All language subtitles for The.Vietnam.War.2017.Part05.This.Is.What.We.Do.HDTV.x264-SToRIES eng

(radio chatter)

(distant helicopter blades
beating)

ROGER HARRIS:
Soldiers adapt.

You go over there
with one mindset, you know,

and then you adapt.

You adapt to the atrocities
of war.

You adapt to...

...killing and dying, you know.

After a while
it doesn't bother you.

Well, I should say it doesn't
bother you as much.

When I first arrived in Vietnam,
there were some...

(sighs)

there were some interesting
things that happened

and I questioned
some of the Marines.

I was made to realize that this
is war, and this is what we do.

And that stuck in my head.

This is war.

This is what we do.

And after a while
you embrace that.

This is war.

This is what we do.

("Are You Experienced?" by the
Jimi Hendrix Experience playing)

This evening I came here
to speak to you about Vietnam.

There is progress
in the war itself,

rather dramatic progress
considering the situation

that actually prevailed when we
sent our troops there in 1965.

The grip of the Viet Cong
on the people is being broken.

HENDRIX:
♪ If you can just
get your mind together ♪

(rapid gunfire)

♪ Then come across to me

NARRATOR:
In the summer of 1967,

the men overseeing the war
in Vietnam

remained outwardly optimistic--

whatever private doubts
they may have held.

HENDRIX:
♪ But first

♪ Are you experienced?

(airplane flying overhead)

(explosion)

♪ Have you ever been
experienced? ♪

NARRATOR:
The American military command
in Vietnam, MACV,

claimed to have killed
200,000 enemy troops

and had told the president

that the all-important
"crossover point"--

the moment when U.S. and ARVN
forces were killing

more Viet Cong
and North Vietnamese troops

than the enemy could replace--
appeared to have been reached

in almost all of South Vietnam.

But the United States
had suffered

nearly 75,000 casualties.

By July 4,
14,624 Americans had died,

and, off the record,

many officers were much less
sanguine than their commanders.

From Saigon, R.W. Apple
of theNew York Time s
summarized

their views: "Victory is not
close at hand," he wrote.

In fact,
"It may be beyond reach."

("Are You Experienced?" by the
Jimi Hendrix Experience playing)

(rapid gunfire)

It was true that the enemy
rarely won a battle

in the traditional military
sense that they drove

the Americans from the field.

But it was also true
that no American victory

seemed to matter.

Battered enemy units were
quickly reinforced and rearmed.

Pacification--
winning the hearts and minds

of the South Vietnamese people--
was not working.

Saigon still controlled
only a fraction of a country

roughly the size of Florida,

and its government remained

unpopular and riddled
with corruption.

President Johnson had been
forced to raise taxes

to meet the war's
ever-climbing cost.

His ambitious social program--
his War on Poverty--

was in retreat.

HENDRIX:
♪ Trumpets and violins
I can hear in the distance ♪

NARRATOR:
That summer, racial unrest
would grip American cities.

HENDRIX:
♪ Maybe now
you can't hear them ♪

♪ But you will

NARRATOR:
The president would have to send
the Army into Detroit

to end five days of rioting

that left 43 dead and hundreds
of buildings razed.

Twenty-six more died
in Newark, New Jersey,

demonstrating yet again
how wide a gap

remained between black
and white Americans.

Only a third of the country saw
any sign of progress in Vietnam,

and half of the country
now disapproved

of the president's handling
of the war.

Meanwhile,
Le Duan and his comrades

who ran things in Hanoi,
were secretly planning

a new offensive that they
believed would destroy

what they called the puppet
government in Saigon

and convince the United States
the war could never be won

on the battlefield.

JAMES WILLBANKS:
There's the old apocryphal story
that, in 1967,

they went to the basement
of the Pentagon

when the mainframe computers
took up the whole basement,

and they put on the old
punch cards everything

you could quantify--
numbers of ships,

numbers of airplanes, numbers of
tanks, numbers of helicopters,

artillery, machine gun, ammo--
everything you could quantify,

put it in the hopper and said,
"When will we win in Vietnam?"

Went away on Friday.

The thing ground away
all weekend.

Came back on Monday and there
was one card in the output tray

and it said, "You won in 1965."

The only problem
is the enemy gets a vote

and they weren't
on the punch cards.

NARRATOR:
There were nearly half a million
American soldiers in Vietnam

by the middle of 1967,

with thousands more on the way.

Only 20% would ever
be in combat.

The rest served
in support units.

None of them had been taught
very much about the people

against whom-- and for whom--
they had been asked to fight.

Troops called the Vietnamese
"gooks"--

a term first used
by U.S. Marines to refer

to the people of Haiti
and Nicaragua

during the American occupation
of those countries,

and then applied
to the Asian enemy in Korea.

Or "slopes," an epithet for the
Japanese during the Pacific War,

or "dinks," an Australian term
for the Chinese.

And so in basic training
they taught you

that you were going to be
fighting gooks.

It was part of the song
that you sang

as you jogged down the road.

As you went through
bayonet training,

you were not talking about
Vietnamese.

You were always
talking about gooks.

Vietnamese might be people,
but gooks are-are...

are close to being animals.

NARRATOR:
GIs called Vietnamese homes
"hooches"--

a corruption of the Japanese
word for dwelling places

that they had learned during
the battle for Okinawa

in the Second World War.

Soldiers referred to older
Vietnamese women as "mama sans,"

the term they used for women
who ran whorehouses

in occupied Japan.

The Viet Cong
and the North Vietnamese

called GIs "invaders,"
"imperialists,"

and (speaking Vietnamese)--

"American bandits."

South Vietnam had been divided
into four tactical zones.

By the summer of 1967,
American troops were fighting

in all four of them.

In IV Corps,
the "Brown Water Navy"

patrolled the rivers
and canals and marshes

of the densely populated
Mekong Delta,

searching for the enemy.

In III Corps, the Army continued
to sweep the thick jungles

of the Iron Triangle,
the Viet Cong sanctuary

near Saigon that was supposed
to have been permanently denied

to the enemy by big American
operations earlier in the year.

In II Corps,
a series of bloody battles

in the Central Highlands
around Dak To temporarily drove

North Vietnamese troops
back into Cambodia and Laos.

But some of the most intense
combat would take place

in I Corps-- made up of the
five northernmost provinces

of South Vietnam--
where the Marines would bear

the brunt of the fighting.

More than two-and-a-half million
people lived there,

all but 2% of them within

the narrow rice-growing
river valleys

along the South China Sea.

The Marines wanted to eradicate
the Viet Cong there,

and provide security
to the people,

village by village,
hamlet by hamlet.

The vast, largely empty
highlands that stretched

westward all the way to Laos,
the Marines argued,

could be left to the enemy.

"The real war is among
the people,"

said Marine lieutenant
general Victor Krulak,

"and not among the mountains."

But General William
Westmoreland,

the American commander,
feared that thousands

of North Vietnamese Army
regulars-- the NVA--

were planning to seize
the two northernmost provinces.

Finding and destroying them
remained his first goal.

(helicopter blades beating)

He insisted
the Third Marine Division

move north to meet
that challenge,

establish a base at Dong Ha and
man strongpoints at Gio Linh,

Con Thien, Cam Lo, Camp Carroll,
the Rockpile and Khe Sanh.

Khe Sanh overlooked Route 9,
the East-West highway

that Westmoreland hoped would
one day carry American troops

across the border into Laos,
where North Vietnamese men

and supplies were streaming
south on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

But the thousands of Marines
monitoring the border

would find themselves within
range of highly accurate

North Vietnamese artillery
and rocket launchers

hidden within the DMZ.

("I'm a Man" by The Spencer
Davis Group playing"

(explosions)

JOHN LAURENCE:
Tell me...

You came here at full strength?

I had 13 men when I came.

And it's four days later now
and how many are still here?

Six.

("I'm a Man" continues)

The rifles have been jamming,
the mud's been...

it slowed everything down.

And the artillery comes in
everywhere.

And, ah, it just gets
pretty futile

and frustrating sometimes.

("I'm a Man" continues)

I can't say that I'm scared
stiff, but I'm scared.

I mean, after a while,
you know it's going to come.

And you can't do nothing
about it.

And you just look to God.

SPENCER DAVIS GROUP:
♪ Well, my pad is very messy

♪ And there's whiskers
on my chin. ♪

NARRATOR:
Private First Class
John Musgrave

of Fairmount, Missouri,
who had volunteered to join

the 3rd Marine Division,

was sent to the battle-scarred
countryside around Con Thien,

a few kilometers south
of the DMZ.

(explosion)

JOHN MUSGRAVE:
For the Marines in northern I
Corps in the 3rd Marine Division

in the spring and summer of 1967
we called the DMZ

the "Dead Marine Zone."

NARRATOR:
Musgrave's 1st Battalion
had already suffered

so many casualties in a series
of bloody sweeps

that it was believed to be
a hard-luck outfit.

They were called
the "Walking Dead."

SPENCER DAVIS GROUP:
♪ I'm a man, yes I am,
and I can't... ♪

MUSGRAVE:
I joined the Marine Corps
to be in the varsity.

And I felt like I wasn't varsity
unless I was up north

fighting the NVA.

I have never regretted
that decision.

There were times when
we were under artillery fire,

where I thought, you know,
"What-what were you thinking?"

Here it is in a nutshell:
if I lived to be 63 years old,

I didn't want to look
in the mirror some morning

and have a guy looking back at
me that hadn't done everything

for what he believed,

that let somebody else
do the harder part.

Every major contact I remember
with the NVA was initiated

by them ambushing us.

They wouldn't hit us
unless they outnumbered us.

And we were fighting
in their yard.

They knew the ground; we didn't.

They were just really good.

LE VAN CHO:

NARRATOR:
The North Vietnamese
carried Soviet-made,

seemingly indestructible AK-47s.

The Marines had to fight
with newly issued M-16 rifles

that had for a time
a potentially fatal design flaw:

they needed constant cleaning

and often jammed
in the middle of firefights.

MUSGRAVE:
Their rifles worked;
ours didn't.

The M-16 was a piece of shit.

You can't throw
your bullets at the enemy

and have them be effective.

And that rifle
malfunctioned on us repeatedly.

(gunfire)

HO HUU LAN:

My hatred for them
was pure.

Pure.

I hated them so much.

And I was so scared of them.

Boy, I was terrified of them.

And the scareder I got,
the more I hated them.

MUSGRAVE:
I only killed one human being
in Vietnam.

And that was the first man
that I ever killed.

And I was sick with guilt
about killing that guy

and thinking I'm going
to have to do this

for the next 13 months.

I'm-I'm going to go crazy.

And I saw a Marine step
on a bouncing Betty mine,

and that's when I made
my deal with the devil

and that I said, "I will never
kill another human being

"as long as I'm in Vietnam.

"However, I will waste
as many gooks as I can find.

"I'll wax as many dinks
as I can find.

"I'll smoke as many zips
as I can find.

But I ain't gonna kill anybody,"
you know?

Turn the subject into an object.

It's Racism 101.

It turns out to be
a very necessary tool

when you have children
fighting your wars,

for them to stay sane
doing their work.

NARRATOR:
On one early patrol,
Musgrave watched

an American fighter swoop down
to drop napalm on enemy troops

hidden behind a hedgerow.

He could hear their AK-47s
firing at the plane

until the instant
they were engulfed in flames.

"If the enemy is willing to die
like that," he thought,

"this is going to be
one very long war."

MUSGRAVE:
They knew if they would pop
the ambush close

and then get amongst you,

we couldn't or would hesitate
to call in air on ourselves.

So that... firefights
like that we called brawls.

They were very intimate.

And they were very deadly.

And they were
absolutely terrifying.

NARRATOR:
The Marines were spread too thin
to hold any of the territory

they fought so hard to take.

Again and again, they were sent
out from one stronghold

or another along the DMZ,
looking for enemy soldiers.

MUSGRAVE:
The disillusionment for me began
when I was going back

to fight at places
we'd already fought before.

We had fought, captured,
and then left

and the NVA came right back.

You don't like getting wounded

in places you've already
been before.

War is a real estate
business.

We're supposed to take
real estate away from the enemy

and then deny the enemy access
to that real estate.

NARRATOR:
On the morning of July 2, 1967,
the 1st Battalion launched

yet another sweep of the area
northeast of Con Thien.

When they reached a crossroads
called "The Marketplace,"

barely a mile and quarter from
their base, they were ambushed.

One company
was virtually annihilated.

John Musgrave's company
rushed to rescue the survivors,

only to be pinned down there
as well.

It was one of the worst days the
Marine Corps endured in Vietnam:

53 dead and 190 wounded were
carried off the battlefield.

Thirty-four more dead
had to be left behind,

and when Marines fought
their way back two days later

to retrieve their bodies,
they found that a number

had died because their M-16s had
jammed as the enemy closed in.

Many had been executed,
shot in the face

or back of the head
at close range.

Some bodies had been
booby-trapped,

others mutilated.

MUSGRAVE:
Marine amphibious force
headquarters

was so desperate to get
North Vietnamese prisoners,

that they offered us
three day in-country R&R

if we'd bring a prisoner in.

Yeah, good luck.

You know?

Don't you know who...
what we're doing up here?

Do you know who we're fighting?

I want to make this clear,
we did not torture prisoners

and we did not mutilate them.

But to be a prisoner you had to
make it to the rear, you know.

If he was with...
fell into our hands

he was just one sorry fucker.

I don't know how to explain it
that it would make sense.

("Green Onions" by
Booker T. & the M.G.s playing)

HARRIS:
Roxbury, where I grew up,

was the African-American
neighborhood,

and South Boston was
the Irish-Catholic bastion.

You know,
there was a lot of hate.

South Boston folks hated us,
we hated them.

And ironically, um...

(sighs)

You know, you end up in a war.

And the Vietnamese didn't care

whether you were from
Roxbury or South Boston.

They saw you as American.

And they wanted to kill you
because you're American.

NARRATOR:
Private Roger Harris had joined
the Marines in part, he said,

because he wanted to be
"a gladiator,"

a killer of his country's
enemies.

On July 28, two weeks after

John Musgrave's badly mangled
1st Battalion was pulled back

to rest and recover,

Roger Harris and the 2nd
Battalion moved out of Con Thien

and into the southern half of
the Demilitarized Zone itself.

HARRIS:
We wanted the
North Vietnamese Army

to expose themselves.

So, basically,
you put the bait out there,

and then we could call in
and rain hell on them.

NARRATOR:
Roger Harris's battalion
advanced into the DMZ

along a rough cart track
that led to the Ben Hai River.

But planners had failed to see
that a concrete bridge

over an impassable stream

was too narrow and too weak
to carry armored vehicles.

Now the Marines had no choice
but to violate a cardinal rule

of infantry tactics--

turn around and try to go back
the way they had come.

The enemy was waiting.

(explosion, rapid gunfire)

Massive ambushes and...

(gunfire, shouting)

...and, um, a lot of death.

And...

...craziness.

NARRATOR:
The Marines were forced to run
a bloody gauntlet of mortars,

machine gun fire and
rocket-propelled grenades.

HARRIS:
I had the utmost respect for the
North Vietnamese Army soldiers.

When you see someone jump out
and confront a tank, you know,

with a big 50-caliber
machine gun on it

and a 90-millimeter cannon
on it,

and an individual takes on
the tank,

I think that says something.

NARRATOR:
Roger Harris's company
held up the rear,

hounded by enemy
soldiers on all sides.

The Marines staggered back
out of the DMZ

alongside the battered
armored vehicles

heaped with dead
and wounded Americans.

The battalion suffered
214 casualties.

HARRIS:
Wasn't a good day
for Marines at all.

A lot of people died.

People got their legs shot off.

People got run over by tanks.

I don't want to talk about it
because it's...

it's not a good day,
wasn't a good day.

LO KHAC TAM:

This is "bau cu",
the day of voting in Vietnam,

and it's a solemn day
in the village of Hung Thao Phu

and in other villages
throughout the country.

And these people have dressed up
in their Sunday best for it.

NARRATOR:
South Vietnamese prime minister
Nguyen Cao Ky

had crushed
his Buddhist opponents in 1966,

but he had been forced
by the Americans

and his political rivals
to make at least tentative moves

toward democracy--
election of a national assembly,

a new constitution,
and a promise of elections

for president
and vice president.

But when Ky's old adversary
Nguyen Van Thieu declared

he wanted to challenge Ky
for the top spot,

things in Saigon had threatened
to come apart again.

PHAN QUANG TUE:
We were watching the rivalry
between Thieu and Ky.

And that was a game.

In Vietnam, the country
was watching like a...

we were watch...
watching a movie.

And Thieu and Ky
was watching as to,

not whoever had the support
of the people,

but who had the support of the
Americans and the White House.

NARRATOR:
Ellsworth Bunker,
the American ambassador,

called both men to his residence
and warned that

the United States would not
tolerate another power struggle:

Thieu and Ky needed to meet
with their fellow generals

and decide who would run
for president

and who would be
his running mate.

Thieu emerged on top.

He was unassuming
and unflappable,

interested largely
in accumulating power

and personal wealth
and was thought unlikely

ever to embarrass Washington.

Ky would be his vice president.

Together, they won with only
35% of the vote.

No one who had called
for an end to the war

had been allowed to run.

Many Buddhists had boycotted
the election,

and Viet Cong intimidation had
kept many more from the polls.

But the State Department
immediately declared

the election
an important "step forward."

Some South Vietnamese
did believe that a measure

of stability had finally
been achieved.

Others were not so sure.

TUE:
In terms of corruption,
yes, they were corrupt.

Both Thieu and Ky,
they abused their position.

We pay a very high price
for having leaders

like a Ky and Thieu.

And we continue
to pay the price.

("Soul Dressing" by
Booker T. & The M.G.s playing)

EVA JEFFERSON PATERSON:
My father was in
the United States Army.

And then when the Air Force
came about he switched over

to the Air Force.

I grew up out of the country in
desegregated settings.

I was usually the only
little black girl in the class.

If you look
at my class pictures I look

like the little chocolate chip
in the vanilla ice cream.

I was always a good student.

I remember people saying,
"Oh, you speak so well."

And the unstated part
is "for a black girl,"

probably a Negro girl
or colored girl, at that point.

NARRATOR:
Eva Jefferson's father
had served a year on airbases

in Vietnam and returned home
convinced the United States

had no business being there.

But when his daughter entered
Northwestern University

in the Chicago suburb
of Evanston in September 1967,

the war was not uppermost
in students' minds.

PATERSON:
The war was not really an issue.

It's like,
"Well, no, the president has

"our best interests at heart.

"He, of course,
would only prosecute a war

that made sense."

And I think most of America
felt that way.

("Strange Brew"
by Cream playing)

NARRATOR:
At the University of Nebraska,

Jack Todd also supported
the war.

He had felt so strongly about it
in 1966 that he had signed up

for Marine officer training.

I went into the Marine Corps

thinking this was
all I wanted to do.

I mean my...
my goal was to be commander,

a platoon commander in Vietnam.

NARRATOR:
But as time went by
and the war went on,

Todd and many of his
fellow students

began to change their minds.

TODD:
All young people
go through changes.

But we were going through
astronomical changes

at such a rapid rate.

All the music, the culture,
everything that we listened to,

everything that we thought
was transforming

and the core of it all
was Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam.

It just kept going
in the background.

First, it was kind of like
a background noise

and then it got to be
the elephant in the room.

And then it was the elephant
sitting on your head

and we...
we couldn't escape this.

NARRATOR:
Todd attended
officer training school

at Camp Upshur
in Quantico, Virginia.

But doubts about the war
followed him there, too.

TODD:
I guess the emotional things
that were happening

on the ground, the photographs
that we saw, the news images,

and the fact that there
was no discernible progress,

that really started to eat away
at what we thought.

In the summer of '67,
I was at Camp Upshur, you know,

wanting to go
kill Vietnamese people.

And in October, I was
completely against the war.

JOHNSON:
Westmoreland came in
last night to me...

And he says that he has
concentrated more firepower

and bombing in the last week
on the DMZ

and they've concentrated more
on us than has ever been

concentrated
in any equivalent period

in the history of warfare...

EVERETT DIRKSEN:
Yeah.

JOHNSON:
...much more than was ever
poured on

Berlin or Tokyo,

and that his only defense
of the DMZ to stop

this aggression up there
with the North Vietnamese

trying to come in
is bombing their gun positions.

DIRKSEN:
Yeah.

JOHNSON:
And it would just be suicide
if we stopped the bombing

as these idiots talking about.

When you say stop the bombing

you say,
"Kill more American Marines."

That's all it means.

DIRKSEN:
Yeah.

JOHNSON:
Now if we stop bombing,
without their talking

and without any reciprocity
on their part,

it just means we kill more
Americans, that's all

DIRKSEN:
Yeah.

NARRATOR:
Neither the ongoing bombing
of the North,

nor the concentrated bombing
around the DMZ,

nor the behind-the-scenes offers

made by President Johnson
to stop it

had any discernible effect
on Le Duan

and the other men
who ran North Vietnam.

But Le Duan,
like Lyndon Johnson,

was in trouble that summer.

The war with the Americans
had produced little more

than a bloody stalemate.

Some Viet Cong commanders
in the South

resented Hanoi's insistence
on directing their tactics.

Many North Vietnamese civilians
were weary of the war

and of the bombing
that had disrupted their lives

and destroyed so much
of their infrastructure.

The country's most revered
figures,

Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap,
were urging patience,

continuing to wage a war of
attrition, they still believed,

would pay off in the end.

Hanoi's Soviet and Chinese
patrons offered

conflicting advice, as well.

To silence his critics
and break the stalemate,

Le Duan began to devise
and promote

a new and riskier version
of the plan for victory

he had tried in 1964.

He called it the "General
Offensive, General Uprising."

North Vietnamese and Viet Cong
units would launch

scores of coordinated attacks
on South Vietnamese cities

and towns and military bases.

That offensive,
Le Duan believed,

would ignite
a mass civilian uprising.

These simultaneous blows
would destroy the Saigon regime

and leave Washington with
no choice but to withdraw.

WILLBANKS:
We talk about our own hubris.

There's some hubris
on their side as well.

And once they had
convinced themselves

that this was going to be
a great success,

it is what some wags have called
drinking your own bathwater.

They decided it's going to be
a victory,

even though there are people
in the South saying,

"Hey, this is not a great idea."

But these people are charged
with subjectivism

and basically are told
to shut up and keep rolling.

NARRATOR:
Le Duan neutralized those
who opposed his plan.

Members of General Giap's staff
were arrested.

So was Ho Chi Minh's secretary.

HUY DUC:

NARRATOR:
Hundreds of less prominent
figures-- journalists, students,

even highly decorated heroes
of the French War--

were also rounded up.

Many were locked up
in the old French prison

that the American POWs
also confined there called

the "Hanoi Hilton."

The date eventually chosen
for the attack would be

January 31, 1968,

the first day of the Vietnamese
Lunar New Year celebration,

known as Tet.

Hundreds, then thousands,
of North Vietnamese regulars

in civilian clothes
began slipping southward

to join tens of thousands
of Viet Cong already in place.

HO HUU LAN:

HUY DUC:

NARRATOR:
In preparation
for the coming offensive,

the North Vietnamese hoped
to lure American

and South Vietnamese forces
away from cities

and big military bases.

To do that, they would mount
a series of assaults

on remote outposts near
Cambodia, Laos, and the DMZ.

These preliminary attacks became
known as the "Border Battles."

Con Thien would be the first.

In September and October,

John Musgrave's
and Roger Harris's outfits

took turns defending Con Thien

as the North Vietnamese
tightened the noose around them.

The only way in or out
was by helicopter.

Con Thien in Vietnamese means
"Hill of Angels."

(explosion)

MUSGRAVE:
Time at Con Thien
was time in the barrel.

(multiple explosions)

We were the fish,
they had the shotguns,

they stuck in the barrel
and blasted away.

And they were gonna hit
something every shot.

Because Con Thien
was such a small area,

and they pounded it
with that artillery

from North Vietnam,
they couldn't miss.

HO HUU LAN:

I've never been, uh, as afraid.

In fact that's why I'm not
afraid of anything now.

I mean...

there's nothing you can do.

You just listen to the sounds
of the rockets coming over.

And you just pray
that they don't land on you.

The big question really seems
to be whether or not

the North Vietnamese
intend to overrun Con Thien.

The Marines have tripled
the number of troops

guarding the outpost,

and they've moved up more
battalions to be ready

to reinforce.

MUSGRAVE:
I sat in water.

I slept in water.

I ate in water,
because our holes were full.

I mean a flooded foxhole
could drown a wounded man.

HARRIS:
Spend your day
filling up sand bags,

trying to create barriers that
you just put another layer on,

put another layer on.

A lot of mud, blood, uh...

and artillery.

MUSGRAVE:
It's red clay up there.

And it's real sticky
and it could just grab onto you

and pull your boots off.

It's hard to run in that stuff.

And running,
when you're at a place

where they're firing
heavy artillery at you,

running's pretty important.

During the siege
in the fall of 1967,

we were getting newspaper
articles in the mail

from our families and we were
being called the Alamo.

You know, hey,
we knew what the Alamo was.

We knew what happened there.

(explosions)

(men shouting)

(explosions continue)

HARRIS:
Like almost like every hour
there'd be a barrage.

People get blown to bits,
literally blown to bits.

You find a...
a boot with a leg in it, right.

And so is the leg
white or black?

So who... who was
the white Marine that was here?

Who was the black?

So then you try to remember
and you tag it

and put that in the green bag.

And that's what goes back,
you know,

as Marine Lance Corporal
so and so.

And so, but sometimes you're not
even sure because the body

has literally been blown
to bits, and the only thing

that's left is a foot
or a piece of an arm.

MUSGRAVE:
I carried a wallet calendar
from Clifford Forlow Insurance.

He was my dad's insurance agent.

And I marked off
each of the days religiously.

And then in October,
we went up to Con Thien again.

I just stopped, because
I thought, "This is pointless.

"I'm not getting...
I'm not gonna go home.

"I'm not gonna make it home.

What...
you know, what's the point?"

So I just quit marking them off.

HARRIS:
I had the opportunity
to call my mother, you know.

And I was telling my mother
what was happening over there

and I was telling her
how she shouldn't believe

what she sees in the newspaper
and-and sees on television

because we're losing the war.

And I said, "You'll probably
never see me again

"because we're the most northern
outpost that the Marines have,

"you know.

"We could literally could look
right into North Vietnam.

We could see the sparks
when the guns fired on us."

And I said, "And everybody
in my unit is dying, you know.

And I probably won't be
coming back."

And my mother said,
"No, you're coming back."

She said, "I talk to God
every day and you're special.

You're coming back."

And I said, "Ma, everybody's
mother thinks that

"they're special, you know.

I'm putting pieces
of special people in bags."

And I was feeling
that my mother's in denial.

She just doesn't want to face
the fact that her only son

is gonna die in Vietnam.

And I said,
"Ma, this isn't a joke."

I said, "Everybody's dying
over here, you know.

Everybody's dying."

And she said,
"You're not gonna die.

You're not gonna die."

And, uh, the last thing
she said to me was,

"God has a plan for you."

And I said, "Yeah, right."

And I hung up.

(explosion)

Mr. Stout, during what period
of time were you in Vietnam?

I was in Vietnam
from September of 1966

to September of 1967,
one year.

And with what unit?

With the 1st Brigade
of the 101st Airborne.

During the time
that you were in Vietnam,

did you personally witness
any atrocities

on the part
of American troops?

Yes, I did.

NARRATOR:
Dennis Stout from
Phoenix, Arizona, had enlisted

in the Army at 20, and
served nine months in combat.

Wounded three times,
he became an Army reporter

covering the 327th Regiment
of the 101st Airborne.

He would spend most of his time
with a unique commando platoon

called "Tiger Force"--

small, handpicked teams,
capable of remaining

in the jungle
for weeks at a time,

fast-moving and deadly,

intended to
"out-guerrilla the guerrillas."

Tiger Force fought in six
different provinces,

repeatedly suffering
heavy losses.

(rapid gunfire)

RION CAUSEY:
If you've lost your best friend
and you want revenge,

it's the officers who say,
"No, you can't do that."

And if you do it,
then there's consequences.

But when the officers, and
it includes the platoon leader

and the battalion commander,
are telling you that this is

what you're supposed to do, then
it gets completely out of hand.

NARRATOR:
Some at MACV worried that such
a freewheeling outfit,

operating on its own,
would be difficult to control.

(gunfire)

But General Westmoreland
and commanders in the field

admired Tiger Force
for its reliable ferocity.

In the summer of 1967,
Tiger Force was sent

to the fertile Song Ve Valley.

The entire population
had already been herded

from their homes and crowded
into a refugee camp.

But some had come back
to resume the farming

they had always done.

The valley had officially been
declared a free-fire zone,

and Tiger Force's
officers took that literally.

"There are no friendlies,"
one lieutenant told his men.

"Shoot anything that moves."

Over a seven-month period,
they killed scores

of unarmed civilians.

Among their victims
were two blind brothers;

an elderly Buddhist monk;
women, children, and old people

hiding in underground shelters;

and three farmers
trying to plant rice.

All were reported as
"enemy-- killed in action."

STOUT:
These atrocities were
committed by soldiers

of units I was assigned to
as a reporter

for the Army newspapers,
such as...

NARRATOR:
Tiger Force was not
the only platoon

Dennis Stout covered
that crossed the line.

One such incident was
the rape and killing

of a Vietnamese girl.

She was captured,
kept for interrogation.

Over a two-day period,
she was raped, then,

on the morning of the third day,
she was killed.

Was she raped
by more than one person?

Yes, all but the medic
and myself,

and possibly one other man
from the platoon.

Did you protest?

Did you try in any way
to have them stopped?

Yes. After the rape incident,
I complained

to the battalion sergeant major,
and his response was that

this type of thing happens
in all wars,

and that I was not to mention
it; it was a common occurrence.

Then later, I went to
the chaplain, told him about it,

he made
an investigation himself,

found that this was true,
went with me

to the sergeant major.

The sergeant major then
said that...

well, he told the chaplain
to stick to religion,

sent him away, and then
he told me to keep quiet,

that I did nothave t o return
from the next operation.

NARRATOR:
Years later, another soldier
came forward

with more allegations
of war crimes,

and an Army investigation
would find probable cause

to try 18 members of Tiger Force
for murder or assault.

But no charges
were ever brought.

The official records were buried
in the archives.

WILLBANKS:
They should have all
gone to jail.

They were guilty of murder.

Period.

At the same time,
I felt like that incident,

which I think was an aberration,
not the norm,

tarred all veterans, and
there are hundreds of thousands

of veterans who went
and did their duty,

and as honorable
as they possibly could,

and they're tarred
with the same brush.

KARL MARLANTES:
One of the things that I learned
in the war is that

we're not the top species on
the planet because we're nice.

We are a very aggressive
species.

It is in us.

And people talk a lot about
how, "Well, the military turns

kids into killing machines"
and stuff.

And I'll always argue that
it's just finishing school.

What we do with civilization
is that we learn to inhibit

and rope in these
aggressive tendencies.

And we have to recognize them.

I worry about a whole country
that doesn't recognize it.

'Cause you think of how
many times we get ourselves

in scrapes as a nation because
we're always the good guys.

Sometimes, I think if we thought
that we weren't always

the good guys, we might actually
get in less wars.

(static humming)

REPORTER:
Mr. Rubin,

how do you realistically expect
to shut down the Pentagon?

The Pentagon represents
the murder of people

throughout the world.

And the American people
have no control

of what their government's
doing.

And so we're going to go there
in the scores of thousands,

and block doors
and fill hallways,

so the work
of the Pentagon stops.

Because the work
of the Pentagon should stop.

The only thing to do with
the Pentagon is to shut it down.

("Waist Deep in the Big Muddy"
by Pete Seeger playing)

♪ It was back in 1942

♪ I was a member
of a good platoon ♪

♪ We were on maneuvers
in Louisiana ♪

♪ One night
by the light of the moon ♪

♪ The captain told us
to ford a river ♪

♪ That's how it all begun

♪ We were knee deep
in the Big Muddy ♪

♪ The big fool says to push on

BILL ZIMMERMAN:
There was a major demonstration
either in New York

or in Washington
every fall and every spring.

We decided that we would go to
the demonstration

in Washington at the Lincoln
Memorial in the fall of '67,

but we would take as many
people out of that demonstration

as we could and lead them
to the Pentagon.

And at the Pentagon, try to do
something more militant

than simply stand around and
make speeches opposing the war,

which is what these
demonstrations had become.

SEEGER:
♪ No man will be able to swim.

ZIMMERMAN:
And when the time came
to lead people away

from the Lincoln Memorial
toward the Pentagon,

50,000 people marched.

SEEGER:
♪ Men, follow me, I'll lead on

♪ We were neck deep
in the Big Muddy ♪

♪ The big fool says
to push on. ♪

NARRATOR:
Bill Zimmerman, now an assistant
professor of psychology

at Brooklyn College,
had been against the war

since the beginning.

ZIMMERMAN:
Then we found when we got there
concentric defense perimeters

that had been set up
around the Pentagon to keep us

at a distance from the building.

We pushed against them,
we tore down their fences.

SEEGER:
♪ With the captain
dead and gone ♪

♪ We stripped and dived
and found his body. ♪

LESLIE GELB:
I was working that weekend day.

The secretaries who were working
in my area were frightened

to hell what these
Vietnam protesters would do.

They thought they were
going to come into the building

and rape them.

Some of them actually
came over the walls.

SEEGER:
♪ The big fool said
to push on. ♪

GELB:
It was a sense of revolution.

(crowd yelling)

SEEGER:
♪ Waist deep in the Big Muddy

♪ The big fool says to push on

♪ Waist deep in the Big Muddy

♪ The big fool says
to push on. ♪

ZIMMERMAN:
God knows what we were going to
do when we got in the building.

Some people, the hippies,

said they were going
to levitate the building.

Other people wanted to commit
vandalism in the building.

Other people wanted to
distribute antiwar literature

in the building, talk to people.

Just the idea of getting
into the headquarters

of the United States military...

It was the first time
that antiwar demonstrators

had confronted active-duty
military personnel.

We didn't consider them
the enemy.

We considered them
victims of the war.

But we began to see our own
government as the enemy.

NARRATOR:
President Johnson believed
that international communism

was somehow behind
the demonstration.

He had directed the CIA
to come up with the evidence,

and was furious
when it found none.

DWIGHT EISENHOWER:
Mr. President?

LYNDON JOHNSON:
Yes.

This is
General Eisenhower.

How've you been,
Mr. President?

I'm doing fine
under the circumstances.

But we just had hell,
and these college students,

I've had Hoover in after them.

They came marched here,
and we arrested 600 of them,

and we gave 29 of them
pretty tough times.

We found most of them
really were mentally diseased.

Hoover's taken 256 that turned
in supposedly their draft cards.

So, you're dealing
with mental problems,

I think that we talk
too damn much

about civil liberties
and constitutional rights

of the individual
and not enough

about the rights
of the masses.

EISENHOWER:
That's why we have it.

We have freely elected people
and we've got to

stand behind them.

JOHNSON:
I think your government's
in trouble, General.

I think it's in...
I don't want to say this.

But I think we're in
more danger

from these
left-wing influences now

than we've ever been
in 37 years I've been here.

And they're working
in my party from within.

And Bobby thinks he's going
to get the nomination.

NARRATOR:
Allard Lowenstein, a 38-year-old
attorney from New York,

shared the antiwar fervor
of the protestors,

but he believed
the most effective way

to end the fighting was to work
within the political system,

not outside it.

The answer, he said,
was to stop Lyndon Johnson

from getting
a second full term as president.

He had traveled the country
all year in search of someone

willing to challenge
the president in the upcoming

Democratic primaries.

He asked Senator Robert Kennedy
of New York,

who had begun to criticize
the Johnson administration

over the war.

He asked
Lieutenant General James Gavin.

He asked Senator George McGovern
of South Dakota.

They all turned him down.

Lowenstein kept looking.

At Fort Sill, Oklahoma,
on November 17, 1967,

friends and family
of a fallen soldier gathered

for a funeral,
one of five military funerals

held there that month.

First Sergeant Pascal Cleatus
Poolaw had been killed

as he tried to drag
one of his wounded men

off the battlefield near
the village of Loc Ninh.

He was a remarkable soldier,
had been awarded one Silver Star

in World War II, two more in
Korea, and was awarded a fourth,

posthumously,
for his gallantry in Vietnam.

He was a Kiowa Indian.

He and three of his sons
were among

the 42,000 Native Americans
who would serve in Vietnam,

the highest per capita
service rate of any ethnic group

in the United States.

Pascal Poolaw's widow spoke
at the ceremony.

"He has followed the trail
of the great chiefs," she said.

"His people hold him in honor
and highest esteem.

"He has given his life
for the people and the country

he loved so much."

("Somebody to Love" by
Jefferson Airplane playing)

♪ When the truth is found

♪ To be lies

♪ And all the joy

♪ Within you dies

♪ Don't you want somebody
to love? ♪

♪ Don't you need somebody
to love? ♪

♪ Wouldn't you love somebody
to love? ♪

♪ You better find somebody
to love ♪

♪ Love.

MUSGRAVE:
I didn't hear the word "hippie"
until I was at Con Thien

and we got aPlaybo y, somebody
got aPlayboy in the mail,

which was obviously very
important to us.

And there was an article
on Haight-Ashbury

and pictures of the girls
running around

without their tops,
you know, free love.

And they were hippies.

And we thought it was
"hip pie" cause it had two Ps.

You know,
"Hey, I'm gonna go home

"and be one of these hip pies

"because the girls
don't wear no clothes.

You know, and they'll
go to bed with anybody."

You know, even I could score.

But the only information I had
of the peace movement

came fromStars and Stripes.

And that wasn't
a real objective newspaper.

And so I hated them

before I ever even knew
anything about them.

("Somebody to Love" continues)

NARRATOR:
The monsoon rains continued
to make life miserable

for John Musgrave and
the other Marines at Con Thien.

But by early November, the
worst of the shelling had ended.

American airstrikes,
artillery, and Navy fire

had taken a fearful toll
on the besieging enemy.

Before dawn on November 7, two
companies of Musgrave's outfit

were sent half a mile
into the countryside

northwest of the base
to sweep the area again.

MUSGRAVE:
We got into an area
that was old hedgerows

that's grown over with jungle.

Very difficult to see very far.

In the clear area, we had three
NVA show themselves

and start just spraying
30 rounds out of their AKs

and then booking.

(gunfire)

The company commander himself
said, "I want their bodies.

Bring me their bodies."

Everything's about body count,
right?

We said, "Man, this is as
old as Custer.

"These guys are showing
themselves to draw us

"into an ambush.

"Lieutenant, don't do this,"
you know.

"Please, these guys are bait."

Well, the skipper says,
"We got to go.

We got to go."

And... we went.

(gunfire)

And I can't tell you
a whole lot about the ambush.

I was one of the first people
to be shot.

One round put me down.

(gunfire)

And my grenadier was down, and
we were trying to get him back.

And Marines, from the first day
in boot camp,

you learn that Marines
don't leave their dead,

and they never,
never leave their wounded.

And that's why I'm alive today.

First guy that came for me--
I was lying on my face...

(gunfire)

he reached down and stuck his
arms under my shoulders

and lifted me up and the machine
gun wasn't any far,

was maybe nine feet, ten feet
at the most, away from me.

This is a very
intimate ambush.

It's a brawl.

(gunfire)

And he fired a burst into my
chest that blew me out

of the Marine's arms that was
holding me and then he was shot.

(gunfire)

Another very brave young Marine,
this 18-year-old from Louisiana,

his first firefight,
had seen what happened

and still came for me.

And he reached for me, and he
was shot I think in the forearm.

And he was laying beside me.

Now, I've got a hole
through my chest big enough

to stick your fist through.

I'm dying and I know it.

(gunfire)

And I heard this horrible
screaming going on,

and I was trying to figure out
who was screaming like that,

because it sounded so...

(distant gunfire)

And then I realized it was me.

When they began to drag us out,
they were being pursued

by the North Vietnamese,
and they would drop us

and lay on top of us.

They knew... we were both dying.

The grenadier had been shot
in the right side of his chest.

They knew... we were both dead.

But we were still alive.

So, they weren't gonna leave us.

They would die before
they would leave us.

And they covered us with their
bodies and fired back

at the NVA and then they'd jump
up and drag us a little farther

and then drop us and
lay back on top of us.

And I kept telling them
to leave me.

And I meant it.
I meant it.

But all of a sudden I got scared
that they might really leave me.

(distant gunfire)

I was triaged three times.

And the senior corpsman said,

"He's either shot through
the heart or the lungs.

There's nothing
I can do for him."

And he just turned away.

I went, "Well, okay."

And then, a helicopter came in.

And they threw me into the bird.

(distant helicopter blades
humming)

And the corpsman on the bird
straddled me, stood over me,

and looked down at me, and then
looked up at the door gunner

and went...
get me out of the way

because he couldn't work on me.

I was a dead man.

(muted helicopter blades
beating)

And they flew me
to Delta Med at Dong Ha.

And I thought,
"Okay, I made it this far."

And this doctor comes
over and looks at me

and I'm conscious.

I'm lucid.

And he checks
a couple of things.

And I've got this huge hole
in me.

And he looks at me
right in the eye, and he says,

"What's your religion, Marine?"

And I said,
"Well, I'm a Protestant."

And he says,
"Get a chaplain over here.

I can't help this man."

And then he walked away.

Another surgeon walks by,
and he looked at me,

and I was raised
to always be nice to people.

And when he looked at me,
I smiled at him and nodded.

And he said, "Why isn't
somebody helping this man?"

And inside I'm going,

"Yeah, why isn't somebody
helping this man?"

When they put me to sleep,
I thought,

"Boy, this is really it,"
you know.

And it was kind of,
"Okay, God,

into your hands,
I deliver my spirit."

And I thought that was it.

And when I woke up in the
surgical intensive care ward,

which was a Quonset hut,

I thought, "Holy mackerel."

I just couldn't...
I couldn't believe it.

Yesterday over Hanoi,

three American planes
were shot down

and at least two
of their pilots captured.

One of them was Lieutenant
Commander John McCain III,

the son of the U.S. Naval
commander in Europe.

BAO NINH:

NARRATOR:
Hanoi was so pleased to have
captured the son

of an American admiral that they
allowed a French journalist

to interview McCain
in the hospital.

He had just had his broken bones
set without even an aspirin

for the pain.

INTERVIEWER:
What is your name?

Lieutenant Commander
John McCain.

How many raids have you done
until the last one?

About 23.

In which circumstances
have you been shot down?

I was on a flight
over the city of Hanoi,

and I was bombing and I was hit
by either a missile

or anti-aircraft fire.

I'm not sure which, and the
plane continued straight down,

and I ejected
and broke my leg and both arms

and went into a lake;
parachuted into a lake.

And I was picked up by some
North Vietnamese

and taken to the hospital,
where I almost died.

I would just like to tell...

...my wife...

...I will get well...

...and I love her
and I hope to see her soon.

NARRATOR:
After the interview,
McCain was beaten

for not expressing sufficient
gratitude to his captors.

(soldiers conversing)

NARRATOR:
All through the fall of 1967,
the North Vietnamese

and the Viet Cong continued
their series of "Border Battles"

in preparation
for their surprise offensive,

still months away.

Con Thien, where John Musgrave
was wounded,

had been the first.

Then came the ARVN base
at Song Be.

The South Vietnamese outpost
adjacent to

the provincial capital
of Loc Ninh was next.

There, large units of
North Vietnamese

and Viet Cong regulars
mounted a coordinated attack,

and then fought for five days
to hold on to the ground

they'd gained, something they
had never done before.

American commanders
were puzzled.

Then, in early November,
reports reached MACV

that five North Vietnamese
regiments

and a Viet Cong battalion--
some 7,000 men in all--

had begun massing
in the Central Highlands

around the U.S. Special Forces
camp at Dak To again.

Among the North Vietnamese
regulars was Nguyen Thanh Son,

who had been so eager to fight
that he too had filled

his pockets with rocks
to pass his physical.

NGUYEN THANH SON:

NARRATOR:
As the NVA deployed
their troops,

Westmoreland sent his to Dak To,

exactly what
the enemy wanted him to do.

Among the Americans were the
men of the elite 173rd Airborne,

Westmoreland's Fire Brigade.

MATT HARRISON:
We all knew in a general sense
that we wouldn't be brought back

if there wasn't something big
going on.

You just knew that the area was
crawling with North Vietnamese,

and that they were there
not to avoid contact with us,

but they were there
to have contact with us.

NARRATOR:
First Lieutenant
Matthew Harrison was now

with Alpha Company
of the 2nd Battalion,

the same rifle company
that had been ambushed

and so badly shattered back in
June on the slopes of Hill 1338,

just 14 miles to the east.

HARRISON:
This wasn't like the Viet Cong
where if you could find them,

you could kill them.

Our problem wasn't finding them.

Our problem was what to do
with them once you found them.

NARRATOR:
The 174th NVA Regiment
was waiting.

Nguyen Thanh Son and his men
were already dug in

on the high ground they knew
the Americans would want

to command: Hill 875.

NGUYEN THANH SON:

NARRATOR:
On Sunday morning,
November 19, 1967,

Alpha, Charlie, and
Delta Companies were ordered

to take Hill 875.

Matt Harrison had been wounded
in an earlier fight

and was not permitted
to accompany his men.

He anxiously followed
their progress over the radio.

Heavy artillery and flights
of F-100s blasted the hillside

ahead of them, meant to
knock out enemy positions

before the paratroopers
ever got within range.

NGUYEN THANH SON:

NARRATOR:
The three companies
moved up the slope,

Charlie and Delta in the lead,

Alpha bringing up the rear.

The paratroopers stepped warily
into a clearing

filled with fallen trees
from the morning's bombardment

and only a little over 300 yards
from the summit.

NGUYEN THANH SON:

(gunfire)

NARRATOR:
Thousands of automatic weapon
rounds ripped through the air.

Chinese-made grenades came
rolling and bumping

down the slopes.

The Americans sought cover where
they could behind fallen trees,

scrabbled at the earth
with their helmets,

trying to dig fighting holes.

(gunfire)

(soldiers yelling)

(rapid gunfire)

Charlie and Delta companies
were pinned down

and being torn to pieces.

(gunfire)

Meanwhile,
near the foot of the hill,

other North Vietnamese troops
surprised Alpha Company

from behind.

They were first spotted
moving up through the trees

by a private from the Bronx
named Carlos Lozada.

As the men of his
company scrambled up the slope,

dragging their wounded
with them,

Lozada provided
what cover he could,

firing his M-60 machine gun
from his hip--

before a bullet
hit him in the head.

He would be awarded
a posthumous Medal of Honor.

Back home, the battle led
the nightly news.

(helicopter humming)

WALTER CRONKITE:
The Battle of Dak To is now on
its 19th day,

and already ranks
among the bloodiest campaigns

of the Vietnam War.

There's no sign yet
of any let-up.

Over the weekend,
three companies

of the 173rd Airborne Brigade
moved down this river valley,

up which North Vietnamese
normally infiltrate,

until they got down here
by Hill 875.

Then, they came under heavy fire
from the hill.

Two of the three companies
charged the hill,

the other stayed back
as a rear guard.

They found a...

HARRISON:
By early afternoon,
the three companies

had basically been decapitated.

The company commanders
were dead;

most of the officers and
most of the NCOs were dead.

(soldiers yelling)

NARRATOR:
The survivors from all three
companies clustered

in the clearing
and did their best to set up

a defensive circle.

American bombs and napalm
pounded enemy positions

until it grew
almost too dark to see.

NGUYEN THANH SON:

NARRATOR:
Then, another American plane
roared in and dropped two bombs.

One landed among
the hidden enemy troops.

The other fell directly
on the Americans.

In a fraction of a second,
42 were killed.

A badly hit lieutenant managed
to find a working radio.

"No more fucking planes,"
he shouted into it.

"You're killingus up here."

(explosion)

The fighting
on the hillside continued.

The men ran out of water,
began to run out of ammunition.

Helicopters that tried to ferry
in supplies were shot down.

The following day, Matt Harrison
was able to chopper in.

HARRISON:
It was chaos.

It was collections of guys
who had who had tunneled

and dug down behind trees.

These were guys who had gone
without water in that heat

for two days.

And almost every one of them
was wounded.

And then all around were bodies,

guys who had been shot
and blown up.

It was the third circle of hell.

NARRATOR:
On November 23, two fresh
battalions of the 173rd

finally made it
to the top of the hill,

for which so many had died.

But the night before,

the surviving North Vietnamese
troops had slipped down

the other side and disappeared
into Cambodia and Laos.

The powers that be
decided it would be important

to our morale for us to be in on
the taking the top of the hill.

I had 26 guys left out of a
company that started out of 140,

and all 26 had been wounded.

NARRATOR:
Then Harrison and his exhausted
men were helicoptered

to the top of yet another hill.

(helicopter blades whirring)

It was Thanksgiving.

Chinook helicopters clattered
down out of the sky,

carrying huge containers of
hot turkey and mashed potatoes

and cranberry sauce so that
the 173rd could have

their Thanksgiving dinner.

If there are any more remote
or dangerous spots

to spend Thanksgiving Day
in Vietnam than this one,

then most of these men
have never seen them.

HARRISON:
There was a TV cameraman
and reporter off to the side

using us as a backdrop.

And I remember hearing
the reporter intone,

"Today is November 23,
Thanksgiving Day,"

and I was really angry.

It's as though
we were entertainers.

NARRATOR:
107 Americans had died
taking Hill 875;

another 282 were wounded.

Ten more were missing.

The number of North Vietnamese
casualties is unknown,

but their losses are thought
to have been staggering.

Back in June, Matt Harrison had
lost two West Point classmates

on Hill 1338.

He lost two more on Hill 875.

Of the eight with whom he had
served in the 2nd Battalion,

four were now dead
and two had been wounded.

HARRISON:
To take tops of mountains
in a triple canopy jungle

along the Cambodian-Laotian
border accomplished nothing

of any importance.

The Battle for Hill 875 was,
in my thinking today,

a microcosm of what we were
doing and what went wrong

in Vietnam.

There was no reason to take
that hill.

We literally got to the top
of the hill

about mid-day on November 23
and sat there for,

I don't know,
half an hour, an hour,

just kind of gathering ourselves
and everything together.

Chinooks came in,
took us off the hill.

And I doubt that there's been
an American on Hill 875

since November 23.

We accomplished nothing.

WILLIAM WESTMORELAND:
A new phase is now starting.

We have reached an important
point when the end

begins to come into view.

NARRATOR:
As Matt Harrison and his men
fought for Hill 875,

the Johnson administration
was in the midst

of a "Success Offensive,"

a PR campaign aimed at
shoring up support for the war

and the way it was being waged.

MACV released a new and
surprisingly low estimate

of enemy forces to show how much
damage the United States

had done to them.

It was only two-thirds of the
total suggested by the CIA,

because, after a bitter
and prolonged debate

behind the scenes,
Westmoreland had chosen

to exclude from it
the part-time guerrillas--

farmers, old men, women,
even children--

who helped place the mines,
grenades, and booby traps

that accounted
for more than a third

of all American casualties.

General Westmoreland
also told the press

that the impressive body counts
his commanders reported

were "very, very conservative."

It probably represented,
he said,

"50 percent or even less of the
enemy that has been killed."

Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker
joined the chorus,

using a metaphor first used
13 years earlier

by the French commander
in Vietnam,

not long before their great
defeat at Dien Bien Phu.

And I think we're now
beginning to see light

at the end
of the tunnel.

Mr. Ambassador, you talk about
light at the end of the tunnel.

How long is this tunnel?

Well, I don't think that
you can put it

into any particular timeframe,
a situation like this.

NARRATOR:
LBJ's Success Offensive
succeeded.

The number of Americans
who believed the United States

was making real progress
in the war grew.

Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara

did not take part in
the public relations campaign.

He had become so disillusioned
with the war he'd done so much

to plan and prosecute
that he wrote

another secret memo
to the president,

advising Johnson to freeze
American troop levels,

turn over ground operations
to the South Vietnamese,

and halt the bombing
of North Vietnam

"in order to bring about
negotiations."

There was no reason to believe,
McNamara wrote,

that the prolonged "infliction
of grievous casualties,

"or the heavy punishment
of air bombardment,

"will suffice to break the will
of the North Vietnamese

"and Viet Cong.

"The continuation of our
present course of action

"in Southeast Asia would be
dangerous, costly in lives,

and unsatisfactory
to the American people."

Johnson never responded.

Instead, he arranged
for McNamara to become

the president of the World Bank.

McNamara would keep silent
about the doubts he had harbored

since the beginning
of the ground war

for the next 28 years.

His successor as
defense secretary would be

Clark Clifford,

a prominent Washington lawyer
and trusted counselor

to Democratic presidents,
whom Johnson was sure would be

supportive of the war.

Students of Harvard...

NARRATOR:
Meanwhile, Allard Lowenstein's
yearlong search

for a Democratic challenger
to the president

had finally succeeded.

On November 30, 1967, Minnesota
senator Eugene McCarthy

announced that he would run.

This is an issue
which has to be taken

to the people of the country
in the campaign of 1968.

(crowd cheers)

NARRATOR:
By the end of 1967,

20,057 Americans
had died in Vietnam.

The time had come,
General Westmoreland said,

for an "all-out offensive
on all fronts."

But the enemy was just a month
away from launching

an all-out offensive
of its own.

("Paint in Black"
by the Rolling Stones playing)

♪ I see a red door
and I want it painted black ♪

♪ No colors anymore,
I want them to turn black ♪

♪ I see the girls walk by

♪ Dressed in
their summer clothes ♪

♪ I have to turn my head
until my darkness goes ♪

♪ I see a line of cars
and they're all painted black ♪

♪ With flowers and my love,
both never to come back ♪

♪ I see people turn their heads
and quickly look away ♪

♪ Like a newborn baby,
it just happens every day ♪

♪ I look inside myself
and see my heart is black ♪

♪ I see my red door and
must have it painted black ♪

♪ Maybe then I'll fade away
and not have to face the facts ♪

♪ It's not easy facing up
when your whole world is black ♪

♪ No more will my green sea
go turn a deeper blue ♪

♪ I could not foresee
this thing happening to you ♪

♪ If I look hard enough
into the setting sun ♪

♪ My love will laugh with me
before the morning comes ♪

♪ I see a red door
and I want it painted black ♪

♪ No colors anymore,
I want them to turn black ♪

♪ I see the girls walk by

♪ Dressed in
their summer clothes ♪

♪ I have to turn my head
until my darkness goes ♪

(humming)

♪ I wanna see it painted

♪ Painted, painted,
painted black ♪

♪ Yeah.

(humming)