,404
suffered a disproportionate
number of casualties.
658
00:39:41,503 --> 00:39:45,470
Resentment began to grow.
659
00:39:45,571 --> 00:39:47,614
STOKELY CARMICHAEL: We've got
to build so much strength
660
00:39:47,638 --> 00:39:49,138
in building our community,
661
00:39:49,238 --> 00:39:51,270
that if they come to get one person,
662
00:39:51,370 --> 00:39:52,846
they going to have to mess with us all.
663
00:39:52,870 --> 00:39:54,004
That's what we got to do!
664
00:39:54,104 --> 00:39:55,470
That's what we go to do.
665
00:39:55,571 --> 00:39:56,970
(applause)
666
00:39:57,071 --> 00:40:01,537
We've got to build so much
strength inside our community,
667
00:40:01,638 --> 00:40:04,970
so that when LBJ says, "Come
here, boy, to my war,"
668
00:40:05,071 --> 00:40:07,072
we say, "Hell no, we ain't going."
669
00:40:07,172 --> 00:40:08,371
(applause)
670
00:40:08,471 --> 00:40:10,739
SIMONE: ♪ But the world is big.
671
00:40:10,838 --> 00:40:12,115
MUHAMMAD ALI: I'm not going to help nobody
672
00:40:12,139 --> 00:40:14,371
get something my Negroes don't have.
673
00:40:14,471 --> 00:40:15,814
If I'm going to die, I'll die now,
674
00:40:15,838 --> 00:40:18,572
right here fighting you,
if I'm going to die.
675
00:40:18,672 --> 00:40:22,505
You my enemy, my enemy is the
white people, not Viet Congs,
676
00:40:22,605 --> 00:40:24,072
or Chinese, or Japanese.
677
00:40:24,172 --> 00:40:26,572
You my opposer when I want freedom.
678
00:40:26,672 --> 00:40:28,538
You my opposer when I want justice.
679
00:40:28,639 --> 00:40:30,080
You my opposer when I want equality.
680
00:40:30,173 --> 00:40:31,939
And you want me to go somewhere and fight,
681
00:40:32,039 --> 00:40:34,372
but you won't even stand
up for me here at home.
682
00:40:34,472 --> 00:40:39,573
NARRATOR: At first, 10,000 draftees
were called up each month,
683
00:40:39,673 --> 00:40:44,972
but in 1966, the growing demand
for fresh troops in Vietnam
684
00:40:45,073 --> 00:40:48,673
raised that number to 30,000.
685
00:40:48,772 --> 00:40:51,973
Now, thousands of college students
686
00:40:52,074 --> 00:40:55,408
could no longer expect a deferment.
687
00:40:55,507 --> 00:40:58,808
ZIMMERMAN: And if your rank
fell below a certain threshold,
688
00:40:58,908 --> 00:41:02,040
you were yanked out of college.
689
00:41:02,141 --> 00:41:04,773
And the worst that could happen
to you is you would be killed
690
00:41:04,873 --> 00:41:06,574
in Vietnam.
691
00:41:06,674 --> 00:41:10,107
So we protested at the
University of Chicago
692
00:41:10,208 --> 00:41:14,809
that the university was
complicit with this war
693
00:41:14,909 --> 00:41:19,175
by agreeing to supply those
rankings to the draft board.
694
00:41:19,274 --> 00:41:21,874
We thought for the first time, you know,
695
00:41:21,974 --> 00:41:23,774
we're really having an impact.
696
00:41:27,575 --> 00:41:33,175
NARRATOR: But a majority of Americans,
old and young, supported the war.
697
00:41:33,274 --> 00:41:35,474
The Young Americans for Freedom,
698
00:41:35,575 --> 00:41:39,009
created by the conservative
writer William F. Buckley,
699
00:41:39,109 --> 00:41:43,775
held counter-demonstrations on
campuses across the country.
700
00:41:43,875 --> 00:41:47,275
CROWD: ♪ His truth is marching on.
701
00:42:42,312 --> 00:42:46,112
DUONG VAN MAI ELLIOTT: I was brought up to
believe that the communists were people
702
00:42:46,213 --> 00:42:51,213
who destroy the family, destroy religion,
703
00:42:51,313 --> 00:42:54,778
and people who had no
allegiance to our country
704
00:42:54,878 --> 00:42:57,945
but to international communism.
705
00:42:58,045 --> 00:43:02,079
My mother would describe them
as (speaking Vietnamese),
706
00:43:02,179 --> 00:43:04,413
which means that these are people
707
00:43:04,512 --> 00:43:07,179
with the head of a water buffalo
and the face of a horse,
708
00:43:07,278 --> 00:43:11,214
meaning that they were
subhumans, and they were brutal.
709
00:43:12,546 --> 00:43:15,814
But on the other hand I thought
they also include people
710
00:43:15,914 --> 00:43:19,580
like my sister Thang and
a lot of my cousins.
711
00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:23,946
I couldn't quite reconcile the two images.
712
00:43:24,046 --> 00:43:28,314
But of the two, I think the
other image was much stronger
713
00:43:28,414 --> 00:43:30,315
because I was so scared of them.
714
00:43:30,415 --> 00:43:33,915
I thought these people must be
really, really horrible people.
715
00:43:34,014 --> 00:43:36,480
That was the frame of mind I had
716
00:43:36,581 --> 00:43:40,815
when I started doing research
into the communist movement.
717
00:43:40,915 --> 00:43:44,415
NARRATOR: Duong Van Mai was
the daughter of an official
718
00:43:44,514 --> 00:43:47,681
in the South Vietnamese
government and was now married
719
00:43:47,780 --> 00:43:50,347
to an American, David Elliott.
720
00:43:50,447 --> 00:43:53,582
Back in 1964, she had gone to work
721
00:43:53,682 --> 00:43:56,281
for the RAND Corporation in Saigon.
722
00:43:56,381 --> 00:43:58,615
The think tank had been commissioned
723
00:43:58,716 --> 00:44:02,515
by Robert McNamara to do a
study of enemy prisoners
724
00:44:02,615 --> 00:44:05,582
to find out "Who are the Viet Cong?
725
00:44:05,682 --> 00:44:07,981
And what makes them tick?"
726
00:44:09,716 --> 00:44:12,015
DUONG VAN MAI ELLIOTT: I
remember my first interview.
727
00:44:12,115 --> 00:44:13,781
I was by myself.
728
00:44:13,881 --> 00:44:18,750
I was very young and I was going
to this pretty grim prison
729
00:44:18,849 --> 00:44:23,482
to interview this high-ranking
cadre who had been captured.
730
00:44:23,583 --> 00:44:27,616
I went in thinking I'm going
to meet this beast, you know,
731
00:44:27,717 --> 00:44:30,083
this guy with the head of a water buffalo
732
00:44:30,183 --> 00:44:31,717
and the face of a horse.
733
00:44:31,817 --> 00:44:34,417
He walked in and he was
very surprised to see me.
734
00:44:34,516 --> 00:44:35,683
(chuckles)
735
00:44:35,782 --> 00:44:38,418
Just as surprised as I was to see him.
736
00:44:38,517 --> 00:44:42,818
Here was a man who had devoted
all his life to fight
737
00:44:42,918 --> 00:44:45,818
for what he called a just cause
738
00:44:45,918 --> 00:44:48,550
to free his country of foreign domination,
739
00:44:48,651 --> 00:44:53,218
to reunify the country
under just government.
740
00:44:53,318 --> 00:44:55,318
So he really totally believed in it
741
00:44:55,418 --> 00:44:58,651
to the point that he sacrificed
his whole life to this cause.
742
00:44:58,751 --> 00:45:01,484
So I left, I was very... I
was very impressed with him.
743
00:45:03,152 --> 00:45:04,919
NARRATOR: When the RAND
report was presented
744
00:45:05,018 --> 00:45:07,951
to McNamara's top deputies at the Pentagon,
745
00:45:08,051 --> 00:45:11,051
describing the Viet Cong
as a dedicated enemy
746
00:45:11,152 --> 00:45:14,618
that "could only be
defeated at enormous cost,"
747
00:45:14,719 --> 00:45:19,051
one senior official said,
"If what you say is true,
748
00:45:19,152 --> 00:45:21,652
"we're fighting on the wrong side,
749
00:45:21,752 --> 00:45:24,720
the side that's going to lose this war."
750
00:45:28,153 --> 00:45:31,852
(Donovan's "Sunshine Superman" playing)
751
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:46,020
DONOVAN: ♪ Sunshine came softly
through my a-window today ♪
752
00:45:46,120 --> 00:45:53,187
♪ Could've tripped out easy
a-but I've a-changed my ways. ♪
753
00:45:53,286 --> 00:45:58,620
STUART HERRINGTON: The overall myth
of an American army running roughshod
754
00:45:58,721 --> 00:46:03,953
by policy, by strategy, by
tactics to terrorize and murder
755
00:46:04,053 --> 00:46:08,722
and victimize the innocent
population of South Vietnam,
756
00:46:08,822 --> 00:46:10,422
that image is the...
757
00:46:10,521 --> 00:46:13,787
it-it doesn't do justice
to the young men and women
758
00:46:13,887 --> 00:46:15,088
who served over there.
759
00:46:15,188 --> 00:46:18,021
It's certainly not an accurate depiction
760
00:46:18,121 --> 00:46:20,621
of what our army was about.
761
00:46:22,422 --> 00:46:25,621
NARRATOR: From the first, the
Johnson administration understood
762
00:46:25,722 --> 00:46:27,554
that the war could not be won
763
00:46:27,655 --> 00:46:31,488
without convincing poor farmers
living in the countryside
764
00:46:31,589 --> 00:46:35,355
that the government in
Saigon, not the Viet Cong,
765
00:46:35,455 --> 00:46:39,988
had their best interests at heart.
766
00:46:40,089 --> 00:46:42,256
In addition to the military,
767
00:46:42,355 --> 00:46:45,388
many American aid
organizations were at work
768
00:46:45,488 --> 00:46:47,189
in Vietnamese villages.
769
00:46:47,288 --> 00:46:50,089
They dug wells and built windmills,
770
00:46:50,189 --> 00:46:54,157
started schools, introduced improved rice,
771
00:46:54,257 --> 00:46:55,956
provided medical care,
772
00:46:56,056 --> 00:46:59,824
and electrified much of the countryside.
773
00:47:02,389 --> 00:47:05,224
Under pressure from Robert McNamara,
774
00:47:05,324 --> 00:47:09,056
MACV struggled to find ways
to measure the progress
775
00:47:09,157 --> 00:47:13,523
of pacification in South
Vietnam's 44 provinces,
776
00:47:13,623 --> 00:47:18,490
220 districts and 13,000 hamlets,
777
00:47:18,591 --> 00:47:23,758
and finally came up with the
Hamlet Evaluation System.
778
00:47:23,857 --> 00:47:27,990
Soon some 220 U.S. district advisers
779
00:47:28,091 --> 00:47:31,857
were required to produce some 90,000 pages
780
00:47:31,957 --> 00:47:36,725
of data every month... a mountain
of information so daunting
781
00:47:36,825 --> 00:47:40,491
no one could make sense of it.
782
00:47:43,192 --> 00:47:46,025
PHILIP BRADY: Everything can be quantified.
783
00:47:46,125 --> 00:47:49,991
So you can literally say, "How
pacified is this village?"
784
00:47:50,092 --> 00:47:53,125
"It's 37.5% pacified."
785
00:47:53,226 --> 00:47:55,426
Well, what does that mean?
786
00:47:55,525 --> 00:47:56,858
An American would tell you,
787
00:47:56,958 --> 00:48:00,291
"You know, we haven't had
an incident in this village
788
00:48:00,391 --> 00:48:02,927
or this province," whatever.
789
00:48:03,026 --> 00:48:08,859
"The incident rate's going down,
and therefore we're winning."
790
00:48:08,959 --> 00:48:11,559
But we would point out that
certain troubled areas
791
00:48:11,660 --> 00:48:14,260
in the provinces that we were working in,
792
00:48:14,359 --> 00:48:17,559
we would say simply that it's not pacified
793
00:48:17,660 --> 00:48:21,459
unless you want to consider it
pacified by the other side.
794
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:25,521
HERRINGTON: To the extent that
pacification was succeeding,
795
00:48:25,594 --> 00:48:28,661
schools were being built,
wells were being cleaned.
796
00:48:28,761 --> 00:48:30,060
And then one fine night
797
00:48:30,161 --> 00:48:32,928
here comes 400 North Vietnamese
soldiers into the village,
798
00:48:33,027 --> 00:48:35,860
executes the village chief,
kidnaps 12 of the young people
799
00:48:35,960 --> 00:48:39,428
for, you know, service in the
revolutionary armed forces,
800
00:48:39,527 --> 00:48:41,627
and the people look at
the government and say,
801
00:48:41,728 --> 00:48:46,994
"You promised us you'd protect
us, but you didn't stay."
802
00:48:52,361 --> 00:48:54,128
MIKE HEANEY: I was over there early.
803
00:48:54,229 --> 00:48:58,561
I was with a really good unit,
who believed in Army traditions,
804
00:48:58,662 --> 00:49:00,262
they believed in honor,
805
00:49:00,361 --> 00:49:04,361
they believed even in
treating your enemy humanely
806
00:49:04,461 --> 00:49:06,528
once he was a POW.
807
00:49:06,628 --> 00:49:11,062
NARRATOR: Lieutenant Mike Heaney
from Basking Ridge, New Jersey,
808
00:49:11,163 --> 00:49:14,230
was a platoon leader in
the 1st Cavalry Division.
809
00:49:14,330 --> 00:49:17,596
He'd arrived late in 1965
810
00:49:17,696 --> 00:49:20,696
and was assigned to a
densely populated section
811
00:49:20,795 --> 00:49:22,029
of central Vietnam,
812
00:49:22,129 --> 00:49:24,230
where he found himself surrounded
813
00:49:24,330 --> 00:49:26,596
by North Vietnamese infiltrators
814
00:49:26,696 --> 00:49:30,230
and villagers whose loyalties were unclear.
815
00:49:31,330 --> 00:49:33,530
HEANEY: We never really figured out
816
00:49:33,630 --> 00:49:36,097
how to determine who the enemy was.
817
00:49:36,197 --> 00:49:41,063
Being normal, decent American boys,
818
00:49:41,164 --> 00:49:44,030
you don't just put your rifle
up and take a shot at a guy
819
00:49:44,130 --> 00:49:45,296
and try to kill him
820
00:49:45,396 --> 00:49:49,164
unless you're pretty sure this is an enemy.
821
00:49:49,264 --> 00:49:51,831
And if he wasn't armed,
822
00:49:51,931 --> 00:49:55,932
or wasn't menacing you in any
way, we wouldn't shoot him.
823
00:49:57,598 --> 00:49:59,297
We'd go through a village
824
00:49:59,397 --> 00:50:01,832
in which there would be no
people we could identify
825
00:50:01,932 --> 00:50:05,432
as enemy soldiers, and we'd
find a big cache of rice.
826
00:50:05,531 --> 00:50:08,797
So the standing instructions
were blow that up, burn it,
827
00:50:08,897 --> 00:50:10,665
destroy it, poison it, whatever.
828
00:50:10,765 --> 00:50:14,397
We really didn't want to
do that because it...
829
00:50:14,497 --> 00:50:16,732
You didn't have to be a rocket
scientist to look around
830
00:50:16,832 --> 00:50:18,441
and see these people are depending on this.
831
00:50:18,465 --> 00:50:19,465
This is their food.
832
00:50:22,032 --> 00:50:24,933
We were told sometimes to
burn thatched dwellings.
833
00:50:25,032 --> 00:50:26,365
And guys would unenthusiastically
834
00:50:26,465 --> 00:50:28,599
try to light a roof.
835
00:50:28,699 --> 00:50:30,433
And as soon as the flame burned out,
836
00:50:30,532 --> 00:50:32,933
they weren't going to try again.
837
00:50:33,032 --> 00:50:36,333
Our hearts really weren't
in trying to destroy
838
00:50:36,433 --> 00:50:38,632
civilian food, civilian homes.
839
00:50:38,733 --> 00:50:41,866
It gave us an uneasy feeling about,
840
00:50:41,966 --> 00:50:43,700
"What is this war is about?"
841
00:50:46,499 --> 00:50:48,066
(gunfire)
842
00:50:48,167 --> 00:50:50,167
NARRATOR: Most of the fighting in Vietnam
843
00:50:50,267 --> 00:50:52,834
was the kind Mike Heaney was about to see...
844
00:50:52,934 --> 00:50:58,700
small-scale, close-up, and
initiated by the elusive enemy.
845
00:51:00,167 --> 00:51:02,900
The military called it "contact."
846
00:51:04,435 --> 00:51:10,067
"War is hell," grunts liked to
say, "but contact is a mother."
847
00:51:14,634 --> 00:51:19,400
HEANEY: The job of an infantry platoon
usually is to try to scare up
848
00:51:19,500 --> 00:51:22,567
enemy infantry and take it down.
849
00:51:22,668 --> 00:51:27,135
Really, the tactic was
we were acting as bait.
850
00:51:27,236 --> 00:51:29,269
And at some level we knew that.
851
00:51:29,368 --> 00:51:32,135
You know, go walk in the
woods and draw fire.
852
00:51:33,901 --> 00:51:35,568
NARRATOR: Six months into his tour,
853
00:51:35,669 --> 00:51:38,368
Heaney undertook what
he and his men thought
854
00:51:38,468 --> 00:51:40,135
would be an easy assignment:
855
00:51:40,236 --> 00:51:44,436
climb a slope not far
from their base at An Khe
856
00:51:44,535 --> 00:51:48,170
and drive a small enemy
mortar unit off a ridge line.
857
00:51:48,270 --> 00:51:52,969
HEANEY: As soon as we started out,
we started to get some bad vibes.
858
00:51:53,069 --> 00:51:58,369
We found some boot prints in the mud
859
00:51:58,469 --> 00:52:01,069
at the edge of this landing zone,
860
00:52:01,170 --> 00:52:04,170
and a nice trail, a well-used
trail going up the ridge.
861
00:52:04,270 --> 00:52:08,402
I remember talking to one of
my squad leaders about this.
862
00:52:08,502 --> 00:52:12,671
And we were both sitting there,
"Well, shit, this sucks."
863
00:52:13,870 --> 00:52:16,771
And all of a sudden the very point man,
864
00:52:16,870 --> 00:52:19,204
the first guy in the column, Sergeant Mays,
865
00:52:19,303 --> 00:52:22,771
without saying anything just
put his M16 up to his shoulder
866
00:52:22,870 --> 00:52:24,303
and fired off a round.
867
00:52:24,403 --> 00:52:27,570
And he turned around and
he said, "VC on the trail.
868
00:52:27,671 --> 00:52:29,403
VC on the trail."
869
00:52:31,438 --> 00:52:35,339
Before I had a chance to
digest this, he went down,
870
00:52:35,439 --> 00:52:36,339
shot right through the chest.
871
00:52:36,439 --> 00:52:37,439
(bullet hitting) Boom!
872
00:52:38,804 --> 00:52:40,605
And all of a sudden
873
00:52:40,705 --> 00:52:44,571
what was a very well-laid ambush erupted.
874
00:52:45,871 --> 00:52:50,004
And it was so loud and so unexpected
875
00:52:50,105 --> 00:52:54,439
I was stunned for... for
a little bit, you know.
876
00:52:54,538 --> 00:52:56,206
"What the fuck is going on?"
877
00:52:56,305 --> 00:53:00,139
NARRATOR: Heaney's radio operator,
Private Terry Carpenter,
878
00:53:00,240 --> 00:53:02,673
got the company commander on the line.
879
00:53:02,773 --> 00:53:05,940
"We've run into something
bad," Heaney said.
880
00:53:06,039 --> 00:53:10,940
At that moment, a bullet
hit Carpenter in the head.
881
00:53:11,039 --> 00:53:12,539
HEANEY: I knew Terry was down.
882
00:53:12,639 --> 00:53:14,539
I knew Sergeant Mays was down.
883
00:53:14,639 --> 00:53:17,039
I had asked the first
machine gun crew to come up
884
00:53:17,139 --> 00:53:18,841
and start laying down machine gun fire.
885
00:53:18,941 --> 00:53:21,373
They got blown away pretty quickly.
886
00:53:21,473 --> 00:53:24,841
They never really had a
chance to lay down much fire.
887
00:53:24,941 --> 00:53:26,674
At that point there wasn't anybody left
888
00:53:26,774 --> 00:53:28,640
in my forward unit.
889
00:53:28,741 --> 00:53:31,640
Every one of them had been
taken down except me.
890
00:53:31,741 --> 00:53:33,506
Every one.
891
00:53:33,607 --> 00:53:35,906
(voice breaking): Every one had been killed
892
00:53:36,006 --> 00:53:38,107
or mortally wounded at that point.
893
00:53:42,442 --> 00:53:43,807
NARRATOR: Night fell.
894
00:53:43,907 --> 00:53:45,874
What was left of Heaney's company braced
895
00:53:45,974 --> 00:53:49,675
for the assault they assumed
would come at dawn.
896
00:53:50,842 --> 00:53:52,842
I was lying there on the perimeter.
897
00:53:52,942 --> 00:53:55,108
I was right next to a dead enemy soldier.
898
00:53:55,208 --> 00:53:57,942
It was kind of my face and his feet
899
00:53:58,041 --> 00:53:59,641
and I kept looking back at him,
900
00:53:59,742 --> 00:54:02,275
because I couldn't see any wounds on him.
901
00:54:02,374 --> 00:54:04,808
And, you know, the strange
things you think,
902
00:54:04,908 --> 00:54:06,575
"This guy's going to kill me.
903
00:54:06,676 --> 00:54:07,975
"He's faking it.
904
00:54:08,075 --> 00:54:09,351
"He's waiting until the assault,
905
00:54:09,375 --> 00:54:11,375
then he's going to jump up and kill me."
906
00:54:11,475 --> 00:54:12,975
And I almost shot him again.
907
00:54:13,075 --> 00:54:14,743
Just to make sure he was dead.
908
00:54:16,276 --> 00:54:18,542
NARRATOR: Then the enemy
began to lob mortar shells
909
00:54:18,642 --> 00:54:20,908
among Heaney's men.
910
00:54:21,008 --> 00:54:23,109
HEANEY: I felt like
somebody had taken a bat
911
00:54:23,209 --> 00:54:27,344
and hit me on my calf, my right
calf, as hard as he could.
912
00:54:27,444 --> 00:54:32,444
I was so stunned by the shock of being hit,
913
00:54:32,543 --> 00:54:37,677
and I just drew in a deep
breath of air in terrible pain.
914
00:54:37,777 --> 00:54:40,076
I couldn't speak.
915
00:54:40,177 --> 00:54:43,009
Right after the ambush happened,
916
00:54:43,110 --> 00:54:44,976
and I knew I'd lost a bunch of guys,
917
00:54:45,076 --> 00:54:49,278
I said a prayer to God saying, basically,
918
00:54:49,377 --> 00:54:51,910
"If you need any more guys
from my platoon, take me.
919
00:54:52,010 --> 00:54:53,945
Don't take any more of my men."
920
00:54:54,044 --> 00:54:57,377
As soon as I said it, I
freaked myself out and said,
921
00:54:57,477 --> 00:55:01,178
"Holy shit, can I take that prayer back?"
922
00:55:01,278 --> 00:55:02,310
But it was too late.
923
00:55:02,410 --> 00:55:03,877
I'd-I'd said it.
924
00:55:03,977 --> 00:55:05,310
And as it turns out,
925
00:55:05,410 --> 00:55:09,010
not one more man in my platoon
died after that prayer.
926
00:55:10,577 --> 00:55:14,846
NARRATOR: American artillery
finally zeroed in on the enemy.
927
00:55:14,946 --> 00:55:17,779
The survivors of Heaney's
company stumbled down the hill
928
00:55:17,878 --> 00:55:19,578
to safety.
929
00:55:19,679 --> 00:55:22,578
He was carried to a hospital.
930
00:55:30,446 --> 00:55:33,311
HEANEY: I was lying on my bed sobbing.
931
00:55:33,411 --> 00:55:35,747
And this nurse came over.
932
00:55:35,847 --> 00:55:37,447
She bent over and said, "Lieutenant...
933
00:55:37,546 --> 00:55:39,947
"You... the-the your men
are all over the place.
934
00:55:40,046 --> 00:55:42,113
You've gotta stop crying."
935
00:55:42,213 --> 00:55:44,979
And at that point my platoon sergeant,
936
00:55:45,079 --> 00:55:48,447
huge black guy from Detroit
whom I loved dearly,
937
00:55:48,546 --> 00:55:52,046
Sergeant Sam Hunt, he came over
and he sat down next to me
938
00:55:52,146 --> 00:55:53,646
(voice breaking): and he took my hand
939
00:55:53,747 --> 00:55:55,113
and he said to this nurse,
940
00:55:55,213 --> 00:55:56,847
"Ma'am, this here lieutenant
941
00:55:56,948 --> 00:55:58,948
don't have to stop doing anything."
942
00:56:47,350 --> 00:56:50,683
(crowd shouting angrily)
943
00:56:50,783 --> 00:56:52,463
JOHN LAURENCE: The students are angry now.
944
00:56:52,549 --> 00:56:54,082
And the word is passed
945
00:56:54,183 --> 00:56:57,549
to gather at Saigon's main
Buddhist pagoda after dark.
946
00:56:59,616 --> 00:57:00,982
JOHN QUINN: After all these years,
947
00:57:01,082 --> 00:57:04,450
the Vietnamese have learned
to live with crises and war.
948
00:57:04,549 --> 00:57:07,816
But they haven't learned
yet to live as a nation.
949
00:57:09,251 --> 00:57:11,516
JOHNSON: Now, Dean, what
are we going to do?
950
00:57:11,617 --> 00:57:15,483
Are we moving to the point where
it would be difficult for us
951
00:57:15,583 --> 00:57:17,383
to ask people to continue to die out there,
952
00:57:17,483 --> 00:57:20,416
this kind of stuff going on
every two or three months?
953
00:57:20,516 --> 00:57:22,356
DEAN RUSK: I think not
yet, sir, by any means.
954
00:57:22,451 --> 00:57:25,684
I think that this is still
a minority problem.
955
00:57:25,784 --> 00:57:28,685
But political talk is not going
to be able to get anywhere
956
00:57:28,785 --> 00:57:30,651
if they don't maintain
the elements of order.
957
00:57:34,718 --> 00:57:37,551
NARRATOR: On May 15, 1966,
958
00:57:37,651 --> 00:57:40,785
the government of South
Vietnam, the country for which
959
00:57:40,884 --> 00:57:43,384
so many Americans were risking their lives,
960
00:57:43,484 --> 00:57:46,252
again seemed on the brink of collapse.
961
00:57:48,685 --> 00:57:52,318
The ascendancy of Prime Minister
Ky had dealt a severe blow
962
00:57:52,418 --> 00:57:55,085
to activist Buddhists,
who had been demanding
963
00:57:55,186 --> 00:57:58,885
representative government and
a negotiated end to the war
964
00:57:58,985 --> 00:58:01,186
since 1963.
965
00:58:01,286 --> 00:58:05,286
When Ky suddenly fired a rival general,
966
00:58:05,385 --> 00:58:07,119
a popular Buddhist commander,
967
00:58:07,219 --> 00:58:12,485
demonstrators poured into the
streets of Hue and Danang.
968
00:58:12,585 --> 00:58:14,854
They shut down the port
969
00:58:14,954 --> 00:58:17,153
through which U.S.
supplies had been flowing.
970
00:58:19,254 --> 00:58:23,220
Some South Vietnamese soldiers,
loyal to the dismissed general,
971
00:58:23,319 --> 00:58:25,854
abandoned the struggle
against the communists
972
00:58:25,954 --> 00:58:28,386
and headed for the city.
973
00:58:28,486 --> 00:58:31,854
Angry crowds burned American jeeps.
974
00:58:31,954 --> 00:58:35,987
Signs reading "Peace!"
and "Americans Go Home!"
975
00:58:36,087 --> 00:58:37,788
appeared everywhere.
976
00:58:37,887 --> 00:58:41,054
President Johnson was so concerned,
977
00:58:41,154 --> 00:58:44,721
he asked his advisors to
ready a fallback position
978
00:58:44,820 --> 00:58:46,820
if the Ky government fell.
979
00:58:46,920 --> 00:58:50,520
If necessary, he said, the U.S.
should be prepared
980
00:58:50,621 --> 00:58:53,087
to get out of Vietnam and perhaps
981
00:58:53,188 --> 00:58:57,487
make a stand against communism
in Thailand instead.
982
00:58:59,655 --> 00:59:01,756
Ky ordered South Vietnamese soldiers
983
00:59:01,856 --> 00:59:04,521
to surround and subdue Danang,
984
00:59:04,622 --> 00:59:08,388
where they exchanged fire
with their former comrades.
985
00:59:12,021 --> 00:59:17,321
As Ky's forces stormed
Buddhist pagodas in Danang,
986
00:59:17,421 --> 00:59:20,488
his warplanes strafed dissident troops
987
00:59:20,588 --> 00:59:22,322
occupying the central market.
988
00:59:25,322 --> 00:59:27,056
The rebellion was crushed.
989
00:59:27,156 --> 00:59:30,056
Washington was relieved.
990
00:59:30,156 --> 00:59:33,922
Ky seemed to be back in control.
991
00:59:34,022 --> 00:59:38,322
But from his command post on
a hilltop outside the city,
992
00:59:38,422 --> 00:59:41,822
an American Marine lieutenant
had watched in disbelief
993
00:59:41,922 --> 00:59:45,624
as two battles unfolded simultaneously:
994
00:59:45,724 --> 00:59:50,890
in the west, his fellow Marines
were fighting the Viet Cong;
995
00:59:50,990 --> 00:59:54,691
in the east, the South Vietnamese army
996
00:59:54,791 --> 00:59:57,624
seemed to be at war with itself.
997
01:00:02,557 --> 01:00:05,291
(Simon and Garfunkel's "The
Sound of Silence" playing)
998
01:00:05,390 --> 01:00:08,391
♪ Hello darkness, my old friend. ♪
999
01:00:08,491 --> 01:00:11,424
MOGIE CROCKER (dramatized): May 16, 1966.
1000
01:00:11,524 --> 01:00:14,024
Dear Mom and Dad...
1001
01:00:14,125 --> 01:00:16,058
Our operation here on the Cambodian border
1002
01:00:16,158 --> 01:00:18,359
has been quite a success.
1003
01:00:18,459 --> 01:00:20,725
No doubt you will hear
about it on the news.
1004
01:00:22,091 --> 01:00:24,324
We keep getting more and
more operations thrown at us
1005
01:00:24,424 --> 01:00:26,459
so that nothing is very sure.
1006
01:00:26,558 --> 01:00:31,260
SIMON AND GARFUNKEL: ♪ ...that was
planted in my brain still remains. ♪
1007
01:00:31,360 --> 01:00:34,226
CROCKER: Whether I will go
out again soon I don't know,
1008
01:00:34,325 --> 01:00:35,726
but don't plan on steady mail.
1009
01:00:38,992 --> 01:00:41,260
Tell Randy I'm looking forward
to seeing his new dog.
1010
01:00:44,559 --> 01:00:47,559
I may take a 15-day leave to Tokyo
1011
01:00:47,659 --> 01:00:49,492
to keep from cracking up.
1012
01:00:49,592 --> 01:00:52,227
SIMON AND GARFUNKEL: ♪ 'Neath
the halo of a street lamp. ♪
1013
01:00:52,326 --> 01:00:54,206
JEAN-MARIE CROCKER: It
was a lovely spring day,
1014
01:00:54,294 --> 01:00:57,426
and I opened the letter that said that.
1015
01:00:57,526 --> 01:01:00,393
And I was just really devastated
1016
01:01:00,493 --> 01:01:04,660
because by that time Vietnam
was in total chaos.
1017
01:01:04,761 --> 01:01:07,194
There was a continuing changeover
1018
01:01:07,294 --> 01:01:11,361
of people in authority at the
government in South Vietnam.
1019
01:01:11,461 --> 01:01:14,994
And there were protests of the
Buddhist monks and others
1020
01:01:15,094 --> 01:01:16,295
that...
1021
01:01:16,394 --> 01:01:18,327
there were anti-American demonstrations.
1022
01:01:18,427 --> 01:01:21,128
I just thought, "Why? Why are we there?"
1023
01:01:22,862 --> 01:01:24,838
CAROL CROCKER: I think that
letter when my brother
1024
01:01:24,862 --> 01:01:27,462
showed a kind of despair
1025
01:01:27,561 --> 01:01:30,827
is probably the first time
he'd expressed that openly
1026
01:01:30,927 --> 01:01:33,728
to the whole family.
1027
01:01:37,363 --> 01:01:41,828
It echoed back to the day he'd said to me,
1028
01:01:41,928 --> 01:01:43,463
"I don't want to go back."
1029
01:01:44,963 --> 01:01:46,763
NARRATOR: To an old high school friend,
1030
01:01:46,863 --> 01:01:50,828
Mogie was even more forthcoming.
1031
01:01:50,928 --> 01:01:53,528
MOGIE CROCKER (dramatized): Dear Duff,
1032
01:01:53,629 --> 01:01:55,963
Since I last wrote, which
is several months,
1033
01:01:56,062 --> 01:01:58,162
a number of exciting but
terribly unpleasant events
1034
01:01:58,263 --> 01:02:02,063
have occurred, the worst of
which was being pinned down
1035
01:02:02,163 --> 01:02:03,596
by two Chinese light machine guns
1036
01:02:03,697 --> 01:02:06,197
firing 900 rounds per minute
1037
01:02:06,297 --> 01:02:08,996
and having my best friend
killed more or less beside me.
1038
01:02:11,163 --> 01:02:12,730
Someday I may tell you the whole story
1039
01:02:12,829 --> 01:02:15,663
if my nerves aren't
completely gone by then.
1040
01:02:15,764 --> 01:02:19,063
Actually the latter is
just wishful thinking,
1041
01:02:19,163 --> 01:02:23,430
in false hope they will
take me off the line.
1042
01:02:23,530 --> 01:02:27,430
I was fantastically religious for a while,
1043
01:02:27,530 --> 01:02:30,698
sending up various and sundry
prayers mainly concerned
1044
01:02:30,798 --> 01:02:33,765
with trying to stay alive,
1045
01:02:33,865 --> 01:02:38,397
but I am once again an atheist
until the shooting starts.
1046
01:02:44,097 --> 01:02:46,031
(gunfire)
1047
01:02:51,366 --> 01:02:55,431
(drums playing up-tempo march cadence)
1048
01:02:55,531 --> 01:02:57,065
HARRISON: I really believed
1049
01:02:57,165 --> 01:03:01,466
that we had to stop the
communist expansion.
1050
01:03:01,565 --> 01:03:06,632
I also believed that we were
on the side of the angels.
1051
01:03:06,732 --> 01:03:09,200
Just as France had provided us with support
1052
01:03:09,300 --> 01:03:12,332
during our revolution, we were
providing the South Vietnamese
1053
01:03:12,432 --> 01:03:14,566
with support during their revolution.
1054
01:03:14,666 --> 01:03:18,267
NARRATOR: Matthew Harrison
was among the 300 graduates
1055
01:03:18,367 --> 01:03:22,932
of the class of 1966 who
volunteered to go to Vietnam.
1056
01:03:23,032 --> 01:03:23,932
MAN: Rangers!
1057
01:03:24,032 --> 01:03:25,066
MEN: Rangers!
1058
01:03:25,166 --> 01:03:26,832
MAN: All the way! MEN: All the way!
1059
01:03:26,932 --> 01:03:30,433
NARRATOR: But first, he went
to Florida to become a Ranger
1060
01:03:30,533 --> 01:03:33,234
and endured nine weeks of
the most demanding training
1061
01:03:33,333 --> 01:03:35,234
the Army had to offer.
1062
01:03:35,333 --> 01:03:37,833
MAN: Airborne daddy gonna
take a little trip!
1063
01:03:37,933 --> 01:03:40,500
MEN: Airborne daddy gonna
take a little trip!
1064
01:03:40,600 --> 01:03:44,201
NARRATOR: The man in charge was
Major Charles A. Beckwith...
1065
01:03:44,301 --> 01:03:45,667
Chargin' Charlie...
1066
01:03:45,768 --> 01:03:48,933
hero of the siege of
Plei Me the year before.
1067
01:03:49,033 --> 01:03:53,469
"If a man is bloody stupid," he
told each group of newcomers,
1068
01:03:53,568 --> 01:03:56,869
"his mother will receive a
telegram and it will say,
1069
01:03:56,969 --> 01:03:59,735
"'Your son is dead because he's stupid.'
1070
01:03:59,834 --> 01:04:05,135
"Let's hope your telegram only
reads, 'Your son is dead.'
1071
01:04:05,235 --> 01:04:08,269
"With the training we're
going to give you here,
1072
01:04:08,369 --> 01:04:12,269
"maybe your mother won't
receive any telegram at all.
1073
01:04:12,369 --> 01:04:14,269
So pay attention."
1074
01:04:15,569 --> 01:04:16,803
To make it through,
1075
01:04:16,902 --> 01:04:19,002
Harrison and his fellow
trainees had to survive
1076
01:04:19,102 --> 01:04:23,470
days without sleep; were
deprived of food and water,
1077
01:04:23,569 --> 01:04:27,535
forced to march up mountains
until their feet bled
1078
01:04:27,636 --> 01:04:31,169
and patrol through swamps
that harbored copperheads
1079
01:04:31,270 --> 01:04:32,502
and cottonmouths;
1080
01:04:32,602 --> 01:04:35,636
had to learn how to detect booby traps
1081
01:04:35,736 --> 01:04:40,871
and outmaneuver veterans
masquerading as Viet Cong.
1082
01:04:40,971 --> 01:04:45,271
"Expect the unexpected,"
Beckwith told his trainees
1083
01:04:45,371 --> 01:04:47,003
again and again.
1084
01:04:47,103 --> 01:04:50,403
"Life is unfair."
1085
01:04:51,771 --> 01:04:53,771
Once he'd become a Ranger,
Harrison was eager
1086
01:04:53,871 --> 01:04:57,670
to get to Vietnam and put into action
1087
01:04:57,771 --> 01:05:01,205
the survival and leadership
skills he'd been absorbing
1088
01:05:01,305 --> 01:05:03,571
for five years.
1089
01:05:03,671 --> 01:05:06,604
HARRISON: I remember
discussing with my classmates
1090
01:05:06,705 --> 01:05:09,104
how horrible it would
be to serve in the Army
1091
01:05:09,205 --> 01:05:13,571
if everybody just a year ahead
of us had served in combat
1092
01:05:13,671 --> 01:05:15,937
and we didn't have the
opportunity to do that.
1093
01:05:16,037 --> 01:05:19,205
I was afraid we were going
to win the war too quickly
1094
01:05:19,305 --> 01:05:22,004
and I wouldn't have a
chance to experience it.
1095
01:05:30,206 --> 01:05:33,605
("L'Assassinat De Carala"
by Miles Davis playing)
1096
01:05:45,506 --> 01:05:51,339
NARRATOR: June 3, 1966, was
Mogie Crocker's 19th birthday.
1097
01:05:51,439 --> 01:05:55,006
His company was involved
in yet another campaign,
1098
01:05:55,106 --> 01:05:58,774
aimed at finding and killing
North Vietnamese troops
1099
01:05:58,874 --> 01:06:03,406
filtering into the Central
Highlands from Laos.
1100
01:06:03,506 --> 01:06:07,406
As night fell, Mogie and
his squad were ordered
1101
01:06:07,506 --> 01:06:09,674
to move up toward the crest of a hill
1102
01:06:09,775 --> 01:06:13,107
overlooking a besieged ARVN outpost
1103
01:06:13,208 --> 01:06:15,275
so that artillery could be brought up
1104
01:06:15,375 --> 01:06:18,741
and positioned to shell
the enemy in the morning.
1105
01:06:21,708 --> 01:06:25,540
They moved slowly, warily up the slope.
1106
01:06:25,641 --> 01:06:27,708
Mogie was the point man.
1107
01:06:30,709 --> 01:06:33,408
Out of the darkness, a
machine gun opened up.
1108
01:06:33,509 --> 01:06:36,041
(gunfire)
1109
01:06:36,142 --> 01:06:40,808
Denton Crocker, Jr. never made
it to the top of the hill.
1110
01:06:48,875 --> 01:06:50,651
("One Too Many Mornings"
by Bob Dylan playing)
1111
01:06:50,675 --> 01:06:52,875
DYLAN: ♪ Down the street
the dogs are barkin' ♪
1112
01:06:52,976 --> 01:06:56,643
♪ And the day is a-gettin' dark. ♪
1113
01:06:56,742 --> 01:07:00,242
JEAN-MARIE CROCKER: It was just a
lovely day to be out in our garden.
1114
01:07:02,143 --> 01:07:05,977
Candy, our little girl,
went to a birthday party.
1115
01:07:06,077 --> 01:07:09,309
And the other children were
just around the house, I guess.
1116
01:07:09,409 --> 01:07:14,376
But shortly after lunchtime,
I stepped out on the porch.
1117
01:07:18,644 --> 01:07:21,910
I saw two men in uniform
coming to the house.
1118
01:07:24,578 --> 01:07:28,177
And I knew something terrible had happened.
1119
01:07:29,543 --> 01:07:31,144
And I ran down the steps.
1120
01:07:31,243 --> 01:07:33,810
And I just grabbed hold
of one of them and said,
1121
01:07:33,910 --> 01:07:35,778
"Don't tell me. Don't say it.
1122
01:07:35,877 --> 01:07:38,444
Not my beautiful boy."
1123
01:07:38,544 --> 01:07:40,945
And he just said, "Yes."
1124
01:07:41,044 --> 01:07:42,988
DYLAN: ♪ From the
crossroads of my doorstep ♪
1125
01:07:43,012 --> 01:07:45,044
♪ My eyes start to fade.
1126
01:07:45,145 --> 01:07:47,585
CAROL CROCKER: I was sitting on
the couch in the living room.
1127
01:07:47,645 --> 01:07:51,544
I suddenly heard my mother
screaming for my father.
1128
01:07:51,645 --> 01:07:55,579
Like in a movie, here came
the priest up the stairs
1129
01:07:55,678 --> 01:07:58,079
with a soldier, and she's going, "Oh no."
1130
01:07:58,178 --> 01:08:01,879
And she's calling my dad.
1131
01:08:01,980 --> 01:08:04,745
My reaction was to leap up off the couch,
1132
01:08:04,845 --> 01:08:06,312
race out the back door
1133
01:08:06,412 --> 01:08:08,345
and I grabbed my little brother's hand
1134
01:08:08,446 --> 01:08:09,812
and I just started walking.
1135
01:08:09,912 --> 01:08:12,312
I said, "You have to come with me."
1136
01:08:12,412 --> 01:08:14,080
I said, "I have something to show you."
1137
01:08:14,179 --> 01:08:16,179
I have no idea where I was going.
1138
01:08:16,280 --> 01:08:21,013
I just said to myself, "No.
1139
01:08:21,112 --> 01:08:22,480
This isn't going to happen."
1140
01:08:22,580 --> 01:08:26,246
And something made me turn around
1141
01:08:26,346 --> 01:08:30,346
and I walked up to the back
of the house from the alley.
1142
01:08:30,447 --> 01:08:33,313
And my dad was standing there.
1143
01:08:33,413 --> 01:08:36,947
And I fell into his arms and I said,
1144
01:08:37,046 --> 01:08:38,880
"Don't let it be true, Dad.
1145
01:08:41,246 --> 01:08:43,313
Is it true?"
1146
01:08:43,413 --> 01:08:44,981
And he said, "Yes."
1147
01:08:48,015 --> 01:08:51,215
I somehow knew that things
had changed forever.
1148
01:08:52,914 --> 01:08:55,948
That my mom as my mom and my dad as my dad,
1149
01:08:56,047 --> 01:08:59,082
it was never going to be
quite the same again.
1150
01:08:59,181 --> 01:09:01,082
I just, I remember sitting on the couch
1151
01:09:01,181 --> 01:09:03,181
and I put my arms around them and I said,
1152
01:09:03,282 --> 01:09:06,482
"We'll love each other
and we'll be all right."
1153
01:09:06,582 --> 01:09:09,882
But I don't know how far it carried.
1154
01:09:09,983 --> 01:09:11,248
You know?
1155
01:09:11,348 --> 01:09:13,848
We all tried.
1156
01:09:13,949 --> 01:09:16,615
DYLAN: ♪ We're both just
one too many mornings ♪
1157
01:09:16,716 --> 01:09:19,716
♪ And a thousand miles behind.
1158
01:09:19,815 --> 01:09:22,283
JEAN-MARIE CROCKER: Carol
said to me one day
1159
01:09:22,382 --> 01:09:24,748
very shortly after Denton was killed,
1160
01:09:24,848 --> 01:09:29,548
probably that very day, "How
can you believe in God?"
1161
01:09:29,649 --> 01:09:32,784
And I said, "Because we had Mogie."
1162
01:09:36,049 --> 01:09:40,650
And I think that his life was a real gift.
1163
01:09:40,749 --> 01:09:43,849
It was a privilege to have him.
1164
01:09:43,950 --> 01:09:45,116
A friend wrote to me,
1165
01:09:45,217 --> 01:09:48,883
"Our children are really
only on loan to us,"
1166
01:09:48,984 --> 01:09:50,883
which I guess is true.
1167
01:09:53,383 --> 01:09:57,151
NARRATOR: Ten days later, an Army
captain escorted Mogie's body
1168
01:09:57,250 --> 01:09:59,518
to Dick Stone's funeral home.
1169
01:09:59,617 --> 01:10:02,518
The family priest had suggested
1170
01:10:02,617 --> 01:10:05,018
that Mogie be buried in Saratoga Springs
1171
01:10:05,117 --> 01:10:09,050
so that his parents could
easily visit his grave.
1172
01:10:09,151 --> 01:10:13,884
But they chose Arlington
National Cemetery instead.
1173
01:10:15,250 --> 01:10:19,486
"A corner of my heart knew,"
his mother remembered,
1174
01:10:19,586 --> 01:10:21,219
"that if he were buried near us,
1175
01:10:21,318 --> 01:10:26,019
I would want to claw the ground
to retrieve the warmth of him."
1176
01:10:32,152 --> 01:10:33,486
(applause)
1177
01:10:33,586 --> 01:10:35,118
LYNDON JOHNSON: I hear my friends say,
1178
01:10:35,219 --> 01:10:37,551
"I am troubled," and "I am confused,"
1179
01:10:37,652 --> 01:10:39,051
and "I am frustrated,"
1180
01:10:39,152 --> 01:10:41,720
and all of us can understand those people.
1181
01:10:41,819 --> 01:10:44,787
Sometimes I almost develop
a stomach ulcer myself,
1182
01:10:44,886 --> 01:10:46,953
just listening to them.
1183
01:10:47,052 --> 01:10:49,720
And we all wish the war would end.
1184
01:10:49,819 --> 01:10:51,953
We all wish the troops would come home.
1185
01:10:52,052 --> 01:10:55,252
There is no human being in all this world
1186
01:10:55,352 --> 01:10:59,020
who wishes these things to happen,
1187
01:10:59,119 --> 01:11:01,087
for peace to come to the world,
1188
01:11:01,186 --> 01:11:03,788
more than your president
of the United States.
1189
01:11:03,887 --> 01:11:07,288
("The Beginning of the End"
by Nine Inch Nails playing)
1190
01:11:14,253 --> 01:11:16,154
NARRATOR: The military
claimed to have killed
1191
01:11:16,253 --> 01:11:22,887
some 57,000 enemy soldiers in
the first six months of 1966.
1192
01:11:22,988 --> 01:11:25,921
But privately the administration worried
1193
01:11:26,022 --> 01:11:28,921
that General Westmoreland's
"crossover point"...
1194
01:11:29,022 --> 01:11:32,254
the moment when more enemy
soldiers had been killed
1195
01:11:32,354 --> 01:11:36,289
than could be replaced... seemed no nearer.
1196
01:11:36,388 --> 01:11:40,089
From the first, the Joint
Chiefs had urged the president
1197
01:11:40,188 --> 01:11:41,455
to be more aggressive...
1198
01:11:41,554 --> 01:11:47,188
to permit troops to pursue the
enemy into Laos and Cambodia
1199
01:11:47,289 --> 01:11:52,090
and to expand the target list
for bombing in North Vietnam.
1200
01:11:52,189 --> 01:11:56,290
Johnson still would not
allow borders to be crossed
1201
01:11:56,389 --> 01:11:59,755
by regular ground troops
for fear of bringing China
1202
01:11:59,855 --> 01:12:03,355
or even the Soviet Union into the war.
1203
01:12:03,456 --> 01:12:06,122
And he was wary of heavier bombing,
1204
01:12:06,223 --> 01:12:09,156
fearful of hitting more civilians.
1205
01:12:09,255 --> 01:12:11,991
But despite his concern,
1206
01:12:12,091 --> 01:12:15,756
the president now agreed to
intensify the bombing campaign
1207
01:12:15,856 --> 01:12:18,423
called Operation Rolling Thunder.
1208
01:12:18,524 --> 01:12:21,591
He approved attacks on oil facilities
1209
01:12:21,690 --> 01:12:23,923
all over North Vietnam,
1210
01:12:24,024 --> 01:12:26,923
including some sites adjacent to the cities
1211
01:12:27,024 --> 01:12:30,591
of Haiphong and Hanoi.
1212
01:12:30,690 --> 01:12:32,623
His commanders assured him
1213
01:12:32,725 --> 01:12:35,391
that this would be a
mortal blow to the enemy,
1214
01:12:35,492 --> 01:12:38,225
sure to force the North Vietnamese
1215
01:12:38,324 --> 01:12:39,891
to the bargaining table.
1216
01:12:47,391 --> 01:12:51,124
Tens of thousands of sorties were flown.
1217
01:12:54,191 --> 01:12:57,425
Many bombs hit their intended targets.
1218
01:12:57,526 --> 01:12:59,593
But many missed
1219
01:12:59,692 --> 01:13:03,392
and fell on residential
neighborhoods instead,
1220
01:13:03,493 --> 01:13:06,392
just as the president had feared.
1221
01:13:10,892 --> 01:13:14,058
JOHNSON: Things are going reasonably
well in the South, aren't they?
1222
01:13:14,159 --> 01:13:16,325
McNAMARA: Yes, I think so.
1223
01:13:16,425 --> 01:13:18,859
Because we think we're
taking a heavy toll of them,
1224
01:13:18,960 --> 01:13:21,626
but it just scares me to
see what we're doing there
1225
01:13:21,727 --> 01:13:24,826
with God knows how many
airplanes and helicopters
1226
01:13:24,926 --> 01:13:29,693
and firepower and going after a
bunch of half-starved beggars.
1227
01:13:29,794 --> 01:13:31,960
This is what's going on in the South.
1228
01:13:32,059 --> 01:13:34,559
And the great danger is that,
1229
01:13:34,660 --> 01:13:39,259
that they can keep that
up almost indefinitely.
1230
01:13:39,359 --> 01:13:41,303
The only thing that'll prevent it, Mr.
President,
1231
01:13:41,327 --> 01:13:43,060
is their morale breaking.
1232
01:13:43,161 --> 01:13:45,560
There's no question but what
the troops in the South,
1233
01:13:45,661 --> 01:13:47,194
the VC and North Vietnamese,
1234
01:13:47,295 --> 01:13:50,095
they know that we're bombing in the North.
1235
01:13:50,194 --> 01:13:51,694
And we just have a free rein.
1236
01:13:51,795 --> 01:13:53,370
And when they see they're getting killed
1237
01:13:53,394 --> 01:13:55,028
in such high rates in the South,
1238
01:13:55,127 --> 01:13:58,461
and they see that the supplies
are less likely to come down
1239
01:13:58,560 --> 01:14:00,236
from the North, I think it
will just hurt their morale
1240
01:14:00,260 --> 01:14:01,327
a little bit more.
1241
01:14:01,427 --> 01:14:02,771
And to me that's the only way to win
1242
01:14:02,795 --> 01:14:04,662
because we're not killing enough of them
1243
01:14:04,761 --> 01:14:07,895
to make it impossible for the
North to continue to fight.
1244
01:14:07,996 --> 01:14:10,761
But we are killing enough
to destroy the morale
1245
01:14:10,861 --> 01:14:12,261
of those people down there
1246
01:14:12,361 --> 01:14:14,481
if they think this is going
to have to go on forever.
1247
01:14:16,261 --> 01:14:17,328
JOHNSON: All right.
1248
01:14:17,428 --> 01:14:19,261
Go ahead, Bob.
1249
01:15:04,763 --> 01:15:08,363
McPEAK: People talk about collateral
damage, but it means something.
1250
01:15:09,998 --> 01:15:12,564
You don't want to do collateral damage.
1251
01:15:12,665 --> 01:15:15,764
You want to do the damage you want to do.
1252
01:15:15,864 --> 01:15:17,732
That's the winning way to do this.
1253
01:15:25,732 --> 01:15:28,898
(distant, echoing shouting)
1254
01:15:31,465 --> 01:15:33,733
EVERETT ALVAREZ: Even though
I was in a cell by myself
1255
01:15:33,832 --> 01:15:36,600
and others were in by
themselves, we weren't alone.
1256
01:15:36,699 --> 01:15:39,166
We were together in this old French prison
1257
01:15:39,265 --> 01:15:42,065
halfway around the world
from the United States.
1258
01:15:42,166 --> 01:15:46,666
Gradually I began to realize
this could go on a long time.
1259
01:15:46,765 --> 01:15:50,100
A long time to me was
like maybe a year or two.
1260
01:15:50,199 --> 01:15:54,466
I never dreamed it would
be eight-and-a-half years.
1261
01:15:54,565 --> 01:15:59,167
NARRATOR: By the summer of 1966,
Lieutenant Everett Alvarez,
1262
01:15:59,266 --> 01:16:02,200
the first American pilot
to have been shot down
1263
01:16:02,301 --> 01:16:06,633
over North Vietnam, had been a
captive for nearly two years
1264
01:16:06,734 --> 01:16:09,601
and had been joined in and around Hanoi
1265
01:16:09,700 --> 01:16:12,801
by more than 100 other downed airmen.
1266
01:16:12,900 --> 01:16:16,766
Even though the North
Vietnamese considered them all
1267
01:16:16,866 --> 01:16:20,134
"aggressors," "criminals,"
and "air pirates"
1268
01:16:20,235 --> 01:16:23,634
rather than prisoners of war
deserving of humane treatment,
1269
01:16:23,735 --> 01:16:27,434
Alvarez and the others had
been treated relatively well
1270
01:16:27,535 --> 01:16:28,767
at first.
1271
01:16:28,867 --> 01:16:31,867
But that hadn't lasted long.
1272
01:16:31,968 --> 01:16:35,767
The men were soon forbidden to
communicate with one another,
1273
01:16:35,867 --> 01:16:38,235
forced to bow to their jailers,
1274
01:16:38,334 --> 01:16:41,669
and told that their country
had forgotten them.
1275
01:16:41,768 --> 01:16:45,236
They were subjected to isolation, beatings,
1276
01:16:45,335 --> 01:16:47,868
and hour upon hour of torture,
1277
01:16:47,969 --> 01:16:51,568
all aimed at forcing them
to admit their guilt
1278
01:16:51,669 --> 01:16:56,068
and record statements denouncing the war.
1279
01:16:56,169 --> 01:16:57,603
(door slams)
1280
01:16:57,702 --> 01:17:00,435
ALVAREZ: When that cell door
would open, when they would say,
1281
01:17:00,536 --> 01:17:05,970
"You, your turn," you know, the
bottom just fell out of you,
1282
01:17:06,069 --> 01:17:09,136
and you knew that you may not come back.
1283
01:17:09,237 --> 01:17:14,403
The manacles, the ropes, the
beatings, they broke bones.
1284
01:17:14,504 --> 01:17:16,336
They... they did everything.
1285
01:17:17,903 --> 01:17:19,569
My arms turned black
1286
01:17:19,670 --> 01:17:22,836
from the cuffs that cut
off all circulation.
1287
01:17:22,936 --> 01:17:24,703
And they didn't let me die.
1288
01:17:24,804 --> 01:17:26,904
They just kept the pain.
1289
01:17:27,005 --> 01:17:30,070
That's when I realized that
I was not a superhuman.
1290
01:17:33,770 --> 01:17:39,105
The first time I broke and gave
them something, I felt so low.
1291
01:17:39,204 --> 01:17:42,505
I felt so little.
1292
01:17:44,671 --> 01:17:47,305
NARRATOR: Some of the men who
were forced to record statements
1293
01:17:47,404 --> 01:17:51,838
did their best to make their
true feelings known back home.
1294
01:17:51,938 --> 01:17:55,871
Commander Jeremiah Denton
blinked his eyes to spell out
1295
01:17:55,972 --> 01:17:58,371
"torture" in Morse code.
1296
01:18:05,905 --> 01:18:09,438
On July 6, just one week
after American bombs
1297
01:18:09,539 --> 01:18:12,372
had first fallen on Hanoi and Haiphong,
1298
01:18:12,473 --> 01:18:16,839
jailers rounded up Alvarez
and 51 other prisoners,
1299
01:18:16,939 --> 01:18:19,406
and, while cameras rolled,
1300
01:18:19,507 --> 01:18:22,007
marched them through downtown Hanoi,
1301
01:18:22,107 --> 01:18:25,439
past the angry citizens of the city.
1302
01:18:25,540 --> 01:18:27,906
ALVAREZ: I could hear the
crowd being whipped up.
1303
01:18:28,007 --> 01:18:31,939
And as I passed this one
fellow with the megaphone,
1304
01:18:32,040 --> 01:18:34,107
he looked at me and he yelled to the crowd.
1305
01:18:34,206 --> 01:18:37,273
"Alvarez, Alvarez, son of
a bitch, son of a bitch!"
1306
01:18:37,373 --> 01:18:40,907
People started pressing
in, throwing things...
1307
01:18:41,008 --> 01:18:43,008
bottles, shoes.
1308
01:18:43,108 --> 01:18:45,273
But the guards by this time
were having a hard time
1309
01:18:45,373 --> 01:18:47,773
keeping the people away.
1310
01:18:47,873 --> 01:18:50,707
NARRATOR: The North
Vietnamese had hoped to rally
1311
01:18:50,808 --> 01:18:55,207
international support for trying
the prisoners as war criminals.
1312
01:18:55,308 --> 01:18:57,207
It backfired.
1313
01:18:57,308 --> 01:19:01,542
People everywhere, even many
of those who opposed the war,
1314
01:19:01,641 --> 01:19:05,675
sympathized with the
stumbling, helpless men.
1315
01:19:07,042 --> 01:19:10,009
Plans for public trials were canceled.
1316
01:19:12,274 --> 01:19:16,809
The bombing continued, and more
American planes were shot down.
1317
01:19:19,641 --> 01:19:24,176
The North Vietnamese took pride
in capturing American airmen.
1318
01:19:24,275 --> 01:19:28,209
Even children were
expected to do their part.
1319
01:19:28,310 --> 01:19:29,952
(call and response with
teacher and children)
1320
01:19:29,976 --> 01:19:31,875
TEACHER: Hands up! Hand up!
1321
01:19:34,610 --> 01:19:35,676
Hands up!
1322
01:19:35,775 --> 01:19:36,575
Hands up!
1323
01:19:37,610 --> 01:19:38,610
Hands up!
1324
01:19:39,909 --> 01:19:42,142
McPEAK: The bombing
around Hanoi and Haiphong
1325
01:19:42,243 --> 01:19:44,643
that resulted in so many
of our people being POWs
1326
01:19:44,744 --> 01:19:45,876
for a long period of time
1327
01:19:45,977 --> 01:19:47,811
was fought out of the White House basement,
1328
01:19:47,910 --> 01:19:50,811
with the president himself picking targets,
1329
01:19:50,910 --> 01:19:52,710
and deciding that we're
going to attack now,
1330
01:19:52,811 --> 01:19:54,843
and then we're going to pause for awhile.
1331
01:19:56,044 --> 01:20:00,643
Airpower was being misused, big time.
1332
01:20:04,076 --> 01:20:06,612
NARRATOR: Operation Rolling
Thunder did destroy
1333
01:20:06,711 --> 01:20:11,144
most of North Vietnam's
oil storage facilities.
1334
01:20:11,245 --> 01:20:14,144
But the North Vietnamese shifted
1335
01:20:14,245 --> 01:20:16,978
most of their oil to underground tanks,
1336
01:20:17,077 --> 01:20:22,911
and more arrived every day from
China and the Soviet Union.
1337
01:20:26,077 --> 01:20:29,145
The bombing was stepped up anyway.
1338
01:20:31,145 --> 01:20:32,212
Throughout the North,
1339
01:20:32,313 --> 01:20:35,046
enough crude air shelters were fashioned
1340
01:20:35,145 --> 01:20:39,179
from concrete pipe buried
five feet beneath the ground
1341
01:20:39,278 --> 01:20:42,246
to accommodate some 18 million people...
1342
01:20:42,345 --> 01:20:45,613
virtually the entire population.
1343
01:20:45,712 --> 01:20:49,578
(workers singing in Vietnamese)
1344
01:20:49,679 --> 01:20:53,614
Over a million people were said
to be working around the clock
1345
01:20:53,713 --> 01:20:56,379
to undo what American bombs had done.
1346
01:20:56,480 --> 01:20:59,114
When key bridges were destroyed,
1347
01:20:59,213 --> 01:21:01,614
they fashioned pontoon bridges overnight
1348
01:21:01,713 --> 01:21:03,480
to keep traffic moving.
1349
01:21:03,579 --> 01:21:08,346
Crews waited along the roads
with heaps of gravel and stone
1350
01:21:08,446 --> 01:21:12,446
and stacks of wood to fill bomb craters.
1351
01:21:12,547 --> 01:21:18,615
They worked under the slogan
"The enemy destroys, we repair.
1352
01:21:18,714 --> 01:21:23,347
The enemy destroys, we repair again."
1353
01:21:23,447 --> 01:21:28,214
(workers continue singing)
1354
01:21:29,714 --> 01:21:32,080
WILLBANKS: Rolling Thunder
was the dumbest campaign
1355
01:21:32,181 --> 01:21:34,515
ever devised by a human being.
1356
01:21:34,615 --> 01:21:36,781
The normal human thing to do
1357
01:21:36,881 --> 01:21:39,415
is to think that your
enemy thinks like you.
1358
01:21:39,516 --> 01:21:42,415
There's the old story, apocryphal,
1359
01:21:42,516 --> 01:21:44,281
that when McNamara wants to know
1360
01:21:44,381 --> 01:21:47,381
what Ho Chi Minh is thinking,
he interviews himself.
1361
01:21:47,482 --> 01:21:50,249
What the problem then becomes is
1362
01:21:50,348 --> 01:21:53,982
that you keep trying to send
messages that are rational
1363
01:21:54,081 --> 01:21:56,415
based upon your judgment of rationality,
1364
01:21:56,516 --> 01:21:59,782
but have nothing to do with
the definition of rationality
1365
01:21:59,882 --> 01:22:01,317
on the other side.
1366
01:22:02,617 --> 01:22:04,649
So what's irrational to us
1367
01:22:04,750 --> 01:22:06,550
is totally rational to the other side
1368
01:22:06,649 --> 01:22:11,349
if you've decided that you are
going to reunify the Vietnams
1369
01:22:11,449 --> 01:22:15,817
no matter what it takes, no
matter how many casualties.
1370
01:22:19,483 --> 01:22:22,350
NARRATOR: Hanoi did all it
could to publicize the damage
1371
01:22:22,450 --> 01:22:25,717
American bombs were doing to civilians.
1372
01:22:25,818 --> 01:22:30,984
Most Americans dismissed the
reports as communist propaganda.
1373
01:22:33,118 --> 01:22:36,350
But when Harrison Salisbury
of theNew York Times
1374
01:22:36,450 --> 01:22:42,118
traveled to North Vietnam and
reported on Christmas Day, 1966,
1375
01:22:42,217 --> 01:22:43,484
what he had seen,
1376
01:22:43,583 --> 01:22:47,784
public doubts about the
morality of the war grew.
1377
01:22:49,218 --> 01:22:51,784
GELB: A lot of the military we talked to
1378
01:22:51,884 --> 01:22:56,185
shared our concerns about how
the war was being fought,
1379
01:22:56,284 --> 01:22:58,619
and whether or not it could be won.
1380
01:22:58,718 --> 01:23:01,718
But when it came to an official position,
1381
01:23:01,819 --> 01:23:04,685
it was what we know well,
1382
01:23:04,784 --> 01:23:07,719
namely, "We can win this war
and we're doing it right.
1383
01:23:07,820 --> 01:23:12,385
We just need more... more
troops, more bombing."
1384
01:23:18,585 --> 01:23:23,120
WILSON: I recall on one instance
after I had returned from Vietnam,
1385
01:23:23,219 --> 01:23:26,885
I went by to see McNamara.
1386
01:23:28,852 --> 01:23:33,286
He was saying, "Well, how is
our strategic bombing program
1387
01:23:33,386 --> 01:23:35,853
affecting the course of the war?"
1388
01:23:37,054 --> 01:23:41,653
I said, "It is not gaining us anything.
1389
01:23:41,754 --> 01:23:45,453
Indeed, it is counterproductive."
1390
01:23:47,021 --> 01:23:48,321
He said, "What do you mean?"
1391
01:23:50,987 --> 01:23:57,221
"Mr. Secretary, the sledgehammer
approach is not working.
1392
01:23:57,322 --> 01:24:00,322
"These people know that at some point
1393
01:24:00,421 --> 01:24:02,988
"we're going to get tired of killing them.
1394
01:24:03,087 --> 01:24:05,454
And they think they can outlast us."
1395
01:24:05,555 --> 01:24:10,154
And he said, "Why don't
people tell me these things?"
1396
01:24:12,755 --> 01:24:16,189
I said, "Mr. Secretary, you don't ask."
1397
01:24:16,288 --> 01:24:19,588
("I Am a Rock" by Simon
and Garfunkel playing)
1398
01:24:19,689 --> 01:24:21,823
CRAIG McNAMARA: I think
every father and son
1399
01:24:21,922 --> 01:24:27,689
struggles in the course
of their lives together.
1400
01:24:27,788 --> 01:24:31,788
SIMON AND GARFUNKEL: ♪ In
a deep and dark December
1401
01:24:31,888 --> 01:24:37,223
CRAIG McNAMARA: And I don't think
my dad and I were exempt from that.
1402
01:24:37,324 --> 01:24:39,923
The interesting thing for me is
1403
01:24:40,024 --> 01:24:43,589
the space to talk about
Vietnam was never created.
1404
01:24:43,690 --> 01:24:47,656
And that was clearly a
decision on my father's part.
1405
01:24:47,757 --> 01:24:49,557
SIMON AND GARFUNKEL: ♪ I am a rock.
1406
01:24:49,656 --> 01:24:53,124
NARRATOR: Craig McNamara, the son
of the Secretary of Defense,
1407
01:24:53,223 --> 01:24:55,356
was a student at St. Paul's School
1408
01:24:55,456 --> 01:24:57,089
in Concord, New Hampshire,
1409
01:24:57,190 --> 01:25:01,390
where a teach-in about
the war was to be held.
1410
01:25:01,491 --> 01:25:04,890
I remember calling my father
from a phone booth and saying,
1411
01:25:04,991 --> 01:25:07,157
"Dad, we're going to have this experience
1412
01:25:07,258 --> 01:25:08,991
"and if there's any support materials
1413
01:25:09,090 --> 01:25:14,357
that you think I should
present, please let me know."
1414
01:25:15,857 --> 01:25:18,590
The support materials didn't come.
1415
01:25:18,691 --> 01:25:22,759
I think my father really
wanted lovingly to protect me
1416
01:25:22,858 --> 01:25:26,026
from the Vietnam experience
to the best of his ability.
1417
01:25:26,126 --> 01:25:27,858
Well, we know you can't do that.
1418
01:25:27,958 --> 01:25:32,026
Things bleed through and it
just doesn't happen that way.
1419
01:25:32,126 --> 01:25:34,658
Probably, he realized at that time
1420
01:25:34,759 --> 01:25:39,591
that the support materials...
weren't there.
1421
01:25:45,359 --> 01:25:47,702
ROBERT McNAMARA: Today I can
tell you that military progress
1422
01:25:47,726 --> 01:25:52,327
in the past 12 months has
exceeded our expectations.
1423
01:25:52,426 --> 01:25:54,327
The Viet Cong have been unable to mount
1424
01:25:54,426 --> 01:25:56,560
the offensive that they had planned
1425
01:25:56,659 --> 01:26:01,260
designed to cut the country
in half at its narrow waist.
1426
01:26:01,359 --> 01:26:03,327
The military pressure,
1427
01:26:03,426 --> 01:26:05,493
which forces have brought against them,
1428
01:26:05,592 --> 01:26:07,103
have prevented them from
mounting that offensive
1429
01:26:07,127 --> 01:26:10,494
and have inflicted very
heavy casualties on them.
1430
01:26:10,593 --> 01:26:12,227
No matter how you measure it,
1431
01:26:12,328 --> 01:26:15,893
we're better off than we thought
we would be at this time.
1432
01:26:17,360 --> 01:26:19,037
("Ain't Too Proud To Beg"
by the Temptations playing)
1433
01:26:19,061 --> 01:26:21,761
♪ I know you want to leave me... ♪
1434
01:26:21,860 --> 01:26:23,670
EHRHART: Certainly when
I arrived, I'm thinking
1435
01:26:23,694 --> 01:26:25,694
I'm involved in a winning enterprise.
1436
01:26:25,793 --> 01:26:27,561
I mean, America doesn't lose.
1437
01:26:27,660 --> 01:26:29,593
We never lose.
1438
01:26:29,694 --> 01:26:33,562
I had sort of not really known
much about the War of 1812,
1439
01:26:33,661 --> 01:26:37,094
which was... pretty much of a draw,
1440
01:26:37,195 --> 01:26:40,394
or the Civil War in which
half of America lost,
1441
01:26:40,495 --> 01:26:43,629
and the Korean War where
we won the first half
1442
01:26:43,728 --> 01:26:44,829
and lost the second half.
1443
01:26:44,928 --> 01:26:47,629
But I'd been taught America never loses.
1444
01:26:47,728 --> 01:26:51,762
NARRATOR: The Marines had been
the first American combat troops
1445
01:26:51,861 --> 01:26:53,862
to fight in Vietnam.
1446
01:26:53,962 --> 01:26:56,395
And they were expected to fight longer
1447
01:26:56,496 --> 01:27:00,895
than their Army counterparts...
13 months instead of 12.
1448
01:27:02,862 --> 01:27:04,696
Marine privates Bill Ehrhart,
1449
01:27:04,795 --> 01:27:09,395
John Musgrave, and Roger
Harris all arrived at Danang
1450
01:27:09,496 --> 01:27:11,996
in early 1967.
1451
01:27:12,095 --> 01:27:16,264
MUSGRAVE: The first thing that assaulted
my nose was the foreign smells.
1452
01:27:16,363 --> 01:27:18,697
And watching people relieve themselves
1453
01:27:18,796 --> 01:27:20,264
by the side of the road
1454
01:27:20,363 --> 01:27:23,163
and seeing animals I'd never seen before...
1455
01:27:23,264 --> 01:27:25,163
the big water buffaloes.
1456
01:27:25,264 --> 01:27:27,663
You know, it was like being on Mars,
1457
01:27:27,764 --> 01:27:31,463
because it was totally foreign to me.
1458
01:27:31,564 --> 01:27:36,230
But I honestly, in my dumb
Missouri kid kind of way,
1459
01:27:36,331 --> 01:27:38,731
I thought, "Look at all those foreigners."
1460
01:27:38,832 --> 01:27:41,265
And it didn't dawn on me for a little while
1461
01:27:41,364 --> 01:27:44,565
that the only foreigner
in that area was me.
1462
01:27:46,431 --> 01:27:50,164
HARRIS: The feeling was that we
were going over to rescue folks.
1463
01:27:50,265 --> 01:27:53,332
And that the communists were
taking over this country
1464
01:27:53,431 --> 01:27:55,431
and they needed help.
1465
01:27:55,532 --> 01:27:58,065
But then when we got there
we realized that...
1466
01:27:58,164 --> 01:28:00,297
that it wasn't exactly like that, you know.
1467
01:28:00,397 --> 01:28:02,699
Many of the Vietnamese, they
would spit at our trucks
1468
01:28:02,798 --> 01:28:04,699
and they'd tell us to go back to America.
1469
01:28:04,798 --> 01:28:06,408
And then, you know, we began
questioning ourselves,
1470
01:28:06,432 --> 01:28:07,665
you know, why are we here?
1471
01:28:09,098 --> 01:28:10,865
These people don't want us here.
1472
01:28:12,965 --> 01:28:16,898
NARRATOR: Roger Harris was assigned
to G Company, 2nd Battalion,
1473
01:28:16,999 --> 01:28:20,999
9th Regiment of the 3rd
Marine Division at Phu Bai,
1474
01:28:21,098 --> 01:28:23,299
outside of Hue.
1475
01:28:23,399 --> 01:28:25,466
John Musgrave was first stationed
1476
01:28:25,567 --> 01:28:29,767
with the 1st Marine Division
at the Danang Airbase.
1477
01:28:29,866 --> 01:28:32,433
And Bill Ehrhart joined the 1st Regiment
1478
01:28:32,534 --> 01:28:35,834
of the 1st Marine Division
near the city of Hoi An.
1479
01:28:38,466 --> 01:28:40,433
Private Ehrhart was given a desk job,
1480
01:28:40,534 --> 01:28:42,634
collating snippets of information
1481
01:28:42,733 --> 01:28:44,899
for the daily intelligence summary.
1482
01:28:47,135 --> 01:28:49,268
Three days after he got to Hoi An,
1483
01:28:49,367 --> 01:28:54,535
a group of civilian detainees
was brought into the compound.
1484
01:28:54,635 --> 01:28:58,068
EHRHART: These two amtracs
come in the back gate.
1485
01:28:58,167 --> 01:29:00,600
The Marines up top start pushing them off.
1486
01:29:00,701 --> 01:29:02,311
Their hands are tied, their feet are tied,
1487
01:29:02,335 --> 01:29:04,035
they have no way to break their fall.
1488
01:29:04,135 --> 01:29:08,901
You literally can hear bones
snapping, shoulders dislocate.
1489
01:29:09,002 --> 01:29:12,002
And I grab Corporal Sal,
1490
01:29:12,101 --> 01:29:15,101
and he says in the absolute
flattest, hollowest voice
1491
01:29:15,202 --> 01:29:16,601
I've ever heard,
1492
01:29:16,702 --> 01:29:20,935
"Ehrhart, you better keep your
mouth shut and your eyes open
1493
01:29:21,036 --> 01:29:23,301
"till you understand what's
going on around here.
1494
01:29:23,401 --> 01:29:25,801
"Those trackers, they're
hitting mines out there
1495
01:29:25,901 --> 01:29:27,735
"on the sand flats every day.
1496
01:29:27,836 --> 01:29:29,868
"They're getting killed;
they're getting maimed.
1497
01:29:29,968 --> 01:29:33,436
"And these people know
where those mines are.
1498
01:29:33,537 --> 01:29:37,169
"You treat these people nice
in front of the trackers
1499
01:29:37,270 --> 01:29:38,469
"and those trackers
1500
01:29:38,570 --> 01:29:40,210
"will rearrange your head and ass for you
1501
01:29:40,302 --> 01:29:41,802
and walk away laughing."
1502
01:29:43,402 --> 01:29:46,570
Well, at that point,
three days into Vietnam,
1503
01:29:46,669 --> 01:29:48,469
I'm thinking, "Whoa.
1504
01:29:48,570 --> 01:29:51,869
What the hell is going on here?"
1505
01:29:55,170 --> 01:29:57,638
I think it is destroying the good name
1506
01:29:57,737 --> 01:30:00,303
and the leadership of the United States.
1507
01:30:00,403 --> 01:30:05,338
Furthermore, I believe that the
war is militarily unwinnable.
1508
01:30:05,437 --> 01:30:09,870
I believe that thousands
of American young men
1509
01:30:09,970 --> 01:30:14,138
are being asked to die to
save Lyndon Johnson's face.
1510
01:30:14,237 --> 01:30:17,705
He must know by now that
this war is unwinnable,
1511
01:30:17,804 --> 01:30:20,171
but he does not know how to give up.
1512
01:30:20,272 --> 01:30:23,971
Therefore, I believe that young
men are not only justified
1513
01:30:24,072 --> 01:30:27,104
but to be thanked if they point this out
1514
01:30:27,205 --> 01:30:31,072
by refusing to take part in such
an outrageous war any longer.
1515
01:30:31,171 --> 01:30:34,971
("Footprints" by Wayne Shorter playing)
1516
01:30:35,072 --> 01:30:38,339
NARRATOR: Dr. Benjamin Spock was
the best-loved pediatrician
1517
01:30:38,438 --> 01:30:39,773
of his time;
1518
01:30:39,872 --> 01:30:43,805
millions of American parents
had consulted his bestseller,
1519
01:30:43,905 --> 01:30:46,239
Baby and Child Care.
1520
01:30:46,340 --> 01:30:50,840
In early 1967, he wrote
the preface to an article
1521
01:30:50,939 --> 01:30:53,640
in the leftist magazine Ramparts
1522
01:30:53,739 --> 01:30:59,305
on the impact of American napalm
on South Vietnamese children.
1523
01:30:59,405 --> 01:31:04,207
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was
among those who had read it.
1524
01:31:04,306 --> 01:31:07,440
He had been agonizing
about the war for months.
1525
01:31:07,541 --> 01:31:10,373
But he had been reluctant to break openly
1526
01:31:10,473 --> 01:31:14,473
with Lyndon Johnson, who had
done so much for civil rights.
1527
01:31:14,574 --> 01:31:18,740
Now he could no longer stay silent.
1528
01:31:18,841 --> 01:31:24,007
MARTIN LUTHER KING: I come to this
magnificent house of worship tonight
1529
01:31:24,106 --> 01:31:29,107
because my conscience
leaves me no other choice.
1530
01:31:29,208 --> 01:31:35,208
A time comes when silence is betrayal.
1531
01:31:35,307 --> 01:31:42,107
That time has come for us
in relation to Vietnam.
1532
01:31:42,208 --> 01:31:44,150
("Talking World War III
Blues" by Bob Dylan playing)
1533
01:31:44,174 --> 01:31:47,375
NARRATOR: Eleven days later,
King joined Dr. Spock
1534
01:31:47,475 --> 01:31:50,175
and perhaps half a million other protestors
1535
01:31:50,276 --> 01:31:53,576
at a massive demonstration in Central Park
1536
01:31:53,675 --> 01:31:55,776
organized by a new coalition,
1537
01:31:55,875 --> 01:32:00,543
the National Mobilization
to End the War in Vietnam.
1538
01:32:00,643 --> 01:32:02,776
♪ Some time ago a crazy
dream came to me ♪
1539
01:32:02,875 --> 01:32:05,843
♪ I dreamt I was walkin'
into World War III. ♪
1540
01:32:05,942 --> 01:32:09,009
ZIMMERMAN: That was the biggest
crowd any of us had ever been in
1541
01:32:09,108 --> 01:32:10,544
in our lives.
1542
01:32:10,644 --> 01:32:14,777
And when the front of the march
got down to the United Nations,
1543
01:32:14,876 --> 01:32:17,809
the back of the march had
not yet left Central Park.
1544
01:32:17,909 --> 01:32:21,144
That's how many people we were.
1545
01:32:25,809 --> 01:32:30,044
Not all of the people on
that march were students.
1546
01:32:30,144 --> 01:32:34,977
And as a result, we all
felt we have a chance now.
1547
01:32:35,078 --> 01:32:39,677
You know, there's a path that
we could see to ending the war.
1548
01:32:43,211 --> 01:32:45,810
MARTIN LUTHER KING: Stop the bombing.
1549
01:32:45,910 --> 01:32:49,677
Let us save our national honor.
1550
01:32:49,778 --> 01:32:54,045
Stop the bombing, and stop the war.
1551
01:32:54,145 --> 01:32:59,012
Let us save American lives
and Vietnamese lives.
1552
01:32:59,111 --> 01:33:02,712
Let us take a single instantaneous step
1553
01:33:02,811 --> 01:33:04,178
to the peace table.
1554
01:33:04,279 --> 01:33:05,779
Stop the bombing.
1555
01:33:07,311 --> 01:33:09,411
NARRATOR: The antiwar movement was growing
1556
01:33:09,512 --> 01:33:12,646
in numbers and militancy.
1557
01:33:12,745 --> 01:33:16,611
"We are no longer interested
in merely protesting the war,"
1558
01:33:16,712 --> 01:33:20,179
one organizer said, "we
are out to stop it."
1559
01:33:23,047 --> 01:33:26,979
Meanwhile, some in the Johnson
administration became convinced
1560
01:33:27,080 --> 01:33:30,312
the antiwar movement was
a communist conspiracy
1561
01:33:30,412 --> 01:33:32,280
directed by Moscow.
1562
01:33:32,379 --> 01:33:37,112
The FBI and the CIA, which
was barred by statute
1563
01:33:37,213 --> 01:33:39,612
from operating within the United States,
1564
01:33:39,713 --> 01:33:44,014
began infiltrating the movement,
wiretapping its leaders,
1565
01:33:44,113 --> 01:33:49,180
even inciting violence in order
to undercut their appeal.
1566
01:33:53,180 --> 01:33:56,214
ZIMMERMAN: At that time,
people who supported the war
1567
01:33:56,313 --> 01:33:59,714
were fond of saying "My
country right or wrong";
1568
01:33:59,813 --> 01:34:02,782
"America, love it or leave it."
1569
01:34:02,881 --> 01:34:06,314
Or "Better dead than Red."
1570
01:34:06,414 --> 01:34:10,582
Those sentiments seemed insane to us.
1571
01:34:10,681 --> 01:34:12,849
We don't want to live in a country
1572
01:34:12,948 --> 01:34:15,215
that we're going to support
whether it's right or wrong.
1573
01:34:15,314 --> 01:34:16,681
We want to live in a country
1574
01:34:16,782 --> 01:34:20,015
that acts rightly and doesn't act wrongly.
1575
01:34:20,114 --> 01:34:24,448
And if our country isn't doing
that, it needs to be corrected.
1576
01:34:24,549 --> 01:34:27,749
So we had a very different
idea of patriotism.
1577
01:34:27,850 --> 01:34:34,449
So we began an era in which
two groups of Americans,
1578
01:34:34,550 --> 01:34:37,516
both thinking that they
were acting patriotically,
1579
01:34:37,615 --> 01:34:39,815
went to war with each other.
1580
01:34:39,915 --> 01:34:43,650
Over 200,000 communist sympathizers
1581
01:34:43,749 --> 01:34:46,749
in that park this morning
tried to burn this flag,
1582
01:34:46,850 --> 01:34:48,483
but they didn't succeed.
1583
01:34:48,584 --> 01:34:50,184
RICHARD NIXON: I would put it this way...
1584
01:34:50,250 --> 01:34:52,616
there's a monstrous myth abroad,
1585
01:34:52,717 --> 01:34:56,183
a myth which Hanoi creates
and which it believes,
1586
01:34:56,284 --> 01:34:59,416
and that is that the United
States is so divided
1587
01:34:59,517 --> 01:35:04,151
that if they just hang on that
they will win in Washington,
1588
01:35:04,250 --> 01:35:06,493
and in the United States the
victory that our fighting men
1589
01:35:06,517 --> 01:35:08,217
are denying them in field.
1590
01:35:08,316 --> 01:35:11,152
WESTMORELAND: As I have said before,
1591
01:35:11,251 --> 01:35:15,085
in evaluating the enemy
strategy it is evident to me
1592
01:35:15,184 --> 01:35:18,817
that he believes our Achilles'
heel is our resolve.
1593
01:35:20,218 --> 01:35:22,451
NARRATOR: Two weeks after
the Manhattan protest,
1594
01:35:22,552 --> 01:35:26,718
General Westmoreland addressed
a joint session of Congress,
1595
01:35:26,817 --> 01:35:30,117
the first general ever to be
called home from a battlefield
1596
01:35:30,218 --> 01:35:32,718
by his president to do so.
1597
01:35:32,817 --> 01:35:38,485
Backed at home by resolve,
confidence, patience,
1598
01:35:38,586 --> 01:35:41,653
determination, and continued support,
1599
01:35:41,752 --> 01:35:45,818
we will prevail in Vietnam
over the communist aggressor.
1600
01:35:45,918 --> 01:35:47,385
(applause)
1601
01:35:47,485 --> 01:35:49,653
NARRATOR: Behind the scenes,
1602
01:35:49,752 --> 01:35:53,153
neither Westmoreland nor the
administration he served
1603
01:35:53,252 --> 01:35:56,386
was confident the United
States would prevail.
1604
01:35:57,919 --> 01:36:00,186
Westmoreland reported to the president
1605
01:36:00,287 --> 01:36:02,819
that according to the latest statistics,
1606
01:36:02,919 --> 01:36:06,819
the crossover point had finally
been reached that spring,
1607
01:36:06,919 --> 01:36:11,319
except in the military sector
just south of the DMZ.
1608
01:36:11,419 --> 01:36:15,520
But, he warned, the United
States was doing little better
1609
01:36:15,619 --> 01:36:17,054
than holding its own.
1610
01:36:17,154 --> 01:36:20,887
If he were given 200,000 additional troops
1611
01:36:20,987 --> 01:36:24,254
and allowed to go into Laos and Cambodia,
1612
01:36:24,355 --> 01:36:26,420
he could cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail
1613
01:36:26,521 --> 01:36:29,221
and end the war in two years.
1614
01:36:29,320 --> 01:36:32,687
But "When we add divisions," Johnson asked,
1615
01:36:32,788 --> 01:36:35,355
"can't the enemy add divisions?
1616
01:36:35,454 --> 01:36:37,655
Where does it all end?"
1617
01:36:37,754 --> 01:36:40,987
Westmoreland had no answer.
1618
01:36:41,089 --> 01:36:44,121
Instead, he and the Joint
Chiefs asked the president
1619
01:36:44,222 --> 01:36:48,056
to permit them to bomb sites
just below the Chinese border,
1620
01:36:48,156 --> 01:36:50,888
and to mine the harbors of North Vietnam
1621
01:36:50,988 --> 01:36:56,821
to keep Hanoi's Soviet ally
from resupplying her by sea.
1622
01:36:56,921 --> 01:37:02,289
Meanwhile, Robert McNamara,
the chief architect
1623
01:37:02,388 --> 01:37:05,456
of American strategy in Vietnam,
1624
01:37:05,557 --> 01:37:07,689
had grown less and less confident
1625
01:37:07,790 --> 01:37:09,922
in its ultimate success
1626
01:37:10,023 --> 01:37:13,989
and in the repeated calls for
more men and more bombing
1627
01:37:14,090 --> 01:37:17,122
made by the military he oversaw.
1628
01:37:17,223 --> 01:37:22,256
GELB: Robert McNamara was the
giant of Washington, D.C.
1629
01:37:22,357 --> 01:37:27,558
He was the embodiment of
intellect and self-confidence.
1630
01:37:27,658 --> 01:37:31,224
If there was a problem,
there had to be an answer.
1631
01:37:31,323 --> 01:37:34,358
And that was his fatal flaw.
1632
01:37:34,457 --> 01:37:37,123
The startling thing is
1633
01:37:37,224 --> 01:37:43,323
that this man who never seemed
to doubt anything he said,
1634
01:37:43,423 --> 01:37:46,990
actually began to doubt
profoundly what he was doing
1635
01:37:47,091 --> 01:37:48,623
in Vietnam.
1636
01:37:48,724 --> 01:37:50,324
But we didn't know about it.
1637
01:37:50,424 --> 01:37:53,824
NARRATOR: In a private
memorandum to the president,
1638
01:37:53,924 --> 01:37:56,491
McNamara told Johnson that
1639
01:37:56,592 --> 01:37:59,359
"the picture of the world's
greatest superpower
1640
01:37:59,458 --> 01:38:04,359
"killing or seriously injuring
1,000 non-combatants a week,
1641
01:38:04,458 --> 01:38:08,924
"while trying to pound a tiny,
backward nation into submission
1642
01:38:09,025 --> 01:38:12,026
"on an issue whose merits
are hotly disputed
1643
01:38:12,125 --> 01:38:14,125
is not a pretty one."
1644
01:38:14,226 --> 01:38:18,925
He urged the president to limit
troop levels, not raise them,
1645
01:38:19,026 --> 01:38:23,125
and to declare an unconditional
end to all bombing
1646
01:38:23,226 --> 01:38:25,692
north of the 20th parallel.
1647
01:38:25,793 --> 01:38:29,759
"The war in Vietnam is acquiring
a momentum of its own
1648
01:38:29,860 --> 01:38:32,860
that must be stopped," McNamara wrote.
1649
01:38:32,959 --> 01:38:36,361
"Dramatic increases in U.S.
troop deployments
1650
01:38:36,460 --> 01:38:39,326
"and attacks on the North are not necessary
1651
01:38:39,426 --> 01:38:41,094
"and are not the answer.
1652
01:38:41,193 --> 01:38:44,960
"The enemy can absorb them or counter them,
1653
01:38:45,061 --> 01:38:46,661
"bogging us down further
1654
01:38:46,760 --> 01:38:51,993
and risking even more serious
escalation of the war."
1655
01:38:52,094 --> 01:38:56,794
In the end, Johnson tried
to find a middle ground.
1656
01:38:56,894 --> 01:38:59,394
He expanded the list of bombing targets,
1657
01:38:59,494 --> 01:39:02,327
but he refused to mine the harbors
1658
01:39:02,427 --> 01:39:04,662
and he agreed to send Westmoreland
1659
01:39:04,761 --> 01:39:07,528
only 47,000 more troops,
1660
01:39:07,627 --> 01:39:10,827
which would bring the total of U.S.
forces in the country
1661
01:39:10,927 --> 01:39:13,194
to more than half a million men.
1662
01:39:15,528 --> 01:39:20,729
On June 17, 1967, Robert
McNamara placed a call
1663
01:39:20,828 --> 01:39:24,995
to his military assistant,
Lieutenant Colonel Robert Gard.
1664
01:39:25,096 --> 01:39:28,163
GARD: My phone rang and
the little light showed
1665
01:39:28,262 --> 01:39:30,863
it was the secretary on the line.
1666
01:39:30,962 --> 01:39:34,128
And I picked it up and said, "Yes, Mr.
Secretary?"
1667
01:39:34,229 --> 01:39:36,096
And Mr. McNamara said,
1668
01:39:36,195 --> 01:39:38,828
"Bob, I want a thorough study
done of the background
1669
01:39:38,928 --> 01:39:41,428
of our involvement in Vietnam,"
and hung up the phone.
1670
01:39:41,529 --> 01:39:44,896
NARRATOR: Leslie Gelb, a 30-year-old member
1671
01:39:44,996 --> 01:39:48,196
of the International
Security Affairs staff,
1672
01:39:48,297 --> 01:39:51,329
was named to oversee the
top-secret analysis
1673
01:39:51,429 --> 01:39:55,664
of how key decisions had been
made, going all the way back
1674
01:39:55,763 --> 01:39:57,896
to the Truman administration.
1675
01:39:59,996 --> 01:40:04,930
GELB: McNamara gave us
full access to his closet,
1676
01:40:05,031 --> 01:40:07,598
in his office, which was like a room.
1677
01:40:07,697 --> 01:40:10,130
But all his private papers were there.
1678
01:40:10,231 --> 01:40:12,665
And I was picking out the memos,
1679
01:40:12,764 --> 01:40:15,430
a lot of which I helped to write.
1680
01:40:15,531 --> 01:40:18,665
But there were others in
there that I had never seen.
1681
01:40:18,764 --> 01:40:25,865
In these memos you began to see
Robert McNamara communicating
1682
01:40:25,964 --> 01:40:31,032
with the president, alone, his doubts.
1683
01:40:31,131 --> 01:40:33,431
It stunned me.
1684
01:40:41,066 --> 01:40:43,998
HARRISON: I had thought that we were
mostly fighting a guerrilla war.
1685
01:40:46,666 --> 01:40:52,932
I didn't know that we were going
to be fighting guys like us,
1686
01:40:53,033 --> 01:40:54,867
that I had a doppelganger out there
1687
01:40:54,966 --> 01:41:00,233
who was leading a rifle platoon,
who knew what he was doing,
1688
01:41:00,332 --> 01:41:05,766
who was as fully prepared to
kill me as I was to kill him.
1689
01:41:05,867 --> 01:41:07,932
(band playing a march)
1690
01:41:08,033 --> 01:41:11,100
NARRATOR: That June, First
Lieutenant Matthew Harrison
1691
01:41:11,199 --> 01:41:15,900
finally got his orders to
join the 173rd Airborne,
1692
01:41:16,000 --> 01:41:20,200
an elite unit ready to rush
anywhere they were needed.
1693
01:41:20,301 --> 01:41:25,801
They called themselves General
Westmoreland's Fire Brigade.
1694
01:41:30,234 --> 01:41:33,700
Harrison's arrival at Bien
Hoa was a reunion of sorts.
1695
01:41:33,801 --> 01:41:38,569
He and seven others from the
West Point class of 1966
1696
01:41:38,669 --> 01:41:41,701
all found themselves serving
in the 2nd Battalion,
1697
01:41:41,802 --> 01:41:45,102
including two especially close friends:
1698
01:41:45,201 --> 01:41:49,201
Donald Judd and Richard Hood.
1699
01:41:49,302 --> 01:41:52,468
HARRISON: As young
lieutenants, as 22-year-olds,
1700
01:41:52,569 --> 01:41:57,669
we really were idealists and
we really were Boy Scouts.
1701
01:41:57,768 --> 01:42:02,002
I really felt as though I
was uniquely qualified
1702
01:42:02,103 --> 01:42:03,736
to lead American soldiers
1703
01:42:03,835 --> 01:42:06,135
and that there was nothing more important
1704
01:42:06,236 --> 01:42:08,635
than what I was going to be doing.
1705
01:42:08,736 --> 01:42:12,269
But when I joined the 173rd,
1706
01:42:12,370 --> 01:42:16,036
I think the first day I was
there some guy showed me
1707
01:42:16,135 --> 01:42:19,969
what looked like a bunch of
apricots on a leather thong.
1708
01:42:20,070 --> 01:42:23,636
Turns out they were ears,
dried, desiccated.
1709
01:42:25,436 --> 01:42:29,136
I understood theoretically
what it meant to be in a war.
1710
01:42:29,237 --> 01:42:32,171
But, of course, no one
can really understand it
1711
01:42:32,270 --> 01:42:33,671
until they've done it.
1712
01:42:35,436 --> 01:42:38,503
("Wild Child" by the Ventures playing)
1713
01:42:38,604 --> 01:42:41,336
NARRATOR: Harrison was a platoon
leader in Charlie Company.
1714
01:42:41,436 --> 01:42:47,137
His West Point classmates
served with Alpha Company.
1715
01:42:47,238 --> 01:42:49,504
Within a few days,
1716
01:42:49,605 --> 01:42:52,504
they were helicoptered into the
heart of the Central Highlands
1717
01:42:52,605 --> 01:42:56,105
near Dak To, where North
Vietnamese regulars
1718
01:42:56,204 --> 01:43:01,238
were said to be threatening
a Special Forces camp.
1719
01:43:01,337 --> 01:43:04,137
They were all airlifted into landing zones
1720
01:43:04,238 --> 01:43:07,505
hacked out of the steep,
jungle-blanketed slope
1721
01:43:07,606 --> 01:43:11,373
of a mountain the Americans
called Hill 1338
1722
01:43:11,472 --> 01:43:16,806
for its height in meters, with
orders to hunt down the enemy.
1723
01:43:16,905 --> 01:43:19,272
They walked for two days,
1724
01:43:19,373 --> 01:43:22,239
following a well-worn enemy trail,
1725
01:43:22,338 --> 01:43:26,972
constantly on the lookout for
booby traps or ambushes.
1726
01:43:31,439 --> 01:43:33,339
On the evening of June 21,
1727
01:43:33,439 --> 01:43:36,706
Harrison's Charlie Company
settled in for the night
1728
01:43:36,807 --> 01:43:40,206
while his friends in Alpha
Company set up camp
1729
01:43:40,307 --> 01:43:42,639
a little less than two miles to the south,
1730
01:43:42,740 --> 01:43:46,506
along the same slippery jungle path.
1731
01:43:46,607 --> 01:43:51,375
No one knew that an entire
North Vietnamese battalion...
1732
01:43:51,474 --> 01:43:53,875
perhaps 500 men...
1733
01:43:53,974 --> 01:43:56,707
was encamped on the other
side of a ridgeline,
1734
01:43:56,808 --> 01:44:00,575
just a few hundred yards away.
1735
01:44:02,575 --> 01:44:04,575
At 6:58 the next morning,
1736
01:44:04,675 --> 01:44:08,407
a patrol from Alpha Company
stumbled into a squad
1737
01:44:08,507 --> 01:44:10,175
of North Vietnamese.
1738
01:44:10,274 --> 01:44:13,175
The Americans withdrew
1739
01:44:13,274 --> 01:44:16,576
and struggled to establish a perimeter.
1740
01:44:16,676 --> 01:44:19,208
Within minutes, they were under attack
1741
01:44:19,309 --> 01:44:23,841
from relentless AK-47 automatic fire.
1742
01:44:23,941 --> 01:44:27,208
The enemy mounted attack after attack,
1743
01:44:27,309 --> 01:44:30,208
drawing closer each time.
1744
01:44:30,309 --> 01:44:34,141
Alpha Company radioed for
air and artillery support,
1745
01:44:34,242 --> 01:44:38,243
but the triple-canopy jungle
blocked the spotter's view.
1746
01:45:29,745 --> 01:45:33,112
NARRATOR: At around noon, Harrison's
unit was ordered to rescue
1747
01:45:33,211 --> 01:45:36,144
the trapped men of Alpha Company.
1748
01:45:36,245 --> 01:45:39,911
HARRISON: It was mountainous terrain.
1749
01:45:40,011 --> 01:45:41,745
We were carrying two bodies
1750
01:45:41,844 --> 01:45:44,313
along with a bunch of engineer equipment.
1751
01:45:44,412 --> 01:45:49,645
And we could not push down
the couple of hundred meters
1752
01:45:49,746 --> 01:45:52,712
to where the most of the
fighting had taken place.
1753
01:45:52,813 --> 01:45:54,546
(explosion)
1754
01:45:54,645 --> 01:45:56,912
NARRATOR: The going was steep and slippery.
1755
01:45:57,012 --> 01:45:59,080
North Vietnamese troops,
1756
01:45:59,180 --> 01:46:01,979
now entrenched along
both sides of the trail,
1757
01:46:02,080 --> 01:46:06,712
prevented Matt Harrison and his
men from reaching Alpha Company.
1758
01:46:06,813 --> 01:46:10,381
At dusk, the shooting died down,
1759
01:46:10,480 --> 01:46:12,913
and they dug in at the top of a ridge
1760
01:46:13,013 --> 01:46:15,980
and did their best to sleep.
1761
01:46:17,780 --> 01:46:21,547
HARRISON: So we lay there
on the night of June 22
1762
01:46:21,646 --> 01:46:26,146
and we could hear the screams
of the wounded down the hill
1763
01:46:26,247 --> 01:46:30,847
as the North Vietnamese
went around and shot them.
1764
01:46:30,947 --> 01:46:34,115
NARRATOR: By dawn, the
enemy had melted away.
1765
01:46:37,815 --> 01:46:41,082
Harrison and his platoon
crept down the hillside
1766
01:46:41,182 --> 01:46:44,815
and reached what was left of Alpha Company.
1767
01:46:46,214 --> 01:46:52,048
Out of 137 men, 76 lay dead along the path.
1768
01:46:52,148 --> 01:46:57,148
Forty-three had been shot
in the head at close range.
1769
01:46:57,249 --> 01:47:01,883
Ears had been cut from
some; eyes gouged out;
1770
01:47:01,982 --> 01:47:03,915
ring fingers missing.
1771
01:47:04,015 --> 01:47:07,715
Twenty-three more men were wounded.
1772
01:47:07,816 --> 01:47:13,683
Harrison found his classmates,
Donald Judd and Richard Hood,
1773
01:47:13,782 --> 01:47:15,884
among the dead.
1774
01:47:17,516 --> 01:47:21,649
HARRISON: This was my introduction to war.
1775
01:47:21,750 --> 01:47:25,584
This was my welcome to Vietnam.
1776
01:47:27,817 --> 01:47:31,283
We spent the rest of the
day putting those bodies
1777
01:47:31,384 --> 01:47:34,783
into body bags and getting
them out of there.
1778
01:47:34,884 --> 01:47:37,650
Getting-getting killed is forever.
1779
01:47:37,751 --> 01:47:43,517
And, um, that was something
that I had known theoretically
1780
01:47:43,618 --> 01:47:45,818
but I now understood particularly
1781
01:47:45,917 --> 01:47:48,484
when I put my two classmates in body bags,
1782
01:47:48,585 --> 01:47:51,217
guys that I had gone to
school with for four years
1783
01:47:51,318 --> 01:47:54,318
and were good friends and
who just the week before
1784
01:47:54,417 --> 01:47:57,350
we had been drinking beer
and ribbing each other
1785
01:47:57,450 --> 01:48:00,586
and these guys were now gone.
1786
01:48:01,619 --> 01:48:02,694
NARRATOR: Charlie Company found
1787
01:48:02,718 --> 01:48:06,319
just nine or ten North Vietnamese bodies.
1788
01:48:06,418 --> 01:48:09,119
Harrison and his men were ordered to search
1789
01:48:09,218 --> 01:48:13,052
the nearby hillsides for more enemy dead,
1790
01:48:13,151 --> 01:48:17,186
who commanders assumed had
been killed by U.S. artillery.
1791
01:48:17,285 --> 01:48:20,886
MACV needed its body count.
1792
01:48:23,486 --> 01:48:26,553
HARRISON: We never located
them and I believe today
1793
01:48:26,652 --> 01:48:29,652
that we didn't locate them
because they weren't there.
1794
01:48:29,753 --> 01:48:34,253
I think we just took a
terrible loss on June 22.
1795
01:48:34,352 --> 01:48:41,452
To admit that a rifle company
in the 173rd had been wiped out
1796
01:48:41,553 --> 01:48:43,719
by the North Vietnamese was not something
1797
01:48:43,820 --> 01:48:45,219
our leaders were prepared to do.
1798
01:48:45,321 --> 01:48:50,987
So we had to sell ourselves
and we had to sell the public
1799
01:48:51,088 --> 01:48:54,487
on the idea that we had
inflicted casualties
1800
01:48:54,588 --> 01:48:56,353
on the North Vietnamese as severe
1801
01:48:56,453 --> 01:48:58,720
as they had inflicted on us.
1802
01:48:58,821 --> 01:49:03,353
NARRATOR: An officer told a reporter
that the shattered rifle company
1803
01:49:03,453 --> 01:49:07,688
had killed 475 enemy soldiers.
1804
01:49:07,787 --> 01:49:11,854
When another officer suggested
to General Westmoreland
1805
01:49:11,954 --> 01:49:14,889
that the figure seemed too
high to be believable,
1806
01:49:14,988 --> 01:49:17,354
he replied, "Too late.
1807
01:49:17,454 --> 01:49:19,854
It's already gone out."
1808
01:49:19,954 --> 01:49:22,822
HARRISON: Within a few
days after the battle,
1809
01:49:22,921 --> 01:49:25,154
Westmoreland came up to speak
1810
01:49:25,255 --> 01:49:28,988
to what we thought of
ourselves as his brigade.
1811
01:49:29,089 --> 01:49:35,123
And he hopped up on a hood of
a jeep in very crisp fatigues
1812
01:49:35,222 --> 01:49:38,123
looking every inch the battle commander
1813
01:49:38,222 --> 01:49:42,556
and gave us a pep talk and
told us how proud he was
1814
01:49:42,655 --> 01:49:45,190
and what a magnificent job we had done.
1815
01:49:45,289 --> 01:49:50,256
But by then I had more
than just a suspicion
1816
01:49:50,355 --> 01:49:56,523
that this was a fairy tale,
that Westmoreland was wrong
1817
01:49:56,624 --> 01:49:59,557
and I didn't know whether
he knew he was wrong
1818
01:49:59,656 --> 01:50:03,391
or whether he believed
what he was being told
1819
01:50:03,490 --> 01:50:05,723
and wanted to believe.
1820
01:50:05,824 --> 01:50:10,223
But this was the first time
that I had to come to grips
1821
01:50:10,324 --> 01:50:12,091
with the fact that the leadership
1822
01:50:12,191 --> 01:50:15,892
was either out of touch or was lying.
1823
01:50:15,991 --> 01:50:18,125
("One Too Many Mornings"
by Bob Dylan playing)
1824
01:50:18,224 --> 01:50:20,264
DYLAN: ♪ Down the street
the dogs are barkin' ♪
1825
01:50:20,291 --> 01:50:22,724
♪ And the day is a-gettin' dark. ♪
1826
01:50:22,825 --> 01:50:26,625
CAROL CROCKER: I remember a very
difficult conversation I had
1827
01:50:26,724 --> 01:50:30,058
with a girl who had really
been a best friend of mine.
1828
01:50:30,157 --> 01:50:33,558
And the talk turned to Vietnam.
1829
01:50:33,657 --> 01:50:36,558
And I remember her looking
at me and saying,
1830
01:50:36,657 --> 01:50:43,992
"My father says that you
can't listen to people
1831
01:50:44,093 --> 01:50:46,725
"who've lost someone in the war
1832
01:50:46,826 --> 01:50:48,458
"because they're going to support it
1833
01:50:48,559 --> 01:50:50,593
to justify that person's death."
1834
01:50:52,425 --> 01:50:55,458
I felt like she'd hit me in the stomach.
1835
01:50:55,559 --> 01:50:59,759
But I knew at that moment there
were some factions developing
1836
01:50:59,858 --> 01:51:03,659
and this wasn't going to
be an easy path to walk;
1837
01:51:03,760 --> 01:51:05,426
that people were going to have opinions
1838
01:51:05,526 --> 01:51:07,827
about my brother's death
1839
01:51:07,926 --> 01:51:11,659
that in some ways had nothing
to do with his death for me.
1840
01:51:13,760 --> 01:51:16,127
("The Sound of Silence" by
Simon and Garfunkel playing)
1841
01:51:16,226 --> 01:51:20,394
♪ Hello darkness, my old friend ♪
1842
01:51:20,493 --> 01:51:24,994
♪ I've come to talk with you again ♪
1843
01:51:25,095 --> 01:51:29,727
♪ Because a vision softly creeping ♪
1844
01:51:29,828 --> 01:51:34,227
♪ Left its seeds while I was sleeping ♪
1845
01:51:34,328 --> 01:51:40,828
♪ And the vision that was
planted in my brain ♪
1846
01:51:40,927 --> 01:51:44,427
♪ Still remains
1847
01:51:44,527 --> 01:51:50,262
♪ Within the sound of silence
1848
01:51:50,361 --> 01:51:54,661
♪ In restless dreams I walked alone ♪
1849
01:51:54,762 --> 01:51:59,228
♪ Narrow streets of cobblestone ♪
1850
01:51:59,329 --> 01:52:03,795
♪ 'Neath the halo of a street lamp ♪
1851
01:52:03,896 --> 01:52:08,428
♪ I turned my collar
to the cold and damp ♪
1852
01:52:08,528 --> 01:52:15,130
♪ When my eyes were stabbed by
the flash of a neon light ♪
1853
01:52:15,229 --> 01:52:18,597
♪ That split the night
1854
01:52:18,697 --> 01:52:24,830
♪ And touched the sound of silence ♪
1855
01:52:24,929 --> 01:52:28,796
♪ And in the naked light I saw
1856
01:52:28,897 --> 01:52:33,530
♪ Ten thousand people, maybe more ♪
1857
01:52:33,631 --> 01:52:38,198
♪ People talking without speaking ♪
1858
01:52:38,297 --> 01:52:42,598
♪ People hearing without listening ♪
1859
01:52:42,698 --> 01:52:50,064
♪ People writing songs
that voices never share ♪
1860
01:52:50,163 --> 01:52:53,730
♪ And no one dared
1861
01:52:53,831 --> 01:52:59,431
♪ Disturb the sound of silence
1862
01:52:59,531 --> 01:53:03,931
♪ And the people bowed and prayed ♪
1863
01:53:04,031 --> 01:53:08,332
♪ To the neon god they made
1864
01:53:08,431 --> 01:53:12,664
♪ And the sign flashed
out its warning ♪
1865
01:53:12,765 --> 01:53:17,133
♪ In the words that it was forming ♪
1866
01:53:17,232 --> 01:53:18,766
♪ And the signs said
1867
01:53:18,865 --> 01:53:24,499
♪ The words of the prophets are
written on the subway walls ♪
1868
01:53:24,600 --> 01:53:28,032
♪ And tenement halls
1869
01:53:28,133 --> 01:53:36,133
♪ And whisper'd in the
sounds of silence. ♪
153386
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