00:00:20.220 --> 00:00:23.341
- [Upham] There were no birds
in Vietnam during the war,

00:00:23.341 --> 00:00:26.392
because of all the shooting
and bombing, I guess.

00:00:26.392 --> 00:00:29.060
They just flew away somewhere.

00:00:29.060 --> 00:00:31.581
So when our enemy, the North Vietnamese,

00:00:31.581 --> 00:00:35.203
made the 1,000 mile trek south to fight,

00:00:35.203 --> 00:00:38.333
the silence of the jungle
forest so freaked them out,

00:00:38.333 --> 00:00:40.853
that their commanding
general trained young women

00:00:40.853 --> 00:00:45.020
to do bird calls to ease the
soldier's minds as they walked.

00:00:48.502 --> 00:00:51.169
We called our helicopters birds.

00:00:55.923 --> 00:01:00.090
(woman singing in foreign language)

00:01:10.083 --> 00:01:12.965
Telling stories is my way
of coping with the war.

00:01:12.965 --> 00:01:15.548
(somber music)

00:01:18.027 --> 00:01:22.194
Every morning I wake up and
Dak To Vietnam is still there.

00:01:31.155 --> 00:01:35.322
And that feeling got worse
every time America goes to war.

00:01:37.659 --> 00:01:42.314
I see those young soldiers'
faces on TV and see myself,

00:01:42.314 --> 00:01:45.446
just like them, doing what I was told

00:01:45.446 --> 00:01:49.613
for something I didn't
understand, but felt was my duty.

00:01:52.156 --> 00:01:54.542
I wondered what had happened to the guys

00:01:54.542 --> 00:01:56.625
I fought with in Vietnam.

00:02:00.835 --> 00:02:05.002
I found a website for my old
unit, the 299th Engineers.

00:02:10.336 --> 00:02:13.419
They thought I was killed over there.

00:02:15.576 --> 00:02:17.159
But I made it home.

00:02:18.696 --> 00:02:22.863
And I wasn't the only one
who couldn't forget the war.

00:02:25.104 --> 00:02:27.998
Five of us decided to go back.

00:02:27.998 --> 00:02:31.259
We needed to know why
Dak To was still with us,

00:02:31.259 --> 00:02:34.092
40 years after leaving that place.

00:02:35.470 --> 00:02:36.847
- When I left Dak To,

00:02:36.847 --> 00:02:40.387
there was a lots of
emotions that I left behind,

00:02:40.387 --> 00:02:43.304
in my core is do no harm to people.

00:02:45.558 --> 00:02:49.780
That it's coming back here
to make sure that I didn't.

00:02:49.780 --> 00:02:51.358
- I felt courageous, I felt brave,

00:02:51.358 --> 00:02:55.129
I felt all of these things in Dak To,

00:02:55.129 --> 00:02:56.929
and I was proud of the
fact of being a sergeant

00:02:56.929 --> 00:02:59.518
and being in charge of other people.

00:02:59.518 --> 00:03:02.851
But once I got home, something happened.

00:03:05.729 --> 00:03:09.896
- As far as needing closure,
I'm not in that position.

00:03:12.304 --> 00:03:13.835
As a commander, you
can't let your feelings

00:03:13.835 --> 00:03:17.482
interfere with tactical decisions.

00:03:17.482 --> 00:03:21.649
We came here, we did our job
and I'd put that all behind me.

00:03:22.712 --> 00:03:24.941
- I didn't commit any atrocities

00:03:24.941 --> 00:03:28.358
that were beyond the normal call of duty.

00:03:30.438 --> 00:03:32.120
We were soldiers of the US Army

00:03:32.120 --> 00:03:34.969
and we followed the
orders that we were given

00:03:34.969 --> 00:03:37.040
and I felt that what we did here

00:03:37.040 --> 00:03:40.592
was in the best interests
of the Vietnamese people

00:03:40.592 --> 00:03:43.092
to stop the flow of Communism,

00:03:44.421 --> 00:03:47.754
which maybe later proved to not be true.

00:03:48.645 --> 00:03:51.429
- These people, in
their fight for freedom,

00:03:51.429 --> 00:03:54.580
have lost proportionately, already,

00:03:54.580 --> 00:03:58.747
more troops than we lost in
the whole of World War II.

00:04:01.621 --> 00:04:02.454
- [Upham] The whole country

00:04:02.454 --> 00:04:06.204
rode the swell of victory
after World War II.

00:04:07.071 --> 00:04:08.738
Everyone was a hero.

00:04:11.271 --> 00:04:14.854
I grew up thinking
America saved the world.

00:04:15.722 --> 00:04:19.889
My Dad flew a B-25 bomber and
my Mom tended wounded soldiers

00:04:20.981 --> 00:04:22.829
as an Army nurse.

00:04:22.829 --> 00:04:25.599
They fell in love in
the Phillippine Islands

00:04:25.599 --> 00:04:29.469
and got married as soon
as they were stateside.

00:04:29.469 --> 00:04:32.899
So I believed war stories
always ended with romance

00:04:32.899 --> 00:04:33.816
and victory

00:04:34.959 --> 00:04:37.126
and I could be a hero too.

00:04:42.479 --> 00:04:45.599
When I was 10 I led two
friends to a gravel pit

00:04:45.599 --> 00:04:47.981
near my house in Arizona.

00:04:47.981 --> 00:04:49.581
There was no one there,

00:04:49.581 --> 00:04:52.664
so we climbed all over the machinery.

00:04:53.759 --> 00:04:56.141
I stood up inside the big sand hopper

00:04:56.141 --> 00:04:59.389
and yelled to my friend Johnny outside.

00:04:59.389 --> 00:05:02.519
He pulled a lever and
let the piles of sand

00:05:02.519 --> 00:05:07.079
out onto the ground, which
sucked me down to my waist.

00:05:07.079 --> 00:05:11.109
It was the most exciting
thing I'd ever done.

00:05:11.109 --> 00:05:13.029
Then we switched places

00:05:13.029 --> 00:05:15.117
and Johnny climbed up.

00:05:15.117 --> 00:05:17.879
He said, "Open up the lever all the way."

00:05:17.879 --> 00:05:18.712
So I did.

00:05:20.911 --> 00:05:23.494
(somber music)

00:05:33.437 --> 00:05:37.104
I could never shake the
guilt from that day.

00:05:40.965 --> 00:05:42.465
By 20, I was lost.

00:05:46.639 --> 00:05:49.972
The Army loved college dropouts like me.

00:05:51.927 --> 00:05:54.908
They said, "You don't know what you want?

00:05:54.908 --> 00:05:57.658
"Here's something, look at this."

00:05:59.683 --> 00:06:00.978
And there I was.

00:06:00.978 --> 00:06:04.728
(helicopter blades whirring)

00:06:08.053 --> 00:06:11.803
(woman humming "Shenandoah")

00:06:38.845 --> 00:06:41.404
Most of us were teenage boys;

00:06:41.404 --> 00:06:45.154
reckless thrill seekers,
patriots, romantics.

00:06:47.674 --> 00:06:50.994
Our bodies ran wild and strong,

00:06:50.994 --> 00:06:54.911
yet we had a strange
innocence about the world.

00:06:56.389 --> 00:06:59.722
We weren't these young soldiers anymore.

00:07:01.252 --> 00:07:04.751
We had lived 40 years after Vietnam.

00:07:04.751 --> 00:07:07.570
All of us had married, had children,

00:07:07.570 --> 00:07:09.987
some of us had been divorced.

00:07:13.061 --> 00:07:15.811
For me, Vietnam was always there.

00:07:24.362 --> 00:07:29.116
I hoped this time, I could
experience Vietnam as a country,

00:07:29.116 --> 00:07:30.616
not just as a war.

00:07:42.604 --> 00:07:45.735
The first few days as we toured Saigon,

00:07:45.735 --> 00:07:48.902
we saw very little that we recognized.

00:07:52.319 --> 00:07:55.055
This Saigon had no edge.

00:07:55.055 --> 00:07:57.164
Our Saigon was crazy;

00:07:57.164 --> 00:08:00.044
thousands of refugees
living on the streets,

00:08:00.044 --> 00:08:04.211
insane traffic, sandbagged
hotels, thousands of soldiers,

00:08:05.644 --> 00:08:08.909
beautiful prostitutes in mini-skirts,

00:08:08.909 --> 00:08:13.834
street bandits on Hondas,
thousands of Viet Cong in hiding,

00:08:13.834 --> 00:08:18.293
hundreds of planes and helicopters
overhead at any moment,

00:08:18.293 --> 00:08:20.068
and all night long,

00:08:20.068 --> 00:08:22.555
machine guns firing in the streets

00:08:22.555 --> 00:08:25.055
and flares popping in the sky.

00:08:41.613 --> 00:08:44.613
(gun shots popping)

00:09:10.437 --> 00:09:14.217
But the 299th didn't fight in Saigon.

00:09:14.217 --> 00:09:18.837
And we were headed to the
Central Highlands, to Dak To,

00:09:18.837 --> 00:09:21.087
a remote American firebase

00:09:21.087 --> 00:09:24.920
deep in the dense jungle
of the Dak To valley.

00:09:28.058 --> 00:09:30.808
Dak To was home to 3000 infantry.

00:09:32.007 --> 00:09:35.887
They ran patrols in the hills
along the Ho Chi Minh trail,

00:09:35.887 --> 00:09:38.895
a vast supply network
bringing soldiers and weapons

00:09:38.895 --> 00:09:40.386
into South Vietnam

00:09:40.386 --> 00:09:44.136
from Cambodia and Laos
to places like Cu Chi.

00:09:47.826 --> 00:09:51.255
The VC built a labrynth
of tunnels during the war,

00:09:51.255 --> 00:09:54.305
and Cu Chi was home to
over 40,000 enemy soldiers

00:09:54.305 --> 00:09:55.888
living underground.

00:09:56.844 --> 00:09:58.317
The Vietnamese now run it

00:09:58.317 --> 00:10:00.858
as a war themed tourist attraction.

00:10:00.858 --> 00:10:04.441
- You can see no shoes
for them, no helmet.

00:10:07.044 --> 00:10:07.877
Like an NV8.

00:10:07.877 --> 00:10:09.960
They use a hat like this.

00:10:12.233 --> 00:10:14.003
Over there's American weapons.

00:10:14.003 --> 00:10:16.463
During firing they use
many kinds of weapons.

00:10:16.463 --> 00:10:19.324
- They're all launcher rocket pods.

00:10:19.324 --> 00:10:23.321
When they expended the rockets
they jettisoned the tube too.

00:10:23.321 --> 00:10:25.073
- Those are clusters.

00:10:25.073 --> 00:10:27.039
And they either explode above the ground

00:10:27.039 --> 00:10:29.190
or they and on the ground

00:10:29.190 --> 00:10:31.009
and they'll explode later on the ground.

00:10:31.009 --> 00:10:34.590
- [John] Shrapnel, all of
those pieces and parts,

00:10:34.590 --> 00:10:37.111
cutting and chopping human flesh.

00:10:37.111 --> 00:10:39.623
- [Newman] Bombs and artillery shells.

00:10:39.623 --> 00:10:42.321
- They became our road mines.

00:10:42.321 --> 00:10:46.033
Refuse those big bombs that didn't go off

00:10:46.033 --> 00:10:48.441
and mine the roads with them.

00:10:48.441 --> 00:10:49.823
Give 'em back to us.

00:10:49.823 --> 00:10:50.919
- [Bill] Then we would explode 'em.

00:10:50.919 --> 00:10:51.911
- Yeah.

00:10:51.911 --> 00:10:56.078
- This is a hammock, same
way for VC in the jungle,

00:10:57.535 --> 00:10:59.303
even in the rainy season,

00:10:59.303 --> 00:11:01.781
because they use this one, plastic,

00:11:01.781 --> 00:11:03.672
to stop the water from the rain.

00:11:03.672 --> 00:11:06.716
- We had three star motels.

00:11:06.716 --> 00:11:07.726
Yeah right.

00:11:07.726 --> 00:11:09.867
- Spring bunks 10 inch mattresses.

00:11:09.867 --> 00:11:12.533
Mosquito nets.
- You betcha.

00:11:12.533 --> 00:11:13.366
- Saunas.

00:11:15.112 --> 00:11:16.203
- [Man] Constant saunas.

00:11:16.203 --> 00:11:17.283
- Rats.

00:11:17.283 --> 00:11:18.116
- Killer rats.

00:11:18.116 --> 00:11:20.866
- Yeah, they were as big as dogs.

00:11:23.763 --> 00:11:25.763
- 500 pound bomb crater.

00:11:28.640 --> 00:11:32.448
- 500 pounds of C-4, high explosive,

00:11:32.448 --> 00:11:36.198
wrapped in about an inch
and a half of steel.

00:11:37.541 --> 00:11:40.958
Nice big chunks that take out body parts.

00:11:45.971 --> 00:11:48.083
- You can imagine our
troops trying to find 'em

00:11:48.083 --> 00:11:50.294
in this jungle when there's no,

00:11:50.294 --> 00:11:51.391
there are no paths like this.

00:11:51.391 --> 00:11:55.558
There's just no way you could
find those little spiderholes.

00:11:56.578 --> 00:11:57.745
- I open them.

00:11:58.687 --> 00:12:02.187
You can see this is the way to the tunnel.

00:12:06.094 --> 00:12:08.594
(eerie music)

00:12:25.782 --> 00:12:29.164
- [John] I'm not sure I can go in there.

00:12:29.164 --> 00:12:32.331
- I got trapped in a bunker in Dak To.

00:12:38.695 --> 00:12:39.578
- You all right, Buddy?

00:12:39.578 --> 00:12:40.479
- [Bill] Nope.

00:12:40.479 --> 00:12:42.229
- Okay, come on back.

00:12:52.844 --> 00:12:53.677
Okay.

00:13:01.581 --> 00:13:05.498
Oh man, it's like three
and a half feet, maybe.

00:13:08.323 --> 00:13:10.793
As soon as I went down in the tunnel,

00:13:10.793 --> 00:13:13.073
I knew it was a mistake.

00:13:13.073 --> 00:13:15.324
I felt like I was right back in the war.

00:13:15.324 --> 00:13:18.991
(muffled radio dispatching)

00:13:27.907 --> 00:13:28.916
- [John] I never thought in my life

00:13:28.916 --> 00:13:31.416
I'd be in someplace like this!

00:13:33.625 --> 00:13:36.458
- [Upham] Can you guys keep going?

00:13:47.707 --> 00:13:48.790
Are you okay?

00:13:50.553 --> 00:13:51.415
John?

00:13:51.415 --> 00:13:52.248
- Oh.

00:13:55.511 --> 00:13:57.082
Just a matter of catching my breath.

00:13:57.082 --> 00:14:00.653
- Anybody want to go
to the shooting range?

00:14:00.653 --> 00:14:01.853
- I can do without .

00:14:01.853 --> 00:14:02.982
- I've shot all I need to shoot.

00:14:02.982 --> 00:14:05.634
- I've shot weapons before.

00:14:05.634 --> 00:14:07.306
I don't need to shoot 'em again.

00:14:07.306 --> 00:14:09.973
- I don't need to shoot weapons.

00:14:17.121 --> 00:14:17.954
- Oh yeah.

00:14:29.083 --> 00:14:31.218
I just shot the hell out of 'em.

00:14:31.218 --> 00:14:32.468
I killed 10 VC.

00:14:35.056 --> 00:14:36.788
- [Upham] it doesn't matter, we lost.

00:14:36.788 --> 00:14:37.621
- Yep.

00:14:39.899 --> 00:14:42.623
You know it was easy to
forget the bad things

00:14:42.623 --> 00:14:45.172
and I think I was very fortunate in that

00:14:45.172 --> 00:14:47.419
I didn't suffer the adverse effects of it

00:14:47.419 --> 00:14:49.728
like some of the people have.

00:14:49.728 --> 00:14:50.901
- When I got back from Vietnam

00:14:50.901 --> 00:14:52.871
I had some tremendous nightmares.

00:14:52.871 --> 00:14:54.852
The nightmare that was recurring

00:14:54.852 --> 00:14:58.269
was the silhouette of a bright explosion.

00:14:59.390 --> 00:15:00.223
(explosion booms)

00:15:00.223 --> 00:15:04.560
And of the silhouette
disintegrating, coming apart,

00:15:04.560 --> 00:15:08.774
limbs coming apart in the
explosion or the bright flash.

00:15:08.774 --> 00:15:13.447
- I've relived that 15th
bunker hundreds of times.

00:15:13.447 --> 00:15:15.360
(explosion booms)

00:15:15.360 --> 00:15:18.158
Maybe thousands I don't know.

00:15:18.158 --> 00:15:19.741
Fleeting sometimes,

00:15:20.829 --> 00:15:24.996
because I'd be sitting
straight up in bed yelling,

00:15:26.048 --> 00:15:27.576
my ex-wife would say,

00:15:27.576 --> 00:15:29.128
"What are you screaming about?"

00:15:29.128 --> 00:15:30.469
I'd never knew.

00:15:30.469 --> 00:15:32.386
- I always thought I was
crazy because of all this

00:15:32.386 --> 00:15:34.131
'cause you really don't see images.

00:15:34.131 --> 00:15:35.651
You really don't you know.

00:15:35.651 --> 00:15:36.568
And you do.

00:15:37.860 --> 00:15:41.533
- I turned myself into
the VA for psychoanalysis

00:15:41.533 --> 00:15:44.232
or whatever, depression.

00:15:44.232 --> 00:15:46.363
I don't think that I
cured it at that point,

00:15:46.363 --> 00:15:47.632
I just put it under the surface

00:15:47.632 --> 00:15:50.799
because I didn't want to deal with it.

00:15:58.773 --> 00:16:00.133
Being here is just kind of like going in

00:16:00.133 --> 00:16:03.466
for a spiritual shower, just feels good.

00:16:05.763 --> 00:16:09.562
When all else fails,
your spirit supports you.

00:16:09.562 --> 00:16:12.613
That spirit is nurtured here

00:16:12.613 --> 00:16:15.941
and that's what life is all about I think,

00:16:15.941 --> 00:16:18.821
it's the combining of
your body with your spirit

00:16:18.821 --> 00:16:20.603
and your mind and your emotions

00:16:20.603 --> 00:16:24.141
so everything can go together, feels good.

00:16:24.141 --> 00:16:25.800
Of course I'm still always armed.

00:16:25.800 --> 00:16:30.641
(laughs) It's still, it's a still a...

00:16:30.641 --> 00:16:31.776
- [Upham] So you still carry a guns?

00:16:31.776 --> 00:16:33.341
You still have--
- Oh yeah.

00:16:33.341 --> 00:16:36.174
Concealed weapons permit, you bet.

00:16:37.320 --> 00:16:38.472
When I got back from Vietnam,

00:16:38.472 --> 00:16:41.482
I really felt that I had been wronged.

00:16:41.482 --> 00:16:43.680
And that everything was for naught.

00:16:43.680 --> 00:16:45.864
Because nobody wanted ya there,

00:16:45.864 --> 00:16:48.271
nobody cared if you were there.

00:16:48.271 --> 00:16:51.021
And it just didn't mean anything.

00:16:51.973 --> 00:16:54.940
- Never told anybody I
was a Vietnam veteran

00:16:54.940 --> 00:16:57.190
until just a few years ago.

00:16:58.647 --> 00:16:59.842
My mother never even asked me once

00:16:59.842 --> 00:17:01.319
whether I had to pull the trigger

00:17:01.319 --> 00:17:03.441
and she knew I was in Dak To

00:17:03.441 --> 00:17:07.281
and she knew what was being
written here in the States.

00:17:07.281 --> 00:17:09.100
That's a little bit amazing.

00:17:09.100 --> 00:17:10.183
Nobody asked.

00:17:12.620 --> 00:17:15.620
We came home, took our uniforms off.

00:17:16.951 --> 00:17:18.932
You see in my mind, I thought

00:17:18.932 --> 00:17:22.700
I would be thought of as a lesser person

00:17:22.700 --> 00:17:25.649
if I told 'em I had been to Vietnam.

00:17:25.649 --> 00:17:27.820
- You weren't treated like
a hero when you came home.

00:17:27.820 --> 00:17:30.259
You were just another
citizen when you came home.

00:17:30.259 --> 00:17:31.676
And life went on.

00:17:35.020 --> 00:17:39.187
- New rule, to never say
anything negative about myself.

00:17:41.140 --> 00:17:44.640
It's really hard, but I'm doing it so far.

00:17:45.879 --> 00:17:48.310
Closer to Dak To it's be harder.

00:17:48.310 --> 00:17:49.369
- No it won't, it'll be easier--

00:17:49.369 --> 00:17:50.561
- No it won't, it'll be easier.

00:17:50.561 --> 00:17:52.921
- 'Cause you'll be closer to those places

00:17:52.921 --> 00:17:55.132
you can leave those spirits.

00:17:55.132 --> 00:17:57.070
'Cause you're taking 'em home.

00:17:57.070 --> 00:17:57.903
That's the way you look at it,

00:17:57.903 --> 00:18:01.382
you're taking these people
home to be comfortable,

00:18:01.382 --> 00:18:03.452
taking 'em back to their relatives.

00:18:03.452 --> 00:18:05.910
You've nourished 'em and
you've kept them with you

00:18:05.910 --> 00:18:08.809
for a lot of years and now
it's time to take 'em home.

00:18:08.809 --> 00:18:09.976
Give 'em back.

00:18:14.803 --> 00:18:17.553
(pensive music)

00:18:30.670 --> 00:18:32.003
- Hello.
- Hello.

00:18:33.381 --> 00:18:37.298
(speaking in foreign language)

00:18:44.573 --> 00:18:45.682
- Hello, goodbye.

00:18:45.682 --> 00:18:47.036
- Hello, goodbye.

00:18:47.036 --> 00:18:48.376
- Hello, goodbye.

00:18:48.376 --> 00:18:49.329
- How are you?

00:18:49.329 --> 00:18:51.134
- [John] Very good, how are you?

00:18:51.134 --> 00:18:52.123
What's your name?

00:18:52.123 --> 00:18:52.956
- My name Hin.

00:18:52.956 --> 00:18:54.278
- Hin?
- Yes.

00:18:54.278 --> 00:18:55.111
- Myn.

00:18:55.111 --> 00:18:56.263
- Myn and Hin.
- And you?

00:18:56.263 --> 00:18:57.096
- [Upham] Christopher.

00:18:57.096 --> 00:18:58.171
- How long to be in Vietnam?

00:18:58.171 --> 00:19:00.004
- [Upham] 1969 to now.

00:19:02.020 --> 00:19:03.820
- [Woman] When you come see American.

00:19:03.820 --> 00:19:06.100
- [Upham] Yeah, I see that.

00:19:06.100 --> 00:19:07.433
Big with French.

00:19:10.177 --> 00:19:13.996
(speaks in foreign language)

00:19:13.996 --> 00:19:15.905
He wants wife go America.

00:19:15.905 --> 00:19:17.063
- No.
- Yeah.

00:19:17.063 --> 00:19:18.926
(speaks in foreign language)

00:19:18.926 --> 00:19:22.289
(Upham laughing)

00:19:22.289 --> 00:19:23.906
- [Woman] So, something for you.

00:19:23.906 --> 00:19:25.135
- No, no.

00:19:25.135 --> 00:19:26.514
- [Woman] Okay, you want to buy map?

00:19:26.514 --> 00:19:27.544
- No, no, we have map.

00:19:27.544 --> 00:19:30.794
I bought that map, he gave us that map.

00:19:35.397 --> 00:19:36.811
- Okay, you give me for 110.

00:19:36.811 --> 00:19:37.644
- [John] No.

00:19:37.644 --> 00:19:38.702
- Okay 100.

00:19:38.702 --> 00:19:39.937
- [John] No, no, no.

00:19:39.937 --> 00:19:40.770
- [Woman] $1.

00:19:40.770 --> 00:19:42.467
- [Upham] No, not today.

00:19:42.467 --> 00:19:43.876
- Okay 100, $1.

00:19:43.876 --> 00:19:45.849
- [Upham] No, no.

00:19:45.849 --> 00:19:47.432
No, no, no, no, no.

00:19:52.739 --> 00:19:53.682
- Cheap Charlie

00:19:53.682 --> 00:19:56.802
- Sometimes they call it
(speaks in foreign language)

00:19:56.802 --> 00:19:59.478
(men speaking in foreign language)

00:19:59.478 --> 00:20:00.838
- (speaks in foreign language) number 10

00:20:00.838 --> 00:20:02.129
(speaks in foreign language).

00:20:02.129 --> 00:20:03.105
- Number 10. (laughs)

00:20:03.105 --> 00:20:04.598
- (speaks in foreign
language) means crazy.

00:20:04.598 --> 00:20:07.196
We used to talk pidgin to the Coke girls

00:20:07.196 --> 00:20:08.649
and the laundry girls along the road

00:20:08.649 --> 00:20:12.482
that sell us cokes and
beer and whatever else.

00:20:13.507 --> 00:20:16.921
They'd say "You number one
G-I." if you paid them,

00:20:16.921 --> 00:20:19.110
but if you were terrible to them,

00:20:19.110 --> 00:20:20.831
they'd say "You (speaks
in foreign language)

00:20:20.831 --> 00:20:21.769
"number 10, G-I.

00:20:21.769 --> 00:20:23.599
"You bad, number 10."

00:20:23.599 --> 00:20:25.059
And they'd call you "cheap Charlie.

00:20:25.059 --> 00:20:27.188
"You (speaks in foreign
language) cheap Charlie."

00:20:27.188 --> 00:20:28.847
- And if they really got mad, they'd say,

00:20:28.847 --> 00:20:30.487
"You number have a no."

00:20:30.487 --> 00:20:34.687
- Ye, you're right,
"You number have a no."

00:20:34.687 --> 00:20:36.698
Or they didn't like you they'd say,

00:20:36.698 --> 00:20:39.115
"You die today, G-I you die."

00:20:40.466 --> 00:20:41.299
And she's probably be right,

00:20:41.299 --> 00:20:43.906
because she'd be out there
shooting you that night.

00:20:43.906 --> 00:20:44.739
- Yeah.

00:20:44.739 --> 00:20:47.406
(pensive music)

00:20:57.317 --> 00:21:01.484
Highway 14 from Bridge 39
to Ben Het was our road.

00:21:06.208 --> 00:21:10.224
We were an engineer battalion of 600 men.

00:21:10.224 --> 00:21:12.797
We only fought defensively.

00:21:12.797 --> 00:21:15.630
The infantry went after the enemy.

00:21:17.197 --> 00:21:18.780
We ran mine sweeps,

00:21:21.637 --> 00:21:22.804
built bridges,

00:21:27.386 --> 00:21:28.636
fixed culverts,

00:21:31.397 --> 00:21:32.647
fixed the road.

00:21:35.346 --> 00:21:39.513
We knew the coke girls, the
people who lived along the road,

00:21:43.098 --> 00:21:45.205
we drove the convoys,

00:21:45.205 --> 00:21:48.455
and feared we'd died in ambushes on it.

00:21:49.923 --> 00:21:51.506
It was our highway,

00:21:54.576 --> 00:21:56.909
as long as we could hold it.

00:22:11.736 --> 00:22:14.822
- When I first got to Dak
To, it was pretty easygoing.

00:22:14.822 --> 00:22:17.572
I actually was sort of surprised.

00:22:18.631 --> 00:22:21.113
I felt fortunate that I
was not in the infantry

00:22:21.113 --> 00:22:24.696
and that I ended up in
an engineering unit.

00:22:25.982 --> 00:22:27.759
When I went to Vietnam,

00:22:27.759 --> 00:22:30.842
my mother and my grandmother were so,

00:22:33.758 --> 00:22:36.290
tortured by this whole thought

00:22:36.290 --> 00:22:37.720
that I was going to some place

00:22:37.720 --> 00:22:40.990
where people shoot each other.

00:22:40.990 --> 00:22:43.011
Their beliefs are so strong

00:22:43.011 --> 00:22:45.128
in the fact that you
don't shoot somebody else,

00:22:45.128 --> 00:22:46.328
you know you, you weren't even supposed to

00:22:46.328 --> 00:22:47.510
be unkind to somebody,

00:22:47.510 --> 00:22:50.760
let alone do what I was about to go do.

00:22:51.698 --> 00:22:55.776
They asked me to promise
I wouldn't kill anyone,

00:22:55.776 --> 00:22:58.776
so of course, by making that promise

00:22:59.926 --> 00:23:03.843
and then going to Vietnam
my thoughts at first,

00:23:05.646 --> 00:23:08.616
were that I wasn't coming home.

00:23:08.616 --> 00:23:11.949
And my mom and my grandmother knew that.

00:23:19.728 --> 00:23:23.061
I went and tried to follow that promise.

00:23:27.147 --> 00:23:31.518
I got sent to a montagnard
village, Kon Horing,

00:23:31.518 --> 00:23:35.268
as advisor for building
the Granger Hospital.

00:23:40.078 --> 00:23:41.270
The village was attacked

00:23:41.270 --> 00:23:43.067
and most of the village was wiped out.

00:23:43.067 --> 00:23:44.447
(explosion booms)

00:23:44.447 --> 00:23:47.280
(gunfire popping)

00:23:58.144 --> 00:24:01.506
When the village got
hit, I picked up the M-16

00:24:01.506 --> 00:24:03.589
and as I hit the doorway,

00:24:07.605 --> 00:24:08.522
a North Vietnamese soldier

00:24:08.522 --> 00:24:12.189
was standing six or
seven feet away from me.

00:24:13.983 --> 00:24:16.150
And I shot and killed him.

00:24:19.463 --> 00:24:22.493
And that's when the promise,

00:24:22.493 --> 00:24:24.993
that's when the promise ended.

00:24:33.572 --> 00:24:36.154
I can't even sleep in my bedroom anymore.

00:24:36.154 --> 00:24:38.737
Because that's where he visits.

00:24:40.162 --> 00:24:42.995
When he shows up, I am more afraid

00:24:44.570 --> 00:24:48.282
than I ever was in
Vietnam, I can't breathe.

00:24:48.282 --> 00:24:49.115
It's...

00:24:51.261 --> 00:24:52.552
If I have a routine

00:24:52.552 --> 00:24:55.239
where I can face myself towards my door,

00:24:55.239 --> 00:24:57.380
he doesn't come in the door.

00:24:57.380 --> 00:24:58.640
But if during the night if I turn over

00:24:58.640 --> 00:25:00.040
and I'm faced away from the door,

00:25:00.040 --> 00:25:01.280
he comes right up behind me.

00:25:01.280 --> 00:25:04.058
I can feel his presence right behind me.

00:25:04.058 --> 00:25:06.058
And sometimes he brings,

00:25:09.040 --> 00:25:10.540
I supposed it was,

00:25:13.548 --> 00:25:16.261
I, shot him in the head,

00:25:16.261 --> 00:25:18.594
and, that's how he still is.

00:25:28.362 --> 00:25:29.612
Same dirt road.

00:25:31.664 --> 00:25:34.414
Except these houses weren't here.

00:25:41.594 --> 00:25:43.573
I knew a lot of the people that were,

00:25:43.573 --> 00:25:46.156
that were killed here that day.

00:25:47.064 --> 00:25:48.481
Saddens my heart.

00:26:05.342 --> 00:26:07.070
- [Upham] Do you think you killed anybody?

00:26:07.070 --> 00:26:07.987
In Vietnam.

00:26:09.582 --> 00:26:11.582
(sighs)

00:26:13.832 --> 00:26:16.728
- I think that's where
my nightmare came from.

00:26:16.728 --> 00:26:19.504
I threw a grenade, I seen
a person coming apart.

00:26:19.504 --> 00:26:20.337
(explosion booms)

00:26:20.337 --> 00:26:24.246
You try and not think about
those sorts of things,

00:26:24.246 --> 00:26:25.704
that it was me and I did this

00:26:25.704 --> 00:26:27.115
and I stopped this person's life

00:26:27.115 --> 00:26:30.446
and I made his loved ones cry.

00:26:30.446 --> 00:26:32.624
That's something that's
almost unbearable to me,

00:26:32.624 --> 00:26:34.624
to know that I did that.

00:26:36.541 --> 00:26:39.944
So, yeah, could be, could be not,

00:26:39.944 --> 00:26:43.774
I have tried over the year,
that it really wasn't me,

00:26:43.774 --> 00:26:47.041
but could have been, I don't know.

00:26:47.041 --> 00:26:49.227
That's something you live with.

00:26:49.227 --> 00:26:50.955
That's war.

00:26:50.955 --> 00:26:53.038
Some live and some don't.

00:26:55.816 --> 00:26:59.016
- I fired a lot of bullets
into areas you couldn't see

00:26:59.016 --> 00:27:02.756
and where you thought
gunfire was coming from,

00:27:02.756 --> 00:27:06.216
but I can honestly say
that I didn't know for sure

00:27:06.216 --> 00:27:07.699
that I killed anybody.

00:27:07.699 --> 00:27:08.939
- The chaplain asked me,

00:27:08.939 --> 00:27:12.357
"Did you ever kill anybody at Dak To?"

00:27:12.357 --> 00:27:13.440
I said, Yeah.

00:27:15.746 --> 00:27:16.768
"From up close?"

00:27:16.768 --> 00:27:20.768
I said yeah, the first
one fell on me. (laughs)

00:27:20.768 --> 00:27:23.208
And he said "Well how
did you feel about that?"

00:27:23.208 --> 00:27:25.688
I said I didn't feel anything about it.

00:27:25.688 --> 00:27:28.419
He said, "You had to feel something."

00:27:28.419 --> 00:27:32.419
And I said, no, why do I
have to feel something?

00:27:36.247 --> 00:27:38.620
He said, "Well I think you
feel something." (laughs)

00:27:38.620 --> 00:27:41.028
I said, well that's fine
if that's what you think,

00:27:41.028 --> 00:27:42.599
but I said that's what I got paid for.

00:27:42.599 --> 00:27:44.216
I'm a professional soldier.

00:27:44.216 --> 00:27:46.883
(pensive music)

00:27:47.919 --> 00:27:50.244
- [Nixon] The American
involvement in Vietnam

00:27:50.244 --> 00:27:52.455
is coming to an end.

00:27:52.455 --> 00:27:54.257
The day the South Vietnamese can take over

00:27:54.257 --> 00:27:56.757
their own defense is in sight.

00:27:57.856 --> 00:28:02.023
Our goal is a total American
withdrawal from Vietnam.

00:28:05.096 --> 00:28:06.867
- When I got the news Nixon was pulling

00:28:06.867 --> 00:28:10.627
troops out of Vietnam, I
thought the war would be over

00:28:10.627 --> 00:28:12.377
and we would go home.

00:28:16.187 --> 00:28:20.354
The 3000 infantrymen left Dak
To, and we were to follow.

00:28:27.437 --> 00:28:30.056
- We were loaded and ready to leave

00:28:30.056 --> 00:28:33.408
and the 4th division commander flew in,

00:28:33.408 --> 00:28:36.445
and he says "Newman, I've
got bad news for you.

00:28:36.445 --> 00:28:40.155
"You're going to have to stay
here and secure the firebase."

00:28:40.155 --> 00:28:42.755
I said, sir the intelligence is that

00:28:42.755 --> 00:28:46.984
there are two Vietnamese
regular army regiments

00:28:46.984 --> 00:28:50.299
moving across the Cambodian Laotian border

00:28:50.299 --> 00:28:52.632
and their target, is Dak To.

00:28:53.987 --> 00:28:55.739
If we stay here we're gonna be stuck here.

00:28:55.739 --> 00:28:58.579
He said "Oh no, we're working it out."

00:28:58.579 --> 00:29:01.433
I said, well I don't have any choice.

00:29:01.433 --> 00:29:05.284
If my orders are to stay, we'll stay.

00:29:05.284 --> 00:29:07.947
The corps commander
turned to me and he said

00:29:07.947 --> 00:29:10.755
"Well, is there anything
else we can send you?

00:29:10.755 --> 00:29:12.922
and I said more body bags.

00:29:17.013 --> 00:29:18.296
- [Bill] We were left there

00:29:18.296 --> 00:29:21.688
to appease the Vietnamese soldiers

00:29:21.688 --> 00:29:22.521
because all of the other Americans

00:29:22.521 --> 00:29:25.524
were moving out of that area.

00:29:25.524 --> 00:29:29.107
Tanks, choppers, all
that support was gone.

00:29:32.389 --> 00:29:34.521
- [Upham] Once the infantry pulled out,

00:29:34.521 --> 00:29:38.030
we only had limited generator electricity,

00:29:38.030 --> 00:29:42.197
so at night, Dak To was
dark, primal, frightening.

00:29:43.561 --> 00:29:47.311
This huge nature out
there, hiding the enemy.

00:29:51.668 --> 00:29:55.521
One night, we fired on sounds
we heard out in the dark.

00:29:55.521 --> 00:29:58.438
(repeated gunfire)

00:30:19.542 --> 00:30:23.709
In the dawn, we saw we had
killed hundreds of monkeys.

00:30:27.401 --> 00:30:28.993
We couldn't keep from imagining

00:30:28.993 --> 00:30:32.102
thousands of NVA with roads and tunnels

00:30:32.102 --> 00:30:34.531
out in those wild hills.

00:30:34.531 --> 00:30:37.114
But the reality was much worse.

00:30:38.502 --> 00:30:41.878
The North Vietnamese
massed six to 8000 troops

00:30:41.878 --> 00:30:45.818
just across the border
in Cambodia and Laos.

00:30:45.818 --> 00:30:48.641
- The Vietnamese built bunkers,

00:30:48.641 --> 00:30:50.910
launching sites for their
rockets and everything,

00:30:50.910 --> 00:30:53.099
across the river and up the hill,

00:30:53.099 --> 00:30:56.182
on what we used to call Rocket Ridge,

00:30:58.251 --> 00:31:02.418
The 299th sat there and I was
told by higher headquarters

00:31:03.431 --> 00:31:05.942
that, if you're going to be overrun,

00:31:05.942 --> 00:31:09.529
and we really think you're
going to be annihilated,

00:31:09.529 --> 00:31:14.403
we'll send re-enforcements
in, we have them standing by.

00:31:14.403 --> 00:31:18.665
However standing by was
about 60 kilometers away.

00:31:18.665 --> 00:31:21.332
(pensive music)

00:31:22.646 --> 00:31:24.979
- [Upham] Two months passed.

00:31:26.125 --> 00:31:30.292
The South Vietnamese kept
refusing to take over Dak To.

00:31:34.566 --> 00:31:37.483
As we waited, there were accidents,

00:31:39.455 --> 00:31:41.089
drinking in the tents at night

00:31:41.089 --> 00:31:44.419
and getting stoned and carousing.

00:31:44.419 --> 00:31:46.030
We had to punch out one soldier

00:31:46.030 --> 00:31:48.506
who swore he was going to kill Newman.

00:31:48.506 --> 00:31:52.589
Everybody had guns, so it
was like the wild west.

00:31:55.289 --> 00:31:59.577
Guys would sneak into the town
of Tan Canh to be with girls.

00:31:59.577 --> 00:32:02.827
Vietnamese women were beautiful.

00:32:02.827 --> 00:32:04.288
What are we saving ourselves for

00:32:04.288 --> 00:32:07.121
if we're just going to die anyway?

00:32:11.295 --> 00:32:15.462
One day I was in a truck that
missed the convoy going south.

00:32:17.333 --> 00:32:21.000
So the driver decided
to run the road alone.

00:32:25.991 --> 00:32:28.658
He told me to get in back, on the 50,

00:32:28.658 --> 00:32:32.408
a huge World War I
anti-aircraft machine gun.

00:32:33.439 --> 00:32:36.517
So I'm hanging onto this big gun,

00:32:36.517 --> 00:32:40.799
roaring down the road alone
with jungle on both sides

00:32:40.799 --> 00:32:43.228
ready to blast anything that moved,

00:32:43.228 --> 00:32:46.131
when suddenly it hits me,

00:32:46.131 --> 00:32:49.549
the entire Vietnam War is out of control,

00:32:49.549 --> 00:32:52.689
just like this speeding truck.

00:32:52.689 --> 00:32:56.489
It was a huge rush of power,
mixed with a deep fear

00:32:56.489 --> 00:32:58.839
and a deeper disappointment

00:32:58.839 --> 00:33:02.339
that God would let the world go like this.

00:33:12.056 --> 00:33:16.375
Rumors of Dak To being
overrun were everywhere.

00:33:16.375 --> 00:33:20.258
Then one day, I was cleaning
out the Officer's Club

00:33:20.258 --> 00:33:22.754
when I heard a train
falling out of the sky.

00:33:22.754 --> 00:33:25.587
(explosion booms)

00:33:26.495 --> 00:33:29.615
I dropped a case of liquor
and dove into a hole.

00:33:29.615 --> 00:33:32.207
The rounds fell so loud and so close

00:33:32.207 --> 00:33:34.767
that my body wanted to run.

00:33:34.767 --> 00:33:37.074
But I stayed in that muddy hole.

00:33:37.074 --> 00:33:39.324
I knew if I ran I was dead.

00:33:41.108 --> 00:33:43.108
I curled up into a ball.

00:33:44.068 --> 00:33:45.318
Time collapsed.

00:33:46.447 --> 00:33:49.548
And it rained a terror I
could never had imagined.

00:33:49.548 --> 00:33:52.381
(explosion booms)

00:33:55.896 --> 00:33:57.936
(explosion booms)

00:33:57.936 --> 00:34:00.853
(repeated gunfire)

00:34:07.496 --> 00:34:09.358
When it was finally over,

00:34:09.358 --> 00:34:12.166
the club lay in splinters all around me

00:34:12.166 --> 00:34:14.134
a rocket had landed right on the bar

00:34:14.134 --> 00:34:16.717
where I had dropped the liquor.

00:34:18.878 --> 00:34:22.664
- General Abrams flew in and he asked me:

00:34:22.664 --> 00:34:25.696
"What's your withdrawal plan?"

00:34:25.696 --> 00:34:29.246
And I said we don't
have a withdrawal plan.

00:34:29.246 --> 00:34:30.584
I said where we would we go?

00:34:30.584 --> 00:34:32.123
If we get on the road to Kontum

00:34:32.123 --> 00:34:33.563
or we get out there in the jungle,

00:34:33.563 --> 00:34:37.730
they'd pick us apart one at a
time like they did the French.

00:34:39.452 --> 00:34:42.619
And I said we're gonna stay at Dak To.

00:34:43.923 --> 00:34:48.578
We can't retreat and
we're not gonna surrender.

00:34:48.578 --> 00:34:51.995
And if there is a God, it's in his hands.

00:34:54.945 --> 00:34:56.877
(explosion booms)

00:34:56.877 --> 00:34:59.203
- [Bill] Dak To was hit
everyday, either with rockets

00:34:59.203 --> 00:35:03.036
or by sappers coming in
through the compound.

00:35:07.614 --> 00:35:11.781
- Rocket came in and chopped
off Fisher's feet at the ankles

00:35:13.858 --> 00:35:16.877
and blew me back against the blast wall.

00:35:16.877 --> 00:35:19.145
And I just went in and sat down on my bunk

00:35:19.145 --> 00:35:23.826
and just shook and I couldn't
move for quite a while.

00:35:23.826 --> 00:35:26.243
It scared the hell out of me.

00:35:29.048 --> 00:35:30.114
They hit all around us.

00:35:30.114 --> 00:35:34.197
They had that company area
pretty well zeroed in.

00:35:38.816 --> 00:35:42.399
(garbled radio dispatches)

00:35:43.236 --> 00:35:46.069
(explosion booms)

00:36:05.285 --> 00:36:08.234
- The firebase was starting
to look like the moon,

00:36:08.234 --> 00:36:10.914
we'd taken so many shells,
we'd taken so many rounds,

00:36:10.914 --> 00:36:13.853
there wasn't a place
left that was safe hardly

00:36:13.853 --> 00:36:15.270
for anyone to be.

00:36:16.520 --> 00:36:20.194
Nobody could understand
why an engineer battalion

00:36:20.194 --> 00:36:23.402
sitting there with four tanks
and fighting a ground war

00:36:23.402 --> 00:36:25.985
with North Vietnamese regulars.

00:36:32.242 --> 00:36:34.362
I can't remember a day in 45 days

00:36:34.362 --> 00:36:37.442
that we didn't get mortar or rocket fire.

00:36:37.442 --> 00:36:41.182
We had continuous ground
probes and ground attacks.

00:36:41.182 --> 00:36:44.015
(explosion booms)

00:36:49.537 --> 00:36:51.997
- [Upham] After the
rocket landed on my bar,

00:36:51.997 --> 00:36:54.497
I became the ambulance driver.

00:36:55.450 --> 00:36:57.229
Since I had no training

00:36:57.229 --> 00:37:00.010
and the least experience
of all the medics,

00:37:00.010 --> 00:37:03.671
when we got casualties, I
would follow the doctor around

00:37:03.671 --> 00:37:07.038
as he stopped at every stretcher.

00:37:07.038 --> 00:37:08.987
He would dictate the soldiers' wounds

00:37:08.987 --> 00:37:12.308
and medications in his soft voice.

00:37:12.308 --> 00:37:16.229
"Gunshot wound right thigh,
quarter-grain morphine,

00:37:16.229 --> 00:37:18.669
"fifteen hundred hours.

00:37:18.669 --> 00:37:21.010
"Massive shrapnel wound resulting in

00:37:21.010 --> 00:37:24.343
"traumatic amputation of lower left leg;

00:37:25.589 --> 00:37:29.756
"gunshot wound to cranium,
K-I-A, killed in action."

00:37:31.988 --> 00:37:35.197
I copied his words down on cardboard tags

00:37:35.197 --> 00:37:38.669
and tied them to the
woundeds' wrists or toes,

00:37:38.669 --> 00:37:40.586
if they still had them.

00:37:49.231 --> 00:37:51.871
After the wounded were helicoptered out,

00:37:51.871 --> 00:37:54.871
I would tag the dead,
get someone to help me

00:37:54.871 --> 00:37:57.911
roll them into green plastic bags,

00:37:57.911 --> 00:38:00.810
then haul them upstairs to our morgue,

00:38:00.810 --> 00:38:04.220
where the bodies often stayed for days

00:38:04.220 --> 00:38:08.387
because the helicopters were
too busy to take them away.

00:38:13.189 --> 00:38:16.589
The camp dogs would gather outside,

00:38:16.589 --> 00:38:19.172
drawn by the smell of the dead.

00:38:28.446 --> 00:38:32.372
- When I first found
out what you did there

00:38:32.372 --> 00:38:34.955
I felt to myself, you know wow,

00:38:36.494 --> 00:38:39.766
I don't any right to feel the way I do.

00:38:39.766 --> 00:38:42.126
Think about what you did

00:38:42.126 --> 00:38:45.543
you touched each one of the ones we lost.

00:38:49.173 --> 00:38:52.090
And I know you showed them dignity,

00:38:55.183 --> 00:38:58.100
and I appreciate that you did that,

00:38:59.987 --> 00:39:01.570
so your pain would,

00:39:06.835 --> 00:39:10.335
I think your pain doesn't compare to mine.

00:39:11.963 --> 00:39:14.880
- [Upham] You can't make
a comparison like that.

00:39:14.880 --> 00:39:17.200
Pain is pain, there's no--

00:39:17.200 --> 00:39:18.810
- But you understand what I'm saying.

00:39:18.810 --> 00:39:21.400
- [Upham] Yeah, but I never shot anybody.

00:39:21.400 --> 00:39:23.879
I don't have that burden
on my conscience, Bill,

00:39:23.879 --> 00:39:25.629
and I'm glad I don't.

00:39:41.480 --> 00:39:44.320
- I guess we didn't
have time to think about

00:39:44.320 --> 00:39:47.251
those deep thoughts when we were there

00:39:47.251 --> 00:39:50.001
and thinking about staying alive.

00:39:52.192 --> 00:39:56.262
You care about your own and
you don't care about the enemy.

00:39:56.262 --> 00:39:59.323
If they want to be
brutal, the answer to that

00:39:59.323 --> 00:40:02.472
is you be more brutal than they are.

00:40:02.472 --> 00:40:05.590
And it makes us all inhuman.

00:40:05.590 --> 00:40:08.811
And that's what war's all about.

00:40:08.811 --> 00:40:12.577
But it's been going on for centuries.

00:40:12.577 --> 00:40:15.244
(pensive music)

00:40:27.065 --> 00:40:29.625
(woman singing in foreign language)

00:40:29.625 --> 00:40:33.185
- [Bill] They could have
wiped us out at any time.

00:40:33.185 --> 00:40:35.854
Every single person that went knows that.

00:40:35.854 --> 00:40:38.771
And sometimes it doesn't seem real.

00:40:41.998 --> 00:40:46.165
- [John] It's so dramatic and
so intense, it's live or die.

00:40:47.067 --> 00:40:48.577
That's what your values are set on,

00:40:48.577 --> 00:40:53.017
that's what the rest
of your life is run on.

00:40:53.017 --> 00:40:53.850
- [Bill] We go off to war,

00:40:53.850 --> 00:40:55.475
whether we agree with the war or not.

00:40:55.475 --> 00:40:56.965
You go.

00:40:56.965 --> 00:40:58.226
You honor your family.

00:40:58.226 --> 00:41:01.226
I tried to honor my family by going.

00:41:04.635 --> 00:41:07.635
- [John] I still dream about Dak To.

00:41:12.926 --> 00:41:15.776
- [Upham] The siege
went on for two months.

00:41:15.776 --> 00:41:19.294
Nearly half our men
were killed or wounded.

00:41:19.294 --> 00:41:23.461
American infantry never came
back into Dak To Valley.

00:41:30.477 --> 00:41:32.387
Toward the end of the siege,

00:41:32.387 --> 00:41:34.237
four of us ran across the airstrip

00:41:34.237 --> 00:41:37.528
because a helicopter had been hit.

00:41:37.528 --> 00:41:40.555
The pilot didn't look like
anything was wrong with him,

00:41:40.555 --> 00:41:43.124
until we went around the back.

00:41:43.124 --> 00:41:45.787
Part of the back of his head was shot off,

00:41:45.787 --> 00:41:48.096
but he was still alive.

00:41:48.096 --> 00:41:50.136
And so we took his helmet off

00:41:50.136 --> 00:41:52.485
and laid him down on the stretcher

00:41:52.485 --> 00:41:57.485
and we ran as fast as we could
back to the medical bunker.

00:41:57.485 --> 00:42:00.473
Because he'd been hit in
some part of his brain,

00:42:00.473 --> 00:42:03.536
he went back in some other memory.

00:42:03.536 --> 00:42:06.296
He was making these tiny sounds,

00:42:06.296 --> 00:42:10.463
he was going "Whee, whee, whee."
like he was five years old.

00:42:12.824 --> 00:42:16.224
and his father was throwing
him up in his arms,

00:42:16.224 --> 00:42:17.557
up into the air.

00:42:29.213 --> 00:42:33.030
There's only thing that
haunts me like that,

00:42:33.030 --> 00:42:35.510
that time when I was 10,

00:42:35.510 --> 00:42:39.677
standing by that sand hopper
with my friend Johnny inside.

00:42:54.522 --> 00:42:56.754
When I came back from the war,

00:42:56.754 --> 00:42:59.702
my parents had a homecoming party for me

00:42:59.702 --> 00:43:02.022
and one of my mother's
friends sidled up to me

00:43:02.022 --> 00:43:06.804
with a smile and a martini,
looked at me and said,

00:43:06.804 --> 00:43:09.054
"So, did you kill anybody?"

00:43:09.953 --> 00:43:12.870
(thoughtful music)

00:43:20.602 --> 00:43:23.495
- The year after I got back,

00:43:23.495 --> 00:43:27.662
I was into habitual things,
partying and just, depression,

00:43:28.844 --> 00:43:31.244
leading me down the road to suicide.

00:43:31.244 --> 00:43:34.282
Until the point where I sat one evening

00:43:34.282 --> 00:43:36.375
with a 9 millimeter to my head.

00:43:36.375 --> 00:43:40.542
- I have had the barrel of
that 44 magnum in my mouth

00:43:42.530 --> 00:43:44.363
over 20 times, loaded.

00:43:46.741 --> 00:43:48.344
- I felt a lot of responsibility

00:43:48.344 --> 00:43:52.261
for the people who were
wounded and died there.

00:43:55.605 --> 00:43:57.772
I didn't put us at Dak To,

00:43:58.704 --> 00:44:02.037
but everyone that was wounded or killed,

00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:07.915
it was my responsibility and my decision

00:44:07.915 --> 00:44:10.332
that put 'em where they were.

00:44:11.744 --> 00:44:13.994
That was hard to live with.

00:44:24.161 --> 00:44:25.643
- [Upham] I don't know what's gonna happen

00:44:25.643 --> 00:44:27.143
with us in Dak To.

00:44:34.803 --> 00:44:37.483
- [John] These feelings that I generated

00:44:37.483 --> 00:44:42.152
in that 14 month time in
Vietnam have shaped my life,

00:44:42.152 --> 00:44:45.464
have formed my life,
have made me what I am.

00:44:45.464 --> 00:44:48.933
And I don't know what
looking at them closely

00:44:48.933 --> 00:44:50.433
is gonna do to me.

00:45:06.075 --> 00:45:08.063
Is this the roadway around the edge?

00:45:08.063 --> 00:45:11.813
- The compound's bigger
than you think it is.

00:45:18.533 --> 00:45:21.955
We're in the middle of
the Dak To compound,

00:45:21.955 --> 00:45:25.622
doesn't look anything
like it did back then.

00:45:30.555 --> 00:45:32.373
- That's a needle cap.

00:45:32.373 --> 00:45:36.013
Maybe we're close to the medical bunker.

00:45:36.013 --> 00:45:39.151
- [Duffy] 50 caliber, I think.

00:45:39.151 --> 00:45:43.318
- That'd pierce through a tank
that wasn't made very well.

00:45:45.450 --> 00:45:48.941
Definitely pierces
through a body real well.

00:45:48.941 --> 00:45:52.162
- [Upham] We were searching
for the Dak To we had known.

00:45:52.162 --> 00:45:56.329
But there was nothing there as
haunting as our own memories.

00:45:57.415 --> 00:46:01.055
Finally, we chose a
place a pay our respects

00:46:01.055 --> 00:46:03.138
and honor those who died.

00:46:12.935 --> 00:46:15.268
(Bill sobs)

00:46:22.384 --> 00:46:26.192
- You guys touch a soft
spot in my heart like that.

00:46:26.192 --> 00:46:29.821
- Hey Bill, how about a heart for you.

00:46:29.821 --> 00:46:30.821
- Thank you.

00:46:57.362 --> 00:47:01.283
- [Newman] Right between those
two saddles is Rocket Ridge.

00:47:01.283 --> 00:47:04.950
You spend all this time
trying to forget it,

00:47:06.603 --> 00:47:09.261
and you think when you're gonna go back,

00:47:09.261 --> 00:47:11.152
you're going to go there and
you're going to find Dak To

00:47:11.152 --> 00:47:13.082
and you're gonna remember it,

00:47:13.082 --> 00:47:17.165
but there was nothing to
see except the airstrip.

00:47:18.499 --> 00:47:21.619
But, there was something in the air.

00:47:21.619 --> 00:47:24.202
("Shenandoah")

00:47:56.817 --> 00:47:58.651
- [Upham] We lost our war,

00:47:58.651 --> 00:48:01.760
the first one in American history.

00:48:01.760 --> 00:48:05.927
But surviving a war
transcends winning and losing.

00:48:08.339 --> 00:48:11.923
As the sound of rockets
faded from my memory,

00:48:11.923 --> 00:48:13.756
I heard something new.

00:48:15.912 --> 00:48:18.745
The birds had returned to Vietnam.