Annotated Transcript Of Episode 8
ANNOTATED TRANSCRIPT BURNS EPISODE 8 The History of the World (April 1969-May 1970)
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MINUTES 1-10
1
00:00:01,566 --> 00:00:03,000 ANNOUNCER: MAJOR SUPPORT FOR "THE VIETNAM WAR"
2
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:06,500 WAS PROVIDED BY MEMBERS OF THE BETTER ANGELS SOCIETY,
3
00:00:06,500 --> 00:00:10,466 INCLUDING JONATHAN AND JEANNIE LAVINE,
4
00:00:10,466 --> 00:00:13,366 DIANE AND HAL BRIERLEY,
5
00:00:13,366 --> 00:00:15,766 AMY AND DAVID ABRAMS,
6
00:00:15,766 --> 00:00:18,266 JOHN AND CATHERINE DEBS,
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00:00:18,266 --> 00:00:21,166 THE FULLERTON FAMILY CHARITABLE FUND,
8
00:00:21,166 --> 00:00:23,233 THE MONTRONE FAMILY,
9
00:00:23,233 --> 00:00:25,566 LYNDA AND STEWART RESNICK,
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00:00:25,566 --> 00:00:28,333 THE PERRY AND DONNA GOLKIN FAMILY FOUNDATION,
11
00:00:28,333 --> 00:00:29,333 THE LYNCH FOUNDATION,
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00:00:29,333 --> 00:00:32,200 THE ROGER AND ROSEMARY ENRICO FOUNDATION,
13
00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:35,633 AND BY THESE ADDITIONAL FUNDERS.
14
00:00:35,633 --> 00:00:37,533 MAJOR FUNDING WAS ALSO PROVIDED
15
00:00:37,533 --> 00:00:39,266 BY DAVID H. KOCH...
16
00:00:41,566 --> 00:00:43,766 THE BLAVATNIK FAMILY FOUNDATION...
17
00:00:46,100 --> 00:00:48,533 THE PARK FOUNDATION,
18
00:00:48,533 --> 00:00:50,700 THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES,
19
00:00:50,700 --> 00:00:52,900 THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS,
20
00:00:52,900 --> 00:00:55,566 THE JOHN S. AND JAMES L. KNIGHT FOUNDATION,
21
00:00:55,566 --> 00:00:58,333 THE ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION,
22
00:00:58,333 --> 00:01:01,000 THE ARTHUR VINING DAVIS FOUNDATIONS,
23
00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:03,200 THE FORD FOUNDATION JUSTFILMS,
24
00:01:03,200 --> 00:01:04,400 BY THE CORPORATION
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00:01:04,400 --> 00:01:05,633 FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING,
26
00:01:05,633 --> 00:01:07,600 AND BY VIEWERS LIKE YOU.
27
00:01:07,600 --> 00:01:08,733 THANK YOU.
28
00:01:13,266 --> 00:01:15,400 ANNOUNCER: BANK OF AMERICA PROUDLY SUPPORTS
29
00:01:15,400 --> 00:01:20,300 KEN BURNS' AND LYNN NOVICK'S FILM "THE VIETNAM WAR"
30
00:01:20,300 --> 00:01:22,700 BECAUSE FOSTERING DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
31
00:01:22,700 --> 00:01:25,300 AND CIVIL DISCOURSE AROUND IMPORTANT ISSUES
32
00:01:25,300 --> 00:01:27,600 FURTHERS PROGRESS, EQUALITY,
33
00:01:27,600 --> 00:01:29,600 AND A MORE CONNECTED SOCIETY.
34
00:01:34,066 --> 00:01:38,100 GO TO BANKOFAMERICA.COM/ BETTERCONNECTED TO LEARN MORE.
35
00:01:41,400 --> 00:01:43,266 ♪ MOVIE "SO PROUDLY WE HAIL":
36
00:01:46,300 --> 00:01:48,733 ...you got through! Did you pass Chee on the road?
37
00:01:48,733 --> 00:01:50,200 No. Where are the children?
38
00:01:50,200 --> 00:01:51,900 Kansas found a shelter for them.
39
00:01:51,900 --> 00:01:53,633 Get down, everybody!
40
00:01:56,633 --> 00:01:59,533 JOAN FUREY: My older sister and I one time,
41
00:01:59,533 --> 00:02:03,766 uh, we're watching the movie So Proudly We Hail on TV.
42
00:02:03,766 --> 00:02:05,233 MOVIE: Listen, we still have a few minutes!
43
00:02:05,233 --> 00:02:07,133 FUREY: That's a story about the nurses
44
00:02:07,133 --> 00:02:12,033 who were trapped on Bataan and Corregidor during World War II.
45
00:02:12,033 --> 00:02:14,133 MOVIE: (explosion)
46
00:02:14,133 --> 00:02:17,866 It was the first, probably, time in my life that...
47
00:02:17,866 --> 00:02:19,800 I, uh...
48
00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:24,100 I realized that women could do brave and courageous things.
49
00:02:24,100 --> 00:02:26,733 It wasn't just something men could do.
50
00:02:26,733 --> 00:02:29,133 (helicopter blades whirring)
51
00:02:29,133 --> 00:02:32,300 ♪
52
00:02:32,300 --> 00:02:35,266 NARRATOR: Second Lieutenant Joan Furey
53
00:02:35,266 --> 00:02:40,166 had wanted to be a nurse ever since she was a small child.
54
00:02:40,166 --> 00:02:41,933 She attended nursing school,
55
00:02:41,933 --> 00:02:45,333 and, when a high school classmate was killed during Tet,
56
00:02:45,333 --> 00:02:49,600 joined the Army to do what she could for the wounded.
57
00:02:51,033 --> 00:02:54,833 Furey was assigned to the 71st Evacuation Hospital
58
00:02:54,833 --> 00:02:58,500 at Pleiku, in the heart of the Central Highlands.
59
00:03:00,100 --> 00:03:03,833 Nothing had prepared her for what she saw and did
60
00:03:03,833 --> 00:03:06,233 over the next 12 months.
61
00:03:06,233 --> 00:03:07,766 (indistinct chatter)
62
00:03:08,900 --> 00:03:10,200 (grunts)
63
00:03:10,200 --> 00:03:12,466 Wounded men were choppered in
64
00:03:12,466 --> 00:03:15,233 at all times of the day and night.
65
00:03:15,233 --> 00:03:18,300 So were Viet Cong and NVA soldiers,
66
00:03:18,300 --> 00:03:21,366 who sometimes spat at the medical personnel
67
00:03:21,366 --> 00:03:25,200 trying to save their limbs or lives.
68
00:03:25,200 --> 00:03:28,366 (explosions)
69
00:03:28,366 --> 00:03:31,000 Whenever the hospital came under mortar fire,
70
00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:34,700 Furey stayed with the most seriously wounded men
71
00:03:34,700 --> 00:03:36,033 in the ICU.
72
00:03:36,033 --> 00:03:37,866 (distant explosions)
73
00:03:37,866 --> 00:03:39,400 FUREY: We had flak vests and helmets,
74
00:03:39,400 --> 00:03:41,200 and we crawled around on the floor.
75
00:03:41,200 --> 00:03:42,700 (explosion, clattering, men shouting)
76
00:03:42,700 --> 00:03:43,966 I mean, you really,
77
00:03:43,966 --> 00:03:45,933 you just could not leave them unattended.
78
00:03:45,933 --> 00:03:47,466 (explosion)
79
00:03:47,466 --> 00:03:50,733 We just kind of had to swallow your own fear.
80
00:03:52,266 --> 00:03:55,100 NARRATOR: A triage officer made the grim decisions
81
00:03:55,100 --> 00:03:57,266 as to who might be saved
82
00:03:57,266 --> 00:04:00,766 and those for whom there was no hope.
83
00:04:00,766 --> 00:04:03,900 FUREY: One of the things that initially was so difficult
84
00:04:03,900 --> 00:04:06,833 was what we called "expected" patients.
85
00:04:06,833 --> 00:04:09,533 And these were patients that would be brought in
86
00:04:09,533 --> 00:04:12,100 from the battlefield and it was determined
87
00:04:12,100 --> 00:04:14,800 they had no chance to survive.
88
00:04:14,800 --> 00:04:17,399 But they weren't dead yet.
89
00:04:18,533 --> 00:04:19,966 They brought in a...
90
00:04:19,966 --> 00:04:23,433 a young soldier who had a head injury,
91
00:04:23,433 --> 00:04:27,000 and they said, "He's expected."
92
00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:29,366 I kind of freaked out, uh,
93
00:04:29,366 --> 00:04:32,533 and I decided that, no, they were wrong,
94
00:04:32,533 --> 00:04:35,700 and I was gonna take care of this patient.
95
00:04:35,700 --> 00:04:38,300 I told the corpsman to get me blood.
96
00:04:38,300 --> 00:04:40,066 And he's saying, "Well, Lieutenant,
97
00:04:40,066 --> 00:04:41,866 the patient is expected."
98
00:04:41,866 --> 00:04:43,866 I said, "Get me blood."
99
00:04:43,866 --> 00:04:46,933 So, I take off the dressing, and...
100
00:04:46,933 --> 00:04:50,566 the whole back of his head had been gone.
101
00:04:50,566 --> 00:04:52,200 When that happened,
102
00:04:52,200 --> 00:04:55,533 all the blood I had been giving him came out.
103
00:04:55,533 --> 00:04:59,900 A friend of mine who came over just walked me out of there.
104
00:04:59,900 --> 00:05:03,533 And a few minutes later, you walk right back in...
105
00:05:05,500 --> 00:05:07,466 ...and you get back to doing it.
106
00:05:10,900 --> 00:05:12,800 (amplified heartbeat)
107
00:05:14,666 --> 00:05:19,433 ("Dazed and Confused" by Led Zeppelin playing)
108
00:05:31,100 --> 00:05:33,233 ♪ Been dazed and confused
109
00:05:33,233 --> 00:05:35,266 ♪ For so long, it's not true... ♪
110
00:05:35,266 --> 00:05:38,266 NARRATOR: Richard Nixon had taken office as president
111
00:05:38,266 --> 00:05:41,333 in January of 1969,
112
00:05:41,333 --> 00:05:43,666 pledged to restore law and order
113
00:05:43,666 --> 00:05:46,000 and end the war with honor.
114
00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:48,266 (gunfire) Things were calmer at home,
115
00:05:48,266 --> 00:05:51,266 but in Vietnam, peace was no closer.
116
00:05:51,266 --> 00:05:54,900 ("Dazed and Confused" continues)
117
00:05:54,900 --> 00:05:58,400 American soldiers still died pursuing guerrillas
118
00:05:58,400 --> 00:06:01,300 who appeared and disappeared like phantoms.
119
00:06:02,500 --> 00:06:05,566 Americans still died capturing hills
120
00:06:05,566 --> 00:06:08,966 only to give them up and have to take them back again.
121
00:06:08,966 --> 00:06:13,233 Men and materiel were still flowing into the south
122
00:06:13,233 --> 00:06:16,866 despite the controversial bombing of Cambodia.
123
00:06:16,866 --> 00:06:20,566 Through it all, Hanoi remained immovable.
124
00:06:20,566 --> 00:06:23,666 The communists insisted there could be no peace
125
00:06:23,666 --> 00:06:27,500 until the Saigon government was replaced
126
00:06:27,500 --> 00:06:32,000 and the United States withdrew from Vietnam.[1]
127
00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:36,033 Meanwhile, the American public was losing patience.
128
00:06:36,033 --> 00:06:37,733 ♪
129
00:06:43,100 --> 00:06:44,933 (men shouting)
130
00:06:44,933 --> 00:06:46,933 (gunfire fades)
131
00:06:46,933 --> 00:06:51,866 Privately, Nixon knew that military victory was impossible,
132
00:06:51,866 --> 00:06:53,500 that things would have to be settled
133
00:06:53,500 --> 00:06:56,800 at the bargaining table in Paris.
134
00:06:56,800 --> 00:06:58,233 He had to find a way
135
00:06:58,233 --> 00:07:00,633 to extricate Americans from Vietnam
136
00:07:00,633 --> 00:07:02,866 without seeming to surrender.
137
00:07:02,866 --> 00:07:04,833 Nixon also believed
138
00:07:04,833 --> 00:07:07,800 his reputation as an implacable anti-communist
139
00:07:07,800 --> 00:07:10,766 could work to his advantage with Hanoi.
140
00:07:10,766 --> 00:07:13,200 "We'll just slip the word to them," he said,
141
00:07:13,200 --> 00:07:17,166 "you know, 'Nixon's obsessed about communism.
142
00:07:17,166 --> 00:07:19,533 "'We can't restrain him when he's angry,
143
00:07:19,533 --> 00:07:22,533 "and he has his hand on the nuclear button,'
144
00:07:22,533 --> 00:07:25,800 "and Ho Chi Minh will be in Paris in two days
145
00:07:25,800 --> 00:07:28,800 begging for peace."
146
00:07:28,800 --> 00:07:32,966 But Ho Chi Minh was old and ailing now.
147
00:07:32,966 --> 00:07:35,133 And Le Duan and the other men
148
00:07:35,133 --> 00:07:38,300 who had been calling the shots in Hanoi for years
149
00:07:38,300 --> 00:07:40,800 had no intention of giving up their goal
150
00:07:40,800 --> 00:07:44,566 of uniting their country under communist control.
151
00:07:44,566 --> 00:07:46,733 ("While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by the Beatles playing)
152
00:07:46,733 --> 00:07:50,366 Richard Nixon, having promised a swift end to the war,
153
00:07:50,366 --> 00:07:53,600 would, like all the presidents who came before him,
154
00:07:53,600 --> 00:07:55,933 end up widening it.
155
00:07:55,933 --> 00:07:59,633 In the process, he would re-ignite opposition to the war
156
00:07:59,633 --> 00:08:01,466 on American campuses
157
00:08:01,466 --> 00:08:05,100 that threatened to tear the country apart again.
158
00:08:05,100 --> 00:08:08,700 ♪ I look at you all
159
00:08:08,700 --> 00:08:12,366 ♪ See the love there that's sleeping ♪
160
00:08:12,366 --> 00:08:14,700 (crowd clamoring)
161
00:08:14,700 --> 00:08:17,200 ♪ While my guitar
162
00:08:17,200 --> 00:08:19,133 ♪ Gently weeps
163
00:08:22,233 --> 00:08:25,200 ♪ I look at the floor...
164
00:08:25,200 --> 00:08:27,266 MERRILL McPEAK: The late '60s
165
00:08:27,266 --> 00:08:31,466 were a kind of confluence of several rivulets.
166
00:08:31,466 --> 00:08:33,400 BEATLES: ♪ Still my guitar...
167
00:08:33,400 --> 00:08:36,433 McPEAK: There was the antiwar movement itself...
168
00:08:36,433 --> 00:08:39,600 ♪
169
00:08:39,600 --> 00:08:44,366 ...the whole movement towards racial equality,
170
00:08:44,366 --> 00:08:46,933 the environment...
171
00:08:46,933 --> 00:08:49,833 the role of women.
172
00:08:49,833 --> 00:08:52,333 And the anthems for that counterculture
173
00:08:52,333 --> 00:08:56,866 were provided by the most brilliant rock-and-roll music
174
00:08:56,866 --> 00:08:58,900 that you can imagine.
175
00:08:58,900 --> 00:09:00,766 BEATLES: ♪ And I notice...
176
00:09:00,766 --> 00:09:05,233 I don't know how we could exist today as a country
177
00:09:05,233 --> 00:09:09,400 without that experience.[2]
178
00:09:09,400 --> 00:09:12,533 With all of its warts and ups and downs,
179
00:09:12,533 --> 00:09:16,333 that produced the America we have today,
180
00:09:16,333 --> 00:09:18,000 and we are better for it.
181
00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:19,933 (gunfire) ♪ Surely be learning...
182
00:09:19,933 --> 00:09:21,966 McPEAK: And I felt that way in Vietnam.
183
00:09:21,966 --> 00:09:23,900 ♪ Still my guitar...
184
00:09:23,900 --> 00:09:26,433 McPEAK: I turned the volume up on all that stuff.
185
00:09:28,533 --> 00:09:32,166 That represented what I was trying to defend.
186
00:09:32,166 --> 00:09:35,133 ♪ EPISODE 8: THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD (APRIL 1969 - MAY 1970)
187
00:09:35,133 --> 00:09:38,433 (gunfire, artillery fire, shouting)
188
00:09:43,100 --> 00:09:44,500 (explosion)
189
00:09:46,366 --> 00:09:48,900 ♪ Oh, oh
190
00:09:48,900 --> 00:09:51,800 (fading): ♪ Ooh, ooh, oh, oh...
191
00:09:55,466 --> 00:09:57,300 HAL KUSHNER: PRISONER OF WAR I never prayed
192
00:09:57,300 --> 00:09:59,966 the whole time I was in the P.O.W. camp,
193
00:09:59,966 --> 00:10:02,900 but I had, like, a mantra.
194
00:10:02,900 --> 00:10:05,266 Every night when I went to sleep,
195
00:10:05,266 --> 00:10:08,466 after a certain point, I would say,
196
00:10:08,466 --> 00:10:12,766 "I'll be here when the morning comes."
197
00:10:12,766 --> 00:10:15,066 And I felt if I could just live one more day,
198
00:10:15,066 --> 00:10:18,533 then I could live one more day, and then one more day.
MINUTES 10-20
199
00:10:18,533 --> 00:10:21,466 NARRATOR: At the peace talks in Paris,
200
00:10:21,466 --> 00:10:26,100 the Nixon administration had introduced a new demand--
201
00:10:26,100 --> 00:10:28,233 U.S. troops would not withdraw
202
00:10:28,233 --> 00:10:31,600 until all American prisoners had come home
203
00:10:31,600 --> 00:10:34,266 and Hanoi had provided a strict accounting
204
00:10:34,266 --> 00:10:36,633 of those missing in action.
205
00:10:36,633 --> 00:10:40,100 No one knew how many prisoners there were.
206
00:10:40,100 --> 00:10:44,066 Most were airmen held in or around Hanoi,
207
00:10:44,066 --> 00:10:46,866 but a handful of others, like Hal Kushner,
208
00:10:46,866 --> 00:10:50,400 were struggling to survive in makeshift jungle camps
209
00:10:50,400 --> 00:10:53,200 in South Vietnam.
210
00:10:53,200 --> 00:10:56,866 Hanoi would not reveal the names of the men they held,
211
00:10:56,866 --> 00:11:00,933 because they still insisted they were not prisoners of war,
212
00:11:00,933 --> 00:11:03,133 but war criminals.
213
00:11:03,133 --> 00:11:06,466 They subjected many to brutal torture,
214
00:11:06,466 --> 00:11:08,666 extracted "confessions,"
215
00:11:08,666 --> 00:11:10,933 and refused to permit inspections
216
00:11:10,933 --> 00:11:13,966 by the International Red Cross.
217
00:11:13,966 --> 00:11:18,133 The Johnson administration had generally downplayed the issue,
218
00:11:18,133 --> 00:11:22,200 hoping quiet diplomacy might bring the men home.
219
00:11:22,200 --> 00:11:23,900 The Nixon administration
220
00:11:23,900 --> 00:11:26,833 launched a "go public" campaign instead,
221
00:11:26,833 --> 00:11:29,533 meant to put the plight of American prisoners
222
00:11:29,533 --> 00:11:31,700 and those missing in action
223
00:11:31,700 --> 00:11:33,800 at the center of things.
224
00:11:33,800 --> 00:11:36,000 It also provided a rebuke
225
00:11:36,000 --> 00:11:38,166 to those in the antiwar movement
226
00:11:38,166 --> 00:11:40,333 who seemed more sympathetic
227
00:11:40,333 --> 00:11:43,566 to North Vietnamese civilians who had been bombed
228
00:11:43,566 --> 00:11:45,333 than they were to U.S. airmen
229
00:11:45,333 --> 00:11:48,966 who had been shot down doing that bombing.
230
00:11:48,966 --> 00:11:53,566 Sybil Stockdale, whose husband, Commander James Stockdale,
231
00:11:53,566 --> 00:11:56,366 was the highest-ranking prisoner in Hanoi,
232
00:11:56,366 --> 00:11:58,766 formed the National League of Families
233
00:11:58,766 --> 00:12:02,366 of Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia,
234
00:12:02,366 --> 00:12:05,100 and led delegations of wives to Paris
235
00:12:05,100 --> 00:12:08,600 to confront North Vietnamese negotiators.
236
00:12:08,600 --> 00:12:13,300 Five million Americans began wearing tin or copper bracelets
237
00:12:13,300 --> 00:12:15,933 engraved with a missing man's name
238
00:12:15,933 --> 00:12:18,433 and date of loss.
239
00:12:18,433 --> 00:12:22,766 More than 50 million P.O.W./M.I.A. bumper stickers
240
00:12:22,766 --> 00:12:26,466 would be sold over the next four years.
241
00:12:26,466 --> 00:12:28,900 Despite what their jailers had told them,
242
00:12:28,900 --> 00:12:33,200 the prisoners had not been forgotten by their country.
243
00:12:33,200 --> 00:12:35,733 Eventually, one journalist wrote,
244
00:12:35,733 --> 00:12:38,000 many "people began to speak
245
00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:42,100 "as though the North Vietnamese had kidnapped 400 Americans
246
00:12:42,100 --> 00:12:46,633 and the United States had gone to war to retrieve them."
247
00:12:46,633 --> 00:12:51,200 At the same time, the Saigon government of Nguyen Van Thieu
248
00:12:51,200 --> 00:12:54,533 was holding prisoners of its own.
249
00:12:54,533 --> 00:12:56,466 There would eventually be
250
00:12:56,466 --> 00:13:00,333 some 40,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers
251
00:13:00,333 --> 00:13:02,433 in four crowded camps.
252
00:13:02,433 --> 00:13:06,466 Another 200,000 South Vietnamese civilians
253
00:13:06,466 --> 00:13:10,366 would also be held, many without trial.
254
00:13:12,066 --> 00:13:14,400 NGUYEN TAI:
255
00:14:31,766 --> 00:14:34,766 JAMES GILLAM: There are certain rules to tunnel warfare.
256
00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:39,800 Don't turn on the light
257
00:14:39,800 --> 00:14:42,900 unless you're really, really, really sure you're alone.
258
00:14:42,900 --> 00:14:46,600 Use your senses.
259
00:14:46,600 --> 00:14:49,833 Do your first killing as quietly as you can.
260
00:14:49,833 --> 00:14:51,900 That means don't shoot.
261
00:14:53,200 --> 00:14:56,000 I chased somebody into a tunnel,
262
00:14:56,000 --> 00:15:01,433 met them at a bend in the corner, in the dark.
263
00:15:01,433 --> 00:15:03,033 I thought I was alone
264
00:15:03,033 --> 00:15:06,333 and then I smelled their breath.
265
00:15:06,333 --> 00:15:12,433 And we had a wrestling match in the dark.
266
00:15:12,433 --> 00:15:14,900 And I got the upper hand
267
00:15:14,900 --> 00:15:18,233 and crushed this person's trachea,
268
00:15:18,233 --> 00:15:20,866 held him down while he died...
269
00:15:22,600 --> 00:15:24,500 ...and then got out.
270
00:15:27,233 --> 00:15:30,033 I beat and strangled someone to death
271
00:15:30,033 --> 00:15:31,933 in a tunnel
272
00:15:31,933 --> 00:15:34,000 in the dark.
273
00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:35,700 Um...
274
00:15:35,700 --> 00:15:38,233 But that wasn't the only casualty.
275
00:15:38,233 --> 00:15:42,500 The other casualty was the civilized version of me.
276
00:15:51,333 --> 00:15:53,433 (gunfire)
277
00:15:59,300 --> 00:16:01,233 (gunfire continuing)
278
00:16:01,233 --> 00:16:03,066 (shouting)
279
00:16:03,066 --> 00:16:06,066 NARRATOR: April 1969
280
00:16:06,066 --> 00:16:09,133 marked the high point of American military commitment
281
00:16:09,133 --> 00:16:10,666 to South Vietnam.
282
00:16:10,666 --> 00:16:18,133 543,482 men and women were now in country,
283
00:16:18,133 --> 00:16:22,266 and tens of thousands more were stationed
284
00:16:22,266 --> 00:16:25,266 at airbases and aboard ships beyond its borders.
285
00:16:26,566 --> 00:16:31,366 40,794 had died.
286
00:16:31,366 --> 00:16:36,400 And more than $70 billion had been spent.
287
00:16:36,400 --> 00:16:40,000 (explosion in distance)
288
00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:42,433 That spring, a new battle
289
00:16:42,433 --> 00:16:44,633 caught the attention of the American public,
290
00:16:44,633 --> 00:16:49,433 a struggle to take still another numbered hill--
291
00:16:49,433 --> 00:16:53,166 Hill 937 on military maps.
292
00:16:53,166 --> 00:16:55,166 CHET HUNTLEY: For nine days,
293
00:16:55,166 --> 00:16:57,133 American and South Vietnamese troops have been trying
294
00:16:57,133 --> 00:16:59,166 to take a mountain near the Laotian border,
295
00:16:59,166 --> 00:17:02,200 and ten times they have been thrown back.
296
00:17:02,200 --> 00:17:03,466 (booming, shouting)
297
00:17:06,366 --> 00:17:07,433 (gunfire)
298
00:17:17,500 --> 00:17:19,700 (shouting over radio)
299
00:17:26,666 --> 00:17:29,366 The casualties have been so high--
300
00:17:29,366 --> 00:17:32,733 50 Americans and 250 North Vietnamese killed--
301
00:17:32,733 --> 00:17:35,500 that the mountain has come to be known as "Hamburger Hill."
302
00:17:35,500 --> 00:17:39,233 Today, another 600 allied troops were thrown into the battle.
303
00:17:39,233 --> 00:17:41,833 (helicopter blades whirring)
304
00:17:41,833 --> 00:17:44,300 (gunfire)
305
00:17:44,300 --> 00:17:47,000 (explosion, screaming)
306
00:17:50,866 --> 00:17:53,266 NARRATOR: A weary G.I. told a reporter
307
00:17:53,266 --> 00:17:55,400 that his battalion commander
308
00:17:55,400 --> 00:18:00,366 "won't stop until he kills every damn one of us."
309
00:18:00,366 --> 00:18:01,733 (explosion, gunfire)
310
00:18:06,700 --> 00:18:09,100 After 11 days of fighting,
311
00:18:09,100 --> 00:18:11,800 the Battle for Hamburger Hill ended.
312
00:18:13,266 --> 00:18:16,066 56 Americans died.
313
00:18:16,066 --> 00:18:20,466 420 more were wounded.
314
00:18:20,466 --> 00:18:24,166 A week later, the Americans abandoned the hill,
315
00:18:24,166 --> 00:18:27,166 just as they had abandoned so many other hills
316
00:18:27,166 --> 00:18:31,700 they had taken at great cost over the years in Vietnam.
317
00:18:33,833 --> 00:18:36,833 General, could you explain for us again the strategy involved
318
00:18:36,833 --> 00:18:39,933 in the decision to withdraw American troops
319
00:18:39,933 --> 00:18:43,066 after they had taken Hill 937, or Hamburger Hill?
320
00:18:45,266 --> 00:18:49,266 No piece of ground, as such,
321
00:18:49,266 --> 00:18:51,766 is important to us.
322
00:18:51,766 --> 00:18:53,600 HUNTLEY: In the United States Senate,
323
00:18:53,600 --> 00:18:55,433 Senator Kennedy of Massachusetts delivered
324
00:18:55,433 --> 00:18:57,333 a brief speech criticizing what he called
325
00:18:57,333 --> 00:19:00,366 a "senseless and irresponsible military pride
326
00:19:00,366 --> 00:19:02,933 "in which American men are sent to their deaths
327
00:19:02,933 --> 00:19:05,766 in pointless battles like this one for Hamburger Hill."
328
00:19:05,766 --> 00:19:07,966 Kennedy called upon President Nixon
329
00:19:07,966 --> 00:19:10,200 to issue new orders to commanders in Vietnam
330
00:19:10,200 --> 00:19:11,833 to halt such actions
331
00:19:11,833 --> 00:19:13,733 and he charged that they contradict
332
00:19:13,733 --> 00:19:15,200 the president's stated intentions
333
00:19:15,200 --> 00:19:16,900 of seeking a negotiated peace.
334
00:19:19,733 --> 00:19:23,166 NARRATOR: There had been more deadly weeks during the war,
335
00:19:23,166 --> 00:19:27,633 costlier battles, larger numbers of casualties.
336
00:19:27,633 --> 00:19:33,933 But more and more Americans seemed to have had enough.
337
00:19:33,933 --> 00:19:36,400 The following month, Life magazine
338
00:19:36,400 --> 00:19:38,533 published the names and photographs
339
00:19:38,533 --> 00:19:41,366 of all 242 Americans
340
00:19:41,366 --> 00:19:45,333 who had died in combat in just one week.
341
00:19:45,333 --> 00:19:49,300 For the first time, in a national publication,
342
00:19:49,300 --> 00:19:53,166 casualty statistics came with human faces.
343
00:19:56,066 --> 00:19:58,900 The only way they could measure success in Vietnam
344
00:19:58,900 --> 00:20:01,100 was, was was kill ratios--
345
00:20:01,100 --> 00:20:03,366 how many of them versus how many of us.
346
00:20:03,366 --> 00:20:05,633 Well, the only thing that's important
347
00:20:05,633 --> 00:20:08,033 to the American people is the "us."
348
00:20:08,033 --> 00:20:11,700 You know, if there's three us dead, that's the number.
349
00:20:11,700 --> 00:20:14,933 Not 30, you know, Vietnamese dead.
350
00:20:14,933 --> 00:20:18,100 And, so, politically, an attrition strategy
351
00:20:18,100 --> 00:20:20,366 just can't last very long.
352
00:20:20,366 --> 00:20:21,933 We don't care what the ratio is,
353
00:20:21,933 --> 00:20:23,266 we just want the absolute number
354
00:20:23,266 --> 00:20:26,000 of how many American kids died.
MINUTES 20-30
355
00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:29,366 NARRATOR: A Gallup poll now found that most Americans
356
00:20:29,366 --> 00:20:33,233 believed Vietnam had been a mistake.
357
00:20:33,233 --> 00:20:36,300 Richard Nixon knew he needed to signal to the public
358
00:20:36,300 --> 00:20:38,533 that an end was in sight.
359
00:20:40,400 --> 00:20:43,900 The National Security Council had warned Nixon
360
00:20:43,900 --> 00:20:46,033 that the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
361
00:20:46,033 --> 00:20:48,800 the secretaries of state and defense,
362
00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:53,833 the C.I.A., and the U.S. Embassy in Saigon
363
00:20:53,833 --> 00:20:56,966 all privately agreed that without U.S. combat troops,
364
00:20:56,966 --> 00:20:58,666 the South Vietnamese
365
00:20:58,666 --> 00:21:03,400 "cannot now, or in the foreseeable future,
366
00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:05,600 "stand up to both Viet Cong
367
00:21:05,600 --> 00:21:09,333 and sizeable North Vietnamese forces."
368
00:21:09,333 --> 00:21:11,366 Nonetheless,
369
00:21:11,366 --> 00:21:14,533 Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird said,
370
00:21:14,533 --> 00:21:18,066 the war was now to be "Vietnamized."
371
00:21:18,066 --> 00:21:21,800 Saigon's troops would gradually take over responsibility
372
00:21:21,800 --> 00:21:24,433 for engaging the enemy.
373
00:21:24,433 --> 00:21:27,633 It would be General Creighton Abrams' task
374
00:21:27,633 --> 00:21:30,033 to ready the ARVN for that role,
375
00:21:30,033 --> 00:21:32,833 and to make sure that American casualties
376
00:21:32,833 --> 00:21:35,066 were held down in the interim.
377
00:21:35,066 --> 00:21:37,533 ("The Letter" by The Box Tops starts playing)
378
00:21:37,533 --> 00:21:42,833 Meanwhile, American troops would start to go home.
379
00:21:42,833 --> 00:21:45,766 ♪ Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane ♪
380
00:21:45,766 --> 00:21:48,133 ♪ Ain't got time to take a fast train ♪
381
00:21:48,133 --> 00:21:49,800 DUONG VAN MAI ELLIOTT: When Nixon came in
382
00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:53,666 and he announced the phase withdrawal,
383
00:21:53,666 --> 00:21:56,200 turning over the fighting to the Vietnamese,
384
00:21:56,200 --> 00:21:58,733 which was something the French had tried before.
385
00:21:58,733 --> 00:22:00,666 They call itjaunissement--
386
00:22:00,666 --> 00:22:04,066 yellowizing the war.
387
00:22:04,066 --> 00:22:10,200 We knew that the Vietnamese Army was not up to fighting this war.
388
00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:12,766 If they couldn't do it with the Americans,
389
00:22:12,766 --> 00:22:15,933 how were they going to do it without the Americans?
390
00:22:15,933 --> 00:22:19,100 ♪ Lonely days are gone
391
00:22:19,100 --> 00:22:22,033 NARRATOR: Although Washington planned to vastly increase
392
00:22:22,033 --> 00:22:25,066 military support of the South Vietnamese Army,
393
00:22:25,066 --> 00:22:28,366 General Abrams knew that Vietnamization alone
394
00:22:28,366 --> 00:22:30,766 could never defeat the enemy.
395
00:22:30,766 --> 00:22:33,300 But he had his orders.
396
00:22:33,300 --> 00:22:36,100 McPEAK: The reason I was ordered home early
397
00:22:36,100 --> 00:22:38,033 was because Nixon... President Nixon
398
00:22:38,033 --> 00:22:41,433 announced the policy of Vietnamization.
399
00:22:41,433 --> 00:22:45,633 Now, Vietnamization was a lie,
400
00:22:45,633 --> 00:22:49,600 but it had an element of truth in it.
401
00:22:49,600 --> 00:22:51,966 We were leaving, okay?
402
00:22:51,966 --> 00:22:53,900 And that sealed the South's fate.
403
00:22:53,900 --> 00:22:55,400 I knew it.
404
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:58,433 And I think anybody who was conscious
405
00:22:58,433 --> 00:23:00,333 and could see what was going on
406
00:23:00,333 --> 00:23:01,633 knew it.
407
00:23:01,633 --> 00:23:04,233 NARRATOR: Nixon then flew to Midway Island
408
00:23:04,233 --> 00:23:07,900 to meet with South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu.
409
00:23:07,900 --> 00:23:11,133 He had not dared invite Thieu to Washington
410
00:23:11,133 --> 00:23:14,133 for fear of sparking mass demonstrations.
411
00:23:14,133 --> 00:23:15,600 ♪ Lonely days are gone
412
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:17,800 President Thieu informed me
413
00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:21,700 that the progress of the training program
414
00:23:21,700 --> 00:23:23,466 and the equipping program
415
00:23:23,466 --> 00:23:25,766 for South Vietnamese forces
416
00:23:25,766 --> 00:23:30,900 had been so successful, uh, that he could now recommend
417
00:23:30,900 --> 00:23:34,300 that the United States begin to replace
418
00:23:34,300 --> 00:23:38,700 U.S. combat forces with Vietnamese forces.
419
00:23:38,700 --> 00:23:41,266 (speaking Vietnamese)
420
00:23:43,866 --> 00:23:46,366 NARRATOR: Thieu had said no such thing
421
00:23:46,366 --> 00:23:49,000 but felt he had to go along.
422
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:51,800 "There is nothing I can do," he told a friend.
423
00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:54,233 "Just as we could do nothing about it
424
00:23:54,233 --> 00:23:56,933 "when Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson
425
00:23:56,933 --> 00:24:00,000 decided to come in."
426
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:03,133 "We were clearly on the way out of Vietnam,"
427
00:24:03,133 --> 00:24:06,366 National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger remembered,
428
00:24:06,366 --> 00:24:09,200 "by negotiation if possible,
429
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:13,100 by unilateral withdrawal if necessary."
430
00:24:13,100 --> 00:24:16,166 He and the president were redefining
431
00:24:16,166 --> 00:24:19,133 what victory would look like.
432
00:24:19,133 --> 00:24:22,166 TOM VALLELY: Nixon and Kissinger...
433
00:24:22,166 --> 00:24:24,300 They...
434
00:24:24,300 --> 00:24:26,666 Their job is to clean up.
435
00:24:26,666 --> 00:24:28,366 They're, they're...
436
00:24:28,366 --> 00:24:30,400 The war's over, okay?
437
00:24:30,400 --> 00:24:33,966 When Nixon and Kissinger, when they come, they're...
438
00:24:33,966 --> 00:24:35,433 they're not gonna win the war.
439
00:24:35,433 --> 00:24:37,866 ("Taps" playing) So they develop
440
00:24:37,866 --> 00:24:39,633 a secret strategy.
441
00:24:39,633 --> 00:24:43,500 They surrender without saying they surrendered.
442
00:24:45,966 --> 00:24:49,266 This is not a bad strategy, this is the only strategy.
443
00:24:49,266 --> 00:24:53,233 ("Circle for a Landing" by Three Dog Night starts playing)
444
00:24:53,233 --> 00:24:55,633 (indistinct announcement over P.A.)
445
00:24:57,466 --> 00:25:01,166 NARRATOR: As American soldiers began leaving South Vietnam,
446
00:25:01,166 --> 00:25:04,366 American weaponry and materiel poured in.
447
00:25:05,933 --> 00:25:08,133 ♪ Circle for a landing
448
00:25:08,133 --> 00:25:10,433 ♪ Get your feet back on the ground ♪
449
00:25:10,433 --> 00:25:13,533 More than a million M16 rifles,
450
00:25:13,533 --> 00:25:19,566 40,000 grenade launchers, thousands of wheeled vehicles--
451
00:25:19,566 --> 00:25:21,300 so many, one congressman complained,
452
00:25:21,300 --> 00:25:24,600 that it seemed as if the United States taxpayer
453
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:28,900 was being asked to "put every South Vietnamese soldier
454
00:25:28,900 --> 00:25:31,400 behind the wheel."
455
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:33,666 NEIL SHEEHAN: It didn't make any sense, of course,
456
00:25:33,666 --> 00:25:36,666 because we tried that in 1962 and '63.
457
00:25:36,666 --> 00:25:38,566 The people hadn't changed.
458
00:25:38,566 --> 00:25:40,200 They were just giving 'em more furniture.
459
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:45,400 NGUYEN THOI BUNG:
460
00:26:03,300 --> 00:26:07,233 NARRATOR: South Vietnamese armed forces were expanded
461
00:26:07,233 --> 00:26:11,600 from 850,000 men to over a million.
462
00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:13,633 But nothing could alter the fact
463
00:26:13,633 --> 00:26:15,200 that rampant corruption
464
00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:18,733 continually eroded their effectiveness.
465
00:26:18,733 --> 00:26:20,933 DON WEBSTER: The way it works is this:
466
00:26:20,933 --> 00:26:23,466 a man makes a deal with his commanding officer,
467
00:26:23,466 --> 00:26:26,200 perhaps to pay the officer his full salary.
468
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:29,266 In exchange, you never have to show up for duty,
469
00:26:29,266 --> 00:26:31,866 except perhaps once a week at the ceremony.
470
00:26:31,866 --> 00:26:34,000 So while you're theoretically in the Army,
471
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:36,400 you can hold a full-time civilian job.
472
00:26:37,666 --> 00:26:40,533 LAM QUANG THI:
473
00:26:53,300 --> 00:26:56,466 (gunfire)
474
00:26:56,466 --> 00:27:00,133 NARRATOR: Many ARVN units did fight well.
475
00:27:03,233 --> 00:27:05,366 They had borne the brunt of the fighting
476
00:27:05,366 --> 00:27:06,900 during the Tet Offensive,
477
00:27:06,900 --> 00:27:09,833 and, by the middle of 1969,
478
00:27:09,833 --> 00:27:14,533 90,000 of them had been killed in combat.
479
00:27:14,533 --> 00:27:20,033 Their bravery was often overlooked by Americans.
480
00:27:20,033 --> 00:27:23,766 VALLELY: We were disdainful of them.
481
00:27:23,766 --> 00:27:26,833 We overstated their incompetence
482
00:27:26,833 --> 00:27:30,666 because we wanted to overstate our importance.
483
00:27:30,666 --> 00:27:32,600 (booming in distance)
484
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:35,733 (men shouting, gunfire)
485
00:27:42,566 --> 00:27:47,833 Part of going to war in Vietnam I, I enjoyed.
486
00:27:47,833 --> 00:27:52,700 If you survive it, it's, it's quite thrilling.
487
00:27:52,700 --> 00:27:55,600 It's the history of the world.
488
00:27:57,066 --> 00:27:58,566 It's hard to survive.
489
00:27:58,566 --> 00:28:00,600 I mean, in, where I was, survival is an issue.
490
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:04,766 I would have loved to have been in the National Guard.
491
00:28:06,966 --> 00:28:08,433 Period.
492
00:28:08,433 --> 00:28:09,900 ("Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival playing)
493
00:28:09,900 --> 00:28:12,833 I knew the core issue
494
00:28:12,833 --> 00:28:15,766 of what was acceptable in war and what wasn't.
495
00:28:15,766 --> 00:28:17,166 I knew that.
496
00:28:17,166 --> 00:28:20,033 I didn't need to get that from the Marine Corps.
497
00:28:20,033 --> 00:28:23,566 I got that from Sunday school.
498
00:28:23,566 --> 00:28:26,566 NARRATOR: Thomas John Vallely was born in Boston,
499
00:28:26,566 --> 00:28:28,033 the son of a judge,
500
00:28:28,033 --> 00:28:31,000 and brought up in the suburb of Newton.
501
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:36,500 Undiagnosed dyslexia kept him from doing well in school.
502
00:28:36,500 --> 00:28:38,633 By 1969,
503
00:28:38,633 --> 00:28:42,333 Vallely was a radio operator in the Marine Corps,
504
00:28:42,333 --> 00:28:45,500 part of a massive search-and-destroy mission
505
00:28:45,500 --> 00:28:49,766 in Quang Nam Province in the northern part of South Vietnam.
506
00:28:49,766 --> 00:28:51,466 (men shouting, gunfire)
507
00:28:51,466 --> 00:28:53,200 On August 13,
508
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:55,000 his company was ambushed
509
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,600 and came under heavy machine gun fire.
510
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:00,000 (gunfire)
511
00:29:05,966 --> 00:29:10,200 VALLELY: It was a "grab 'em by the belt" type of situation.
512
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:13,100 And we lost a lot of people.
513
00:29:14,633 --> 00:29:15,966 So did they.
514
00:29:17,833 --> 00:29:20,000 Lot of people laying around.
515
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:22,533 (gunfire, explosion)
516
00:29:22,533 --> 00:29:24,966 NARRATOR: Vallely radioed for reinforcements.
517
00:29:24,966 --> 00:29:28,600 Then he picked up a rifle and ammunition
518
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:31,100 from a wounded Marine,
519
00:29:31,100 --> 00:29:33,233 and, firing as he went, took up a position
520
00:29:33,233 --> 00:29:36,166 just ten feet from an enemy machine gun.
521
00:29:36,166 --> 00:29:41,700 He hurled a smoke grenade to mark their position.
522
00:29:41,700 --> 00:29:45,700 And then, as enemy fire swept back and forth
523
00:29:45,700 --> 00:29:47,966 across the field,
524
00:29:47,966 --> 00:29:49,633 he moved from Marine to Marine,
525
00:29:49,633 --> 00:29:51,400 pointing out targets among the trees
526
00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:54,166 and encouraging his comrades.
527
00:30:00,166 --> 00:30:03,166 For his conspicuous gallantry,
528
00:30:03,166 --> 00:30:07,033 Tom Vallely was awarded the Silver Star.
529
00:30:07,033 --> 00:30:09,366 VALLELY: You want to tell your grandchildren
530
00:30:09,366 --> 00:30:12,600 it has a lot to do with courage,
531
00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:16,200 uh, but it, it's really quite reactive.
532
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:18,600 It's survival.
533
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:20,800 Either you're...
534
00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:23,466 It's, it's...
535
00:30:23,466 --> 00:30:25,933 There's no choice here.
536
00:30:25,933 --> 00:30:29,966 You react or you're not gonna have grandchildren.
MINUTES 30-40
537
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:34,133 COUNTRY JOE McDONALD: Give me an "F"!
538
00:30:34,133 --> 00:30:35,133 CROWD: "F"!
539
00:30:35,133 --> 00:30:36,466 McDONALD: Give me a "U"!
540
00:30:36,466 --> 00:30:37,466 CROWD: "U"!
541
00:30:37,466 --> 00:30:38,666 McDONALD: Give me a "..."!
542
00:30:38,666 --> 00:30:40,566 "..."! Give me a "..."!
543
00:30:40,566 --> 00:30:41,566 "..."!
544
00:30:41,566 --> 00:30:42,900 What's that spell?!
545
00:30:42,900 --> 00:30:44,900 NARRATOR: Two days after the battle
546
00:30:44,900 --> 00:30:47,166 in which Tom Vallely distinguished himself,
547
00:30:47,166 --> 00:30:48,966 and while half a million Americans
548
00:30:48,966 --> 00:30:51,366 were still in Vietnam,
549
00:30:51,366 --> 00:30:53,366 half a million Americans gathered
550
00:30:53,366 --> 00:30:56,266 on a dairy farm in upstate New York
551
00:30:56,266 --> 00:30:59,600 for a music festival: Woodstock.
552
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:02,100 ♪ Way down yonder in Vietnam
553
00:31:02,100 --> 00:31:04,300 ♪ Put down your books and pick up a gun ♪
554
00:31:04,300 --> 00:31:05,766 ♪ We're gonna have a whole lot of fun ♪
555
00:31:05,766 --> 00:31:10,166 ♪ And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for? ♪
556
00:31:10,166 --> 00:31:12,600 ♪ Don't ask me, I don't give a damn ♪
557
00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:15,066 ♪ The next stop is Vietnam
558
00:31:15,066 --> 00:31:17,333 ♪ And it's five, six, seven
559
00:31:17,333 --> 00:31:19,566 ♪ Open up the pearly gates
560
00:31:19,566 --> 00:31:22,733 ♪ Well, there ain't no time to wonder why, whoopee ♪
561
00:31:22,733 --> 00:31:24,833 ♪ We're all gonna die
562
00:31:24,833 --> 00:31:27,966 ("Soul Sacrifice" by Santana playing)
563
00:31:50,533 --> 00:31:51,866 ♪
564
00:32:17,866 --> 00:32:19,200 (song ends, crowd cheering)
565
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:23,600 MAN: Ladies and gentlemen, Santana!
566
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:26,433 You've been told once, you've been told twice.
567
00:32:26,433 --> 00:32:28,100 That's all-- spread it out!
568
00:32:28,100 --> 00:32:30,100 ("Time of the Season" by the Zombies playing)
569
00:32:30,100 --> 00:32:31,500 ♪ What's your name?
570
00:32:31,500 --> 00:32:33,666 GILLAM: This guy from Arkansas
571
00:32:33,666 --> 00:32:38,100 told me he would not carry the radio for me.
572
00:32:38,100 --> 00:32:43,100 He said, "I will not follow you like Cheetah follows Tarzan.
573
00:32:43,100 --> 00:32:45,333 It's not gonna happen, Sarge."
574
00:32:45,333 --> 00:32:50,166 And I thought, "Oh, this is gonna be a really long year."
575
00:32:50,166 --> 00:32:52,333 I've got people down there sweeping,
576
00:32:52,333 --> 00:32:53,666 so get 'em down there.
577
00:32:53,666 --> 00:32:55,433 ♪ It's the time
578
00:32:55,433 --> 00:32:58,700 GILLAM: He evolved a little bit.
579
00:32:58,700 --> 00:33:01,566 You know, he, he kind of got the idea
580
00:33:01,566 --> 00:33:04,733 that the enemy's bullets are colorblind.
581
00:33:04,733 --> 00:33:08,033 They would shoot anybody, not just me.
582
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:14,466 NARRATOR: African-Americans had served in every American war
583
00:33:14,466 --> 00:33:16,966 since the revolution.
584
00:33:16,966 --> 00:33:19,433 In the early years of the Vietnam War,
585
00:33:19,433 --> 00:33:21,900 they suffered a disproportionate number
586
00:33:21,900 --> 00:33:23,966 of combat deaths.
587
00:33:23,966 --> 00:33:27,233 When civil rights leaders complained,
588
00:33:27,233 --> 00:33:30,166 the Defense Department made a concerted effort
589
00:33:30,166 --> 00:33:32,333 to right that balance,
590
00:33:32,333 --> 00:33:35,933 and by 1969, it had succeeded.
591
00:33:35,933 --> 00:33:37,933 But behind the lines,
592
00:33:37,933 --> 00:33:41,600 African-American soldiers were still treated differently
593
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:43,966 from their white counterparts.
594
00:33:43,966 --> 00:33:45,866 ("Respect" by Otis Redding playing)
595
00:33:54,666 --> 00:33:56,933 SOLDIER: And here there's all, all these beast mother...
596
00:33:56,933 --> 00:33:58,166 walking around here with their hair
597
00:33:58,166 --> 00:34:00,800 looking like goddamn girls,
598
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:02,133 and we can't wear our hair
599
00:34:02,133 --> 00:34:03,866 mother... three inches long.
600
00:34:03,866 --> 00:34:06,233 The mother... regulation is three inches.
601
00:34:06,233 --> 00:34:09,000 And most of the brothers can wear a afro,
602
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:10,933 the hair gonna be mother... two inches.
603
00:34:10,933 --> 00:34:12,666 And why we got to get our hair cut?
604
00:34:12,666 --> 00:34:14,166 That's what I want to know.
605
00:34:14,166 --> 00:34:16,166 ♪ Yeah, man, ooh, yeah
606
00:34:16,166 --> 00:34:19,166 WAYNE SMITH: Vietnam was a microcosm.
607
00:34:19,166 --> 00:34:21,033 Everything that was happening in America
608
00:34:21,033 --> 00:34:22,900 was happening in Vietnam, really,
609
00:34:22,900 --> 00:34:25,133 in one way, shape, or form.
610
00:34:25,133 --> 00:34:27,066 In the rear,
611
00:34:27,066 --> 00:34:30,666 there were Confederate flags flying.
612
00:34:30,666 --> 00:34:33,833 SOLDIER 2: I mean, of all things to have over here, man,
613
00:34:33,833 --> 00:34:36,166 why a Confederate flag?
614
00:34:36,166 --> 00:34:38,433 As a matter of fact, I think there ought to be
615
00:34:38,433 --> 00:34:42,433 some goddamn law to ... outlaw them goddamn flags, man.
616
00:34:42,433 --> 00:34:46,666 The ... Confederacy is gone, man.
617
00:34:46,666 --> 00:34:49,166 SMITH: When one is in an environment
618
00:34:49,166 --> 00:34:53,933 where everyone has a gun, automatic weapon,
619
00:34:53,933 --> 00:34:56,666 I'll be goddamned if someone's gonna call me a nigger
620
00:34:56,666 --> 00:34:58,733 or give me a bull... order.
621
00:34:58,733 --> 00:35:02,800 I mean, that was the attitude, to risk my life for what?
622
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:04,333 REDDING: ♪ Sweeter than honey
623
00:35:04,333 --> 00:35:07,333 ROGER HARRIS: There was all kind of craziness happening,
624
00:35:07,333 --> 00:35:10,666 because white people were still calling, you know, us niggers,
625
00:35:10,666 --> 00:35:13,666 and then there were some black people calling us Uncle Toms.
626
00:35:13,666 --> 00:35:15,200 There were the antiwar folks
627
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:17,533 who were calling us baby killers, say...
628
00:35:17,533 --> 00:35:19,533 You know, you can say what you want, but you can say it
629
00:35:19,533 --> 00:35:21,266 from over there because if you get in range,
630
00:35:21,266 --> 00:35:25,266 you're gonna get serious damage done to you.
631
00:35:25,266 --> 00:35:26,933 Say what you want from a distance,
632
00:35:26,933 --> 00:35:29,100 but if you get close to me, I'm gonna rip your throat out.
633
00:35:29,100 --> 00:35:30,766 You know?
634
00:35:30,766 --> 00:35:34,433 JUAN RAMIREZ: But when we walked outside that wire,
635
00:35:34,433 --> 00:35:37,466 we went out into the bush, we were tight.
636
00:35:37,466 --> 00:35:39,800 Even with our differences.
637
00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:41,900 Maybe we had threatened each other,
638
00:35:41,900 --> 00:35:45,066 we'd had a fight back in the base,
639
00:35:45,066 --> 00:35:47,833 but when we were out there, you know,
640
00:35:47,833 --> 00:35:51,400 we, we were a, a fighting unit.
641
00:35:52,866 --> 00:35:56,800 And it's almost like an identity crisis.
642
00:35:56,800 --> 00:36:01,000 I was born here, and my parents were born here.
643
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:03,333 I felt, in a way,
644
00:36:03,333 --> 00:36:06,500 more American than Mexican.
645
00:36:06,500 --> 00:36:08,166 MAN: ...hand and repeat after me...
646
00:36:08,166 --> 00:36:12,566 NARRATOR: The U.S. military did not officially count Hispanics,
647
00:36:12,566 --> 00:36:17,300 but an estimated 170,000 would serve in Vietnam
648
00:36:17,300 --> 00:36:21,433 and more than 3,000 lost their lives.
649
00:36:21,433 --> 00:36:24,166 Like their fathers and grandfathers,
650
00:36:24,166 --> 00:36:28,300 many saw military service as both a patriotic duty
651
00:36:28,300 --> 00:36:31,166 and an opportunity to advance their standing
652
00:36:31,166 --> 00:36:33,800 in the United States.
653
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:37,000 But as casualties mounted
654
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:39,133 and with a burgeoning Chicano identity movement
655
00:36:39,133 --> 00:36:41,600 among farm workers and college students,
656
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:46,366 anti-war sentiment in Hispanic communities grew.
657
00:36:46,366 --> 00:36:50,100 We're protesting against the discriminatory draft laws
658
00:36:50,100 --> 00:36:52,266 that give deferments
659
00:36:52,266 --> 00:36:55,533 to all the Anglo middle-class people of this country
660
00:36:55,533 --> 00:36:58,633 and make the heaviest burdens of the war
661
00:36:58,633 --> 00:37:01,866 fall on the poor, fall on theMexicano.
662
00:37:01,866 --> 00:37:04,233 RAMIREZ: I had learned
663
00:37:04,233 --> 00:37:08,266 about my sister and my mother's antiwar activities
664
00:37:08,266 --> 00:37:10,266 while I was still in Vietnam.
665
00:37:10,266 --> 00:37:12,533 In fact, my sister wrote and said,
666
00:37:12,533 --> 00:37:15,066 "I hope you're okay with this."
667
00:37:15,066 --> 00:37:16,800 And she was honest with me.
668
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:18,800 She told me what they were doing.
669
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:22,033 She says, "I'm doing it for you, 'cause I want you to come home."
670
00:37:22,033 --> 00:37:23,933 (indistinct chanting)
671
00:37:29,166 --> 00:37:30,333 (TV clicks on)
672
00:37:30,333 --> 00:37:33,666 In line with our policy of taking a stand
673
00:37:33,666 --> 00:37:35,500 on the pressing issues of the day,
674
00:37:35,500 --> 00:37:38,500 we now present another in our continuing series of editorials.
675
00:37:38,500 --> 00:37:39,500 The subject:
676
00:37:39,500 --> 00:37:42,433 are our draft laws unfair?
677
00:37:42,433 --> 00:37:44,600 Here again, speaking for our program,
678
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:47,266 is Mr. Patrick Paulsen, vice president.
679
00:37:47,266 --> 00:37:49,000 (applause)
680
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:51,400 Now, we don't claim the draft is perfect,
681
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:53,566 and we do have a constructive proposal
682
00:37:53,566 --> 00:37:55,700 for a workable alternative.
683
00:37:55,700 --> 00:37:57,833 We propose a draft lottery
684
00:37:57,833 --> 00:38:00,300 in which the names of all eligible males
685
00:38:00,300 --> 00:38:02,033 will be put into a hat,
686
00:38:02,033 --> 00:38:05,700 and the men will be drafted according to their head sizes.
687
00:38:05,700 --> 00:38:09,333 The tiny heads will go into the military service
688
00:38:09,333 --> 00:38:13,800 and the fat heads will go into government.
689
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:15,800 SOLDIER (on radio): Roger, 3-1 is on his way.
690
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:18,533 SOLDIER (over radio): 5-8-1.
691
00:38:18,533 --> 00:38:22,666 VINCENT OKAMOTO: A 19-year-old high school dropout says,
692
00:38:22,666 --> 00:38:25,600 "Why are we here?"
693
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:27,466 And the, the standard response,
694
00:38:27,466 --> 00:38:29,500 at least on an official level, was,
695
00:38:29,500 --> 00:38:32,466 to prevent international communism
696
00:38:32,466 --> 00:38:35,466 from conquering the world.
697
00:38:35,466 --> 00:38:39,266 The men say, "Hey, that, that's bull..."
698
00:38:41,500 --> 00:38:43,133 So the other reason put forth,
699
00:38:43,133 --> 00:38:45,266 at least in the latter days of the war,
700
00:38:45,266 --> 00:38:47,766 was to maintain America's international credibility
701
00:38:47,766 --> 00:38:50,433 with our allies, and our enemies.
702
00:38:50,433 --> 00:38:54,600 Uh, no 19, 20-year-old kid wants to die to maintain
703
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:57,900 the credibility of Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon.
704
00:38:57,900 --> 00:39:01,466 And so, within a relatively short time,
705
00:39:01,466 --> 00:39:03,700 the guys were saying,
706
00:39:03,700 --> 00:39:06,566 "Look, we shouldn't be here, but we are.
707
00:39:06,566 --> 00:39:08,566 "So my only function in life
708
00:39:08,566 --> 00:39:11,833 "is to try and keep you alive, buddy,
709
00:39:11,833 --> 00:39:15,000 "and to keep my precious ass from being killed.
710
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:18,666 And then to go home and forget about this."
711
00:39:21,133 --> 00:39:23,900 SOLDIER: The grunts, uh,
712
00:39:23,900 --> 00:39:27,133 don't always do what the captain says, you know.
713
00:39:27,133 --> 00:39:30,700 We got, uh-- the captain will stay back,
714
00:39:30,700 --> 00:39:32,700 he'll tell the platoon or something
715
00:39:32,700 --> 00:39:35,500 to go out so many hundred meters, you know.
716
00:39:35,500 --> 00:39:37,333 We don't do it.
717
00:39:37,333 --> 00:39:39,233 We only go as far as we get out of sight,
718
00:39:39,233 --> 00:39:40,766 sit down, and come back in. JOHN
719
00:39:40,766 --> 00:39:42,633 PILGER: What happens to an unpopular officer
720
00:39:42,633 --> 00:39:44,766 out in the field?
721
00:39:44,766 --> 00:39:47,800 Mostly unpopular officers, from what I've heard,
722
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:50,533 if they, if they mess with a grunt too much,
723
00:39:50,533 --> 00:39:53,533 they get shot at.
724
00:39:53,533 --> 00:39:57,033 NARRATOR: It had always been a part of war.
725
00:39:57,033 --> 00:40:00,166 In Vietnam, it was called "fragging,"
726
00:40:00,166 --> 00:40:04,500 after the fragmentation grenades most often used.
727
00:40:04,500 --> 00:40:08,333 Beginning in the summer of 1969,
728
00:40:08,333 --> 00:40:12,300 as thousands of American troops began going home,
729
00:40:12,300 --> 00:40:15,966 the number of reports of the murder or attempted murder
730
00:40:15,966 --> 00:40:18,100 by enlisted men of their superiors
731
00:40:18,100 --> 00:40:21,233 increased alarmingly.
732
00:40:21,233 --> 00:40:26,466 The Army would investigate nearly 800 cases.
733
00:40:26,466 --> 00:40:28,533 Most took place far from the fighting,
734
00:40:28,533 --> 00:40:31,333 usually the violent outcome of arguments over race
735
00:40:31,333 --> 00:40:33,600 or women or drugs
736
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:36,700 rather than the war itself.
737
00:40:36,700 --> 00:40:39,366 But there were exceptions.
MINUTES 40-50
738
00:40:39,366 --> 00:40:41,366 OKAMOTO: It's a totally different army
739
00:40:41,366 --> 00:40:45,300 than what we sent to Vietnam in 1965.
740
00:40:45,300 --> 00:40:49,433 And the new lieutenant comes in, all gung-ho for body count.
741
00:40:49,433 --> 00:40:53,000 He wants contact, he goes crazy, and says,
742
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:55,400 "I want a volunteer for this."
743
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:58,100 (rapid gunfire)
744
00:40:58,100 --> 00:41:04,033 That new gung-ho officer was a clear and present danger
745
00:41:04,033 --> 00:41:07,833 to the life and limb of the grunts.
746
00:41:07,833 --> 00:41:10,500 They'd have subtle hints, like a little note saying,
747
00:41:10,500 --> 00:41:13,233 "We're gonna kill your ass if you keep this up."
748
00:41:13,233 --> 00:41:16,300 Or instead of a fragmentation grenade,
749
00:41:16,300 --> 00:41:20,133 they may throw a smoke grenade in an officer's hooch or bunker.
750
00:41:20,133 --> 00:41:24,200 And if they didn't correct their behavior and outlook,
751
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:27,700 yeah, they would frag them.
752
00:41:27,700 --> 00:41:31,466 I saw it happen in a very, uh, strange way.
753
00:41:31,466 --> 00:41:39,700 We were in a base and a Marine started running towards me.
754
00:41:39,700 --> 00:41:41,866 I didn't realize that what he...
755
00:41:41,866 --> 00:41:44,100 what he was doing back in the dark over there
756
00:41:44,100 --> 00:41:46,366 was actually throw a hand grenade
757
00:41:46,366 --> 00:41:49,933 underneath the space that is underneath a hooch.
758
00:41:49,933 --> 00:41:51,333 (explosion)
759
00:41:51,333 --> 00:41:53,733 And when it exploded, I went, "Holy ..."
760
00:41:53,733 --> 00:41:57,166 And I knew right away what he had done.
761
00:41:57,166 --> 00:42:00,533 And he was an African-American Marine.
762
00:42:00,533 --> 00:42:02,600 African-Americans were treated
763
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:05,066 with disrespect by their superiors.
764
00:42:05,066 --> 00:42:09,033 This was not uncommon.
765
00:42:09,033 --> 00:42:14,033 So in a ways, as bad as this sounds,
766
00:42:14,033 --> 00:42:16,533 maybe that guy had it coming to him.
767
00:42:16,533 --> 00:42:18,000 I don't know.
768
00:42:21,233 --> 00:42:24,166 In Paris, the 29th session of the so-called peace talks
769
00:42:24,166 --> 00:42:25,166 took place.
770
00:42:25,166 --> 00:42:27,066 There was no progress.
771
00:42:27,066 --> 00:42:30,500 In Vietnam, it was announced that 139 Americans
772
00:42:30,500 --> 00:42:32,100 lost their lives last week,
773
00:42:32,100 --> 00:42:34,800 bringing total deaths in our longest war...
774
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:37,800 NARRATOR: The four-way peace talks in Paris
775
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:40,500 continued to go nowhere.
776
00:42:40,500 --> 00:42:44,166 To break the logjam, Nixon directed Henry Kissinger
777
00:42:44,166 --> 00:42:46,933 to begin secret talks,
778
00:42:46,933 --> 00:42:49,666 the first in a series of clandestine meetings
779
00:42:49,666 --> 00:42:52,533 with the North Vietnamese alone.
780
00:42:52,533 --> 00:42:54,866 They first met in an apartment building
781
00:42:54,866 --> 00:42:57,000 on the Rue de Rivoli.
782
00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:00,033 The Viet Cong and the South Vietnamese government
783
00:43:00,033 --> 00:43:02,900 were not included.
784
00:43:02,900 --> 00:43:05,933 Hanoi remained immovable.
785
00:43:05,933 --> 00:43:09,800 They would not even admit they had troops in South Vietnam,
786
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:13,833 let alone discuss withdrawing them.
787
00:43:13,833 --> 00:43:15,700 Now Kissinger warned
788
00:43:15,700 --> 00:43:19,000 that if there were no change in their position by November 1,
789
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:21,033 the one-year anniversary
790
00:43:21,033 --> 00:43:23,466 of President Johnson's bombing halt,
791
00:43:23,466 --> 00:43:25,266 President Nixon
792
00:43:25,266 --> 00:43:28,166 would "consider steps of grave consequence."
793
00:43:40,700 --> 00:43:44,300 September 2, 1969,
794
00:43:44,300 --> 00:43:46,666 was the 24th anniversary
795
00:43:46,666 --> 00:43:50,566 of Ho Chi Minh's declaration of Vietnamese independence
796
00:43:50,566 --> 00:43:52,933 in Hanoi's Ba Dinh Square.
797
00:43:54,933 --> 00:43:59,833 At 9:45 that morning, Ho died.
798
00:43:59,833 --> 00:44:04,633 He was said to be 79, but like so much about him,
799
00:44:04,633 --> 00:44:10,033 the precise date of his birth was shrouded in mystery.
800
00:44:10,033 --> 00:44:12,733 He had been "Uncle Ho" for decades,
801
00:44:12,733 --> 00:44:16,133 the living embodiment of the struggle against the Japanese,
802
00:44:16,133 --> 00:44:19,133 the French, the Saigon government,
803
00:44:19,133 --> 00:44:22,100 and then the Americans.
804
00:44:22,100 --> 00:44:24,200 ♪
805
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:27,066 In a speech to the National Assembly,
806
00:44:27,066 --> 00:44:31,600 Le Duan, the First Secretary of the Communist Party,
807
00:44:31,600 --> 00:44:33,000 who had been the architect
808
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:35,666 of North Vietnamese military policy
809
00:44:35,666 --> 00:44:37,033 for a decade,
810
00:44:37,033 --> 00:44:41,133 promised to fulfill what he said was Ho's vision:
811
00:44:41,133 --> 00:44:47,000 the reunification of the country on communist terms.
812
00:44:48,566 --> 00:44:51,333 Nothing had changed.
813
00:44:51,333 --> 00:44:53,200 ROBERT FRISHMAN: Hanoi has given the false impression
814
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:56,566 that all is wine and roses and it isn't so.
815
00:44:56,566 --> 00:44:59,033 NARRATOR: The same day Ho Chi Minh died,
816
00:44:59,033 --> 00:45:01,766 an unusual press conference was held
817
00:45:01,766 --> 00:45:04,766 at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center.
818
00:45:04,766 --> 00:45:07,533 Two ailing prisoners of war,
819
00:45:07,533 --> 00:45:11,100 Robert Frishman and Douglas Hegdahl,
820
00:45:11,100 --> 00:45:13,466 who had recently been released by the North Vietnamese,
821
00:45:13,466 --> 00:45:15,700 spoke in public for the first time
822
00:45:15,700 --> 00:45:17,600 about the severe treatment
823
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:21,066 they and their fellow prisoners had received.
824
00:45:21,066 --> 00:45:23,633 I don't think solitary confinement,
825
00:45:23,633 --> 00:45:27,533 forced statements, living in a cage for three years,
826
00:45:27,533 --> 00:45:31,466 being put in straps, not being allowed to sleep or eat,
827
00:45:31,466 --> 00:45:35,033 removal of fingernails, being hung from a ceiling,
828
00:45:35,033 --> 00:45:37,400 having an infected arm which was almost lost,
829
00:45:37,400 --> 00:45:39,733 not receiving medical care,
830
00:45:39,733 --> 00:45:42,000 being dragged along the ground with a broken leg,
831
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:45,033 or not allowing exchange of mail to prisoners of war
832
00:45:45,033 --> 00:45:46,466 are humane.
833
00:45:46,466 --> 00:45:50,766 NARRATOR: Douglas Hegdahl was quiet, self-effacing,
834
00:45:50,766 --> 00:45:53,433 and so apparently clueless,
835
00:45:53,433 --> 00:45:55,600 his North Vietnamese guards
836
00:45:55,600 --> 00:45:58,433 had called him the "stupid one."
837
00:45:58,433 --> 00:46:00,000 But once released,
838
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:03,366 he was a gold mine of information.
839
00:46:03,366 --> 00:46:07,366 He had memorized the names of more than 200 prisoners
840
00:46:07,366 --> 00:46:11,100 to the tune of "Old McDonald Had a Farm."
841
00:46:11,100 --> 00:46:14,033 Thanks to him, scores of American families
842
00:46:14,033 --> 00:46:16,233 would find out for the first time
843
00:46:16,233 --> 00:46:21,500 that their sons and husbands and fathers were still alive.
844
00:46:21,500 --> 00:46:25,100 Within a few days of the press conference,
845
00:46:25,100 --> 00:46:28,966 Hanoi's treatment of the prisoners began to improve.
846
00:46:28,966 --> 00:46:32,933 "A lot less brutality," one captive remembered,
847
00:46:32,933 --> 00:46:35,466 "and larger bowls of rice."
848
00:46:38,100 --> 00:46:40,300 (explosion)
849
00:46:40,300 --> 00:46:41,966 (men yelling)
850
00:46:41,966 --> 00:46:43,866 (rapid gunfire)
851
00:46:50,233 --> 00:46:51,666 DEVALLIER: All right, who's wounded?
852
00:46:51,666 --> 00:46:54,400 All right, give me some cover!
853
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:57,166 RICHARD THRELKELD: Devallier is the lone medic in the platoon.
854
00:46:57,166 --> 00:46:58,433 He's scared,
855
00:46:58,433 --> 00:47:00,933 scared from the moment he gets out of the chopper
856
00:47:00,933 --> 00:47:02,466 to the moment it picks him up.
857
00:47:02,466 --> 00:47:05,466 Scared that someday he's going to get killed
858
00:47:05,466 --> 00:47:08,566 picking up a wounded buddy.
859
00:47:08,566 --> 00:47:10,466 (rapid gunfire, men yelling)
860
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:14,500 WAYNE SMITH: I was the replacement
861
00:47:14,500 --> 00:47:18,200 for a medic who had been killed.
862
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:21,866 First time out, we were assigned to do a patrol.
863
00:47:21,866 --> 00:47:25,366 MAN: Remember to stop the bleeding!
864
00:47:25,366 --> 00:47:31,066 SMITH: And we stumbled actually into an ambush.
865
00:47:31,066 --> 00:47:33,800 (explosion)
866
00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:37,266 And it was incredibly terrifying.
867
00:47:37,266 --> 00:47:39,666 Guys were screaming and yelling.
868
00:47:39,666 --> 00:47:42,033 There was shooting everywhere.
869
00:47:42,033 --> 00:47:46,100 That first firefight, I remember praying to God,
870
00:47:46,100 --> 00:47:52,333 if He got me through this that I would make a difference.
871
00:47:52,333 --> 00:47:56,733 That I really would make a difference.
872
00:47:56,733 --> 00:47:59,900 MEDIC: Sometimes their lives depend on you, I mean;
873
00:47:59,900 --> 00:48:03,000 you hold it in your hands, as a medic.
874
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:05,966 It's just hard to say but right then,
875
00:48:05,966 --> 00:48:08,300 you hold life and death in your hand.
876
00:48:08,300 --> 00:48:12,100 NARRATOR: In Vietnam, medics and navy corpsmen
877
00:48:12,100 --> 00:48:14,666 accompanied infantry units on patrols,
878
00:48:14,666 --> 00:48:16,633 search and destroy missions,
879
00:48:16,633 --> 00:48:20,233 and large-scale combat operations.
880
00:48:20,233 --> 00:48:24,100 Nearly 2,000 would lose their lives.
881
00:48:24,100 --> 00:48:26,000 (helicopter whirring)
882
00:48:27,766 --> 00:48:30,433 Unlike in previous wars,
883
00:48:30,433 --> 00:48:33,833 many medics in Vietnam chose to carry weapons,
884
00:48:33,833 --> 00:48:36,333 and when the shooting started,
885
00:48:36,333 --> 00:48:39,133 were willing to use them to protect themselves
886
00:48:39,133 --> 00:48:42,100 and their wounded comrades.
887
00:48:42,100 --> 00:48:45,600 SMITH: I carried an M16,
888
00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:48,766 but I did not know if I could kill.
889
00:48:48,766 --> 00:48:52,466 Part of being a medic was to save lives.
890
00:48:52,466 --> 00:48:58,800 I wondered, if the scenario presented itself, would I?
891
00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:03,600 I did participate in shooting at the enemy.
892
00:49:03,600 --> 00:49:06,133 We killed a lot of people.
893
00:49:06,133 --> 00:49:09,400 I feel that responsibility.
894
00:49:10,833 --> 00:49:13,700 I feel blood on my hands.
895
00:49:19,066 --> 00:49:23,800 When you kill someone for your country,
896
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:26,733 all things change.
897
00:49:28,366 --> 00:49:29,833 ("Come Ye" by Nina Simone playing)
898
00:49:29,833 --> 00:49:32,266 ♪ Come ye
899
00:49:34,666 --> 00:49:38,166 ♪ Ye who would have peace...
900
00:49:38,166 --> 00:49:39,666 SAM BROWN: We believed it's possible
901
00:49:39,666 --> 00:49:41,833 to create a substantial majority in this country
902
00:49:41,833 --> 00:49:43,533 for withdrawal from Vietnam,
903
00:49:43,533 --> 00:49:45,400 and that's what we're about in the long run.
904
00:49:45,400 --> 00:49:47,366 In November, we'll be back again,
905
00:49:47,366 --> 00:49:48,966 in December, we'll be back again.
906
00:49:48,966 --> 00:49:50,933 And we intend to build the movement,
907
00:49:50,933 --> 00:49:53,333 which will make it imperative
908
00:49:53,333 --> 00:49:55,733 that the United States withdraw from Vietnam.
909
00:49:55,733 --> 00:49:58,700 REPORTER: The organizers of the moratorium do not aim
910
00:49:58,700 --> 00:50:01,433 at confrontation or scuffles with the police.
911
00:50:01,433 --> 00:50:04,500 Instead, they want to involve the most people possible
912
00:50:04,500 --> 00:50:07,533 in some gesture of protest, however modest,
913
00:50:07,533 --> 00:50:11,166 so as to show the administration that a large bloc of Americans
914
00:50:11,166 --> 00:50:13,766 care not about winning or losing the war,
915
00:50:13,766 --> 00:50:16,066 but only about ending it.
916
00:50:16,066 --> 00:50:19,400 ♪ Ye who have no fear
917
00:50:19,400 --> 00:50:20,666 Thank you.
918
00:50:20,666 --> 00:50:23,000 NIXON: Now, I understand
919
00:50:23,000 --> 00:50:25,366 that there has been and continues to be
920
00:50:25,366 --> 00:50:28,333 opposition to the war in Vietnam on the campuses
921
00:50:28,333 --> 00:50:31,333 and also in the nation.
922
00:50:31,333 --> 00:50:32,466 Uh, we expect it.
923
00:50:32,466 --> 00:50:34,466 However, under no circumstances
924
00:50:34,466 --> 00:50:37,733 will I be affected whatever by it.
MINUTES 50-60
925
00:50:37,733 --> 00:50:41,666 NARRATOR: Hoping to undercut support for the moratorium,
926
00:50:41,666 --> 00:50:43,966 Nixon canceled the draft calls
927
00:50:43,966 --> 00:50:47,833 for the months of November and December 1969.
928
00:50:47,833 --> 00:50:51,233 And he instituted a random lottery system
929
00:50:51,233 --> 00:50:54,100 based on the date of a young man's birth,
930
00:50:54,100 --> 00:50:57,100 intended to treat rich and poor alike
931
00:50:57,100 --> 00:51:00,866 and do away with unfair deferments.
932
00:51:00,866 --> 00:51:04,566 It was good policy and a brilliant political maneuver.
933
00:51:04,566 --> 00:51:05,966 (siren wails)
934
00:51:05,966 --> 00:51:07,433 On the line, brothers and sisters.
935
00:51:07,433 --> 00:51:08,933 On the line now.
936
00:51:08,933 --> 00:51:10,600 ("Subterranean Homesick Blues" by Bob Dylan playing)
937
00:51:10,600 --> 00:51:12,833 NARRATOR: As people across the country organized
938
00:51:12,833 --> 00:51:14,766 for the peaceful moratorium,
939
00:51:14,766 --> 00:51:16,833 members of a radical faction
940
00:51:16,833 --> 00:51:19,666 of the Students for a Democratic Society--
941
00:51:19,666 --> 00:51:20,966 the "Weathermen"--
942
00:51:20,966 --> 00:51:22,166 took more direct action.
943
00:51:22,166 --> 00:51:23,566 ♪ The man in a trench coat
944
00:51:23,566 --> 00:51:26,266 NARRATOR: Less interested in ending the war
945
00:51:26,266 --> 00:51:28,866 than in sparking a violent revolution,
946
00:51:28,866 --> 00:51:33,700 they staged what they called four "Days of Rage" in Chicago.
947
00:51:33,700 --> 00:51:35,900 DYLAN: ♪ You better duck down the alleyway ♪
948
00:51:35,900 --> 00:51:39,066 MAN: We no longer simply resist the pigs.
949
00:51:39,066 --> 00:51:41,133 We no longer trap ourselves
950
00:51:41,133 --> 00:51:42,766 so that the only possible motion
951
00:51:42,766 --> 00:51:44,933 is in response to pig attacks.
952
00:51:44,933 --> 00:51:47,266 We have gone on the offensive.
953
00:51:47,266 --> 00:51:49,266 It is we who call the shots now.
954
00:51:49,266 --> 00:51:51,533 NARRATOR: "Kill all the rich people,"
955
00:51:51,533 --> 00:51:52,866 one of their leaders said.
956
00:51:52,866 --> 00:51:55,933 "Break up their cars and apartments.
957
00:51:55,933 --> 00:51:58,166 "Bring the revolution home.
958
00:51:58,166 --> 00:51:59,800 "Kill your parents.
959
00:51:59,800 --> 00:52:03,133 That's really where it's at."
960
00:52:03,133 --> 00:52:05,133 MAN: Weathermen takes its name from a line
961
00:52:05,133 --> 00:52:06,900 in a Bob Dylan song which says,
962
00:52:06,900 --> 00:52:08,766 "You don't need a weatherman
963
00:52:08,766 --> 00:52:10,300 to know the way the wind blows."
964
00:52:10,300 --> 00:52:11,933 DYLAN: ♪ Wash the plain clothes
965
00:52:11,933 --> 00:52:13,433 ♪ You don't need a weatherman
966
00:52:13,433 --> 00:52:17,166 ♪ To know which way the wind blows ♪
967
00:52:17,166 --> 00:52:19,566 NARRATOR: The Weathermen assumed
968
00:52:19,566 --> 00:52:22,333 thousands would rally to their cause.
969
00:52:22,333 --> 00:52:25,466 Only 600 did.
970
00:52:25,466 --> 00:52:29,066 They blew up a statue honoring slain policemen,
971
00:52:29,066 --> 00:52:32,400 ran through the streets wielding chains and pipes,
972
00:52:32,400 --> 00:52:34,633 smashing windows and windshields
973
00:52:34,633 --> 00:52:38,266 and charging police barriers.
974
00:52:38,266 --> 00:52:40,033 Six were shot.
975
00:52:40,033 --> 00:52:42,900 250 were jailed.
976
00:52:42,900 --> 00:52:46,233 75 policemen were injured;
977
00:52:46,233 --> 00:52:49,400 a city attorney was paralyzed for life.
978
00:52:49,400 --> 00:52:51,466 (siren wails)
979
00:52:51,466 --> 00:52:54,966 The Black Panthers denounced the Weathermen
980
00:52:54,966 --> 00:52:58,066 as "anarchistic, opportunistic...
981
00:52:58,066 --> 00:53:01,733 Custeristic."
982
00:53:01,733 --> 00:53:04,900 BILL ZIMMERMAN: Probably 1969 was the year
983
00:53:04,900 --> 00:53:07,166 in which most of us were more alienated
984
00:53:07,166 --> 00:53:11,100 and felt more like revolutionaries.
985
00:53:11,100 --> 00:53:15,900 And it led to a lot of crazy responses.
986
00:53:15,900 --> 00:53:19,866 I wanted the country to undergo a radical transformation,
987
00:53:19,866 --> 00:53:22,866 a redistribution of wealth and power.
988
00:53:22,866 --> 00:53:25,233 But to try to bring that about
989
00:53:25,233 --> 00:53:28,066 through armed struggle in the United States
990
00:53:28,066 --> 00:53:30,133 was insane.
991
00:53:30,133 --> 00:53:32,600 These were all infantile fantasies
992
00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:35,500 that people came to out of the frustration
993
00:53:35,500 --> 00:53:38,233 of not having a workable strategy
994
00:53:38,233 --> 00:53:41,600 for ending the war.
995
00:53:41,600 --> 00:53:43,200 REPORTER: What do you think people ought to do, governor,
996
00:53:43,200 --> 00:53:45,133 who are genuinely opposed to the war
997
00:53:45,133 --> 00:53:47,400 but not in favor of the Viet Cong?
998
00:53:47,400 --> 00:53:51,866 Well, I think that we have had... experiences before
999
00:53:51,866 --> 00:53:54,466 of people who have been opposed to wars,
1000
00:53:54,466 --> 00:53:57,433 and I think they deal through their own representatives,
1001
00:53:57,433 --> 00:53:59,933 and it's dealt with in government channels.
1002
00:53:59,933 --> 00:54:02,533 But once the killing starts,
1003
00:54:02,533 --> 00:54:04,500 the very difficult thing then is,
1004
00:54:04,500 --> 00:54:08,433 how do you register these protests
1005
00:54:08,433 --> 00:54:10,500 without lending comfort and aid to the enemy,
1006
00:54:10,500 --> 00:54:12,500 without strengthening his resistance
1007
00:54:12,500 --> 00:54:13,700 and his will to fight
1008
00:54:13,700 --> 00:54:16,333 and thus killing more of our men?
1009
00:54:16,333 --> 00:54:20,533 And most Americans in the past have always respected it.
1010
00:54:20,533 --> 00:54:22,200 You see, the people in this country
1011
00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:24,266 aren't fighting a Vietnam War.
1012
00:54:24,266 --> 00:54:25,833 The government's fighting it.
1013
00:54:25,833 --> 00:54:27,033 Well, the government is, uh,
1014
00:54:27,033 --> 00:54:29,266 the government is the people, supposedly, No.
1015
00:54:29,266 --> 00:54:31,533 but in this instance, it is not. Not anymore, it's not.
1016
00:54:31,533 --> 00:54:33,066 No, I agree with you, it is not.
1017
00:54:33,066 --> 00:54:34,500 Not in this situation, it's not.
1018
00:54:34,500 --> 00:54:36,033 Shouldn't I let my government know
1019
00:54:36,033 --> 00:54:37,266 that I think they're crazy?
1020
00:54:37,266 --> 00:54:38,833 I think they are insane, really.
1021
00:54:38,833 --> 00:54:40,900 This is an insane thing we're doing.
1022
00:54:40,900 --> 00:54:42,466 As a matter of fact,
1023
00:54:42,466 --> 00:54:44,633 Nixon said he will not listen to us
1024
00:54:44,633 --> 00:54:46,333 and that he will not be dictated to
1025
00:54:46,333 --> 00:54:48,233 from the people in the streets.
1026
00:54:48,233 --> 00:54:52,166 The people in the streets are me.
1027
00:54:52,166 --> 00:54:55,133 (chanting "peace now")
1028
00:54:55,133 --> 00:54:59,533 NARRATOR: The moratorium on October 15,
1029
00:54:59,533 --> 00:55:01,200 held all across the country,
1030
00:55:01,200 --> 00:55:04,133 was the largest outpouring of public dissent
1031
00:55:04,133 --> 00:55:05,666 in American history.
1032
00:55:05,666 --> 00:55:09,633 ("Blackbird" by the Beatles playing)
1033
00:55:09,633 --> 00:55:14,433 ♪ Blackbird singing in the dead of night ♪
1034
00:55:14,433 --> 00:55:19,766 ♪ Take these broken wings and learn to fly ♪
1035
00:55:19,766 --> 00:55:23,700 ♪ All your life
1036
00:55:23,700 --> 00:55:28,400 ♪ You were only waiting for this moment to arise ♪
1037
00:55:28,400 --> 00:55:31,266 NARRATOR: It was peaceful, middle-class,
1038
00:55:31,266 --> 00:55:34,366 carefully focused on ending the war.
1039
00:55:34,366 --> 00:55:36,866 "It's nice," one marcher said,
1040
00:55:36,866 --> 00:55:38,700 "to go to a demonstration
1041
00:55:38,700 --> 00:55:43,666 without having to swear allegiance to Chairman Mao."
1042
00:55:43,666 --> 00:55:45,200 ♪ All your life
1043
00:55:45,200 --> 00:55:47,833 FRANK McGEE: Surely this is a day unique in our history.
1044
00:55:47,833 --> 00:55:50,900 Never have so many of our people publicly
1045
00:55:50,900 --> 00:55:53,333 and collectively manifested opposition
1046
00:55:53,333 --> 00:55:56,500 to this country's involvement in a war.
1047
00:55:56,500 --> 00:55:59,533 It is unlikely we will remain unchanged.
1048
00:55:59,533 --> 00:56:02,566 Hundreds and hundreds of thousands
1049
00:56:02,566 --> 00:56:04,766 in cities from New York, with its eight million people,
1050
00:56:04,766 --> 00:56:08,166 to Dubois, Wyoming, with its 800 people,
1051
00:56:08,166 --> 00:56:10,500 have sought to impress upon the president
1052
00:56:10,500 --> 00:56:12,666 their opposition to the war.
1053
00:56:12,666 --> 00:56:15,066 (bell rings)
1054
00:56:15,066 --> 00:56:21,966 CAROL CROCKER: The first large protest march I went to was in Baltimore.
1055
00:56:21,966 --> 00:56:25,633 I'd never been with that many people at one time.
1056
00:56:25,633 --> 00:56:31,800 Just the energy of the crowd itself was tremendous.
1057
00:56:31,800 --> 00:56:34,200 I wondered if everybody was in it
1058
00:56:34,200 --> 00:56:36,300 for the right reasons.
1059
00:56:36,300 --> 00:56:40,966 I wasn't there to drink or smoke pot.
1060
00:56:40,966 --> 00:56:43,300 Not in those situations.
1061
00:56:43,300 --> 00:56:46,933 These, to me, were serious business.
1062
00:56:46,933 --> 00:56:50,500 This was the business of living life.
1063
00:56:50,500 --> 00:56:51,933 This was not a party.
1064
00:56:51,933 --> 00:56:54,700 I didn't just want to be with the crowd.
1065
00:56:54,700 --> 00:56:56,800 I didn't just want to make noise.
1066
00:56:56,800 --> 00:56:58,933 I wanted to make a difference.
1067
00:56:58,933 --> 00:57:03,566 And I in no way wanted to dishonor my brother.
1068
00:57:03,566 --> 00:57:05,200 ♪ For this moment to arrive
1069
00:57:05,200 --> 00:57:07,300 QUINN: For most of the government today,
1070
00:57:07,300 --> 00:57:08,833 it was business as usual.
1071
00:57:08,833 --> 00:57:10,700 But at noon on the Capitol steps,
1072
00:57:10,700 --> 00:57:13,200 a thousand young congressional staff employees
1073
00:57:13,200 --> 00:57:15,933 stood in silence for 45 minutes.
1074
00:57:15,933 --> 00:57:20,600 ♪ Blackbird singing in the dead of night ♪
1075
00:57:20,600 --> 00:57:24,100 NARRATOR: The children of several of the president's closest aides
1076
00:57:24,100 --> 00:57:25,600 and cabinet members
1077
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:28,366 took part in the national moratorium.
1078
00:57:28,366 --> 00:57:31,766 Vice President Agnew's 14-year-old daughter
1079
00:57:31,766 --> 00:57:33,500 wanted to march,
1080
00:57:33,500 --> 00:57:35,133 but he wouldn't let her.
1081
00:57:35,133 --> 00:57:37,233 Coretta Scott King,
1082
00:57:37,233 --> 00:57:40,200 the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
1083
00:57:40,200 --> 00:57:43,000 led thousands of silent demonstrators
1084
00:57:43,000 --> 00:57:46,866 streaming past the White House, where Nixon sat alone,
1085
00:57:46,866 --> 00:57:50,300 writing notes to himself on a yellow pad.
1086
00:57:50,300 --> 00:57:52,300 "Don't get rattled. Don't waver.
1087
00:57:52,300 --> 00:57:54,866 Don't react."
1088
00:57:57,466 --> 00:57:59,366 On November 3,
1089
00:57:59,366 --> 00:58:02,900 the president sought to seize back the initiative.
1090
00:58:02,900 --> 00:58:04,800 Good evening, my fellow Americans.
1091
00:58:04,800 --> 00:58:08,766 NARRATOR: He went on national television and called for patience
1092
00:58:08,766 --> 00:58:12,100 and asked Americans to rally behind him.
1093
00:58:12,100 --> 00:58:14,033 NIXON: To you,
1094
00:58:14,033 --> 00:58:18,433 the great silent majority of my fellow Americans,
1095
00:58:18,433 --> 00:58:20,433 I ask for your support.
1096
00:58:20,433 --> 00:58:23,500 I pledged in my campaign for the presidency
1097
00:58:23,500 --> 00:58:25,133 to end the war
1098
00:58:25,133 --> 00:58:28,200 in a way that we could win the peace.
1099
00:58:28,200 --> 00:58:31,966 The more support I can have from the American people,
1100
00:58:31,966 --> 00:58:34,100 the sooner that pledge can be redeemed;
1101
00:58:34,100 --> 00:58:37,633 for the more divided we are at home,
1102
00:58:37,633 --> 00:58:41,366 the less likely the enemy is to negotiate at Paris.
1103
00:58:41,366 --> 00:58:42,700 ("Okie From Muskogee" by Merle Haggard playing)
1104
00:58:42,700 --> 00:58:45,166 Let us be united for peace.
1105
00:58:45,166 --> 00:58:49,533 ♪ We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee ♪
1106
00:58:49,533 --> 00:58:51,766 NARRATOR: The speech was a triumph.
1107
00:58:51,766 --> 00:58:55,666 Nixon's approval rate soared to 68%.
1108
00:58:57,966 --> 00:59:00,433 MAN: All that's in the news
1109
00:59:00,433 --> 00:59:02,733 is the fact that the moratoriums are meeting,
1110
00:59:02,733 --> 00:59:04,800 that our country's sick...
1111
00:59:04,800 --> 00:59:06,666 sick of this and sick of that.
1112
00:59:06,666 --> 00:59:09,400 It's young people are all the ones that are standing up.
1113
00:59:09,400 --> 00:59:12,866 And there is a silent majority, which is no longer silent.
1114
00:59:12,866 --> 00:59:16,200 We're the people who are wanting to show
1115
00:59:16,200 --> 00:59:19,200 that man deserves freedom no matter where he is.
1116
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:21,500 ♪ A place where even squares can have a ball ♪
1117
00:59:21,500 --> 00:59:24,166 Many brave men died in this country to make it free...
1118
00:59:24,166 --> 00:59:25,933 I believe that.
1119
00:59:25,933 --> 00:59:28,233 and let you... and let you have everything.
1120
00:59:28,233 --> 00:59:31,566 SPIRO AGNEW: Senator Fulbright said some months ago
1121
00:59:31,566 --> 00:59:34,166 that if the Vietnam War went on much longer,
1122
00:59:34,166 --> 00:59:38,100 the best of our young people would be in Canada.
1123
00:59:38,100 --> 00:59:41,000 Indeed, as for these deserters,
1124
00:59:41,000 --> 00:59:45,066 malcontents, radicals, incendiaries,
1125
00:59:45,066 --> 00:59:47,500 the civil and the uncivil disobedience
1126
00:59:47,500 --> 00:59:49,466 among our young,
1127
00:59:49,466 --> 00:59:51,433 SDS, PLP,
1128
00:59:51,433 --> 00:59:52,666 Weatherman one, Weatherman two,
1129
00:59:52,666 --> 00:59:54,966 the Revolutionary Action Movement,
1130
00:59:54,966 --> 00:59:57,200 Panthers, lions, hippies,
1131
00:59:57,200 --> 01:00:00,100 yippies, tigers alike.
1132
01:00:00,100 --> 01:00:02,666 I'd rather swap the whole damn zoo
1133
01:00:02,666 --> 01:00:05,233 for a single platoon of the kind of young Americans
1134
01:00:05,233 --> 01:00:06,633 I saw in Vietnam.
1135
01:00:06,633 --> 01:00:09,600 (applause)
MINUTES 60-70
1136
01:00:09,600 --> 01:00:12,900 NARRATOR: "We've got the liberal bastards on the run now,"
1137
01:00:12,900 --> 01:00:15,533 Nixon told his aides,
1138
01:00:15,533 --> 01:00:19,766 "and we're going to keep them on the run."
1139
01:00:19,766 --> 01:00:21,533 ("My Son" by Jan Howard playing)
1140
01:00:29,933 --> 01:00:34,266 ♪ My son, my son
1141
01:00:34,266 --> 01:00:36,333 JAN HOWARD: My doorbell rang,
1142
01:00:36,333 --> 01:00:38,600 and it was this guy standing there,
1143
01:00:38,600 --> 01:00:41,800 and he said, "Ms. Howard, we're marching in Memphis
1144
01:00:41,800 --> 01:00:44,733 in protest of the Vietnam War."
1145
01:00:44,733 --> 01:00:46,800 I said, "Really?"
1146
01:00:46,800 --> 01:00:50,333 He said, "And we figured in view of what happened..."
1147
01:00:50,333 --> 01:00:53,600 I said, "Yeah, my son's death."
1148
01:00:53,600 --> 01:00:56,466 He said, "Well, we thought you'd like to join us."
1149
01:00:56,466 --> 01:00:58,833 I said, "One of the reasons he died
1150
01:00:58,833 --> 01:01:00,333 "was so you have the right.
1151
01:01:00,333 --> 01:01:03,266 "In this country, you have a right.
1152
01:01:03,266 --> 01:01:05,466 "Go right ahead and demonstrate.
1153
01:01:05,466 --> 01:01:07,533 Have at it."
1154
01:01:07,533 --> 01:01:10,000 I said, "But no, I won't be joining you."
1155
01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:11,733 I said, "But I'll tell you what.
1156
01:01:11,733 --> 01:01:13,566 "If you ever ring my doorbell again,
1157
01:01:13,566 --> 01:01:16,566 I will blow your damn head off with a .357 Magnum."
1158
01:01:26,900 --> 01:01:29,266 TIM O'BRIEN: Well, I was stationed in Vietnam
1159
01:01:29,266 --> 01:01:32,766 at a province called Quang Ngai.
1160
01:01:32,766 --> 01:01:34,400 Even back during the time of the French,
1161
01:01:34,400 --> 01:01:38,500 it was a very heavily Viet Minh area,
1162
01:01:38,500 --> 01:01:40,966 and, when I arrived, heavily Viet Cong.
1163
01:01:42,633 --> 01:01:46,300 NARRATOR: No province suffered more during the American war
1164
01:01:46,300 --> 01:01:48,766 than the coastal province of Quang Ngai.
1165
01:01:48,766 --> 01:01:50,833 (artillery fire)
1166
01:01:50,833 --> 01:01:55,666 More than 70% of its villages had been shelled by Navy ships,
1167
01:01:55,666 --> 01:01:59,600 bombed, bulldozed, or burned to the ground,
1168
01:01:59,600 --> 01:02:02,133 and more than 40% of its people
1169
01:02:02,133 --> 01:02:04,800 had been forced into refugee camps
1170
01:02:04,800 --> 01:02:08,366 before Tim O'Brien from Worthington, Minnesota,
1171
01:02:08,366 --> 01:02:10,766 got there in 1969.
1172
01:02:12,833 --> 01:02:14,600 O'BRIEN: It was a province that was viewed
1173
01:02:14,600 --> 01:02:17,066 much as I guess many Americans might view,
1174
01:02:17,066 --> 01:02:19,400 you know, sort of redneck America.
1175
01:02:19,400 --> 01:02:22,866 Sort of country bumpkins.
1176
01:02:22,866 --> 01:02:24,266 And they may have been country bumpkins,
1177
01:02:24,266 --> 01:02:26,833 but they were fiercely independent.
1178
01:02:26,833 --> 01:02:30,300 NARRATOR: Private O'Brien served in Alpha Company,
1179
01:02:30,300 --> 01:02:35,000 3rd Platoon, 5th Battalion, 23rd Americal Division,
1180
01:02:35,000 --> 01:02:38,233 headquartered at a landing zone called Gator,
1181
01:02:38,233 --> 01:02:41,533 "30 or 40 acres of almost-America,"
1182
01:02:41,533 --> 01:02:43,266 O'Brien remembered,
1183
01:02:43,266 --> 01:02:46,500 with hot showers and cold beer.
1184
01:02:48,233 --> 01:02:50,033 O'BRIEN: There was no sense of mission.
1185
01:02:50,033 --> 01:02:51,666 There was no sense of daily purpose.
1186
01:02:51,666 --> 01:02:53,833 We didn't know why we were in a village
1187
01:02:53,833 --> 01:02:56,066 or what we were supposed to accomplish.
1188
01:02:56,066 --> 01:02:58,333 So we'd kick around jugs of rice
1189
01:02:58,333 --> 01:03:01,366 and search houses and frisk people,
1190
01:03:01,366 --> 01:03:03,800 and not knowing what we were looking for
1191
01:03:03,800 --> 01:03:07,300 and rarely finding anything.
1192
01:03:07,300 --> 01:03:08,633 And somebody might die,
1193
01:03:08,633 --> 01:03:10,533 one of our guys, and somebody might not.
1194
01:03:10,533 --> 01:03:13,000 Then we'd come back to the same village a week later
1195
01:03:13,000 --> 01:03:15,333 or two weeks later, do it all over again.
1196
01:03:15,333 --> 01:03:18,233 It was like chasing ghosts.
1197
01:03:18,233 --> 01:03:20,533 (helicopter blades whirring)
1198
01:03:22,200 --> 01:03:24,100 NARRATOR: An American APC
1199
01:03:24,100 --> 01:03:27,733 accidentally crushed one man from O'Brien's company.
1200
01:03:27,733 --> 01:03:32,033 An enemy grenade skittered off O'Brien's helmet and exploded,
1201
01:03:32,033 --> 01:03:35,433 wounding a G.I. standing a few feet away.
1202
01:03:38,366 --> 01:03:42,300 But mines and booby traps were the greatest menace.
1203
01:03:48,800 --> 01:03:51,433 O'BRIEN: Somewhere around 80% of our casualties
1204
01:03:51,433 --> 01:03:53,833 came from land mines of all sorts.
1205
01:03:55,533 --> 01:03:58,566 In Vietnam, for me, just to get up in the morning
1206
01:03:58,566 --> 01:04:01,933 and look out at the land and think,
1207
01:04:01,933 --> 01:04:04,833 "In a few minutes I'll be walking out there,
1208
01:04:04,833 --> 01:04:07,800 "and will my corpse be there or there?
1209
01:04:07,800 --> 01:04:11,100 Will I lose a leg out there?"
1210
01:04:11,100 --> 01:04:15,433 I'd always thought of courage as charging enemy bunkers
1211
01:04:15,433 --> 01:04:17,800 or standing up under fire.
1212
01:04:17,800 --> 01:04:21,233 But just to walk through Quang Ngai,
1213
01:04:21,233 --> 01:04:23,600 day after day, from village to village,
1214
01:04:23,600 --> 01:04:28,066 and through the paddies and up into the mountains,
1215
01:04:28,066 --> 01:04:31,700 just to make your legs move was an act of courage
1216
01:04:31,700 --> 01:04:34,466 that if, say, you were living in Sioux City,
1217
01:04:34,466 --> 01:04:36,200 it wouldn't be courageous
1218
01:04:36,200 --> 01:04:38,800 to walk to the grocery store or down Main Street,
1219
01:04:38,800 --> 01:04:41,433 you know, just to have your legs go back and forth.
1220
01:04:41,433 --> 01:04:43,166 But in Vietnam, for me,
1221
01:04:43,166 --> 01:04:45,366 just to walk felt incredibly brave.
1222
01:04:45,366 --> 01:04:47,933 I would sometimes look at my legs as I walked,
1223
01:04:47,933 --> 01:04:49,900 thinking, "How am I doing this?"
1224
01:04:52,700 --> 01:04:54,533 BAO NINH:
1225
01:05:22,266 --> 01:05:24,600 NARRATOR: Bao Ninh was 17
1226
01:05:24,600 --> 01:05:27,566 when he was drafted into the North Vietnamese Army
1227
01:05:27,566 --> 01:05:28,766 to fight the Americans,
1228
01:05:28,766 --> 01:05:32,166 just as his father had fought the French.
1229
01:05:32,166 --> 01:05:35,500 His war would take place in the Central Highlands
1230
01:05:35,500 --> 01:05:37,733 of South Vietnam.
1231
01:05:37,733 --> 01:05:39,933 It was American firepower
1232
01:05:39,933 --> 01:05:44,566 that Bao Ninh and his fellow soldiers feared the most.
1233
01:05:44,566 --> 01:05:45,566 (explosion)
1234
01:05:45,566 --> 01:05:47,266 BAO NINH:
1235
01:07:12,766 --> 01:07:14,133 (explosion)
1236
01:08:03,966 --> 01:08:06,366 (birds chirping, squawking)
1237
01:08:10,000 --> 01:08:12,166 NARRATOR: Back in the spring,
1238
01:08:12,166 --> 01:08:15,700 Tim O'Brien's outfit had been sent into an area of operations
1239
01:08:15,700 --> 01:08:18,600 the Americans called "Pinkville,"
1240
01:08:18,600 --> 01:08:20,533 clusters of villages
1241
01:08:20,533 --> 01:08:23,899 that included a hamlet they called My Lai.
1242
01:08:25,833 --> 01:08:28,066 O'BRIEN: We hated going there.
1243
01:08:28,066 --> 01:08:30,933 When we'd get the word, "You're headed for Pinkville,"
1244
01:08:30,933 --> 01:08:32,966 one guy would say to another, "Somebody's gonna die,"
1245
01:08:32,966 --> 01:08:34,399 or, "Somebody's gonna lose a leg."
1246
01:08:34,399 --> 01:08:36,500 We were terrified of the place.
1247
01:08:36,500 --> 01:08:40,033 It was littered with land mines.
1248
01:08:40,033 --> 01:08:41,966 The villagers were...
1249
01:08:41,966 --> 01:08:43,866 The expressions on their faces,
1250
01:08:43,866 --> 01:08:48,266 including the children of, say, six or five years old,
1251
01:08:48,266 --> 01:08:53,366 had a mixture of hostility and terror.
1252
01:08:55,700 --> 01:08:57,266 I can't say many of the villagers
1253
01:08:57,266 --> 01:08:59,399 came with open arms to us,
1254
01:08:59,399 --> 01:09:01,600 but this place was special.
1255
01:09:01,600 --> 01:09:03,700 And I remember talking to fellow soldiers,
1256
01:09:03,700 --> 01:09:05,966 thinking, "What is it with this place?"
1257
01:09:07,333 --> 01:09:09,466 And then about three-quarters of the way
1258
01:09:09,466 --> 01:09:11,200 through my tour in Vietnam,
1259
01:09:11,200 --> 01:09:14,399 the story of the My Lai Massacre broke in the States.
1260
01:09:15,700 --> 01:09:18,800 NARRATOR: On November 12, 1969,
1261
01:09:18,800 --> 01:09:21,433 the Dispatch News Service in Washington
1262
01:09:21,433 --> 01:09:25,500 moved a story by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.
1263
01:09:26,866 --> 01:09:29,200 It was soon followed by the publication
1264
01:09:29,200 --> 01:09:34,166 of graphic photos taken by Army photographer Ronald Haeberle.
1265
01:09:35,633 --> 01:09:39,566 The story and the pictures stunned the country.
1266
01:09:39,566 --> 01:09:41,233 HUNTLEY: Charges have been made
1267
01:09:41,233 --> 01:09:44,066 that troops of the Americal Division
1268
01:09:44,066 --> 01:09:47,600 killed as many as 567 South Vietnamese civilians
1269
01:09:47,600 --> 01:09:50,766 during a sweep in March 1968.
MINUTES 70-80
1270
01:09:52,033 --> 01:09:54,100 NARRATOR: 20 months earlier,
1271
01:09:54,100 --> 01:09:57,666 on the morning of March 16, 1968,
1272
01:09:57,666 --> 01:10:00,400 105 men from a rifle company
1273
01:10:00,400 --> 01:10:02,666 belonging to the Americal Division,
1274
01:10:02,666 --> 01:10:04,866 and led by Captain Ernest Medina
1275
01:10:04,866 --> 01:10:07,100 and Lieutenant William Calley,
1276
01:10:07,100 --> 01:10:11,200 had been ordered to helicopter into the village of My Lai 4.
1277
01:10:12,533 --> 01:10:15,866 Since arriving in Vietnam, they had lost 28 men
1278
01:10:15,866 --> 01:10:20,833 to mines and booby traps and unseen snipers.
1279
01:10:20,833 --> 01:10:25,800 Two days earlier, a popular squad leader had been killed.
1280
01:10:25,800 --> 01:10:29,566 They had been told a unit of main-force Viet Cong
1281
01:10:29,566 --> 01:10:31,333 was waiting for them,
1282
01:10:31,333 --> 01:10:34,100 and they were eager for revenge.
1283
01:10:35,400 --> 01:10:38,000 But they received no hostile fire,
1284
01:10:38,000 --> 01:10:42,800 encountered no enemy soldiers.
1285
01:10:44,266 --> 01:10:47,666 Instead, over the next four hours,
1286
01:10:47,666 --> 01:10:50,600 Medina, Calley, and their men murdered
1287
01:10:50,600 --> 01:10:58,266 407 defenseless old men, women, children, and infants.
1288
01:11:08,333 --> 01:11:11,100 Many of the women and girls were raped
1289
01:11:11,100 --> 01:11:13,400 before they were shot.
1290
01:11:16,466 --> 01:11:18,866 There would have been still more slaughter
1291
01:11:18,866 --> 01:11:23,133 had a helicopter pilot named Hugh Thompson, Jr., not landed
1292
01:11:23,133 --> 01:11:26,633 between the men and some of their intended targets
1293
01:11:26,633 --> 01:11:30,366 and ordered his crew to open fire on their fellow Americans
1294
01:11:30,366 --> 01:11:33,633 if they did not stop shooting civilians.
1295
01:11:36,866 --> 01:11:40,533 At the same time, just a mile or so away,
1296
01:11:40,533 --> 01:11:45,233 another company murdered 97 more villagers.
1297
01:11:47,233 --> 01:11:50,366 O'BRIEN: And suddenly it was like a window shade going up,
1298
01:11:50,366 --> 01:11:51,900 and then there's light,
1299
01:11:51,900 --> 01:11:54,000 and we understood what had engendered
1300
01:11:54,000 --> 01:11:57,433 this horror in these kids' faces
1301
01:11:57,433 --> 01:12:00,266 and fear and the... and the hatred.
1302
01:12:00,266 --> 01:12:03,966 Hundred and some American soldiers in four hours or so
1303
01:12:03,966 --> 01:12:06,733 butchering innocent people,
1304
01:12:06,733 --> 01:12:08,900 in all kinds of ways-- machine-gunning them
1305
01:12:08,900 --> 01:12:11,300 and throwing them in wells and scalping them
1306
01:12:11,300 --> 01:12:13,300 and killing them in ditches
1307
01:12:13,300 --> 01:12:15,900 and taking a lunch break and then doing it some more.
1308
01:12:17,033 --> 01:12:19,266 Systematic homicide.
1309
01:12:19,266 --> 01:12:20,900 MIKE WALLACE: What kind of people?
1310
01:12:20,900 --> 01:12:22,000 Men, women, children?
1311
01:12:22,000 --> 01:12:23,533 PAUL MEADLO: Men, women, children.
1312
01:12:23,533 --> 01:12:25,333 WALLACE: Babies? MEADLO: Babies.
1313
01:12:25,333 --> 01:12:27,333 Uh, Lieutenant Calley came over and said,
1314
01:12:27,333 --> 01:12:29,333 "You know what to do with them, don't you?"
1315
01:12:29,333 --> 01:12:30,933 And, uh, I said, "Yes."
1316
01:12:30,933 --> 01:12:35,033 So l took it for granted that he just wanted us to watch them.
1317
01:12:35,033 --> 01:12:36,900 And he left and came back
1318
01:12:36,900 --> 01:12:39,566 about ten or... ten or 15 minutes later,
1319
01:12:39,566 --> 01:12:43,833 and said, "How come you ain't, uh, killed them yet?"
1320
01:12:43,833 --> 01:12:45,500 You killed how many at that time?
1321
01:12:45,500 --> 01:12:48,133 Well, I fired my automatic, so, uh...
1322
01:12:48,133 --> 01:12:50,866 you can't, uh... you just spray the area on them,
1323
01:12:50,866 --> 01:12:53,333 so you really can't know how many you killed
1324
01:12:53,333 --> 01:12:56,166 because it comes out so doggone fast.
1325
01:12:56,166 --> 01:13:00,466 So I, I might've killed about, uh, ten or 15 of them.
1326
01:13:01,600 --> 01:13:03,200 Men, women, and children?
1327
01:13:03,200 --> 01:13:04,866 Men, women, and children.
1328
01:13:04,866 --> 01:13:06,933 And babies? And babies.
1329
01:13:08,400 --> 01:13:10,400 Why did I do it?
1330
01:13:10,400 --> 01:13:13,300 Because I felt like I was ordered to do it.
1331
01:13:13,300 --> 01:13:15,866 And it seemed like, uh...
1332
01:13:18,566 --> 01:13:22,633 Well, at the time, I felt like I was doing the right thing.
1333
01:13:22,633 --> 01:13:24,633 I really did.
1334
01:13:24,633 --> 01:13:27,866 Because, uh, like I said, I lost buddies,
1335
01:13:27,866 --> 01:13:29,866 I lost... I lost a good...
1336
01:13:29,866 --> 01:13:34,333 damn good buddy-- Bobby Wilson--
1337
01:13:34,333 --> 01:13:38,100 and it was on my conscience, and it was on...
1338
01:13:38,100 --> 01:13:40,166 So after I done it, I felt good.
1339
01:13:40,166 --> 01:13:44,433 But later on that day, it was getting to me.
1340
01:13:44,433 --> 01:13:47,600 It's so hard, I think, for a good many Americans
1341
01:13:47,600 --> 01:13:50,733 to understand that young, capable,
1342
01:13:50,733 --> 01:13:54,066 brave American boys
1343
01:13:54,066 --> 01:13:57,100 could line up
1344
01:13:57,100 --> 01:14:01,866 old men, women, children, and babies
1345
01:14:01,866 --> 01:14:04,600 and shoot them down in cold blood.
1346
01:14:09,333 --> 01:14:11,666 How do you explain that?
1347
01:14:11,666 --> 01:14:13,600 I wouldn't know.
1348
01:14:19,533 --> 01:14:21,433 (low, distant chatter)
1349
01:14:23,700 --> 01:14:27,966 NARRATOR: The killing of civilians has happened in every war.
1350
01:14:27,966 --> 01:14:32,366 In Vietnam, it was not policy or routine,
1351
01:14:32,366 --> 01:14:35,000 but it was not an aberration, either.
1352
01:14:36,566 --> 01:14:41,500 Still, the scale and deliberateness and intimacy
1353
01:14:41,500 --> 01:14:43,733 of what happened at My Lai
1354
01:14:43,733 --> 01:14:45,133 was different.
1355
01:14:45,133 --> 01:14:46,866 SHEEHAN: It was different
1356
01:14:46,866 --> 01:14:49,700 because they were killing Vietnamese point-blank
1357
01:14:49,700 --> 01:14:51,166 with rifles and grenades.
1358
01:14:51,166 --> 01:14:53,600 They were murdering them directly.
1359
01:14:53,600 --> 01:14:55,900 They weren't doing it with bombs and artillery.
1360
01:14:55,900 --> 01:14:57,433 If they'd been doing it with bombs and artillery,
1361
01:14:57,433 --> 01:14:58,600 nobody would have said a word,
1362
01:14:58,600 --> 01:14:59,600 because it was going on all the time.
1363
01:15:01,133 --> 01:15:02,533 NARRATOR: Not every soldier
1364
01:15:02,533 --> 01:15:04,366 participated in the killings that day.
1365
01:15:04,366 --> 01:15:08,000 Some led villagers away to safety.
1366
01:15:08,000 --> 01:15:10,866 But a failure of military leadership
1367
01:15:10,866 --> 01:15:14,066 at nearly every level had created the conditions
1368
01:15:14,066 --> 01:15:17,566 that made the massacre possible.
1369
01:15:17,566 --> 01:15:21,900 The My Lai story might have shocked the American public,
1370
01:15:21,900 --> 01:15:24,200 but it was not news to the Army.
1371
01:15:24,200 --> 01:15:27,466 It had occurred almost two years before,
1372
01:15:27,466 --> 01:15:30,633 just after the Tet Offensive.
1373
01:15:30,633 --> 01:15:33,133 Hugh Thompson, the helicopter pilot
1374
01:15:33,133 --> 01:15:35,300 who had tried to stop the massacre,
1375
01:15:35,300 --> 01:15:38,233 reported what he had seen,
1376
01:15:38,233 --> 01:15:40,233 but no one in the chain of command
1377
01:15:40,233 --> 01:15:41,500 was willing to act.
1378
01:15:41,500 --> 01:15:45,233 The slaughter was covered up.
1379
01:15:45,233 --> 01:15:49,100 Later, an ex-corporal named Ronald Ridenhour,
1380
01:15:49,100 --> 01:15:50,866 who had heard about what had happened
1381
01:15:50,866 --> 01:15:52,900 from several men who had been there,
1382
01:15:52,900 --> 01:15:56,400 wrote letters to the president of the United States,
1383
01:15:56,400 --> 01:15:58,300 the secretary of defense,
1384
01:15:58,300 --> 01:16:02,366 and more than two dozen other high-ranking officials.
1385
01:16:02,366 --> 01:16:05,633 STAN ATKINSON: Personally, what decision-making process
1386
01:16:05,633 --> 01:16:08,566 did you go through before you decided to take your action?
1387
01:16:08,566 --> 01:16:12,333 I guess I just wrestled with my own conscience
1388
01:16:12,333 --> 01:16:14,700 to try to decide what action to take.
1389
01:16:14,700 --> 01:16:16,833 I felt that I had to take some action.
1390
01:16:16,833 --> 01:16:18,300 I had to do something.
1391
01:16:18,300 --> 01:16:19,666 I couldn't just...
1392
01:16:19,666 --> 01:16:22,266 just rest with this knowledge for the rest of my life
1393
01:16:22,266 --> 01:16:25,200 that I couldn't... I couldn't live with myself if I did.
1394
01:16:25,200 --> 01:16:28,266 NARRATOR: President Nixon's first reaction
1395
01:16:28,266 --> 01:16:32,500 was to investigate those who reported the slaughter.
1396
01:16:32,500 --> 01:16:35,300 "It's those dirty rotten Jews from New York
1397
01:16:35,300 --> 01:16:36,666 who are behind it,"
1398
01:16:36,666 --> 01:16:38,200 he told an aide.
1399
01:16:38,200 --> 01:16:42,600 Eventually, Lieutenant General William R. Peers,
1400
01:16:42,600 --> 01:16:46,533 a veteran of 30 months as a troop commander in Vietnam,
1401
01:16:46,533 --> 01:16:48,333 was assigned to head a panel
1402
01:16:48,333 --> 01:16:51,233 to look into what had really happened.
1403
01:16:51,233 --> 01:16:54,400 Peers found that 30 persons,
1404
01:16:54,400 --> 01:16:56,833 including the division commander,
1405
01:16:56,833 --> 01:16:59,166 General Samuel W. Koster,
1406
01:16:59,166 --> 01:17:01,633 had either committed atrocities
1407
01:17:01,633 --> 01:17:05,600 or had conspired to cover them up.
1408
01:17:09,600 --> 01:17:13,466 Peers had wanted to call My Lai a "massacre."
1409
01:17:13,466 --> 01:17:16,833 His superiors made him use the phrase,
1410
01:17:16,833 --> 01:17:20,966 "a tragedy of major proportions."
1411
01:17:20,966 --> 01:17:26,566 In the end, the Army indicted 25 officers and men,
1412
01:17:26,566 --> 01:17:31,733 including the platoon leader, Lieutenant William Calley.
1413
01:17:34,300 --> 01:17:36,400 VALLELY: Calley's a killer.
1414
01:17:36,400 --> 01:17:38,433 Calley's a murderer
1415
01:17:38,433 --> 01:17:40,633 and a... a sick person.
1416
01:17:42,733 --> 01:17:45,866 I'm not gonna be in any, you know, uh,
1417
01:17:45,866 --> 01:17:48,433 propaganda movie for the United States Marine Corps,
1418
01:17:48,433 --> 01:17:50,366 but we didn't have that guy.
1419
01:17:52,633 --> 01:17:55,166 We had individuals who, who...
1420
01:17:55,166 --> 01:17:57,233 who committed war crimes, of course.
1421
01:17:57,233 --> 01:18:01,366 And, um, you know, I wanted to kill them.
1422
01:18:01,366 --> 01:18:03,866 I sometimes wish I did kill 'em.
1423
01:18:06,700 --> 01:18:10,466 But... I was afraid to kill 'em.
1424
01:18:12,866 --> 01:18:14,900 ♪ Two, one, two, three, four
1425
01:18:14,900 --> 01:18:17,700 ("Give Peace a Chance" by The Plastic Ono Band plays)
1426
01:18:17,700 --> 01:18:20,333 (loud crowd chatter)
1427
01:18:20,333 --> 01:18:21,966 ♪ Everybody's talking about...
1428
01:18:21,966 --> 01:18:25,200 ZIMMERMAN: I never considered the Vietnamese our enemy.
1429
01:18:25,200 --> 01:18:26,966 They had never done anything
1430
01:18:26,966 --> 01:18:29,633 to threaten the security of the United States.
1431
01:18:29,633 --> 01:18:32,466 They were off 10,000 miles away,
1432
01:18:32,466 --> 01:18:34,300 minding their own business,
1433
01:18:34,300 --> 01:18:36,766 and we went there to their country,
1434
01:18:36,766 --> 01:18:38,333 told them what kind of government
1435
01:18:38,333 --> 01:18:40,700 we wanted them to have.
1436
01:18:40,700 --> 01:18:44,933 JAMES WILLBANKS: Well, when I see the war protesters,
1437
01:18:44,933 --> 01:18:46,800 I react on a couple of levels.
1438
01:18:46,800 --> 01:18:49,433 Intellectually, I certainly understand their right
1439
01:18:49,433 --> 01:18:51,233 to the freedom of speech.
1440
01:18:51,233 --> 01:18:52,733 But I will tell you
1441
01:18:52,733 --> 01:18:55,766 that when I see them waving NLF flags,
1442
01:18:55,766 --> 01:18:59,100 the enemy that I and my friends had to fight,
1443
01:18:59,100 --> 01:19:02,466 and some of my friends had to die fighting,
1444
01:19:02,466 --> 01:19:04,200 that doesn't sit very well with me.
1445
01:19:04,200 --> 01:19:07,433 ♪ All we are saying...
1446
01:19:07,433 --> 01:19:10,466 NARRATOR: On November 15, 1969,
1447
01:19:10,466 --> 01:19:12,800 half a million citizens turned out
1448
01:19:12,800 --> 01:19:15,433 against the war in Washington, again.
1449
01:19:15,433 --> 01:19:17,833 ♪ Everybody's talking about revolution... ♪
1450
01:19:17,833 --> 01:19:21,166 NARRATOR: This time, buses provided an impenetrable wall
1451
01:19:21,166 --> 01:19:23,466 around the White House.
1452
01:19:23,466 --> 01:19:25,933 President Nixon claimed he was too busy
1453
01:19:25,933 --> 01:19:28,200 watching football on television
1454
01:19:28,200 --> 01:19:29,566 to pay attention,
1455
01:19:29,566 --> 01:19:34,066 but he did suggest that Army helicopters might be used
1456
01:19:34,066 --> 01:19:36,066 to blow out the marchers' candles.
1457
01:19:36,066 --> 01:19:38,166 ♪ All we are saying...
1458
01:19:38,166 --> 01:19:39,700 (car horns honking)
1459
01:19:39,700 --> 01:19:41,766 NARRATOR: Hundreds of thousands of others demonstrated
1460
01:19:41,766 --> 01:19:45,366 in San Francisco and New York.
1461
01:19:45,366 --> 01:19:47,100 (indistinct shouting)
1462
01:19:47,100 --> 01:19:50,000 (cheering and whistling, indistinct shouting)
1463
01:19:52,533 --> 01:19:55,000 The most striking antiwar protest
1464
01:19:55,000 --> 01:19:56,333 of this Thanksgiving Day
1465
01:19:56,333 --> 01:19:58,900 occurred not in this country, but in Vietnam,
1466
01:19:58,900 --> 01:20:01,433 though its form was uniquely American.
1467
01:20:01,433 --> 01:20:03,633 About 100 American soldiers
1468
01:20:03,633 --> 01:20:06,133 stationed at a hospital in Pleiku
1469
01:20:06,133 --> 01:20:08,800 refused to eat their traditional turkey dinner.
1470
01:20:08,800 --> 01:20:12,766 They described their fast as a passive protest against the war.
MINUTES 80-90
1471
01:20:14,566 --> 01:20:17,000 ("Born Under a Bad Sign" by Booker T. and the M.G.'s plays)
1472
01:20:21,533 --> 01:20:23,300 The Army did what the Army does.
1473
01:20:23,300 --> 01:20:24,866 Every year, you know, for Thanksgiving,
1474
01:20:24,866 --> 01:20:26,133 they make a big deal.
1475
01:20:26,133 --> 01:20:27,400 They're gonna bring in turkey,
1476
01:20:27,400 --> 01:20:28,866 they're gonna bring in mashed potatoes,
1477
01:20:28,866 --> 01:20:31,300 and apple pie and whatever.
1478
01:20:31,300 --> 01:20:33,300 And by this point, I think,
1479
01:20:33,300 --> 01:20:36,366 a lot of us were very, very cynical about the war
1480
01:20:36,366 --> 01:20:38,300 and what was going on.
1481
01:20:38,300 --> 01:20:41,800 But we weren't gonna make a big deal about it.
1482
01:20:41,800 --> 01:20:44,466 We knew there were gonna be TV people there.
1483
01:20:44,466 --> 01:20:47,700 And a couple of the organizers were looking for people to talk.
1484
01:20:47,700 --> 01:20:49,433 They came to me, I said, "No."
1485
01:20:49,433 --> 01:20:51,866 I said, "Look, I'm gonna fast and do my thing."
1486
01:20:51,866 --> 01:20:53,833 I said, "But I, I really don't want
1487
01:20:53,833 --> 01:20:56,266 to be involved with any media thing."
1488
01:20:56,266 --> 01:21:00,766 NARRATOR: That Thanksgiving Day, Lieutenant Furey was on duty
1489
01:21:00,766 --> 01:21:05,000 when one of her patients took a sudden turn for the worse.
1490
01:21:05,000 --> 01:21:08,133 FUREY: Some patients, they just get into your heart.
1491
01:21:08,133 --> 01:21:09,833 And this kid, I think he was 18.
1492
01:21:09,833 --> 01:21:11,366 His name was Timmy.
1493
01:21:11,366 --> 01:21:15,900 It was unlikely he was gonna survive.
1494
01:21:15,900 --> 01:21:19,466 And I just got so angry.
1495
01:21:19,466 --> 01:21:23,000 I just lost it.
1496
01:21:23,000 --> 01:21:25,200 I remember walking out of the O.R.,
1497
01:21:25,200 --> 01:21:27,100 I ripped off the gown, and I ripped off the mask,
1498
01:21:27,100 --> 01:21:30,366 I walked outside, I said, "Where are those reporters?"
1499
01:21:43,533 --> 01:21:45,700 I mean, you know, you don't demonstrate against the war
1500
01:21:45,700 --> 01:21:46,933 in a war zone.
1501
01:21:46,933 --> 01:21:49,933 By that time, of course, you, you had the attitude,
1502
01:21:49,933 --> 01:21:51,866 "What are they gonna do?
1503
01:21:51,866 --> 01:21:53,766 Send me to Vietnam?"
1504
01:21:56,233 --> 01:21:59,866 (loud, overlapping chatter and shouting)
1505
01:21:59,866 --> 01:22:02,766 (indistinct chanting)
1506
01:22:02,766 --> 01:22:05,800 JOHN MUSGRAVE: Let's just say that being a Marine combat veteran
1507
01:22:05,800 --> 01:22:09,866 on a college campus in 1969 and 1970--
1508
01:22:09,866 --> 01:22:11,733 it wasn't a real good thing to be
1509
01:22:11,733 --> 01:22:13,800 if you wanted to get dates and be popular.
1510
01:22:16,600 --> 01:22:20,166 When I came home, it seemed like
1511
01:22:20,166 --> 01:22:23,500 I didn't have anything to give to anybody else.
1512
01:22:26,933 --> 01:22:31,066 NARRATOR: Marine Corporal John Musgrave had very nearly died
1513
01:22:31,066 --> 01:22:35,800 in combat below the DMZ in the autumn of 1967.
1514
01:22:35,800 --> 01:22:38,700 Wounded in the jaw and shoulder,
1515
01:22:38,700 --> 01:22:42,500 his ribs shattered, lung pierced, nerves cut,
1516
01:22:42,500 --> 01:22:46,933 he had spent 17 months in Navy hospitals.
1517
01:22:46,933 --> 01:22:50,100 He was now studying at Baker University
1518
01:22:50,100 --> 01:22:52,966 in Baldwin City, Kansas.
1519
01:22:52,966 --> 01:22:55,300 (indistinct chanting and shouting)
1520
01:22:55,300 --> 01:22:59,700 But wherever he went, the war was never far away.
1521
01:23:02,000 --> 01:23:06,433 MUSGRAVE: And the peace movement, for a while, got real nasty,
1522
01:23:06,433 --> 01:23:08,433 calling veterans baby killers.
1523
01:23:10,500 --> 01:23:12,433 It did more than piss us off.
1524
01:23:12,433 --> 01:23:14,366 It broke our hearts.
1525
01:23:14,366 --> 01:23:16,733 What were they thinking?
1526
01:23:16,733 --> 01:23:22,133 You don't turn your backs on your warriors.
1527
01:23:22,133 --> 01:23:24,666 I didn't trust anybody anymore.
1528
01:23:26,133 --> 01:23:28,533 Just my family.
1529
01:23:28,533 --> 01:23:31,100 NARRATOR: Musgrave was so hurt
1530
01:23:31,100 --> 01:23:33,200 by the way some people treated him
1531
01:23:33,200 --> 01:23:36,633 that he volunteered to return to Vietnam.
1532
01:23:36,633 --> 01:23:40,366 Because of his injuries, the Marines turned him down,
1533
01:23:40,366 --> 01:23:44,333 and asked him to help recruit men instead.
1534
01:23:44,333 --> 01:23:46,366 He did for a time,
1535
01:23:46,366 --> 01:23:49,466 but when students asked him questions about the war
1536
01:23:49,466 --> 01:23:51,333 he couldn't answer,
1537
01:23:51,333 --> 01:23:52,533 he also began to read
1538
01:23:52,533 --> 01:23:56,933 about how and why it was being fought.
1539
01:23:56,933 --> 01:24:00,700 MUSGRAVE: I had friends in country on a second tour,
1540
01:24:00,700 --> 01:24:03,966 and, you know, I, I was still... considered myself a Marine.
1541
01:24:03,966 --> 01:24:06,866 and... and the more I read,
1542
01:24:06,866 --> 01:24:12,200 the less I found to be able to defend our presence there.
1543
01:24:12,200 --> 01:24:16,333 So then, I, I just stopped talking to everybody.
1544
01:24:16,333 --> 01:24:18,466 (dog barking)
1545
01:24:18,466 --> 01:24:22,533 NARRATOR: Musgrave gradually felt as if he were being torn in two.
1546
01:24:22,533 --> 01:24:26,533 And he was still haunted by the memory of those Marines
1547
01:24:26,533 --> 01:24:31,233 who had died while he had lived.
1548
01:24:31,233 --> 01:24:34,466 MUSGRAVE: I was dating my .45 in those years, you know.
1549
01:24:34,466 --> 01:24:37,266 Coming home at night after drinking,
1550
01:24:37,266 --> 01:24:39,400 and pressing it up against my temple,
1551
01:24:39,400 --> 01:24:42,333 or putting it under my chin,
1552
01:24:42,333 --> 01:24:44,733 wondering if this was gonna be the night
1553
01:24:44,733 --> 01:24:46,733 I was gonna have the guts to do it.
1554
01:24:48,466 --> 01:24:50,633 I'd had a round chambered, and I'd taken the safety off.
1555
01:24:50,633 --> 01:24:52,866 Same kind of pistol I carried in Vietnam.
1556
01:24:55,466 --> 01:24:58,900 And I thought, "I'm really gonna do it tonight."
1557
01:24:58,900 --> 01:25:02,900 You know, like, "Whew, I'm really gonna do it," you know.
1558
01:25:02,900 --> 01:25:04,933 And my dogs... I'd let my dogs out.
1559
01:25:04,933 --> 01:25:06,566 I had two dogs.
1560
01:25:06,566 --> 01:25:08,200 And they jumped on the front door
1561
01:25:08,200 --> 01:25:09,600 and scratched on the front door.
1562
01:25:09,600 --> 01:25:11,466 They wanted in.
1563
01:25:11,466 --> 01:25:12,666 And I put the safety back on the pistol
1564
01:25:12,666 --> 01:25:14,433 and set it down and went and let 'em in.
1565
01:25:16,266 --> 01:25:19,033 And they were so open in their love for me
1566
01:25:19,033 --> 01:25:20,800 that I literally said out loud,
1567
01:25:20,800 --> 01:25:26,066 "Whoa, if I really want to do this, I can do this tomorrow."
1568
01:25:26,066 --> 01:25:27,533 And I went back in the room,
1569
01:25:27,533 --> 01:25:29,500 and I put the pistol in the drawer, and...
1570
01:25:29,500 --> 01:25:32,533 and I... I think that was the closest I came.
1571
01:25:32,533 --> 01:25:34,266 I think maybe I would have killed...
1572
01:25:34,266 --> 01:25:36,633 k-k-killed myself that night.
1573
01:25:36,633 --> 01:25:38,100 But something as simple
1574
01:25:38,100 --> 01:25:40,633 as my dogs wanting back in...
1575
01:25:40,633 --> 01:25:43,900 stopped that thought, you know.
1576
01:25:46,633 --> 01:25:49,733 I'm really glad that it didn't happen.
1577
01:25:49,733 --> 01:25:52,900 But at the time, it just made so much sense.
1578
01:25:57,766 --> 01:25:59,800 NARRATOR: Richard Nixon's troop withdrawals
1579
01:25:59,800 --> 01:26:03,166 finally turned Musgrave against the war.
1580
01:26:03,166 --> 01:26:06,000 "If it ain't worth winning," he said,
1581
01:26:06,000 --> 01:26:08,433 "it ain't worth dying for."
1582
01:26:08,433 --> 01:26:11,133 His loyalty to the Marines
1583
01:26:11,133 --> 01:26:14,100 would not yet let him openly say that,
1584
01:26:14,100 --> 01:26:16,666 but he told a campus antiwar meeting
1585
01:26:16,666 --> 01:26:19,600 that they should stop acting as if they didn't give a damn
1586
01:26:19,600 --> 01:26:22,500 about the men who had been asked to fight,
1587
01:26:22,500 --> 01:26:24,833 and received a standing ovation.
1588
01:26:29,133 --> 01:26:31,566 JACK TODD: The turning point for me, I think,
1589
01:26:31,566 --> 01:26:34,666 was one evening I spent with my friend Sonny Walter,
1590
01:26:34,666 --> 01:26:37,300 who had been, uh... just been discharged from the Army,
1591
01:26:37,300 --> 01:26:39,966 and had come home and spent an evening
1592
01:26:39,966 --> 01:26:42,633 before I went in pleading with me not to go.
1593
01:26:42,633 --> 01:26:45,300 He even offered to drive me to Canada.
1594
01:26:45,300 --> 01:26:47,966 He was showing me some horrible pictures of Vietnam
1595
01:26:47,966 --> 01:26:49,700 from his own service there.
1596
01:26:51,600 --> 01:26:53,633 I think everything that happened after it
1597
01:26:53,633 --> 01:26:55,266 had its seeds in that evening.
1598
01:26:55,266 --> 01:26:57,366 ("The Thrill is Gone" by B.B. King playing)
1599
01:26:57,366 --> 01:27:00,766 NARRATOR: While attending the University of Nebraska,
1600
01:27:00,766 --> 01:27:04,733 Jack Todd had undergone Marine officer training,
1601
01:27:04,733 --> 01:27:08,233 but bad knees had forced him to drop out
1602
01:27:08,233 --> 01:27:10,400 and he believed that exempted him
1603
01:27:10,400 --> 01:27:13,066 from having to take part in a war
1604
01:27:13,066 --> 01:27:15,766 he had come to see as immoral.
1605
01:27:15,766 --> 01:27:19,933 He began work as a reporter onThe Miami Herald.
1606
01:27:19,933 --> 01:27:24,666 But in the autumn of 1969 he received a draft notice
1607
01:27:24,666 --> 01:27:27,100 from the Army anyway.
1608
01:27:27,100 --> 01:27:28,566 KING: ♪ The thrill is gone
1609
01:27:28,566 --> 01:27:30,033 TODD: So I went into my physical
1610
01:27:30,033 --> 01:27:32,166 and I showed them my discharge from the Marine Corps
1611
01:27:32,166 --> 01:27:33,966 and I actually remember a sergeant,
1612
01:27:33,966 --> 01:27:35,400 or whoever I was talking to, saying,
1613
01:27:35,400 --> 01:27:37,666 "But, uh, you were discharged from an officer program.
1614
01:27:37,666 --> 01:27:39,233 We're drafting you as a private."
1615
01:27:39,233 --> 01:27:41,333 (electric buzzing)
1616
01:27:41,333 --> 01:27:43,866 NARRATOR: In late November 1969,
1617
01:27:43,866 --> 01:27:48,300 Todd reported for basic training at Fort Lewis, Washington.
1618
01:27:48,300 --> 01:27:50,366 KING: ♪ You know you done me wrong
1619
01:27:50,366 --> 01:27:52,433 TODD: Morale just could not have been worse.
1620
01:27:52,433 --> 01:27:54,333 And-and it seemed to include
1621
01:27:54,333 --> 01:27:57,266 even the sergeants and the officers.
1622
01:27:57,266 --> 01:28:01,333 Nobody wanted to go. Nobody wanted to go.
1623
01:28:01,333 --> 01:28:04,766 America just seemed to have shifted from the Woodstock high
1624
01:28:04,766 --> 01:28:05,966 of the summer to this...
1625
01:28:05,966 --> 01:28:09,233 this sort of bitter Nixonian low.
1626
01:28:09,233 --> 01:28:12,700 NARRATOR: Jack Todd and another member of his unit
1627
01:28:12,700 --> 01:28:15,766 began to talk at night about what it meant
1628
01:28:15,766 --> 01:28:17,433 to be true to one's conscience.
1629
01:28:17,433 --> 01:28:19,333 ("Farewell, Angelina" by Bob Dylan playing)
1630
01:28:21,566 --> 01:28:24,100 Some 170,000 men
1631
01:28:24,100 --> 01:28:26,533 were granted conscientious objector status
1632
01:28:26,533 --> 01:28:29,200 during the Vietnam era.
1633
01:28:29,200 --> 01:28:31,000 But because Jack Todd
1634
01:28:31,000 --> 01:28:33,300 questioned the existence of God,
1635
01:28:33,300 --> 01:28:37,066 that avenue was closed to him.
1636
01:28:37,066 --> 01:28:38,433 There were really two choices.
1637
01:28:38,433 --> 01:28:40,300 It was go to jail or go to Canada.
1638
01:28:40,300 --> 01:28:42,866 And, for me, going to jail was just...
1639
01:28:42,866 --> 01:28:44,866 That one, I couldn't face.
1640
01:28:44,866 --> 01:28:46,866 So I went to Canada.
1641
01:28:46,866 --> 01:28:50,666 DYLAN: ♪ Farewell, Angelina
1642
01:28:50,666 --> 01:28:54,633 ♪ The bells of the crown
1643
01:28:54,633 --> 01:28:56,933 TODD: I remember that last beautiful drive,
1644
01:28:56,933 --> 01:28:59,566 from Seattle to Vancouver,
1645
01:28:59,566 --> 01:29:04,266 all the towering Douglas firs along the road.
1646
01:29:04,266 --> 01:29:06,566 And I remember, after we crossed the border--
1647
01:29:06,566 --> 01:29:09,166 it was a breeze, they just sort of waved us through--
1648
01:29:09,166 --> 01:29:11,400 and just looking in the rearview mirror, thinking,
1649
01:29:11,400 --> 01:29:12,766 "Man, there goes my country.
1650
01:29:12,766 --> 01:29:15,900 I'll never see it again."
1651
01:29:15,900 --> 01:29:19,100 DYLAN: ♪ But farewell, Angelina
1652
01:29:19,100 --> 01:29:22,433 ♪ The night is on fire
1653
01:29:22,433 --> 01:29:24,333 ♪ And I must go
1654
01:29:26,766 --> 01:29:29,566 I get called a coward all the time.
1655
01:29:29,566 --> 01:29:32,766 It took me a long time
1656
01:29:32,766 --> 01:29:35,333 not to feel that what I had done
1657
01:29:35,333 --> 01:29:38,033 was-was cowardly, because I still had
1658
01:29:38,033 --> 01:29:41,433 that military ingrained feeling inside.
1659
01:29:43,033 --> 01:29:46,233 That was the bravest thing I ever did.
1660
01:29:46,233 --> 01:29:48,233 It was the bravest thing I ever did.
1661
01:29:51,000 --> 01:29:54,700 NARRATOR: Jack Todd eventually found work as a reporter,
1662
01:29:54,700 --> 01:29:57,800 which allowed him to gain "landed immigrant status,"
1663
01:29:57,800 --> 01:30:01,233 a step toward Canadian citizenship.
1664
01:30:01,233 --> 01:30:05,866 Only a quarter of the estimated 30,000 Americans
1665
01:30:05,866 --> 01:30:08,800 who crossed into Canada managed to do so.
MINUTES 90-100
1666
01:30:08,800 --> 01:30:11,133 DYLAN: ♪ The sky is erupting
1667
01:30:11,133 --> 01:30:14,933 ♪ And I must go where it is quiet. ♪
1668
01:30:14,933 --> 01:30:18,233 NARRATOR: At the same time, some 30,000 Canadians
1669
01:30:18,233 --> 01:30:21,700 would volunteer to fight in Vietnam.
1670
01:30:35,266 --> 01:30:36,833 (birds chirping in distance)
1671
01:30:40,566 --> 01:30:43,966 KUSHNER: I thought about...
1672
01:30:43,966 --> 01:30:46,033 my parents and my siblings
1673
01:30:46,033 --> 01:30:49,766 and my wife and my little girl.
1674
01:30:49,766 --> 01:30:53,300 And one of the things that bothered me, is that I...
1675
01:30:53,300 --> 01:30:58,033 I couldn't really remember what they looked like after a while.
1676
01:30:58,033 --> 01:31:00,500 I remembered what their pictures looked like.
1677
01:31:00,500 --> 01:31:05,066 And when I imaged them in my mind's eye
1678
01:31:05,066 --> 01:31:08,533 I would image a picture, a photograph.
1679
01:31:11,233 --> 01:31:12,633 REPORTER: Valerie Kushner arrived on the...
1680
01:31:12,633 --> 01:31:14,833 NARRATOR: Hal Kushner's wife, Valerie,
1681
01:31:14,833 --> 01:31:17,033 had heard virtually nothing of her husband
1682
01:31:17,033 --> 01:31:20,833 since his capture by the Viet Cong in 1967,
1683
01:31:20,833 --> 01:31:23,566 and she had traveled to the Far East
1684
01:31:23,566 --> 01:31:26,033 to try to improve conditions for him.
1685
01:31:26,033 --> 01:31:29,433 I think my period of greatest frustration
1686
01:31:29,433 --> 01:31:32,433 was just before and just after the birth of our son.
1687
01:31:32,433 --> 01:31:35,100 He was born in April of 1968
1688
01:31:35,100 --> 01:31:39,066 and my husband was captured in November of 1967.
1689
01:31:39,066 --> 01:31:43,033 So my husband does not yet know of his birth.
1690
01:31:43,033 --> 01:31:45,300 DON FARMER: With their father gone, the Kushner children
1691
01:31:45,300 --> 01:31:48,500 rely heavily on their mother and their grandparents.
1692
01:31:48,500 --> 01:31:50,066 Young Mike has never seen his father,
1693
01:31:50,066 --> 01:31:52,500 but six-year-old Toni-Jean remembers.
1694
01:31:52,500 --> 01:31:54,066 And the remembrances of Major Kushner
1695
01:31:54,066 --> 01:31:55,833 are everywhere in their house.
1696
01:31:55,833 --> 01:31:58,033 Toni, however, knows only that he's away,
1697
01:31:58,033 --> 01:31:59,766 that he's been captured, that grandfather fills in
1698
01:31:59,766 --> 01:32:01,200 until Dad comes home.
1699
01:32:01,200 --> 01:32:05,166 The Kushners worry, but they do not grieve.
1700
01:32:05,166 --> 01:32:07,133 Don Farmer, ABC News, reporting.
1701
01:32:10,000 --> 01:32:11,900 (siren wailing in distance)
1702
01:32:14,033 --> 01:32:16,233 NARRATOR: In February 1970,
1703
01:32:16,233 --> 01:32:19,500 in a house in an industrial suburb of Paris,
1704
01:32:19,500 --> 01:32:22,100 Henry Kissinger began a new series
1705
01:32:22,100 --> 01:32:25,666 of secret negotiations-- talks so secret
1706
01:32:25,666 --> 01:32:30,000 even the secretary of state was not told about them.
1707
01:32:30,000 --> 01:32:32,133 His negotiating partner
1708
01:32:32,133 --> 01:32:35,966 would be Le Duan's close political ally, Le Duc Tho,
1709
01:32:35,966 --> 01:32:39,600 a veteran of 40 years of revolutionary warfare
1710
01:32:39,600 --> 01:32:43,466 and party intrigue-- shrewd, implacable,
1711
01:32:43,466 --> 01:32:47,266 and openly scornful of Vietnamization.
1712
01:32:47,266 --> 01:32:50,066 If the United States could not win
1713
01:32:50,066 --> 01:32:53,366 with half a million of its own troops, he asked Kissinger,
1714
01:32:53,366 --> 01:32:56,066 "How can you succeed when you let your puppet troops
1715
01:32:56,066 --> 01:32:58,466 do the fighting?"
1716
01:32:58,466 --> 01:33:01,733 The American admitted he had no answer.
1717
01:33:07,500 --> 01:33:09,800 Despite the impasse in Paris,
1718
01:33:09,800 --> 01:33:13,500 Nixon's first year had been a triumph.
1719
01:33:13,500 --> 01:33:19,566 He had withdrawn 115,000 troops from Vietnam.
1720
01:33:20,900 --> 01:33:24,233 American casualty figures were down.
1721
01:33:24,233 --> 01:33:26,900 Reduced draft calls
1722
01:33:26,900 --> 01:33:29,200 and the president's new lottery system
1723
01:33:29,200 --> 01:33:32,266 had blunted some opposition to the war.
1724
01:33:35,133 --> 01:33:37,700 And the violent actions of some revolutionaries
1725
01:33:37,700 --> 01:33:41,333 were tarnishing the antiwar cause itself.
1726
01:33:41,333 --> 01:33:45,300 Between September 1969 and May 1970,
1727
01:33:45,300 --> 01:33:48,000 there would be hundreds of bombings--
1728
01:33:48,000 --> 01:33:49,933 banks and courthouses,
1729
01:33:49,933 --> 01:33:53,200 induction centers and ROTC buildings.
1730
01:33:53,200 --> 01:33:55,100 ("Psychedelic Shack" by The Temptations starts playing)
1731
01:33:55,100 --> 01:33:57,000 One police officer was killed.
1732
01:33:58,266 --> 01:33:59,766 Three would-be bombers
1733
01:33:59,766 --> 01:34:03,633 accidentally blew themselves up in Greenwich Village.
1734
01:34:03,633 --> 01:34:05,900 TEMPTATIONS: ♪ Well, well
1735
01:34:05,900 --> 01:34:09,933 NANCY BIBERMAN: The antiwar movement split apart.
1736
01:34:09,933 --> 01:34:12,800 And there were people who felt that the only way
1737
01:34:12,800 --> 01:34:16,633 we were ever gonna end the war was by becoming more violent.
1738
01:34:16,633 --> 01:34:19,566 You know, that we had to match violence with violence.
1739
01:34:19,566 --> 01:34:24,400 How that was gonna happen wasn't spoken about openly.
1740
01:34:24,400 --> 01:34:27,200 But there was just this undercurrent.
1741
01:34:27,200 --> 01:34:29,566 This is a plumbing pipe
1742
01:34:29,566 --> 01:34:33,133 completely full of gunpowder.
1743
01:34:33,133 --> 01:34:35,366 TEMPTATIONS: ♪ Music so high you can't get over it ♪
1744
01:34:35,366 --> 01:34:37,866 NIXON: My fellow Americans,
1745
01:34:37,866 --> 01:34:40,466 we live in an age of anarchy,
1746
01:34:40,466 --> 01:34:43,000 both abroad and at home.
1747
01:34:44,500 --> 01:34:49,566 We see mindless attacks on all the great institutions,
1748
01:34:49,566 --> 01:34:52,033 which have been created by free civilizations
1749
01:34:52,033 --> 01:34:54,633 in the last 500 years.
1750
01:34:56,000 --> 01:34:58,233 Even here in the United States,
1751
01:34:58,233 --> 01:35:01,900 great universities are being systematically destroyed.
1752
01:35:04,966 --> 01:35:07,800 If, when the chips are down,
1753
01:35:07,800 --> 01:35:10,400 the world's most powerful nation,
1754
01:35:10,400 --> 01:35:12,200 the United States of America,
1755
01:35:12,200 --> 01:35:17,166 acts like a pitiful, helpless giant,
1756
01:35:17,166 --> 01:35:20,966 the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy
1757
01:35:20,966 --> 01:35:23,733 will threaten free nations and free institutions
1758
01:35:23,733 --> 01:35:25,400 throughout the world.
1759
01:35:25,400 --> 01:35:29,533 NARRATOR: On April 30, 1970,
1760
01:35:29,533 --> 01:35:31,400 President Nixon shocked the world
1761
01:35:31,400 --> 01:35:34,566 by announcing that he had sent 30,000 American troops
1762
01:35:34,566 --> 01:35:38,333 storming into Cambodia.
1763
01:35:38,333 --> 01:35:41,433 The previous month, Prince Norodom Sihanouk
1764
01:35:41,433 --> 01:35:43,733 had been overthrown in a coup.
1765
01:35:43,733 --> 01:35:46,166 For years, he had allowed the North Vietnamese
1766
01:35:46,166 --> 01:35:48,833 to keep sanctuaries in his country,
1767
01:35:48,833 --> 01:35:50,866 but he had not protested
1768
01:35:50,866 --> 01:35:54,400 when American planes bombed them.
1769
01:35:54,400 --> 01:35:57,100 The new president, Lon Nol,
1770
01:35:57,100 --> 01:36:01,133 was an anticommunist, backed by the United States.
1771
01:36:01,133 --> 01:36:03,533 Nixon now felt he could do
1772
01:36:03,533 --> 01:36:07,266 what American generals had been wanting to do for years--
1773
01:36:07,266 --> 01:36:11,033 pursue the enemy beyond the borders of South Vietnam.
1774
01:36:12,566 --> 01:36:15,500 The 30,000 American troops
1775
01:36:15,500 --> 01:36:20,766 were joined by 50,000 ARVN soldiers.
1776
01:36:20,766 --> 01:36:22,800 The objective was to attack
1777
01:36:22,800 --> 01:36:25,566 North Vietnamese base camps and supply lines
1778
01:36:25,566 --> 01:36:28,933 and to buy time for the South Vietnamese Army
1779
01:36:28,933 --> 01:36:31,333 as it got ready to fight on its own.
1780
01:36:33,333 --> 01:36:35,700 Nixon told the public
1781
01:36:35,700 --> 01:36:39,366 he had ordered an "incursion," not an "invasion,"
1782
01:36:39,366 --> 01:36:43,966 intended only to protect American boys in South Vietnam
1783
01:36:43,966 --> 01:36:48,133 and in response to North Vietnamese "aggression."
1784
01:36:51,033 --> 01:36:54,933 GILLAM: I wasn't worried about political conflict.
1785
01:36:54,933 --> 01:36:57,666 I was worried about, "Am I gonna be alive
1786
01:36:57,666 --> 01:36:59,133 in the next ten minutes?"
1787
01:37:00,733 --> 01:37:04,233 We were on the western edge of the invasion.
1788
01:37:04,233 --> 01:37:07,600 We went as far as anybody went in Cambodia.
1789
01:37:07,600 --> 01:37:08,866 (gunfire)
1790
01:37:08,866 --> 01:37:10,366 And it was a hot LZ.
1791
01:37:10,366 --> 01:37:15,166 I got holes shot in my backpack.
1792
01:37:15,166 --> 01:37:16,666 I was laying on my face
1793
01:37:16,666 --> 01:37:18,933 and they were shooting holes in my backpack,
1794
01:37:18,933 --> 01:37:21,900 which means they missed my head by maybe four inches.
1795
01:37:23,800 --> 01:37:27,266 I really didn't think I would see the end of that week.
1796
01:37:27,266 --> 01:37:29,566 (gunfire)
1797
01:37:29,566 --> 01:37:31,466 (indistinct chatter on radio)
1798
01:37:33,600 --> 01:37:37,233 NARRATOR: The sight of American troops crossing the border
1799
01:37:37,233 --> 01:37:41,200 into Cambodia reignited the antiwar movement.
1800
01:37:41,200 --> 01:37:42,500 Come on, let's go!
1801
01:37:42,500 --> 01:37:44,700 NARRATOR: If the troops were coming home,
1802
01:37:44,700 --> 01:37:46,833 if the war was winding down,
1803
01:37:46,833 --> 01:37:50,866 why had Nixon decided to widen it?
1804
01:37:50,866 --> 01:37:53,700 How could invading another country
1805
01:37:53,700 --> 01:37:57,666 help bring peace to Southeast Asia?
1806
01:37:57,666 --> 01:37:59,466 HUNTLEY: The reaction on the campuses
1807
01:37:59,466 --> 01:38:01,133 was swift and predictable.
1808
01:38:01,133 --> 01:38:02,833 The students and many of their teachers
1809
01:38:02,833 --> 01:38:04,433 were against the president.
1810
01:38:04,433 --> 01:38:07,700 Princeton students called for a nationwide student strike.
1811
01:38:07,700 --> 01:38:11,500 Antiwar rallies were planned at Harvard, MIT, Indiana,
1812
01:38:11,500 --> 01:38:13,633 Purdue Universities and other colleges.
1813
01:38:18,900 --> 01:38:22,233 NARRATOR: On Monday morning, May 4, 1970,
1814
01:38:22,233 --> 01:38:24,866 some 2,000 students gathered on the commons
1815
01:38:24,866 --> 01:38:28,800 at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio.
1816
01:38:28,800 --> 01:38:32,633 Some were simply moving from class to class.
1817
01:38:32,633 --> 01:38:36,133 Others planned to attend a rally called to protest
1818
01:38:36,133 --> 01:38:38,833 Nixon's widening of the war
1819
01:38:38,833 --> 01:38:44,633 and the presence of the Ohio National Guard on campus.
1820
01:38:44,633 --> 01:38:47,766 Governor James Rhodes had called in the guardsmen
1821
01:38:47,766 --> 01:38:49,233 two days earlier
1822
01:38:49,233 --> 01:38:54,733 after a mob set the old wooden ROTC building on fire
1823
01:38:54,733 --> 01:38:56,733 and then prevented the fire department
1824
01:38:56,733 --> 01:38:59,100 from putting out the flames.
1825
01:39:02,166 --> 01:39:06,300 Rhodes had compared protestors to Nazi brownshirts
1826
01:39:06,300 --> 01:39:09,833 and promised to use "every weapon to eradicate
1827
01:39:09,833 --> 01:39:14,166 the worst sort of people we harbor in America."
1828
01:39:14,166 --> 01:39:16,066 (bell clanging)
1829
01:39:18,700 --> 01:39:24,033 The guardsmen's weapons were loaded with live ammunition,
1830
01:39:24,033 --> 01:39:25,866 though no one in the crowd knew it.
1831
01:39:25,866 --> 01:39:29,200 MAN: Why do you have to have a gun?! I don't understand!
1832
01:39:29,200 --> 01:39:32,200 MAN (on megaphone): Leave this area immediately!
1833
01:39:32,200 --> 01:39:36,066 NARRATOR: The students were ordered to disperse.
1834
01:39:36,066 --> 01:39:37,800 They stood their ground.
1835
01:39:37,800 --> 01:39:39,700 (shouting)
1836
01:39:43,733 --> 01:39:47,000 Tear gas scattered some of them.
1837
01:39:47,000 --> 01:39:48,900 (shouting)
1838
01:40:06,200 --> 01:40:10,166 The guardsmen seemed to fall back.
1839
01:40:10,166 --> 01:40:14,366 But then members of Troop G wheeled around and opened fire
1840
01:40:14,366 --> 01:40:18,400 on students gathered in and around a parking lot.
1841
01:40:20,400 --> 01:40:23,200 (distorted gunshots echoing)
1842
01:40:49,900 --> 01:40:52,166 PROTESTOR: Somebody call for an ambulance!
1843
01:40:52,166 --> 01:40:53,833 (others shouting)
1844
01:40:53,833 --> 01:40:56,833 There's people dying down here! Get an ambulance up here!
1845
01:40:56,833 --> 01:40:58,733 (indistinct shouting)
1846
01:41:03,466 --> 01:41:06,933 NARRATOR: 67 rounds in 13 seconds
1847
01:41:06,933 --> 01:41:11,333 killed two young women and two young men...
1848
01:41:14,266 --> 01:41:17,533 Including an ROTC scholarship student
1849
01:41:17,533 --> 01:41:20,000 who had simply been an onlooker.
MINUTES 100-110
1850
01:41:25,700 --> 01:41:30,500 SAM HYNES: That dead child on the ground
1851
01:41:30,500 --> 01:41:33,900 was one of ours.
1852
01:41:33,900 --> 01:41:37,300 If we could kill our own students,
1853
01:41:37,300 --> 01:41:42,400 uh, what had happened to our country?
1854
01:41:44,500 --> 01:41:47,500 NARRATOR: Nine more students were wounded,
1855
01:41:47,500 --> 01:41:51,466 one of whom was permanently paralyzed.
1856
01:42:02,833 --> 01:42:07,300 Several hundred angry, grieving students sat down
1857
01:42:07,300 --> 01:42:09,433 and demanded to know why the guardsmen
1858
01:42:09,433 --> 01:42:11,333 had fired on their friends.
1859
01:42:14,833 --> 01:42:17,766 MAN: Sir, you've got a couple hundred students...
1860
01:42:17,766 --> 01:42:19,266 NARRATOR: An officer ordered them
1861
01:42:19,266 --> 01:42:21,133 to "disperse or we will shoot again."
1862
01:42:21,133 --> 01:42:24,133 How long will you give us? You've got five minutes.
1863
01:42:24,133 --> 01:42:27,133 GLENN FRANK: Please listen to me right now!
1864
01:42:27,133 --> 01:42:29,800 NARRATOR: Only the anguished pleas
1865
01:42:29,800 --> 01:42:34,466 of geology professor Glenn Frank averted further tragedy.
1866
01:42:34,466 --> 01:42:36,166 STUDENT: Talk, Dr. Frank. Talk.
1867
01:42:53,600 --> 01:42:56,733 (indistinct voices)
1868
01:43:01,533 --> 01:43:04,466 MIKE HEANEY: That just symbolized for me
1869
01:43:04,466 --> 01:43:08,433 what this war was doing to our culture.
1870
01:43:08,433 --> 01:43:10,300 These were kids on both sides,
1871
01:43:10,300 --> 01:43:13,166 young National Guard boys
1872
01:43:13,166 --> 01:43:16,533 who had very little training and probably scared,
1873
01:43:16,533 --> 01:43:18,766 and not well led
1874
01:43:18,766 --> 01:43:20,633 and-and young men and women on the other side
1875
01:43:20,633 --> 01:43:22,233 protesting the war out there
1876
01:43:22,233 --> 01:43:24,566 for, you know, idealistic reasons.
1877
01:43:24,566 --> 01:43:27,233 And look at what happens
1878
01:43:27,233 --> 01:43:33,433 when we let things get as bad as they got.
1879
01:43:33,433 --> 01:43:35,166 ("Woodstock" by Joni Mitchell playing)
1880
01:43:35,166 --> 01:43:37,833 NARRATOR: According to one national poll,
1881
01:43:37,833 --> 01:43:40,633 58% of the American people
1882
01:43:40,633 --> 01:43:43,466 thought the killings justified.
1883
01:43:46,433 --> 01:43:49,766 The parents of the dead ROTC student
1884
01:43:49,766 --> 01:43:52,500 received a flood of hate mail,
1885
01:43:52,500 --> 01:43:55,900 suggesting that they should be grateful their boy was dead
1886
01:43:55,900 --> 01:44:00,533 since he'd been "just another communist."
1887
01:44:01,700 --> 01:44:05,766 (man speaking indistinctly over megaphone)
1888
01:44:05,766 --> 01:44:09,366 During the days that followed, all across the country,
1889
01:44:09,366 --> 01:44:12,033 more than four million college students
1890
01:44:12,033 --> 01:44:14,033 demonstrated against the war
1891
01:44:14,033 --> 01:44:16,966 and what had happened at Kent State.
1892
01:44:19,500 --> 01:44:23,566 MITCHELL: ♪ I came upon a child of God
1893
01:44:23,566 --> 01:44:28,233 ♪ He was walking along the road ♪
1894
01:44:28,233 --> 01:44:30,200 ♪ And I asked him
1895
01:44:30,200 --> 01:44:32,533 ♪ Where are you going?
1896
01:44:32,533 --> 01:44:36,500 ♪ And this he told me
1897
01:44:36,500 --> 01:44:41,200 NARRATOR: 448 campuses closed down,
1898
01:44:41,200 --> 01:44:46,866 and the National Guard was called out in 16 states.
1899
01:44:46,866 --> 01:44:48,200 MITCHELL: ♪ Band
1900
01:44:48,200 --> 01:44:50,333 ♪ I'm gonna camp out
1901
01:44:50,333 --> 01:44:53,933 NARRATOR: At Jackson State University in Mississippi,
1902
01:44:53,933 --> 01:44:58,200 state police opened fire on a dormitory.
1903
01:44:58,200 --> 01:45:00,133 Two students died.
1904
01:45:00,133 --> 01:45:03,100 12 more were wounded.
1905
01:45:05,100 --> 01:45:07,266 Jackson State, those were my people.
1906
01:45:07,266 --> 01:45:09,200 Those were black kids.
1907
01:45:09,200 --> 01:45:11,533 And they died.
1908
01:45:11,533 --> 01:45:15,033 MITCHELL: ♪ Back to the garden
1909
01:45:15,033 --> 01:45:17,433 NARRATOR: Army private Tim O'Brien
1910
01:45:17,433 --> 01:45:21,233 was now back home in Minnesota.
1911
01:45:21,233 --> 01:45:24,800 O'BRIEN: There was a huge march
1912
01:45:24,800 --> 01:45:26,700 after the Kent State shootings in St. Paul,
1913
01:45:26,700 --> 01:45:29,133 and I joined the march.
1914
01:45:29,133 --> 01:45:34,400 I just wanted to put my body amidst these 100,000 people,
1915
01:45:34,400 --> 01:45:37,666 that word "no" being uttered by my body, if not by my mouth,
1916
01:45:37,666 --> 01:45:39,200 by just making that march.
1917
01:45:39,200 --> 01:45:42,733 That same march I was doing in Vietnam
1918
01:45:42,733 --> 01:45:45,100 that seemed senseless and purposeless
1919
01:45:45,100 --> 01:45:46,333 and without direction,
1920
01:45:46,333 --> 01:45:49,266 here it felt sensible and purposeful
1921
01:45:49,266 --> 01:45:52,633 and with direction, heading for that state capital
1922
01:45:52,633 --> 01:45:56,033 to say no.
1923
01:45:56,033 --> 01:45:59,333 And, boy, did it feel good.
1924
01:45:59,333 --> 01:46:01,300 (chanting "Peace now")
1925
01:46:04,233 --> 01:46:06,166 NARRATOR: Marine Corporal Bill Ehrhart
1926
01:46:06,166 --> 01:46:08,700 was a student at Swarthmore College
1927
01:46:08,700 --> 01:46:12,900 near his hometown in eastern Pennsylvania.
1928
01:46:12,900 --> 01:46:17,433 EHRHART: And here's this very famous photograph.
1929
01:46:17,433 --> 01:46:20,266 And I just looked at this thing.
1930
01:46:24,533 --> 01:46:26,033 And I came unglued.
1931
01:46:28,366 --> 01:46:31,833 I don't know how long I sat down on the curb,
1932
01:46:31,833 --> 01:46:35,366 and I don't know if I was there for 15 minutes
1933
01:46:35,366 --> 01:46:36,900 or an hour and a half.
1934
01:46:36,900 --> 01:46:39,233 Just had a breakdown.
1935
01:46:39,233 --> 01:46:42,933 Just crying, sobbing uncontrollably.
1936
01:46:42,933 --> 01:46:44,800 All I could think was, "It's not enough to send us
1937
01:46:44,800 --> 01:46:47,266 "halfway around the world to die.
1938
01:46:47,266 --> 01:46:50,133 "Now they're killing us in the streets of our own country.
1939
01:46:50,133 --> 01:46:51,500 I have to do something."
1940
01:46:53,466 --> 01:46:54,700 And I finally...
1941
01:46:54,700 --> 01:46:56,600 whenever I finally cried myself out,
1942
01:46:56,600 --> 01:46:59,066 I got up and I joined the antiwar movement.
1943
01:47:02,400 --> 01:47:06,866 MUSGRAVE: I remember when the kids were killed at Kent State,
1944
01:47:06,866 --> 01:47:09,666 and I thought,
1945
01:47:09,666 --> 01:47:12,933 "My God, we're killing our own children now.
1946
01:47:12,933 --> 01:47:14,766 We've really gone mad."
1947
01:47:14,766 --> 01:47:16,166 And I wasn't...
1948
01:47:16,166 --> 01:47:19,166 That's when I was hiding from things.
1949
01:47:19,166 --> 01:47:21,233 I wasn't in anybody's movement then.
1950
01:47:21,233 --> 01:47:22,900 I was just drinking.
1951
01:47:25,000 --> 01:47:30,500 But that was one of the things that told me
1952
01:47:30,500 --> 01:47:32,800 America needed a wake-up call.
1953
01:47:39,833 --> 01:47:42,900 ("Ohio" by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young playing)
1954
01:48:06,000 --> 01:48:08,933 ♪ Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming ♪
1955
01:48:08,933 --> 01:48:11,900 ♪ We're finally on our own
1956
01:48:11,900 --> 01:48:15,333 ♪ This summer I hear the drumming ♪
1957
01:48:15,333 --> 01:48:19,100 ♪ Four dead in Ohio
1958
01:48:19,100 --> 01:48:21,900 ♪ Got to get down to it
1959
01:48:21,900 --> 01:48:25,300 ♪ Soldiers are cutting us down
1960
01:48:25,300 --> 01:48:29,000 ♪ Should have been done long ago ♪
1961
01:48:31,566 --> 01:48:33,233 ♪ What if you knew her
1962
01:48:33,233 --> 01:48:36,966 ♪ And found her dead on the ground? ♪
1963
01:48:36,966 --> 01:48:41,100 ♪ How can you run when you know? ♪
1964
01:48:41,100 --> 01:48:43,000 ♪
1965
01:49:02,066 --> 01:49:04,566 ♪ La la-la-la, la la la la ♪
1966
01:49:04,566 --> 01:49:08,433 ♪ La la-la-la, la la la ♪
1967
01:49:08,433 --> 01:49:11,533 ♪ La la-la-la, la la la la ♪
1968
01:49:11,533 --> 01:49:14,933 ♪ La la-la-la, la la la ♪
1969
01:49:14,933 --> 01:49:17,433 ♪ Got to get down to it
1970
01:49:17,433 --> 01:49:21,066 ♪ Soldiers are cutting us down
1971
01:49:21,066 --> 01:49:24,833 ♪ Should have been done long ago ♪
1972
01:49:27,233 --> 01:49:29,400 ♪ What if you knew her
1973
01:49:29,400 --> 01:49:33,500 ♪ And found her dead on the ground? ♪
1974
01:49:33,500 --> 01:49:37,233 ♪ How can you run when you know? ♪
1975
01:49:37,233 --> 01:49:39,133 ♪
1976
01:49:57,300 --> 01:50:00,266 ♪ Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming ♪
1977
01:50:00,266 --> 01:50:03,466 ♪ We're finally on our own
1978
01:50:03,466 --> 01:50:06,500 ♪ This summer I hear the drumming ♪
1979
01:50:06,500 --> 01:50:08,966 ♪ Four dead in Ohio
1980
01:50:08,966 --> 01:50:12,133 ♪ Four dead in Ohio ♪ Four
1981
01:50:12,133 --> 01:50:14,400 ♪ Four dead in Ohio
1982
01:50:14,400 --> 01:50:17,333 ♪ Four ♪ Four dead in Ohio
1983
01:50:17,333 --> 01:50:20,000 ♪ How could they? ♪ Four dead in Ohio
1984
01:50:20,000 --> 01:50:23,200 ♪ How many more? ♪ Four dead in Ohio
1985
01:50:23,200 --> 01:50:25,333 Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH, access.wgbh.org
1986
01:50:30,666 --> 01:50:31,866 ANNOUNCER: LEARN MORE ABOUT THE FILM
1987
01:50:31,866 --> 01:50:34,733 AND FIND ADDITIONAL RESOURCES AT PBS.ORG/VIETNAMWAR
1988
01:50:34,733 --> 01:50:38,666 AND JOIN THE CONVERSATION USING HASHTAG VIETNAMWARPBS.
1989
01:50:38,666 --> 01:50:40,133 "THE VIETNAM WAR" IS AVAILABLE
1990
01:50:40,133 --> 01:50:41,800 ON BLU-RAY AND DVD.
1991
01:50:41,800 --> 01:50:43,466 THE COMPANION BOOK, SOUNDTRACK,
1992
01:50:43,466 --> 01:50:44,866 AND ORIGINAL SCORE FROM THE FILM
1993
01:50:44,866 --> 01:50:46,000 ARE ALSO AVAILABLE.
1994
01:50:46,000 --> 01:50:48,100 TO ORDER, VISIT SHOPPBS.ORG
1995
01:50:48,100 --> 01:50:50,566 OR CALL 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
1996
01:50:50,566 --> 01:50:52,000 EPISODES OF THIS SERIES ALSO
1997
01:50:52,000 --> 01:50:53,100 AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD
1998
01:50:53,100 --> 01:50:54,200 FROM iTUNES.
MINUTES 110-END
1999
01:50:57,466 --> 01:50:59,600 ANNOUNCER: BANK OF AMERICA PROUDLY SUPPORTS
2000
01:50:59,600 --> 01:51:04,566 KEN BURNS' AND LYNN NOVICK'S FILM "THE VIETNAM WAR"
2001
01:51:04,566 --> 01:51:06,966 BECAUSE FOSTERING DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
2002
01:51:06,966 --> 01:51:09,566 AND CIVIL DISCOURSE AROUND IMPORTANT ISSUES
2003
01:51:09,566 --> 01:51:11,866 FURTHERS PROGRESS, EQUALITY,
2004
01:51:11,866 --> 01:51:13,866 AND A MORE CONNECTED SOCIETY.
2005
01:51:18,333 --> 01:51:22,366 GO TO BANKOFAMERICA.COM/ BETTERCONNECTED TO LEARN MORE.
2006
01:51:25,833 --> 01:51:27,266 ANNOUNCER: MAJOR SUPPORT FOR "THE VIETNAM WAR"
2007
01:51:27,266 --> 01:51:30,766 WAS PROVIDED BY MEMBERS OF THE BETTER ANGELS SOCIETY,
2008
01:51:30,766 --> 01:51:34,733 INCLUDING JONATHAN AND JEANNIE LAVINE,
2009
01:51:34,733 --> 01:51:37,633 DIANE AND HAL BRIERLEY,
2010
01:51:37,633 --> 01:51:40,033 AMY AND DAVID ABRAMS,
2011
01:51:40,033 --> 01:51:42,533 JOHN AND CATHERINE DEBS,
2012
01:51:42,533 --> 01:51:45,433 THE FULLERTON FAMILY CHARITABLE FUND,
2013
01:51:45,433 --> 01:51:47,500 THE MONTRONE FAMILY,
2014
01:51:47,500 --> 01:51:49,833 LYNDA AND STEWART RESNICK,
2015
01:51:49,833 --> 01:51:52,600 THE PERRY AND DONNA GOLKIN FAMILY FOUNDATION,
2016
01:51:52,600 --> 01:51:53,600 THE LYNCH FOUNDATION,
2017
01:51:53,600 --> 01:51:56,466 THE ROGER AND ROSEMARY ENRICO FOUNDATION,
2018
01:51:56,466 --> 01:51:59,900 AND BY THESE ADDITIONAL FUNDERS.
2019
01:51:59,900 --> 01:52:01,866 MAJOR FUNDING WAS ALSO PROVIDED
2020
01:52:01,866 --> 01:52:03,600 BY DAVID H. KOCH...
2021
01:52:05,900 --> 01:52:08,100 THE BLAVATNIK FAMILY FOUNDATION...
2022
01:52:10,433 --> 01:52:12,866 THE PARK FOUNDATION,
2023
01:52:12,866 --> 01:52:15,033 THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES,
2024
01:52:15,033 --> 01:52:17,233 THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS,
2025
01:52:17,233 --> 01:52:19,900 THE JOHN S. AND JAMES L. KNIGHT FOUNDATION,
2026
01:52:19,900 --> 01:52:22,666 THE ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION,
2027
01:52:22,666 --> 01:52:25,266 THE ARTHUR VINING DAVIS FOUNDATIONS,
2028
01:52:25,266 --> 01:52:27,466 THE FORD FOUNDATION JUSTFILMS,
2029
01:52:27,466 --> 01:52:28,666 BY THE CORPORATION
2030
01:52:28,666 --> 01:52:29,900 FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING,
2031
01:52:29,900 --> 01:52:31,866 AND BY VIEWERS LIKE YOU.
2032
01:52:31,866 --> 01:52:33,000 THANK YOU.
References
- ↑ See Negotiations
- ↑ Without polarization, maybe.
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