- [Narrator] This film depicts the Vietnam War and the Americans who served the It follows the actions of soldiers of the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry of the 25th Infantry Division between 1968 to 1970.

Many scenes and stories are graphic and viewer discretion is advised.

(helicopter blades whomping) (pilots chattering) (helicopter blades whomping) (guns firing) (people shouting indistinctly) (rifles firing) (bombs exploding) - [Soldier] Go!

Go!

Take cover!

Take cover!

(guns firing) (bullets ricocheting) (helicopter blades whomping fades) (birds chirping) - [Narrator] About 14 miles southeast of the city of Fulton, Missouri, along the Missouri River, sits the small town of Mokane.

(gentle piano music) Nearly every year in the springtime, the mighty MO would rise and flood the little town, leaving its people to fend for higher ground.

This became commonplace for Mokane's townspeople.

Among the residents lived Ray and Georgia Adams and their five children.

Stan Adams, Ray and Georgia's second youngest child, remembered, "when the floods came, we would stay in the old Holman schoolhouse in Hams Prairie.

We rented the schoolhouse with another family, and I enjoyed it there because it was bigger than our home, and we had lots of extra room."

When the waters receded, Stan and his family would return to their home and clear out all the mud and remaining water left by the annual floods.

"It was difficult work," said Stan, "but it was home, and I enjoyed growing up there."

Years later, in May, 1968, Stan would receive his draft notice and be sent to St. Louis for military induction.

He would be entering the Army to help fight the spread of communism in South Vietnam.

- In 1968, got out of school in May, and got drafted in June, the whole month of May, in school, we didn't even care about Vietnam.

We never thought anything about it.

The only Vietnam things that I was hearing was from my parents.

My dad, he basically updated me, seemed like every day, about that.

- [Protestors] 1, 2, 3, 4, we don't want your f---ing war!

1, 2, 3, 4, we don't want your f---ing war!

1, 2, 3, 4, we don't want your f---ing war!

1, 2, 3, 4, we don't want your f---ing war!

1, 2, 3, 4, we don't want your f---ing war!

1, 2, 3, 4-- - [Narrator] By 1968, the war in Vietnam was unnerving America.

Young men were being told to fight while unrest and political tension had risen to an all-time high.

It was commonplace to witness anti-war protests and riots throughout the country.

In February, during the Tet Lunar New Year, coordinated attacks by North Vietnamese forces had conducted the largest military offensive against South Vietnam to date.

The Tet Offensive, as it became known, left many thousands killed and wounded, and the future of South Vietnam in grave concern.

Although militarily unsuccessful, the Tet Offensive proved that the war in Vietnam was going to be untenable for the American and South Vietnamese governments.

By late March, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced he would not seek another term as president, leaving the nation in a state of political uncertainty.

Five days later, civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

- Somewhere I read of the freedom of press.

Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for rights.

(audience applauding) - [Narrator] In early June, democratic presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy was fatally shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California.

That, however, did not deter the U.S. government from sending thousands more American troops to fight and guard an ever-worsening situation in Vietnam.

(melancholy music) (helicopter blades whomping) (guns firing) (engine rumbling) (melancholy music continues) (helicopter blades whomping) (guns firing) - When I first heard about Vietnam, I was in high school.

Three guys I went to high school with joined the Marines in the buddy system before graduation, and that's when it, you know, kind of opened up to me a little bit, but then one of the guys was killed two weeks after he got to Vietnam, and we had his funeral, and I went to his funeral and it just, it was just devastating for his senior class, and his friends, and his family, and everything, that he went off to war like that and got killed.

- [Narrator] Young men were being drafted from all over the United States for military service.

They received letters in the mail stating, "you are hereby ordered for induction into the Armed Forces of the United States, and to report to a nearby induction center" by a certain date.

Between 1964 and 1973, some 1.8 million American men were conscripted for military service.

The draft, as it became known, was first implemented during the American Civil War; however, by 1917, the draft was known by its governmental agency, the Selective Service System.

(gentle instrumental music) The "Military Selective Services Act of 1967" greatly expanded the age limit of draftees in the Selective Service from 18 to 55.

However, if a man aged 18 or older was enrolled in college, the government offered draft deferments, so long as he maintained acceptable grades.

- You know, Vietnam interrupted me after my second year of college because I ran out of money and I wasn't taking enough hours.

And my dad called me one day and he said, "your draft notice is here."

So I'm going, "well, that's just great.

And when do I have to report?"

And he goes, "well, you've got to report in September."

And it was really funny because we were sitting around with a bunch of guys having beers and he said, he calls and hung up the phone, and I must've had this stupid look on my face, and my buddy goes, "what's wrong?"

And I goes, "oh, my dad just called, and said my draft notice is sitting there," and he said you have to report on, it was like September 12th or something, I don't remember the exact date.

He says, you gotta report at the induction station for a physical and all that.

I went, "oh boy, here we go."

- You know, you didn't know, you had no idea what was coming.

And the company I worked for, we built aircraft instruments for the military, and civilians, but mostly we did a lot of military work, so they figured that I was probably pretty safe not to get drafted since I was doing work for the military.

Well that didn't work out that way.

I still got drafted, so.

So it was a surprise, you know, the last thing I expected to get the letter in the mail and I said, "oh, s--t, here we go."

So we'll see.

You know, and that's what happened.

That's where it started.

- I was drafted out of the postal service, and they told me, asked me when I got into postal service, in the military, if I would like to work for the postal service in the military.

And I told them, "what would I have to do?"

They said, "sign up for another year."

I said, "I think I'll pass."

- [Narrator] Some volunteered.

Many were drafted.

But most had little or any idea of where Vietnam was.

(footsteps tapping) (soldiers chanting) After their induction, men were sent to Army basic training.

Trainees received on average eight weeks of basic combat training, then an additional eight weeks of advanced individual training.

In many cases, the training time was cut short, depending on the urgency of combat needs.

They were sent to Army bases all around the United States.

They got shaved heads, learned how to operate basic infantry weapons, such as the M16 rifle, M60 machine gun, .45 caliber hand weapon, and a variety of other assorted arms.

They learned how to march in lockstep, how to salute an officer, and how to kill an enemy combatant.

- Sometimes I think the Army brainwashed you, just to kill, kill.

That's all they taught us.

Kill, kill, go to Vietnam, kill a Viet Cong.

That's all.

- So what they try to do, they try to break you down to a point where everybody's equal.

You know, there's no difference between race, religion, any of that crap.

Everybody's taught as an equal person.

And you're the low man on the totem pole.

And they try, that's where they start.

They use that to build you up.

- [Narrator] When they finished basic training, most young men had lost between 15 to 20 pounds of body fat, and gained a few inches of muscle mass.

Once completing their training, soldiers usually had a week, sometimes less, to visit their families before leaving for Vietnam.

(jet engine rumbling) Most soldiers were flown to Vietnam using commercial jet liners.

They departed the United States and would take a flight of about 18 hours that included several stops along the way.

Soldiers entered Vietnam through a variety of locations.

Some landed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon, some at Bien Hoa, and others at Cam Rahn Bay.

In many cases, as jetliners approached for landing, they came under small arms fire by Viet Cong guerilla fighters - Getting off the plane in Cam Rahn Bay, I can remember when they opened the door and I was sitting up toward the front of the plane, and I remember stepping out on that...

They didn't have a walkway, They had, you know, where they bring the steps up.

And I can remember walking through that door of the airplane that was nice and air-conditioned and that heat hit you.

And it was like, oh my God, instant sweat.

So down the steps, you went to the induction center in Cam Rahn Bay and it was nothing but tents, and we had a bunch of us, you know, they herded us all there.

And, of course, the NCOs went to one part and us PFC nothings went to another area of it.

- We left California and we stopped in Anchorage, Alaska, and I guess they refueled, and then we stopped in Japan.

And I remember in Japan there was a bunch of Army guys in there.

They were coming home and they had us so scared telling us, "oh, you gonna get shot before you ever get off the plane, you know?"

And they had us scared.

Anyway, we went into Tan Son Nhut Air Base there and landed, and they didn't give me no gun for, well, I thought, "man, we gonna get shot."

But it was so hot.

When we got off that thing and stunk, I thought, "man.

You know, is the whole country going to smell like this?

- When I got to Vietnam, I didn't know what to expect.

And I thought, "man, when I get off this plane, they're gonna hand me a gun."

I'm going to run to the berm line and I'm gonna start shooting.

I thought the war was instant, but it wasn't.

I got off the plane.

I went to some barracks.

I had interviews, I had some classes, and then they sent me to the field.

(gentle instrumental music) - [Narrator] Vietnam was a different land, and people, from that which most Americans were accustomed.

The temperature in Vietnam would stay in the high 90s, while the humidity would make the ground feel as though it was about 115 degrees Fahrenheit.

It was hot and humid.

South Vietnam rests in a tropical climate zone with many tropical conditions.

Outside of the major cities, Vietnam was mostly agrarian, with flat lands in the south and mountains in the central highlands.

Most of the land was covered with jungle, some parts being two or three layers thick of canopy trees.

Most Vietnamese people were poor and farmed on lands that had been farmed for centuries.

- The lifestyle of the Vietnamese people is nothing like our lifestyle.

Their thinking is, give you an example.

They have what's called "nursing mothers."

There's women up into their 60s that nurse babies and, because there are women, as we all know, that can't nurse.

So you go through villages and you'll see women nursing their babies.

It's normal.

It's nothing.

You see that in America, "oh God, they gotta cover up.

You can't show that."

You know, out there, they gotta take a crap, go to the bathroom, they'll bend over right there, pull their pants down right in the rice paddies.

They don't care who's around.

- I don't know it, it was just so, to me, the people and the culture was like going back a hundred years or something.

If I could, you know, think that's what it be, because they was so primitive, I thought.

They're planting rice with them water buffaloes plowing.

- [Narrator] Their main dietary starch was rice, and they grew rice in fields and paddies across the country.

In most cases, they lived in small villages or towns, many of which were made of wood or other natural building material.

Saigon was the capital of South Vietnam and the central headquarters for U.S., South Vietnamese, and other allied operations.

(horns honking) On February 8th, 1962, the U.S. Military Assistance Command, known as MACV, was established.

Nicknamed "Pentagon East," MACV was located at Saigon's Tan Son Nhut Air Base and was the joint service command for the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force, as well as Special Operations.

When soldiers landed in Vietnam, they were assigned to different units and spent a few days in assignment and orientation centers before being sent to their unit.

- It was a waiting game for a day until you got orders of where you were going, and then they, you know, shoved you on a plane to go to either Cu Chi or Tay Ninh, to go to the 25th Infantry Division, and then from there they assigned you to companies within the 25th, so.

And there was quite a few of us, a kid that I had went through high school with, and Basic, and AIT, quite a few of them, got assigned to the Manchus at the same time I did.

Unfortunately, this kid that, him and I were really good friends, got killed.

He was in Bravo Company awaiting his sole surviving son's paperwork to get done, and he got killed before that happened, so that was the first downer of my life because I had actually seen him a couple days before that, and asked him how it was going.

And he said, "well, I'm waiting on my paperwork to get out of here."

And I said, "well, I hope it happens."

And, unfortunately, it didn't happen, so... Yeah, it was my first tragedy of war, I guess, of seeing him, you know, and I did identify his body, which was another, you know, Graves Registration in 'Nam was nothing more than like a building, a metal building, and when they opened that door, the stench was unbelievable.

I unzipped that body bag, and I was like, "oh yeah, that's him, zip it back up."

and out I went, so.

Yeah, another tragedy.

I mean, I've seen a lot of guys that were killed on the, you know, out in the field, but nothing, nothing was worse than just seeing him that had been in that bag for a few days.

So, yeah.

(gentle somber music) - The 4th Battalion 9th Infantry of the 25th Infantry Division was nicknamed the Manchus.

This title was given to the unit when it deployed to Manchuria to suppress the Boxer Rebellion in 1900.

Their motto, "Keep Up the Fire," was immortalized by Colonel Emerson Hamilton Liscum, who uttered the words after receiving a fatal wound in the Battle of Tianjin, China.

The Manchus were attached to the 25th Infantry Division, which was stationed in Tay Ninh province, northwest of Saigon, bordering Cambodia to the west.

The 25th, also known as "Tropic Lightning" for the design of their patch, established their main base in Cu Chi in 1966 and conducted major operations to disrupt enemy activities entering Vietnam from Cambodia, as well as in Tay Ninh city itself.

- And then they sent me to Cu Chi.

I was in the 25th Infantry.

And then I stayed there a couple of days and they flew me to Dau Tieng, and I was in the Manchus.

And then I went to the field.

- And we went to, I went to Alpha Company, and 4th of 9th in the Manchus.

- And everybody in Charlie Company was almost brand-new, because they had got wiped out on the bridge on March 2nd.

- [Narrator] On March 2nd, 1968, in perhaps the bloodiest eight minutes of the entire war, 49 Manchus were killed and 29 left wounded when Viet Cong guerillas surrounded the American troops at Hoc Mon, just north of Saigon.

Newly conscripted and trained soldiers were joining the Manchus as replacements, and would soon be replaced themselves.

- I had been in the field three days and Charlie Company got in contact with the enemy and their officer called in artillery on their position shot 'em, crippled them bad.

(cannon clangs) - [Soldier] Fire!

(cannon booming) (bomb whistles) (bomb explodes) When I come up on the scene, there was a young man had his leg blown off and they had the first aid kit trying to stop some of the blood and he was crying for his mama.

And when I walked up, he begged me to kill him.

And I told him, "oh no, you got medevacs coming," said, "we're setting up security for that, in just a minute you'll be back and get more treatment and stuff, you'll be better off."

And he begged me to kill him.

And that always bothered me after that.

You know, a month later I'd been more seasoned, more numb to what was going on, and I might have would've killed him, and that always haunted me.

- [Narrator] Tay Ninh province is mostly flatland with an abundance of rice paddies.

The region is distinguished by a dormant volcano measuring some 3,268 feet high named Nui Ba Den, meaning Black Virgin Mountain.

The name arrived from a legend of a young woman who fell in love with a soldier, but sadly met her fate on the mountain.

Nui Ba Den is the tallest mountain in all South Vietnam, and commands a strategic position to the mouth of the Mekong Delta further south.

This mountain became a highly sought-after position for both sides in the war.

- We used, by the Black Virgin Mountain a lot, we used to sit and watch them fight up there a lot on the mountains, at nighttime.

There was always fighting on that mountain.

(guns firing) - On May 13th, 1968, the American base atop the mountain was overrun by Viet Cong guerrillas, killing 21 Americans, including several Manchus.

(guns firing) In Vietnam, Americans faced two primary adversaries.

The North Vietnamese Army, known as the NVA, and the Viet Cong guerillas.

The NVA were a well-trained and well-equipped military from North Vietnam.

They wore tan or green uniforms, and were supplied with Soviet and Chinese weapons.

The Viet Cong were guerilla fighters that would engage their enemy, then blend back in to the civilian population.

They normally wore black pajamas and sandals.

They carried similar weapons to the NVA, or used any weapon readily available.

- Their weapons, their AK-47, would shoot our rounds.

Our M16 rounds.

Our M16 would not shoot their rounds.

Their tracers were a different color than ours.

One was red, we had a red tracer.

Every fifth round was red, had a red tracer.

Theirs were green.

(guns firing) So you make contact, you're shooting red tracers, and then all of a sudden, you see red tracers coming back at you.

(bullets whizzing) Somebody's, they've gotten some ammo from somewhere, or somebody was carrying ammo and decided it was too heavy and decided to throw it away.

And it ended up costing someone their lives.

- [Narrator] The American infantry soldier did not just have to fear the enemy, but also the elements of Vietnam itself.

The environment was full of disease and poisonous creatures.

The many-banded krait snake, also known by American soldiers as the two-step snake, as when its victims were bit, they would not live for more than two steps.

Vietnam has many varieties of viper snakes, including the king cobra.

The Vietnam forest scorpion is another venomous creature that grows to a length of about five inches.

The yellow sack spider's venom would cause pain and swelling and even lesions in humans.

Weaver ants survive in trees and swarm on a victim, leaving painful bites.

Also, the jungle is home to many dangerous animals, including monkeys, tigers, leopards, bears, jackals, and wild boars.

From June to November, Vietnam experiences a rainy season.

Soldiers had to endure tropical diseases associated with the rain, including jungle rot, malaria, ringworm, and many other types of skin infections.

In standing water, such as rice paddies or ponds, leeches would bite onto soldiers, many times finding skin near the midsection, as soldiers waded through waist-deep water.

During long marches, water would be scarce, but the infantry soldier would not drink from rivers or lakes for fear of disease and contamination.

The military issued iodine water purification tablets for soldiers to drop in their canteen to kill any bacteria that could spread illness.

The war in Vietnam was unlike any other war the United States had ever fought.

The curved shape of South Vietnam, its proximity to Cambodia and Laos to the west, and the South China Sea to the east, made it vulnerable to attack.

The terrain was unforgiving and made a frontline nearly impossible.

The recent invention of the helicopter made combat missions possible, and most missions in Vietnam utilized Bell helicopter company's UH-1 Iroquois Chopper, nicknamed the "Huey," for combat missions.

With harsh terrain and Huey helicopters as the main troop carry, fire support, and medical transportation, MACV decided to count the number of enemies killed as a measure for success in the war.

Body count, as it became known, was the single determiner for the war's victory.

- The main purpose of Vietnam was body count.

That's what it was.

The seniors, they wanted body count.

They could care less how you got it.

Get body count.

If you got half your company killed, didn't matter.

How many of them did you kill?

That was their motive.

- [Narrator] And military operational planning mainly focused on killing as many enemy soldiers as possible.

(guns firing) (helicopter blades whomping) In Tay Ninh province, the 25th Infantry Division set up a variety of different bases and operating posts, the largest being Cu Chi Base Camp, which supported the smaller regional bases in the area.

The Manchus operated out of bases that were named for the city they neighbored, or given American nicknames that seemed to accurately describe the area.

Names included, Tay-Ninh Base Camp, Frontier City, French Fort, Mole City, Dau Tieng, and Nui Ba Den.

Each of these camps were designed for operations, support, or forward operating needs.

They were designed to stem the flow of enemy troops and supply from neighboring Cambodia, where the NVA and Viet Cong set up a system of supply and military engagement along what became known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

A forward operating base, otherwise known as a "FOB" was the forward most positioned encampment against enemy forces traveling from Cambodia to South Vietnam.

Due to political restraints, American ground forces were barred from entering Cambodia and attacking the NVA and Viet Cong forces that sheltered in Cambodia and Laos.

The Manchus were based in camps that were isolated and vulnerable to attack.

They would stay in the base camps, which were made of sandbags, dug out of trenches, sheet metal, and had several meters of barbed wire that kept out enemy forces.

This became well known as "the wire," and was of some comfort to Americans as they believed it to be a protective boundary between them and the dangers beyond the camp.

Since the war in Vietnam had no frontline, the Manchus would go on sweeps.

A sweep was a several-mile hike through towns, fields, and jungle to find enemy combatants.

Many times, little contact was made with enemy troops, so military operations ordered the destruction of anything that could be of assistance to the enemy.

- There was a few occasions where we had to burn down a village or something like that.

And that was a hard thing to do.

You know, you're taking these people's homes, and you're destroying them for what reason?

Who knows?

You know, they didn't tell us the reason.

They would just tell you, "burn everything and then we're moving on."

How they relocated those people, or whatever they did?

I don't know.

- [Narrator] In many cases, Manchus would go on a sweep and find little or nothing.

They would spend hours, sometimes days on the hunt.

They would walk single file with some distance between soldiers.

They always kept a keen eye on anything unusual.

The man in front was called "point," and his job was the most dangerous of the sweep since he had to constantly monitor his surroundings and communicate back to the soldiers behind him.

They would stay clear of pathways or other regularly-traveled roads for fear of booby traps.

- We had instances where booby traps set up.

You walk down a trail that you walk down every day.

Nothing happens, until that time when that person's mind is somewhere else, and instead of walking to the left of the tree or the left of a twig, they walk to the right of it, and that's where the trip wires are, and that's where the 105 rounds are that didn't explode.

Where we've shot different types of armament.

Anything from bullets, artillery, mortars, anything that didn't explode when it hit the ground, the Vietnamese would take that and use it against you.

- [Narrator] The NVA and Viet Cong devised a myriad of improvised weapons that would kill American soldiers.

Things like trip wires attached to grenades, or artillery shells fixed to explode when triggered, landmines, and Punji Sticks, as well as other improvised, but deadly, contraptions.

The enemy also used poisonous snakes in a variety of ways.

They would construct covered snake pits, so American soldiers would unknowingly fall in, or carefully tie the end of a snake to a tree, so when an American soldier walked through the jungle, the snake would strike them on the face or upper body.

There was little knowing if the Manchus would engage the enemy on a sweep.

During some sweeps, they would be out in the field for hours, then make contact, which meant the enemy would open fire on them and a battle would take place.

Other times the Manchus would be ordered to stay in the jungle or in the fields overnight or for a few days to set up an ambush.

This required soldiers to use Claymore mines, which, when detonated, exploded small steel balls about 100 meters to the front.

As part of leaving the safety of a base camp or operating base to conduct a sweep, the American military utilized the tactic of "seek and destroy" to locate and annihilate an enemy force.

This tactic was combined with helicopters to insert troops into an area, conduct a mine sweep, then return to the helicopters and fly to another point and repeat the same action.

(helicopter engine whining) - We took off like 5:30, just at dawn in the morning and flew several combat assaults, you know finally we went out what's called strip alert, where we refueled and waited to see if the infantry we had just inserted had made any contact with the enemy.

- It was actually Thanksgiving Eve that it happened.

We were on the, they called it "seek and destroy missions."

The spotter planes would see fresh digging or enemy movement or something.

They would mark it on a map, then they would prep the area with artillery and then we would fly in looking for body counts and weapons and food caches and stuff like that.

- [Narrator] On November 27th, 1968, the Manchus were ordered to conduct routine seek and destroy missions around Black Virgin Mountain and rubber tree plantations surrounding the mountain.

(helicopter blades whomping) The 187th Assault Helicopter Company, nicknamed the "Crusaders," given the white shield with red cross on their logo, operated 10 helicopters, which transported elements of Manchu's Alpha Company.

(helicopter blades whomping) - We had five helicopters in the first platoon, five helicopters in the second platoon, and then we had a gunship platoon with C Model Huey with the Gatling guns and all that.

- Each helicopter was given the name "Chalk" to indicate their position in flight, therefore making 10 Chalks.

When helicopters flew together, it was nicknamed an "eagle flight."

- We had supposed to go on five eagle flights that day and we had completed two, and there was a delay.

Somebody else needed their choppers to go on their deal.

And we flew into the area.

It was about 1:30 in the evening.

- [Narrator] Ron Timberlake, Crusaders' flight lead in 1st platoon, was flying Chalk six and ordered the other Chalks to fly in a tight, heavy echelon left formation, so close that each Chalk could see the faces of soldiers in other choppers.

- So we'd form them up in a, we were in like an echelon left, and then we switched the trail and it was a big landing zone, I thought.

And we flew formation, which was quite dangerous in itself in helicopters.

We had six American infantry on the back and A Company 4th of the 9th of the Manchu.

Great soldiers, you know.

We made the insertion.

- [Narrator] The formation was en route to its next rendezvous point.

When approaching the landing zone, they came under heavy NVA machine gun and RPG fire.

- We were going into a rubber plantation and all hell broke loose.

(helicopter blades whomping) (bullets whizzing) - [Pilot] The LZ is hot.

Repeat, the LZ is hot.

(bullets piercing) (guns firing) Roger that, we're taking gunfire.

Prepare for evasive maneuvers.

- And I was in about, I think the second chopper, and it was a hot LZ, and I remember there was gunship beside me just firing all he could fire.

(bombs whizzing) (helicopter blades whomping) - [Pilot] We've got shots fired.

(bullets piercing) (bullets whizzing) - [Pilot] The LZ is hot.

Repeat, the LZ is hot.

- [Aircrewman] In the treeline!

- There was estimated 2,000 in the wood line, and we flew into it with 60 people.

(guns firing) (helicopter blades whomping) - All I know is we started into the landing zone.

Chalk was like your position in the air, in positions of helicopters.

And there was Chalk two receiving fire, Chalk three receiving fire, Chalk four receiving fire, - [Pilot] Chalk three taking fire from the treeline.

Chalk three taking fire.

- By then I was already into the LZ, but I was at a high hover.

I thought I was like at 20, 30 foot in the air, trying to set it down between baby rubber trees, because my unit liked to go to the ground so the infantry didn't have to jump out.

(helicopter blades whomping) (bullets whizzing) (bombs exploding) (bullets piercing) - I jumped out of the helicopter about 20 foot off the ground.

They just just hollered, "get out, get out."

I never even knew when I hit the ground.

I was so scared that I would forget to breathe.

And I'd go (gasps), and, (laughs), "oh, I gotta breathe," you know, and they was shooting down that elephant grass.

It'd fall across my back and feel like a telephone pole hit on there.

(helicopter blades whomping) (guns firing) (cameraman panting) (bombs exploding) (bombs exploding) (machine guns firing) (bullets whizzing) (helicopter blades whomping) (machine gun firing) (helicopter blades whomping) (guns firing) (bullets whizzing) (helicopter blades whomping) (guns firing) (machine guns firing) - [Narrator] It was 1:55 in the afternoon when Chalk three radioed, "receiving fire."

Alpha Company of the 4th of 9th Manchus landed into a hot LZ near a Michelin rubber plantation within sight of Nui Ba Den.

A "hot LZ" describes a helicopter landing zone that received enemy fire.

(helicopter blades whomping) The Manchus had little time to react to an enemy force that outnumbered them 33 to 1.

(helicopter blades whomping) Dave Hosenfelt on Chalk two received a bullet wound when a .51 caliber round went through the bottom of the helicopter he was on, taking off part of his right leg.

Jim Averette, who was next to Hosenfelt on the chopper, was shot in the left elbow, then in his eye socket, causing him to fall out of the helicopter.

- My buddy was standing beside me in the chopper and me and him was there and he got hit, he got hit in the arm, and then he got hit in the head, busted his eye socket out, and the first thing I remember is the bones and stuff hitting me in the face.

I thought then it, I guess it knocked us both out of the chopper, and we laid there on the ground and I...

I remember looking down at my leg and there was a big old piece of flesh laying there and I guess it was out of my leg where I got hit.

It took a big piece of my leg out.

(bombs exploding) (men screaming) (high-pitched tone ringing) (guns firing) - [Narrator] Captain Tom Pienta was co-piloting when his chopper took a direct hit from an RPG.

The chopper fell to the earth in flames.

- I was at a high hover.

I, from what I remember, with a nose up attitude, really no forward momentum.

And it just, no explosion, just intense heat and yellow, you know, it was in the flames and it fell, it crumbled, crumbled down and you know, I could feel it crumbling.

And I'm going, you know, we had practiced on how to get out.

So I'm going, I unbuckled my shoulder harness and stood up and the helicopter's rotor system goes counterclockwise, and I think a piece of it hit me in the helmet.

Knocked me over, the radio console into the aircraft commander's seat, and it was empty.

Bob told me he went out the front, fell out the front of it.

So I was in straddling the left armored seat and went, "I gotta get out of here."

So I stood up one more time and went out, I thought was the two armored seats like we were taught in flight school go out the cargo door.

Our crew chief gunner, Spec 5 James Gregory, James Gregory Brady was killed when a rocket-propelled grenade hit our helicopter, and the gunner on the right, a guy named PFC Toppy, I believe, I don't know if; what happened to him, but as I got out, I was still on fire.

I, my helmet was on fire and my strap was on fire.

My flight gloves had cooked onto my fingers, so I went put my hands in a puddle of water, you know, and flipped my helmet off because the pad in the back was burning.

And I had a flack jacket on.

Thank god, it saved my ass, because the burns stopped at the top of both arms, so my torso was able to be used as a donor site.

- [Narrator] When Pienta escaped the burning wreckage of his Huey aircraft, he walked the battlefield dazed while burning alive.

(high-pitched tone ringing) - That morning on the previous flight, one the door gunners handed me his helmet.

They had music playing while he was going.

I'd listen to it and I'd passed it on to the next guy and talk to him, and we always said, when you're, ask somebody where they was from, we'd say, "where you from in the world?"

And this guy was from Kansas City, I believe it was.

And we talked a little bit when we hit the hot LZ.

I crawled by him.

He was laying there dead and flames and stuff coming out of his helmet.

- We laid there for a while, and Jim was pretty well out of it from his wounds, and me and the other guy was talking, and he said, "we gotta get the heck out of here."

And I said, "yeah, yeah, but I can't leave Jim."

I said, "we could, I gotta stay with him.

He can't go nowhere."

So he said, well, he'll go get help.

And I said, "yeah, you take my rifle and go get help," because he didn't have a rifle.

He was carrying in the 90 millimeter recoilless rifle.

So he took my rifle and I kept Jim's and the 90 millimeter there and he left to go get help.

And I don't know what happened to him.

I never seen him again.

(helicopter blades whomping) (bombs exploding) (bullets whizzing) (guns firing) Two F-4 Phantoms come in and started bombing.

(jet engine roaring) (bomb explodes) And when they come in, we popped smoke.

We thought it was the right thing to do, but it give away our position, and they started dropping bombs on the woodline and they walked them out towards us, and the last bomb was blowing mud and debris and stuff on us.

And we, I said, "well, next bomb's going to be it for us."

And, when he dropped the fourth bomb, when he went up, he rocked the plane like that.

And I said, "oh, he's signaling that they're through, he's leaving."

- [Narrator] As the Manchus were pinned down by enemy fire, a rescue mission was set in motion by the 2nd Battalion (Mechanized), 22nd Infantry Regiment, also known as the "Triple Deuce."

(helicopter blades whomping) - And we were sent out for a rescue mission to, for Alpha Company when this took place.

And we was, we landed there on the ground, and then a mechanized unit pulled out.

Our men had to move a ways back out of the road or they'd have got hit with the tanks.

(engines rumbling) (tank rattling) And they wound up and went on out there.

Then they got out away from us a little bit.

While an NVA soldier jumped up and fired a few shots, (guns firing) (engine rumbling) Shooting going on.

The mechanized unit turned around and they opened up back there with .50 calibers, and it wiped out, they didn't do it intentionally, but it wiped out 11 of our men there in a hurry.

I mean, it was not, they didn't do it intentionally, but they were just shooting into where the fire come from.

- Later on that evening, I heard a noise that sounded like tanks.

And I said, "I don't think we have any tanks.

It must be the enemy coming," but it was APCs.

And we was looking at them and all, and they said, "oh, that's American coming to rescue us probably."

And we started yelling and hollering, and they stopped and shut the motors off on the APCs.

And the guy said, "who are you?"

And we said, "we're American soldiers, we're the," he said, "what unit are you with?"

And I said, "we're 4th and 9th Manchus."

And he said, "okay," he said, "we want you to put your weapons down and stand up."

And I thought, man, all these Vietnamese out here, that'd be committing suicide.

But we did it and it wasn't a shot fired or nothing and they come on into us.

- I remember that APC got pretty close to his side.

I was waving at 'em and they hollered at me, "just stand up," said, "you all, stand up," he said, and I said, "man, I can't, I can't, I'm wounded."

And he just kept that ol' .50 caliber machine gun pointed right on me and drove up to me and I thought, "man, don't shoot me now, after all we've been through, I hope you don't shoot me."

Anyway, they didn't.

And they drove upon us and they got me and Jim up.

And I remember seeing my real good friend that was in the same chopper with me laying on the other side of where we landed (somber instrumental music) Private John Ryan.

He came in, I think he was maybe a week or so behind me getting there.

And we met and we talked you know, you make friends, and he was just a really, a nice person.

He was from Bellevue, Illinois, which is not too far from Chicago, I think.

But anyway, we was good friends.

We was always talking and everything.

And I think it was maybe two weeks before the Thanksgiving Day battle, I'm sure he told me that they just had a baby.

That then.

And he was so happy and everything.

And I remember, and he was on the chopper with me the day we went in the hot LZ, and like I say, the next morning I seen him laying there and he was dead.

And something I never said earlier, but when I got out of the hospital, I went back to the rear, the captain, which I didn't know then, because he was a different one.

Ours got killed too.

And his family wanted somebody to write 'em and tell 'em how he died and all this.

And I thought, "you know, that boy, that's, he wanted me to do it."

Because I, he knew we, they told him we was friends, you know, so I wrote them and I told him that he died a hero.

You know, I mean, but boy, that was rough, too.

Hard, hard to take.

I don't, it is just like losing a family member, I think, when you're close to somebody like, and it don't take long to bond like that.

I mean, I don't know.

You can become lifelong friends from just being together a while.

I don't know.

(somber instrumental music) But he was a good man.

I know that I sure liked him.

- [Narrator] Between November 27th and 28th, 1968, 17 Manchus were killed at the hot LZ near Nui Ba Den, many more were wounded.

The 187th Assault Helicopter Company lost six men in the same engagement.

As a result, the Manchus needed replacements to fill their ranks.

Stan Adams arrived in Vietnam in late November, 1968.

- Got off the plane, they were getting mortars on the runway.

So we had to really get off the plane and head into the tarmac, they called it.

- [Narrator] He arrived with a good friend named Darrel Cavin.

- And then when I wound up going to Vietnam after basic training and AIT.

Why, Stan and I both went together.

- I arrived in Vietnam on December 12th, 1968, and I was at Cu Chi, South Vietnam.

They kept us there for a few days in order to acclimate us to the temperature.

They told me initially that I would be going to Dau Tieng, which was close to where I ended up.

I did not go to Dau Tieng.

I went to Mole City - On the morning of December 18th, Stan, Darrel, the Manchus of Bravo Company, commanded at the time by Captain George Diaz, and Manchus of Charlie Company, commanded by Captain Ramon Pulliam, were sent to a location 9 1/2 miles south of Tay Ninh city, and less than a mile from the Cambodian border.

They were ordered to build a fire support base that was part of a new tactic called "bait and trap."

The idea was to lure NVA soldiers from Cambodia and fight them in Vietnam.

After three days, and over 40,000 sandbags, the new fire support base was completed.

It was built in a circular shape with a diameter of roughly 100 to 150 yards across, officially named Fire Support Base Sedgwick.

Manchu's commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Leo L. Wilson of Salina, Kansas, nicknamed the base "Mole City" for its underground construction and earthen trenches and bunkers.

- Basically built a camp and we put everything underground.

We built trenches, all the bunkers were dug underground.

And we had PCP, the steel.

We put top of the bunkers, we put steel and then about, I don't know, five or six deep sandbags on top of them.

But we had a firing port out of the front of the bunker, probably 18 inches or so.

So if you were outside the base camp looking in there, about the only thing you could really see was the tower.

They brought a tower out and set the tower there.

- But when I got to the unit, it was like seeing a bunch of ants working.

That's how the guys were working.

And they put me right in filling sandbags and making sure that this base camp could not be overran or destroyed.

- [Narrator] Bob Lannon was working resupply at the time Mole City was constructed.

He was not part of the units stationed at Mole City, but he flew out to the base camp to wish a Merry Christmas to the guys stationed there.

- So I went over and checked in with Captain Pulliam, and he said, "what are you doing here?"

And I said, "well, I brought the lift out and I want to spend some time with the guys."

And he goes, "I want you out of here."

He says, "we're expecting a, you know, a ground assault tonight or within the next day or so."

He said, "you don't need to be here."

And the First Sergeant, you know was talking to him and finally he says, "go get on the helicopter and get out of here."

And I said, "he's already gone," and he goes, "oh, crap."

- [Captain Pulliam] That night we got hit by a very large force.

(bombs exploding) (guns firing) (bullets whizzing) We got hit and we got hit really hard.

We were drawing fire from all the way around the base camp.

- Talk about being scared.

If anybody tells you they weren't scared being over there, they're lying to you.

- [Narrator] Just past midnight on Sunday, December 22nd, 1968, the 272nd Regiment of the 9th NVA Division hurled some 2,400 soldiers at Mole City in a massive attack to dislodge the Americans from the position so close to Cambodia.

(bombs exploding) Roughly 200 soldiers of Bravo, Charlie, and Echo companies were defending the earthen fire base, when North Vietnamese troops unleashed a hailstorm of fire.

- The perimeter had been breached.

We had Vietnamese inside the wire and inside the base camp.

- And we had a barrel of napalm set up right at the end of the tunnel, or, more or less, the trench out there, that was facing right down to where they were coming from.

And I could see 'em lining up to come towards us.

And I seen that happening, and I happen to have a detonator right there in my hand.

You just pump it three times and that sets that det' cord off around that end of that barrel, and it just sprayed right on down there.

(bombs exploding) Um, (sighs)... Just a minute.

The NVA, I seen them on fire.

(soldiers screaming) I seen them dancing out there trying to, and once that napalm gets on you, if you, say, if it lands here, it'll burn until it comes out over here.

You have to turn your hand back over.

Of course they had it all over their body, so, and they were burning just as much as, you know, like you had taken a lighter and lit them up and it just burning them all up.

We had to do something in order to protect ourselves.

It's not something that I wanted to do.

I don't think it was...

I guess you would call it cruel, but there again, they weren't giving us any slack, so we did what we had to do to get ourselves out of it.

- [Narrator] North Vietnamese soldiers had breached the perimeter and were fighting hand-to-hand with Charlie Company Manchus.

- I was in a bunker and the guys came out and said, "get out of the bunker.

Get out of the bunker.

There's some Vietnamese right in front of that bunker."

And when we started to come out, a grenade was thrown in through the front of it.

And when we got out, (bomb exploding) the thing blew up and it probably would've killed all of us if we had stayed in the bunker.

So we are outside the bunker now, and you can see the Vietnamese running around all over the place.

- Sergeant Norton, they wanted to take the 90 millimeter down and shoot it into the bunker, the last bunker that the gooks had taken over from, he grabbed the 90 and a kid named Gary Everett from Texas went with him, and they went down to the, I think within the second bunker of what the NVA had taken over, and they were gonna fire into that bunker.

Norton, he was kind of leery about doing it because he didn't know if there was GIs in there that was alive or not, you know, and kind of hard to, you know, kill your own people.

But Captain kept saying, "shoot it in there.

You gotta, you know, you gotta take that bunker out."

- As Gary Everett stood up with the 90 millimeter recoilless rifle, he was struck in the chest by NVA bullets.

He instantly died.

(bullets whizzing) As ammunition ran low, helicopters flew resupply into Mole City.

Soldiers were ordered to leave their bunker and retrieve the ammo from drop-off points.

(helicopter blades whomping) (bullets whizzing) Ron Leonard, a Crew Chief with the 25th Aviation Battalion, rode one of the Huey gunship helicopters that night.

He recalled that his chopper expended every round of ammunition it carried to help protect the Manchus below, then would return to re-arm.

They did this roughly every 20 minutes.

- And our Sergeant Simpson said, for Adams and me to go get this ammunition, bring it back down to the post.

Well, Stan was on this side of me, on my left side, and the mortar round come in on the right side, blew us both over, it knocked us off our feet.

I mean the blast was strong enough and thank God we never got hit.

We just, it just flipped us over.

When I got flipped over, I still had the ammunition on my shoulder.

- Well, we got all the way over there to where the ammo was, and I reached down to pick up a case of M60 ammo, and the First Sergeant, I have no idea what he reached down to pick up, and we turned around and there was, they had already breached the security of the Mole City and were in the wire.

And I turned around and look and probably about 40 yards away were one, two, I don't know how many NVA soldiers and they beat it down, shot a RPG at us, and started firing.

And that's when I got blown away.

And after that, I don't remember much because, you know, I'd lost my hearing and I was bleeding, and shot.

The First Sergeant got shot in the chest, or I can't remember if he got shot or he took fragmentation in the chest, and some guys drug us into a bunker and we were waiting to be, you know, lifted out.

- Right before 4:00, 4:30, something like that, I remember Captain Pulliam calling into the, his high command and telling them, he said, "look, we're getting our ass kicked and we're very getting close, very close to getting overrun, and it's gonna be one hell of a mess down here."

He said, "so I'm taking the responsibility and I'm calling in HE rounds, and I want it danger close."

- [Narrator] Captain Pulliam gave the order for all nearby artillery to fire on the American position.

(guns firing) (bombs exploding) Six miles away at Fire Support Base Austin, Bravo Battery, 3rd of the 13th Artillery, unloaded some 650 rounds of 155 millimeter Howitzer, near and on Mole City.

(bomb explodes) - I heard calls of "medic, medic, medic," and well, some of our people had gotten hit.

Luckily I didn't get hit, but that was an experience that would stay with me for the rest of my life.

- We're sitting there, this is after everything quit.

You're kind of weary, leery because, you know, if you have that many enemy people laying there, you don't know if they're faking it, or there's a booby trap under them or, so we, some of us double tap, they call it.

You have to shoot the enemy while it's laying there to make sure that they're dead.

So we did, we were doing some of that, and pretty soon the firing was all off.

We were, they told us, our medics come around, told us to start taking, they would sent a plow out with a big grasshopper.

They got, he landed and he started digging a big trench, and we started putting bodies in the trench, and we counted, I think 106 bodies, full bodies that we threw into that trench.

And they put kerosene on them and we started burning them.

But we had probably two truckloads of body parts, you know, legs with boots on, arms, some bodies, no heads.

It was, any destruction that you could do to a human was done.

(bombs exploding) (gentle instrumental music) - I can remember when they loaded us into that medevac.

A few rounds had hit that aluminum of the helicopter and you could hear it going through there, and out we went, and that was the happiest day of my life, so.

And then we got to the hospital, and they were wheeling us on gurneys to go into the hospital, and depending on how how bad you were wounded is whether you went into surgery right away or waited.

But there were rows of people, some with, you know, gunshot wounds, maybe a limb that could wait.

For the most serious wounds, guys that, you know, had gunshot wounds to their torso or something like that, those guys were taken first.

Because they came down and checked me out, and they said, "do you have a wound?"

And I said, "yeah, I got a wound under my arm here."

And they lifted my arm up and, yeah, I had a hole right under my arm, and then I was just covered with shrapnel and bleeding.

And I can remember this nurse saying, "well, you're not gonna die, and we'll get to you as soon as possible."

And then sometime later on, you know, I got wheeled in and I was actually, there was a guy on a gurney next to me that had got shot in the face and he was conscious and everything, but he couldn't see, and he wanted to know where he was.

And I said, "well, we're at the hospital."

And I can't remember his name, but he had somehow got shot in the face and it had taken his vision away, and I don't know whatever happened to him, but the First Sergeant died from shock.

(gentle instrumental music) - [Officiant] You, Richard Milhous Nixon, do solemnly swear.

- I, Richard Milhous Nixon, do solemnly swear.

- That you'll faithfully execute the office.

- That I will faithfully execute the office.

- Of President of the United States.

- Of President of the United States.

- [Narrator] 1969 witnessed a new president in the White House, and a new focus for the war in Vietnam.

However, for the Manchus in Tay Ninh province, operations continued with sweeps and body counts.

The war had become less intense for the Manchus during the first few months of 1969, as NVA and Viet Cong tactics had shifted from large ground attacks to smaller, guerilla style hit-and-run attacks.

- We'd go out on eagle flights, we'd fly out, land.

We'd sometimes we'd draw fire, sometimes not, but it was really calm.

It was, you know, it was like we were going through the motions and not much is going on.

- [Narrator] In January, Steve Knowlton and Merle Higgins arrived in Vietnam and were assigned to Bravo Company Manchus as replacements.

They would serve in the same squad as Clarence Robinson, and learned how to survive from those who had themselves been in Vietnam after just a few weeks or months.

Higgins would later become squad leader, in charge of Knowlton and Robinson.

- First mission, we went out on a helicopter, had to be that week, get off the helicopter, we probably went about 20 feet, 30 feet, and we got started getting mortared.

So we all took off to the nearest treeline to set up.

And I remember we jumped in a ditch by the treeline and it was full of red ants, and that was not pleasant, of course.

So we called in, well the C.O.

called in, the jets and all the napalm and all that crap to bomb the crap out of them.

Once they bombed the crap out of them, then they came back in and picked us up.

So that was my first experience in combat.

What that taught me, and I'm sure it taught some other people, this is not a game, this is not a joke.

This is the real thing.

You know, if you don't watch your ass, you're gonna get killed, so you gotta really, it was a wake-up call.

- [Narrator] An American soldier's obligation in Vietnam was to serve one full year "in country".

Many soldiers kept track of their time on calendars, even drawing tally marks on helmet liners, or coverings, to indicate how long they had been in Vietnam, and more importantly, how long they had left before they could go home.

When a soldier entered their last months of service "in country", The acronym DEROS, meaning Date Estimated Return From Overseas, became a familiar and comforting term among anyone wishing to return to the States.

During their last 99 days "in country", the expression "short" was used to imply that a soldier had only a short while left before departing Vietnam.

The routine of conducting sweeps, searching for enemy activity in the jungle, in villages, and small towns and cities, and going on eagle flights to clear different areas all around Tay Ninh became ritual.

- We were allowed to fly something like 80 hours in a 30 day period, and we were flying 240 hours in a 30 day period.

What you saw, first, what was most evident is, if you go to the showers at night, the guys were black and blue from sitting in that aircraft seat for 12 to 24 hours in a row.

And they were just beaten up.

You're bruised from sitting in that aircraft that long.

- [Narrator] On the 24th of April, a new patrol base was built nearly on the Cambodian border, nicknamed "Frontier City" for its proximity to Cambodia and hostile forces.

The new base housed both Alpha and Charlie Company Manchus.

By 9:00 PM the next day, enemy movement was detected in their preparation for a full-scale assault of Frontier City.

Just after midnight, enemy forces opened fire with dozens of rockets and over 250 mortars falling on the base.

However, the Manchus were well-prepared after their experience at Mole City the previous December.

As NVA soldiers charged the base, they were repelled by 2 105 millimeter Howitzers that were leveled to fire point blank at the enemy force.

Captain Pulliam was commanding Charlie Company as he jumped into a bunker to man an M60 machine gun.

- Me firing that machine gun went through the company like wildfire.

Word was, "we're gonna be all right.

The old man's over there shooting a machine gun."

"What?"

I was, "okay, I'm shooting the machine gun, so what?"

But anyway, it was a great morale booster.

It wasn't meant to be, but it was.

- [Narrator] As NVA troops rushed Frontier City, the Americans had set a trap that included airstrikes, artillery, and Huey gunships.

(guns firing) (bullets whizzing) (bomb exploding) (guns firing) The enemy was trapped in a killing zone.

When it was concluded, 214 NVA soldiers were killed, and only one American was wounded.

- It was so bad that when we went in the next day, or the day after, and they had dug a ditch, they brought a bulldozer in and dug a big ditch, and they just dumped bodies in it and just loaded up and lit it up, burned them, and there was so many of them.

(flies buzzing) - I was one of 350 that loaded up on a C-130 in the middle of the night.

(jet engine roars) We were all sitting on the floor of the aircraft and flying to Cu Chi, Vietnam.

From the time I got "in country" and it was probably a month, three weeks in Cam Rahn Bay, a week of orientation, and then in May I ended up, in 1969, in Tay Ninh, Vietnam with the Manchus.

(gentle instrumental music) - [Narrator] During the Vietnam War, the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments initiated a program for Viet Cong guerrillas to defect to the other side.

The program's name, "Chieu Hoi," meaning "Open Arms," was started in 1963 by South Vietnamese President Diem as a counterinsurgency weapon against communist forces in Vietnam.

Despite Diem's assassination, the program continued and became a source of intelligence and manpower for the Americans and South Vietnamese.

Over 100,000 defectors joined the Chieu Hoi program, yet the program's success was precarious as many defectors were not committed to fighting communism.

American and South Vietnamese forces would drop pamphlets that acted as a ticket for safe crossing for defection.

The Manchus had a Chieu Hoi named Nguyen Van Son, nicknamed "Shawn" by the Americans.

He was loyal to the American and South Vietnamese governments and became an asset to the Manchus.

Stan Adams even called Shawn "my little Manchu brother."

When Saigon fell in 1975, many Chieu Hois who did not escape the country were captured and executed.

- We're getting ready to move one morning, and it comes in on the radio that there's a battalion of NVA coming our way.

And so we set up an ambush.

We put the sniper in the tree, we put the mortars behind us, and then we waited for them.

Well, we seen them coming through the field.

We waited.

They got right up on us, and the sniper was supposed to blow the AP.

He was supposed to shoot the first one.

He got excited and missed.

And when he missed, we all opened up then.

And, I don't know.

Well, I know we killed two, but they were just mutilated bodies.

I mean, you know, one of them, his lower half of his body was laying on one side of the trail, and the other half of his body was laying on the other.

And we walked down in between them, and usually GIs' had their cameras out, clicking, taking pictures.

Nobody took pictures of that.

Nobody took pictures.

- [Narrator] After months of being in Vietnam and experiencing the constant vigilance and fear that accompanied a one-year tour of duty, men began to have a disconnected stare when faced with anxiety, numbness, and exhaustion.

Many who served in Vietnam experienced extreme trauma that resulted in what is termed "the thousand yard stare."

"The stare" is common in anyone who experiences trauma.

However, after months in the field, many Manchus became detached and emotionless.

- Two hours on, two hours off a night guard duty.

Anybody can run on two hours sleep and then stay guard duty and then, you know, and then run two more hours on guard duty, and then you have to get up and go to, you know, wherever your next operation is.

It was pretty tough.

Pretty tough.

You had a, it was a hell of a time staying awake.

Everybody was tired.

Everybody had that thousand-mile stare.

- [Narrator] They reacted to danger in a variety of ways, yet found themselves disassociating from others and themselves.

Disassociation is a medical symptom of post-traumatic stress.

In Tay Ninh Province, the Viet Cong and NVA had constructed a vast network of tunnels that supplied their forces.

The largest tunnel networks were under and near the Cu Chi Base Camp.

To combat these tunnels, American forces trained soldiers as tunnel rats.

These soldiers would go into tunnels, many of which were no larger than a body's diameter, with a .45 caliber sidearm and a flashlight to find the enemy.

In one area of operation, nicknamed Renegade Woods, the Manchus discovered some 6,000 feet of a tunnel complex, complete with bunkers and rooms.

They were ordered to destroy its use to the enemy.

The tunnels were extremely dangerous as Manchus had little idea what lay ahead.

- One time we were sent on top of Nui Ba Den, the Black Virgin Mountain, which was the mountain, and you look around, there's one stinking mountain there, and we got up there a couple times for security.

And the way it's set up up there around the edge of the mountain was all phosphorous grenades.

So they came up the mountain, they would hit the phosphorous grenades, you know, but, apparently, I understand they got hit a couple times because there was tunnels in the mountain and they came up through the tunnels.

- [Narrator] The NVA and Viet Cong could be anywhere, and usually left booby traps to slow tunnel rats.

The smell of death lingered in tunnels as the NVA and Vietcong would drag their dead to rooms in the tunnels so Americans could not have an accurate body count.

By late May, Bravo Company received a new commander.

- It starts with Colonel Haywood coming through the door, coming to my desk.

"How you doing?"

"Yes, sir."

He says, "I just relieved the commander.

He's the worst commander in the battalion.

He's the worst commander in the brigade.

He's probably the worst in the division.

You're going down there to take over.

Go pack your bags, get down to Bravo Company, and they're gonna take you, they'll take you to your fire support base."

- Well, at this time, we'd gotten a new captain, a Captain Cabral, and he had, it was his second tour there.

We had some doubts about, you know, because the first captain we had was not very good.

At the shower, the first time Captain Cabral went out, went down to take his shower.

We're all, you know, there are several of us still in doubts of what the person is or how he was gonna be or anything.

He took his shirt off and you could tell he got shot twice.

He had a scar that runs almost all the way across his chest.

And we're looking at that.

We're going, "well, he's either one brave sumbitch, or he ran like hell, trying to get away from it."

- With Captain Cabral, he wouldn't just walk.

If he needed to get somewhere, he ran, and you better stay with him, because in case something happens, you had to be there.

What I liked about him the most is the night before, say that he'd get the orders of what we gotta do, what sweep we're going on, where we're gonna be at.

He'd go through it with you.

So, and tell you, show you on the map to make sure that we knew exactly what he was gonna do.

- Did I, you know, this body count crap, 1,000 NVA is not worth 1 American.

And all these colonels, all these generals, and all these captains that were looking for all these medals so they can sit there and, you know, that's all that's good for their promotions, a lot of medals.

But sit back there at the Pentagon.

"We got 1,000, they only killed 100."

"Only?"

Are you all right?

While you're sitting back there, you're saying only 100.

Try sitting over here, and you write the letters, you pick up the bodies, you console those men and tell them we gotta go fight again.

Try to get their attention again, knowing that tomorrow could be them.

These are things that a commanding officer, especially if you think like I do, especially if you're one that cares.

I didn't go there for the medals, but I knew what I had to do.

- [Narrator] June was a difficult month for the Manchus.

It was the start of the rainy season in Vietnam, and enemy activity was limited to small-scale attacks, usually with mortars.

At Fire Support Base Stoneman, Bravo Company stayed in their bunkers and kept guard as the rain fell.

On the 5th of June, Stan Adams recalled that several mortars fired by Viet Cong soldiers had hit near the front of a bunker, three bunkers away from his own.

Both Sergeant Higgins and Knowlton were in the bunker near the impact of one of the mortars.

Sergeant Merle Higgins guarded the front of the bunker as shrapnel from a Claymore mine triggered by one of the incoming mortars hit him in the chest.

- While we were in base camp at My friend Merle was killed next to me.

That was very difficult.

Still is today.

That's why you compartmentalize this, because you don't want to remember stuff.

It was raining that night, I guess we got mortared or whatever, and the shrapnel came through the front of the bunker and he was sitting in the front and it hit him in the chest and must have hit someplace else because he came down, he asked me to help him, and I couldn't.

I couldn't help him.

That was a tough day.

Tough night.

They flew him out and he didn't make it.

I think of all the things you go through and when you talk to other vets, that's probably the worst thing you can experience.

Having somebody killed next to you, but, life has to go on.

So, that was a bad day.

That was a real bad day.

(somber instrumental music) - [Narrator] That day in Vietnam, 60 Americans lost their lives.

Merle Higgins from Mercer County, Pennsylvania was one of them.

He was 22 years old.

Just two weeks after Merle Higgins was killed, the Manchus were on a search-and-destroy mission in an area around Tay Ninh.

Gilbert Bargmann from North Dakota was walking point when the platoon came to an open dried rice field.

David Deitch from New York was behind Bargmann.

When Sergeant Simpson yelled out asking Bargmann if he saw anything suspicious, Bargmann said no.

The platoon pushed forward towards a hedge row.

Bargmann had no idea that he was walking towards a hidden NVA bunker.

A machine gun opened fire.

Stan Adams remembered seeing Bargmann's helmet fly up as rounds hit Bargmann.

- As he started to turn around and run to get back of an anthill, behind an anthill for cover.

He looked up and he got hit in the face with his, the round from the AK, and his helmet flew off his head, and we were sure then that, well, it is a good chance he's dead.

- [Narrator] He was killed instantly.

Deitch, standing behind Bargmann was hit in the stomach and fell to the ground in agony.

- As Deitch was trying to get behind cover, he got shot in the stomach, twice, I think it was, and he was laying out there hollering, you know, "I'm hit, I'm hit."

- [Narrator] The platoon was pinned down by enemy fire and could not get to Deitch as he lay screaming.

Steve Knowlton on the M60 machine gun ran to flank the enemy and opened suppressing fire on the NVA bunker.

- We tried to go up and get Bargmann out first and, of course, David out first, too, because he was wounded.

But the fire was so much that we couldn't get up there to it.

- Captain Cabral radioed for Huey gunship support.

- And we had enough time to where we basically ran out there to get Deitch and I grabbed his helmet and his '16 and we drug Deitch back, and he was still alive when we pulled him back to get him back to the, where the rear area was, where Captain Cabral was.

- They were there fighting a man's war, and they couldn't vote, but they could go fight.

They could die, but couldn't vote, couldn't do a lot of things, couldn't drink until they were, but they could die.

And that, um, that was okay.

- As we got them back, and I was talking to Captain Cabral, I looked down and I had blood from the middle of my shirt all the way down to below my, on my legs, so it was like a tremendous amount of blood everywhere.

And I thought, "oh my God, I'm hit and I don't even know it."

So I took my shirt off and looked down in my pants and I had no wounds or anything, but blood was everywhere, so I couldn't get it off.

I didn't have water to get it off with, so I started getting dirt and putting dirt on my uniform or fatigues and trying to get it, you know, the dirt off.

I have, over the last several years, certain things will click it, or certain things will remind me, but I wake up in the middle of the night trying to get that blood off of me.

(somber instrumental music) - On June 19th, 1969, Gilbert was engaged in a reconnaissance in force mission.

At approximately 4:30 PM, small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire was encountered causing him to sustain a penetrating missile wound to his head.

He died instantly and I hope you'll find consolation in knowing that he was spared prolonged suffering.

Throughout his assignment to this company, I had observed Gilbert to be an exemplary soldier.

His integrity and devotion to duty earned him the respect of all whom he came in contact.

His loss is keenly felt by the members of this unit.

Please accept this letter as a token of our sympathy in this time of great sorrow, and know that we share in your loss.

A memorial service will be conducted in Gilbert's memory at the earliest possible date.

Sincerely, Ronald J. Cabral, Captain Infantry, Commanding.

(paper rustles) This was the best I could do.

To say I was sorry.

(helicopter blades whomping) - Actually, the month of June, when I got there, there had been a lot of casualties.

It had been like several were killed in action that month, and wounded in action, and so I was gonna be replacing one of those guys.

So I just, I don't know particularly which one I replaced, but I felt so bad knowing that they, you know, they were gonna be going home in a body bag, or on a stretcher, or, so I just had to make the best of it.

So that's when I knew I was a officially a Manchu.

(somber instrumental music) - I was in a family of six.

Three sisters, two brothers.

That was it.

I was the oldest son.

- [Narrator] The 1960s was a decade of racial tension and many in the country did not view African Americans as equal to their white counterparts.

(somber instrumental music) After the American Civil War, many states, mostly southern states, adapted segregation as a legal precedent, where African-Americans were placed in a second-class citizenry.

(somber instrumental music) As the U.S. Supreme Court case, Plessy versus Ferguson, in 1896 established African-Americans were separate, but equal, before the law, and therefore created a legal segregation of citizens.

- And I was born in Florida.

My dad's family from South Georgia.

After he married my mom, they migrated to Florida.

That's how everybody ended up down there.

But it was, how would I say it?

We had a school that was just for Blacks.

Elementary school, small county, Hardee County, had one high school.

The Black kids were bused the five miles to the other, to the Black high school.

(gentle instrumental music) - [Narrator] When Robinson was older, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and would be drafted into military service.

Robinson's immediate squad and the men of Bravo Company Manchus treated Robinson and other Black soldiers, mostly with respect.

- But we were a close knit group.

We looked after each other.

We watched each other's back.

Larry said he was in a town.

He lived, he grew up in a town where there were no African Americans.

And we were in the same foxhole.

And he would ask me questions all the time about different things, and I asked him questions, also.

And one of the nicest people you'd ever meet, and nobody ever said anything other than Larry and I talking, you know, about how is it, you know, to live as a Black man in these United States knowing, you know, we had a lot of stuff going on then.

And we had the guys, the guys that came from up north, we had been there two weeks, couple of weeks before, before they served grits.

So the guys from the north thought it was Cream of Wheat.

So we didn't say a word to them.

And they took the Cream of Wheat and they put their milk in it and, you know, all the other little stuff they put in it and just got it stirred up real good.

And the minute they put it in they mouth, they would spit it out, and we just had a ball over that.

And they got mad and said, "well, why didn't you tell us it wasn't Cream of Wheat?"

Said, "you didn't ask."

(laughing) They stayed away from, no grits.

No grits.

No grits.

They said, "you don't have any Cream of Wheat?"

I said, "no, we don't serve Cream of Wheat in the South."

(lively instrumental music) (cow moos) (cowbell ringing) (jet engines rumbling) - [Narrator] From 1962 to 1971, American forces sprayed nearly 20 million gallons of herbicide over Vietnam and neighboring countries in what was code-named Operation Ranch Hand.

This was designed to destroy forested areas and vegetation so to deny the enemy of resource Fixed-wing aircraft, as well as helicopters and Navy vessels, all dispersed the defoliant.

Agent Orange, as it became known, given the painted orange band on the 55 gallon drums that contained the herbicide, comprised of 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo- p-dioxin, or TCDD.

- So I grabbed one of the chemical officers as this lieutenant was coming up trying to put this Agent Orange into this bucket, the defoliant into this 200-gallon tank.

I said, "that stuff's nasty and it burns."

He said, "yeah."

I said, "is it harmful to people?"

He said, "no, not gonna hurt anybody."

I said, "you're kidding," he said, I said, "the guys are complaining that this stuff really burns for a long time.

And I got it on my leg and it still burns at the, at three days, what the heck is it?"

He said, "it's called Agent Orange."

And it's got this long name, a para something or other (speaks gibberish).

Whatever kind of alphabet soup they had for it.

And that's what we use to defoliate the trees.

It's a chemical that eats leaves.

"You're not made out of leaves, you have skin, and your skin is protecting you from it."

That was his logic to me.

- [Narrator] TCDD is the most toxic of dioxins, and in the years since the Vietnam War, the Environmental Protection Agency classified it as a human carcinogen.

- Initial formulations of it were not so toxic as later formulations.

The battalion commanders in the field went right up the chain of command saying, "that stuff worked great.

We need more of the Agent Orange.

Send more out here."

And so we started flying those missions more often.

And the more often that we flew those, the more often we were exposed to it ourselves.

And, of course, the guys on the ground were exposed to it also.

- [Narrator] Agent Orange killed thousands of acres of lush forest and jungle, leaving behind a landscape reminiscent to the moon's surface.

- The Agent Orange was proliferated more and more as they realized that they needed it.

The battalion commanders were the ones that said, "give me more of that stuff."

And so we would spray it, and you would spray an area, they'd give you a grid square to spray, the next day you would go over that and there wouldn't be a single leaf on a tree.

They were all gone.

No snakes, no spider monkeys, and no snipers in the trees.

So we got rid of all that stuff all at once, and, because it was effective, the battalion commanders asked for more, so we were our own worst enemies sometimes.

- [Narrator] As a result of spraying Agent Orange, tens of thousands of birth defects have occurred in the lives of both American servicemen, as well as Vietnamese civilians.

(somber instrumental music) Defects include Spina Bifida, cardiovascular complications, hip dislocations, disfigurements, spontaneous abortions, and a wide variety of other life-threatening illnesses.

(women speaking in Vietnamese) Americans have suffered from a great number of health issues, including cancer, disease, and genetic mutations, that may not have shown themselves until many years after returning home from Vietnam.

The Manchus were frequently exposed to Agent Orange.

It was the 5th of August, 1969, when Manchu Bravo Company was conducting a sweep in the Boi Loi Woods as enemy small arms fire intensified.

The Manchus pushed deeper into the dense jungle.

Sergeant James Donnelly of Missouri was hit by fire and died instantly.

- [Soldier] Man down!

Medic!

(guns firing) (soldiers shouting) (bullets whizzing) - [Narrator] The fighting became so intense that Lieutenant Don Bradley, an Artillery Forward Observer, called in for a "dangerous close" artillery barrage.

- [Soldier] Incoming!

Incoming!

(guns firing) (bombs exploding) - When we finally went up and got Sergeant Donnelly and brought him back, the uh, they brought out two prisoners and Captain Cabral and Sergeant Donnelly were best friends, and Captain pulled his .45 and stuck it to one of them's head and wanted to pull the trigger.

He wanted to kill him because he had killed Sergeant Donnelly.

But they stopped him and they loaded them on helicopters and took them off.

They was gonna go question them.

And the ARVNs took them.

The South Vietnamese took them.

We didn't, they loaded them on American choppers, but they took them, and we wasn't on there to guard them or nothing.

So me and Paul, my buddy laying back on the ground, we watch this helicopter take off.

He gets about 3,000 feet in the air and all of a sudden this little dot comes out.

They were both, hands were tied, and the only thing we can figure is that one of them wouldn't talk and they throwed him out and the other one squealed his head off because, I would have, too.

(somber instrumental music) - [Narrator] Donnelly was 21 years old when he was killed.

By mid-August, the Manchus were ordered to assist the Navy by boarding Patrol Boats, Riverine, or PBR boats, to secure the Vam Co Dong River that ran through Tay Ninh province.

- Captain Cabral volunteered us to go do PBR boats with the Navy.

Why the hell we did that?

I don't know.

But getting on a boat and going upriver and drawing fire everywhere you go is beyond me.

(engine rumbling) (equipment rattling) (bombs exploding) (guns firing) (bullets whizzing) We did that for two weeks at a time.

The first week we were there, they dropped us off, the squad that I had, and there was six of us, me and and five other guys, we got dropped off to set up an ambush because they thought they'd seen enemy there.

And where they getting these reports from?

I don't know.

But, we set up an ambush.

Pretty soon we were hearing, it sounded like a tiger or a panther or something screaming and screeching and we're going, "oh my God."

We were more worried about that than we were the enemy, because the enemy would face you, but this thing could jump on your back.

You wouldn't even be able to know it, you know.

(gentle instrumental music) - In October of '69, we were going, leaving Tay Ninh, we were going on a eagle flight, and that's where the helicopters would take you out in the jungle and drop you off, and I was on the first wave going out.

They go out and they drop us off to secure the LZ, and as soon as we stepped off, the Viet Cong fired a RPG, rocket propelled grenade, at one of the helicopters, but they hit a tree and the RPG exploded, and then I caught the shrapnel in my left upper leg, and so the people around me knew I got hit, so they threw me back on the helicopter before it lifted off to go back to Tay Ninh.

And then they carried me to the hospital and then I remained back there for 10 days on crutches.

And then, after I was cleared, I went back to the jungle again.

- [Narrator] After a year in Vietnam, soldiers were sent home.

They flew out on commercial jet liners, much the way they had arrived.

Approximately 22 hours later, they would land in Oakland, California, be given a steak dinner, deprocessed, and be sent home or reassigned to a stateside unit.

- The point of going home, I guess you always wanted to leave, it's just that you just never thought of it.

I never thought, you know, you only get near the end, says, oh yeah, pretty soon I'm gonna get the hell out of here.

Get back to the world, we're gonna get the hell out of this place, you know.

- [Narrator] When they left Oakland Airport, they were warned by others that protestors against the Vietnam War would be waiting to greet them.

- When we left Vietnam, we landed in Oakland, California, and we got off the plane, and we were going through this tunnel of wire mesh and there was people protesting, and people throwing stuff.

And we're, we had to run through that to get into the port, airport there, and this was after you had left two or three days before that and guys got killed.

It didn't make sense on what was even going on.

We heard there were protests there, but nothing like what was going on when we got back.

- Well, when I came home, I came through the airport late at night, so there really was nobody there, so I didn't encounter any people.

You know, there's a few because I came home, I, when you go, when you fly military, you go on standby.

So I went on standby for a seat because it's cheap.

And I got called for the seat after everybody got loaded and I got called to go on.

Nobody said, "boo," to me.

Nobody harassed me.

I don't even know if anybody ever said, "Welcome Home."

I have no idea.

I don't remember.

All I know, I got on the damn plane, it was night, and I got off early in the morning in the dark.

So I never ran into anybody with my uniform on.

- I, once I got my orders to go home, I just had to collect my thoughts and, you know, you have to go through a process of getting everything together, and I was just like, "I can't believe this is really happening."

- It was, when I came home, I came home before Christmas, December of 1969, and everybody was just doing their own thing.

I had lost a whole year because I had been in Vietnam.

(helicopter blades whomping) - [Narrator] The war in Vietnam ended on April 30th, 1975, when North Vietnamese forces captured Saigon, South Vietnam's capital.

This was nearly five years after the Manchus departed Vietnam.

- I was home on convalescent leave, still in the Army, and I remember laying in my parents' bed downstairs, because they let me have their room, and watching the Hueys being pushed off the boats, you know, and that at the end of the war?

And I actually did cry.

And then it dawned on me that... People were actually trying to kill me, you know?

That's what really hurts.

I go, yeah, it was a war, you know, it wasn't, all the training we did, and, you know, Advanced Infantry Training.

I want to go to Vietnam.

I want to kill the Viet Cong, you know, and I go that was warfare.

I say it's like a million dollar experience I wouldn't pay a nickel for.

- [Narrator] The war faded quickly from the headlines.

Americans were eager to move forward and forget about Vietnam.

- When you go through something like that, it takes time.

My wife talks about me screaming, screaming at night.

And I still do it sometimes.

After 50 years, it still happens.

And you know, and sometimes I'm still fighting that war, which I shouldn't be after all this time.

But it's the type of thing that, war plays with your head.

- After getting drafted and going to Vietnam and basically seeing what was going on there, which I'm not judging anything, but to see what humans can do to other humans is horrendous.

I never really thought a war was like that.

I never really thought you could do that to another human.

- After the war, for years, you try to forget about it, which is, you can't do that.

But it was just hard.

And you wonder, was it for nothin'?

So I think, my own thought is, I think a lot of it was for nothin', but they say we did do some good.

So I don't know what, I don't know.

But for the lives we lost, I don't know.

And for the lives we took, you know.

I mean, we lost a lot of men over there, but boy, they lost a lot more than we did, didn't they?

Just... (gentle instrumental music) It's somethin' you gotta live with.

It's hard.

And it really is hard, I think.

- [Narrator] Manchu Vietnam veterans melted back into society and did not speak much about their experiences from the war.

The time they spent together, the fear they faced, the loss they grieved, the bonds they made, seemed to fade into a distant past.

Vietnam's battlefields quickly became overgrown and revitalized for a future that was all too anxious to forget its past Nui Ba Den, the Black Virgin Mountain, was turned into a vacation resort.

(gentle instrumental music) Mole City was deconstructed and became a rice field.

The war has been all but erased from the land, except for war memorials and museums.

Many veterans did not want to have the memories of Vietnam, yet they could do little to escape their experiences, but the war has not been erased from the memories of those who fought it.

- Am I to continue to let this war run my life?

Or am I gonna raise my kids, you know, work with my wife to make her a better person and me a better person and live a good life?

And that's what I did.

- Some Manchu veterans started gathering at annual reunions to celebrate coming home and surviving their time in Vietnam.

Others care little to be reminded of what they went through.

They grapple with the question of, what did it all mean?

(flag rustling) ("The Star-Spangled Banner" playing) ("The Star-Spangled Banner" playing) ("The Star-Spangled Banner" playing) ("The Star-Spangled Banner" playing) (gentle instrumental music) (gentle instrumental music) (gentle instrumental music) (music fades)