0:00:09 > 0:00:13Sometimes, I would hear a car crunch up in the snow,
0:00:13 > 0:00:17and I'd think maybe it would be somebody coming to give us bad news,
0:00:17 > 0:00:20which was not good for me to think.
0:00:20 > 0:00:25It was an underlying anxiety that I really think was there all the time.
0:00:26 > 0:00:32Denton Crocker Jr, known as Mogie, wanted to serve in Vietnam so much,
0:00:32 > 0:00:35he'd pressured his parents into granting their permission
0:00:35 > 0:00:39for him to join the army before he was 18.
0:00:41 > 0:00:42He was eager for combat,
0:00:42 > 0:00:46and pleased when he was assigned to the 1st Brigade
0:00:46 > 0:00:50of the celebrated 101st Airborne, the Screaming Eagles,
0:00:50 > 0:00:52who had led the way on D-Day.
0:00:54 > 0:00:55But he was quickly disappointed
0:00:55 > 0:00:59to find himself attached to battalion headquarters
0:00:59 > 0:01:04repairing weapons, making lists, keeping records.
0:01:04 > 0:01:06It was boring, he wrote home.
0:01:08 > 0:01:11"I think, perhaps, you will understand my disappointment
0:01:11 > 0:01:14"when you see that there is little sense in being over here
0:01:14 > 0:01:17"unless one faces the main objective -
0:01:17 > 0:01:18"the destruction of the VC.
0:01:20 > 0:01:24"Certainly, one feels no sense of accomplishment
0:01:24 > 0:01:26"when one's friends are facing all the dangers."
0:01:40 > 0:01:42What's your thinking these days? I haven't talked to you.
0:01:42 > 0:01:44What's happening to our polls?
0:01:44 > 0:01:46See, I think you'll find some foreign leaders
0:01:46 > 0:01:49will criticise you if you resume bombing.
0:01:49 > 0:01:51As a matter of fact,
0:01:51 > 0:01:54no other intelligence source that I've seen
0:01:54 > 0:01:56indicates that Hanoi is even considering
0:01:56 > 0:02:01moving toward negotiation in order to lead us to extend the pause.
0:02:01 > 0:02:04# Now, masters of war
0:02:07 > 0:02:10# You build all the big guns... #
0:02:13 > 0:02:16As they continued to escalate the war,
0:02:16 > 0:02:22Johnson and McNamara were frustrated that American commanders in Vietnam,
0:02:22 > 0:02:25who had come of age during World War II and Korea,
0:02:25 > 0:02:30were having a hard time making sense of what was happening on the ground.
0:02:31 > 0:02:36In the months and years to come, as the American presence grew,
0:02:36 > 0:02:38Hanoi would escalate, too,
0:02:38 > 0:02:41sending more and more soldiers south,
0:02:41 > 0:02:46strengthening its own air defences and recruiting more fighters
0:02:46 > 0:02:50from the alienated South Vietnamese countryside.
0:02:53 > 0:02:56The Johnson administration was desperately trying
0:02:56 > 0:02:59to prop up the government in Saigon,
0:02:59 > 0:03:01and at the same time,
0:03:01 > 0:03:05help that government to somehow win the loyalty of its own people.
0:03:07 > 0:03:10Johnson had tried to forge an international coalition
0:03:10 > 0:03:13to defend South Vietnam,
0:03:13 > 0:03:17but only five other countries would ever send combat troops -
0:03:17 > 0:03:23Australia and New Zealand, Thailand, the Philippines and South Korea.
0:03:25 > 0:03:30America's most important allies - Britain, France, and Canada -
0:03:30 > 0:03:32refused to take part
0:03:32 > 0:03:35and were calling, instead, for peace talks.
0:03:37 > 0:03:39And more and more Americans,
0:03:39 > 0:03:44including some of the country's most respected foreign policy experts,
0:03:44 > 0:03:47were beginning to question the way the war was being fought,
0:03:47 > 0:03:50whether it could ever be won,
0:03:50 > 0:03:54and if the United States should be in Vietnam at all.
0:03:57 > 0:03:59As 1966 began,
0:03:59 > 0:04:052,344 Americans had died in Vietnam,
0:04:05 > 0:04:08nearly 200,000 were stationed there,
0:04:08 > 0:04:10and more were on their way.
0:04:12 > 0:04:15Those soldiers would quickly discover
0:04:15 > 0:04:17that the war they were being asked to fight
0:04:17 > 0:04:20was not their father's war.
0:04:23 > 0:04:29We tend to fight the next war in the same way we fought the last one.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33We are prisoners of our own experience.
0:04:34 > 0:04:38And many of the things that we learned that worked in World War II
0:04:38 > 0:04:41were not applicable to the war in Vietnam.
0:04:42 > 0:04:45We simply thought we'd go in with a sledgehammer
0:04:45 > 0:04:48and knock things down, clean them up and it would be all over.
0:04:50 > 0:04:53It was kind of an oversimplification of the problem.
0:04:55 > 0:04:57Combined with our overconfidence,
0:04:57 > 0:05:01it caused us, I think, to be arrogant.
0:05:01 > 0:05:04And it's very, very difficult to dispel ignorance
0:05:04 > 0:05:07if you retain arrogance.
0:05:30 > 0:05:34On January 31st, President Johnson had decided
0:05:34 > 0:05:38to resume the bombing of targets in North Vietnam.
0:05:38 > 0:05:43The 37-day pause that had begun on Christmas Eve 1965
0:05:43 > 0:05:47had yielded no hint of Hanoi's willingness
0:05:47 > 0:05:49to come to the negotiating table.
0:05:51 > 0:05:54In South Vietnam, Viet Cong guerrillas
0:05:54 > 0:05:58were now believed to control nearly three-quarters of the country.
0:06:00 > 0:06:04But General William Westmoreland, the American commander,
0:06:04 > 0:06:07thought his most urgent task was to destroy
0:06:07 > 0:06:10the North Vietnamese regular army units
0:06:10 > 0:06:12Hanoi was sending south.
0:06:13 > 0:06:18To do that, he would ask for more and more American soldiers.
0:06:21 > 0:06:26The strongest impression I had from my class, and my classmates,
0:06:26 > 0:06:29was they were guys who just were idealists.
0:06:29 > 0:06:32And I think guys drawn from little towns
0:06:32 > 0:06:36all across the United States had that in common.
0:06:36 > 0:06:41It was a time before the questions about American exceptionalism.
0:06:41 > 0:06:42We didn't question.
0:06:42 > 0:06:46We believed in what this country stood for,
0:06:46 > 0:06:52and we believed that people who had the ability to lead soldiers
0:06:52 > 0:06:54should do that.
0:06:57 > 0:07:02Roger Harris dreamed of going to college on a football scholarship,
0:07:02 > 0:07:06but was not big enough to play for his team in high school.
0:07:06 > 0:07:08And so I enlisted in the Marine Corps,
0:07:08 > 0:07:12and I felt that it was a win-win,
0:07:12 > 0:07:15because, one, if I died,
0:07:15 > 0:07:18then my mother would be able to receive
0:07:18 > 0:07:20the 10,000 insurance policy.
0:07:20 > 0:07:23I thought that was a lot of money and so my mother would be rich.
0:07:23 > 0:07:26"If I die, you know, she'll be rich.
0:07:26 > 0:07:28"If I live, then I'll be a hero,
0:07:28 > 0:07:32"you know, and I can come back and get a job."
0:07:32 > 0:07:34Naive, dumb, you know.
0:07:35 > 0:07:38John Musgrave was from the Fairmount neighbourhood
0:07:38 > 0:07:41of Independence, Missouri.
0:07:41 > 0:07:42I was 17,
0:07:42 > 0:07:46and my best friend and I went down and enlisted in the Marine Corps.
0:07:46 > 0:07:48I always dreamed of being a Marine.
0:07:49 > 0:07:51And...
0:07:53 > 0:07:55..well...
0:07:56 > 0:07:58..I knew I wasn't going to be a man right away,
0:07:58 > 0:08:01but I was going to be a Marine, and that was enough.
0:08:01 > 0:08:05I'd be doing something mature,
0:08:05 > 0:08:08and I'd be doing something that was important.
0:08:08 > 0:08:10And there was a war on,
0:08:10 > 0:08:12and I wanted a piece of it.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17I grew up in segregated neighbourhoods all my life,
0:08:17 > 0:08:21so I'd never met a black person till I arrived at boot camp.
0:08:21 > 0:08:25Never stood next to a black person, or a Hispanic,
0:08:25 > 0:08:26or anyone who was Jewish.
0:08:26 > 0:08:30Just...they didn't mix, where I grew up.
0:08:30 > 0:08:32So, that was just eye-opening.
0:08:32 > 0:08:34But when I got to talking to everybody,
0:08:34 > 0:08:38we were all the same - we were all working-class and poor,
0:08:38 > 0:08:42and we all wanted to be Marines real bad.
0:08:50 > 0:08:56The tendency for a great power is to use what it's greatest at,
0:08:56 > 0:08:59namely, its firepower, destructive power -
0:08:59 > 0:09:04dropping a lot of bombs and shooting a lot of artillery at a distance.
0:09:04 > 0:09:06You save lives.
0:09:06 > 0:09:08You kill a lot of them. You don't lose a lot of us.
0:09:09 > 0:09:12The central coastal province of Binh Dinh
0:09:12 > 0:09:16was home to more than half a million people.
0:09:16 > 0:09:20For decades, it had been a guerrilla stronghold,
0:09:20 > 0:09:22and in early 1966,
0:09:22 > 0:09:27the Viet Cong had been augmented by North Vietnamese regulars,
0:09:27 > 0:09:30some 8,000 men in all.
0:09:32 > 0:09:36General Westmoreland sent 20,000 American, South Vietnamese
0:09:36 > 0:09:40and South Korean troops storming across the province
0:09:40 > 0:09:45in pursuit of the enemy and their sources of supply.
0:09:45 > 0:09:49They first dropped leaflets and broadcast from loudspeakers
0:09:49 > 0:09:51to warn villagers of the terrible fate
0:09:51 > 0:09:55that awaited anyone who fired on their helicopters,
0:09:55 > 0:09:57urged them to leave their homes,
0:09:57 > 0:10:02promised safe passage to any Viet Cong who wished to surrender.
0:10:02 > 0:10:06Then they called in air strikes and artillery,
0:10:06 > 0:10:09and blew the hamlets to bits.
0:10:10 > 0:10:16It was the first large-scale search and destroy campaign of the war.
0:10:16 > 0:10:18GUNFIRE
0:10:20 > 0:10:24The offensive lasted 42 days.
0:10:24 > 0:10:29The army reported 2,389 enemy soldiers killed.
0:10:31 > 0:10:33Westmoreland was pleased.
0:10:33 > 0:10:35But the operation would drive
0:10:35 > 0:10:39more than 100,000 civilians from their homes.
0:10:40 > 0:10:44Similar search and destroy and bombing campaigns -
0:10:44 > 0:10:4917 large-scale US offensives in 1966 alone -
0:10:49 > 0:10:53would produce a total of more than three million homeless people
0:10:53 > 0:10:55all across the country -
0:10:55 > 0:10:59roughly one-fifth of South Vietnam's population.
0:11:05 > 0:11:08Since there was no front in Vietnam,
0:11:08 > 0:11:12as there had been in the First and Second World Wars,
0:11:12 > 0:11:16since no ground was ever permanently won or lost,
0:11:16 > 0:11:20the American military command in Vietnam, MACV,
0:11:20 > 0:11:22fell back more and more
0:11:22 > 0:11:27on a single grisly measure of supposed success -
0:11:27 > 0:11:30counting corpses, body count.
0:11:37 > 0:11:41The problem with the war, as it often is, are the metrics.
0:11:41 > 0:11:43It is a situation where,
0:11:43 > 0:11:46if you can't count what's important,
0:11:46 > 0:11:49you make what you can count important.
0:11:49 > 0:11:51So, in this particular case,
0:11:51 > 0:11:53what you could count was dead enemy bodies.
0:11:55 > 0:11:57If body count is
0:11:57 > 0:11:59the measure of success,
0:11:59 > 0:12:01then there's a tendency to count
0:12:01 > 0:12:05every body as an enemy soldier.
0:12:05 > 0:12:09There's a tendency to want to pile up dead bodies,
0:12:09 > 0:12:15and, perhaps, to use less discriminate firepower
0:12:15 > 0:12:17than you otherwise might
0:12:17 > 0:12:20in order to achieve the result
0:12:20 > 0:12:24that you're charged with trying to obtain.
0:12:45 > 0:12:49Just think about the problem from the North's point of view.
0:12:51 > 0:12:53They had to supply the South.
0:12:54 > 0:12:56I'm talking about bringing in people,
0:12:56 > 0:12:58equipment, supplies and so forth.
0:12:59 > 0:13:01They started from nothing
0:13:01 > 0:13:03and pushed a road through that...
0:13:04 > 0:13:07..through an area the size of Massachusetts,
0:13:07 > 0:13:09and then maintained it.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14For years, Hanoi had smuggled
0:13:14 > 0:13:17most of its arms and supplies to the South
0:13:17 > 0:13:19aboard an improvised fleet of junks,
0:13:19 > 0:13:21trawlers and freighters.
0:13:21 > 0:13:26But when the US Navy effectively blockaded the southern coastline,
0:13:26 > 0:13:28the North Vietnamese would be forced to move
0:13:28 > 0:13:31almost all of their supplies overland,
0:13:31 > 0:13:33through Laos and Cambodia -
0:13:33 > 0:13:39neutral countries Hanoi considered part of the greater battlefield.
0:13:39 > 0:13:42Americans called it the Ho Chi Minh trail.
0:13:42 > 0:13:46The North Vietnamese called it Route 559,
0:13:46 > 0:13:50after the men and women of the 559th Army Corps
0:13:50 > 0:13:54who were turning it from a braided web of footpaths
0:13:54 > 0:13:58into 12,000 tangled miles of jungle roadways
0:13:58 > 0:14:02down which men and materials streamed south.
0:14:03 > 0:14:05When they had fought the French,
0:14:05 > 0:14:09the Viet Minh had depended on tens of thousands of porters,
0:14:09 > 0:14:12then on legions of bicycles.
0:14:12 > 0:14:15Now, to offset the growing American presence,
0:14:15 > 0:14:19the North Vietnamese used more mechanised transport -
0:14:19 > 0:14:22relays of six-wheeled, Russian-built trucks
0:14:22 > 0:14:25travelling under cover of darkness.
0:14:26 > 0:14:29MACV reasoned that if the Ho Chi Minh Trail
0:14:29 > 0:14:32could somehow be sufficiently damaged,
0:14:32 > 0:14:35the enemy would be unable to sustain itself.
0:14:37 > 0:14:41Three million tonnes of explosives would eventually be dropped
0:14:41 > 0:14:44on the Laos portion of the trail alone -
0:14:44 > 0:14:48a million more tonnes than fell on Germany and Japan
0:14:48 > 0:14:50during all of World War II.
0:14:56 > 0:15:02As many as 230,000 teenagers, many of them volunteers,
0:15:02 > 0:15:06worked to keep the roads open and the traffic moving.
0:15:06 > 0:15:09More than half of them were women.
0:15:11 > 0:15:14Le Minh Khue, who had left her home in the north
0:15:14 > 0:15:17with a novel by Ernest Hemingway in her backpack,
0:15:17 > 0:15:21observed her 17th birthday on the trail.
0:15:38 > 0:15:43Thousands died on the trail from starvation and accidents,
0:15:43 > 0:15:46fevers and snakebite and sheer exhaustion,
0:15:46 > 0:15:49as well as from the relentless bombing.
0:16:49 > 0:16:53# Oh-oh, smokestack lightnin'... #
0:16:53 > 0:16:58Mogie Crocker had spent most of his boyhood reading about war,
0:16:58 > 0:17:01but nothing had prepared him for what he would experience
0:17:01 > 0:17:05in Quang Duc province on the Cambodian border.
0:17:06 > 0:17:08He had deliberately fouled up his work
0:17:08 > 0:17:12at battalion headquarters so badly that he had finally been reassigned
0:17:12 > 0:17:16to what he wanted most - a combat unit.
0:17:16 > 0:17:19# Whoa-oh, tell me, baby
0:17:20 > 0:17:24# What's the matter with you?
0:17:24 > 0:17:27# Why don't you hear me crying?
0:17:27 > 0:17:29# Ooh-ooh... #
0:17:29 > 0:17:32Not hearing, in those days, was so difficult.
0:17:32 > 0:17:35There'd be at least eight to ten days, usually,
0:17:35 > 0:17:37between letters.
0:17:37 > 0:17:39So, knowing he was in action,
0:17:39 > 0:17:43you just didn't know what, you know, might be going on.
0:17:44 > 0:17:49Mogie's battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Emerson,
0:17:49 > 0:17:50known as the Gunfighter,
0:17:50 > 0:17:54was courageous, implacable, relentless.
0:17:55 > 0:17:57A few months before Mogie got there,
0:17:57 > 0:18:01he had offered a case of whisky to the first of his men
0:18:01 > 0:18:04to bring in the hacked-off head of an enemy soldier.
0:18:05 > 0:18:07They did.
0:18:09 > 0:18:13When Colonel Emerson learned that four companies of North Vietnamese
0:18:13 > 0:18:17were preparing an ambush, he decided to ambush the ambushers.
0:18:19 > 0:18:22On May 11th, he ordered his men to attack,
0:18:22 > 0:18:26backed by massive air and artillery strikes.
0:18:28 > 0:18:30Before the fighting ended,
0:18:30 > 0:18:35some 2,000 shells had slammed into the enemy positions.
0:18:37 > 0:18:40Blood was everywhere - pooled on the ground,
0:18:40 > 0:18:44smeared on leaves and grass and bamboo.
0:18:44 > 0:18:46There were scores of corpses,
0:18:46 > 0:18:49torn to pieces or blown into the earth,
0:18:49 > 0:18:54hidden in thickets, half buried in scooped-out graves.
0:18:54 > 0:18:57The earthshaking concussions
0:18:57 > 0:19:00had blown the eyeballs of some of them from their heads.
0:19:02 > 0:19:03In the midst of the fighting,
0:19:03 > 0:19:06Mogie's squad was moving along a narrow path
0:19:06 > 0:19:10when two enemy machine guns opened up on them.
0:19:10 > 0:19:14GUNFIRE
0:19:16 > 0:19:20His closest friend was fatally wounded.
0:19:20 > 0:19:24Mogie crouched in front of him, radioed for suppressive fire,
0:19:24 > 0:19:28and then, as both machine guns continued shooting,
0:19:28 > 0:19:31he carried his dying friend off the battlefield.
0:19:33 > 0:19:37For his courage, he would be awarded the Army Commendation Medal.
0:19:49 > 0:19:54# Oh, Sergeant, I'm a draftee And I've just arrived in camp
0:19:54 > 0:19:58# I've come to wear the uniform And join the martial tramp... #
0:19:58 > 0:20:04The war, by 1966, began to impact the middle class
0:20:04 > 0:20:07because the draft calls had to be enlarged.
0:20:07 > 0:20:10They couldn't get enough people to volunteer,
0:20:10 > 0:20:12or draft people out of the working class.
0:20:12 > 0:20:15They started drafting people out of college,
0:20:15 > 0:20:18and that's when the anti-war movement
0:20:18 > 0:20:22shifted from a moral movement to a self-interest movement,
0:20:22 > 0:20:26driven by people who didn't want to go to war,
0:20:26 > 0:20:30and their loved ones, who didn't want them to go to war.
0:20:30 > 0:20:35# And I know that it won't matter That I've never killed before. #
0:20:37 > 0:20:39The draft was a consuming issue
0:20:39 > 0:20:43for young men of Bill Zimmerman's generation.
0:20:43 > 0:20:49By 1966, 30,000 men were being called up each month.
0:20:49 > 0:20:53But more than half of the 27 million American men
0:20:53 > 0:20:55who came of age during the war
0:20:55 > 0:20:58avoided military service
0:20:58 > 0:21:01through exemptions and deferments.
0:21:01 > 0:21:05A million young men served in the Reserves, or National Guard,
0:21:05 > 0:21:09with the expectation they would never be sent into combat.
0:21:09 > 0:21:13Reservists and guardsmen were almost always white,
0:21:13 > 0:21:16generally better educated, better connected,
0:21:16 > 0:21:20and better paid than draftees.
0:21:20 > 0:21:24"If you've got the dough," GIs said, "you don't have to go."
0:21:26 > 0:21:29The result was an army heavily skewed
0:21:29 > 0:21:32toward minorities and the underprivileged.
0:21:32 > 0:21:34# Mr Backlash, Mr Backlash
0:21:34 > 0:21:37# Just who do you think I am?
0:21:37 > 0:21:40# You raise my taxes freeze my wages
0:21:40 > 0:21:44# And send my son to Vietnam... #
0:21:44 > 0:21:46For a time, African-Americans,
0:21:46 > 0:21:50though they represented only 12% of the population,
0:21:50 > 0:21:54suffered a disproportionate number of casualties.
0:21:54 > 0:21:57Resentment began to grow.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02We've got to build so much strength in building our community
0:22:02 > 0:22:04that if they come to get one person,
0:22:04 > 0:22:05they're going to have to mess with us all.
0:22:05 > 0:22:07That's what we've got to do.
0:22:07 > 0:22:09- That's what we've got to do. - APPLAUSE
0:22:09 > 0:22:12We've got to build so much strength
0:22:12 > 0:22:14inside our community,
0:22:14 > 0:22:15so that when LBJ says,
0:22:15 > 0:22:18"Come here, boy," to my boy, we say,
0:22:18 > 0:22:21- "Hell, no, we ain't going." - CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:22:23 > 0:22:27I'm not going to help nobody get something my Negroes don't have.
0:22:27 > 0:22:30If I'm going to die, I'll die now, right here, fighting you.
0:22:30 > 0:22:33If I'm going to die, you're my enemy.
0:22:33 > 0:22:34My enemy is the white people,
0:22:34 > 0:22:37not the Viet Cong or Chinese or Japanese.
0:22:37 > 0:22:39You're my opposer when I want freedom.
0:22:39 > 0:22:41You're my opposer when I want justice.
0:22:41 > 0:22:42You're my opposer when I want equality.
0:22:42 > 0:22:44And you want me to go somewhere and fight,
0:22:44 > 0:22:47but you won't even stand up for me here at home!
0:22:48 > 0:22:51But a majority of Americans,
0:22:51 > 0:22:54old and young, supported the war.
0:22:54 > 0:22:57# Glory, glory, hallelujah
0:22:57 > 0:23:01# His truth is marching on. #
0:23:55 > 0:23:59I was brought up to believe that the Communists were
0:23:59 > 0:24:04people who destroyed the family, destroyed religion.
0:24:04 > 0:24:08And people who had no allegiance to our country,
0:24:08 > 0:24:11but to international communism.
0:24:11 > 0:24:14My mother would describe them as...
0:24:15 > 0:24:17..which means that these are people
0:24:17 > 0:24:20with the head of a water buffalo and the face of a horse,
0:24:20 > 0:24:24meaning that they were subhumans and they were brutal.
0:24:24 > 0:24:28But on the other hand, I thought, "They also include
0:24:28 > 0:24:33"people like my sister, Thang, and a lot of my cousins."
0:24:33 > 0:24:37I couldn't quite reconcile the two images.
0:24:38 > 0:24:41But, of the two, I think the other image was much stronger,
0:24:41 > 0:24:43because I was so scared of them.
0:24:43 > 0:24:47I thought, "These people must be really, really horrible people."
0:24:47 > 0:24:50That was the frame of mind I had
0:24:50 > 0:24:53when I started doing research into the communist movement.
0:24:55 > 0:24:58Duong Van Mai was the daughter of an official
0:24:58 > 0:25:00in the South Vietnamese government,
0:25:00 > 0:25:04and was now married to an American, David Elliot.
0:25:04 > 0:25:10Back in 1964, she had gone to work for the RAND Corporation in Saigon.
0:25:10 > 0:25:13The think tank had been commissioned by Robert McNamara
0:25:13 > 0:25:19to do a study of enemy prisoners to find out who are the Viet Cong,
0:25:19 > 0:25:21and what makes them tick?
0:25:23 > 0:25:25I remember my first interview.
0:25:25 > 0:25:28I was by myself, I was very young,
0:25:28 > 0:25:32and I was going to this pretty grim prison
0:25:32 > 0:25:36to interview this high-ranking cadre who had been captured.
0:25:36 > 0:25:40I went in thinking, "I'm going to meet this beast."
0:25:40 > 0:25:42You know, this guy with the head of a water buffalo
0:25:42 > 0:25:45and the face of a horse.
0:25:45 > 0:25:49But here was a man who had devoted all his life
0:25:49 > 0:25:52to fight for what he called the just cause -
0:25:52 > 0:25:55to free his country of foreign domination,
0:25:55 > 0:26:00to reunify the country under just government.
0:26:00 > 0:26:02So, he really, totally believed in it,
0:26:02 > 0:26:05to the point that he'd sacrifice his whole life to this cause.
0:26:05 > 0:26:08So, when I left, I was very impressed with him.
0:26:09 > 0:26:12When the RAND report was presented
0:26:12 > 0:26:15to McNamara's top deputies at the Pentagon,
0:26:15 > 0:26:18describing the Viet Cong as a dedicated enemy
0:26:18 > 0:26:21that could only be defeated at enormous cost,
0:26:21 > 0:26:24one senior official said,
0:26:24 > 0:26:28"If what you say is true, we're fighting on the wrong side -
0:26:28 > 0:26:32"the side that's going to lose this war."
0:26:35 > 0:26:37GUNFIRE
0:26:37 > 0:26:41Most of the fighting in Vietnam was small-scale, close up,
0:26:41 > 0:26:44and initiated by the elusive enemy.
0:26:46 > 0:26:48The military called it contact.
0:26:50 > 0:26:55"War is hell," grunts like to say, "but contact is a mother."
0:26:57 > 0:27:00Six months into his tour,
0:27:00 > 0:27:03Lieutenant Mike Heaney from Basking Ridge, New Jersey,
0:27:03 > 0:27:06undertook what he and his men thought
0:27:06 > 0:27:08would be an easy assignment -
0:27:08 > 0:27:12climb a slope not far from their base at An Khe,
0:27:12 > 0:27:16and drive a small enemy mortar unit off a ridgeline.
0:27:17 > 0:27:21As soon as we started out, we started to get some bad vibes.
0:27:21 > 0:27:24And all of a sudden, the very point man -
0:27:24 > 0:27:27the first guy in the column, Sergeant Mayes -
0:27:27 > 0:27:31without saying anything, just put his M16 up to his shoulder,
0:27:31 > 0:27:33and fired off a round.
0:27:33 > 0:27:37Then he turned around, and he said, "VC on the trail. VC on the trail."
0:27:39 > 0:27:42Before I had a chance to digest this,
0:27:42 > 0:27:45he went down - shot right through the chest.
0:27:45 > 0:27:46Boom.
0:27:46 > 0:27:49And all of a sudden,
0:27:49 > 0:27:52what was a very well-laid ambush erupted.
0:27:54 > 0:27:58Heaney's radio operator, Private Terry Carpenter,
0:27:58 > 0:28:00got the company commander on the line.
0:28:00 > 0:28:04"We've run into something bad," Heaney said.
0:28:04 > 0:28:09At that moment, a bullet hit Carpenter in the head.
0:28:09 > 0:28:12I knew Terry was down. I knew Sergeant Mayes was down.
0:28:12 > 0:28:14I had asked the first machine-gun crew to come up
0:28:14 > 0:28:16and start laying down machine-gun fire.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19They got blown away pretty quickly.
0:28:19 > 0:28:21At that point, there wasn't anybody left
0:28:21 > 0:28:23in my forward unit.
0:28:23 > 0:28:26Every one of them had been taken down except me.
0:28:26 > 0:28:28Every one.
0:28:28 > 0:28:32Every one had been killed, or mortally wounded at that point.
0:28:36 > 0:28:38Night fell.
0:28:38 > 0:28:41What was left of Heaney's company braced for the assault
0:28:41 > 0:28:44they assumed would come at dawn.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49Then the enemy began to lob mortar shells
0:28:49 > 0:28:51among Heaney's men.
0:28:51 > 0:28:56I felt like somebody had taken a bat and hit me on my calf -
0:28:56 > 0:28:58my right calf - as hard as he could.
0:28:58 > 0:29:02I was so stunned by the shock of being hit,
0:29:02 > 0:29:07and I just...drew in a deep breath of air
0:29:07 > 0:29:08in terrible pain.
0:29:08 > 0:29:11I couldn't speak.
0:29:11 > 0:29:13Right after the ambush happened -
0:29:13 > 0:29:15and I knew I'd lost a bunch of guys -
0:29:15 > 0:29:20I said a prayer to God, saying, basically,
0:29:20 > 0:29:22"If you need any more guys from my platoon, take me.
0:29:22 > 0:29:24"Don't take any more of my men."
0:29:24 > 0:29:28As soon as I said it, I freaked myself out.
0:29:28 > 0:29:32I said, "Holy shit. Can I take that prayer back?"
0:29:32 > 0:29:34But it was too late. I'd said it.
0:29:34 > 0:29:37And as it turns out, not one more man
0:29:37 > 0:29:40on my platoon died after that prayer.
0:29:45 > 0:29:48The students are angry now, and the word has passed
0:29:48 > 0:29:52to gather at Saigon's main Buddhist pagoda after dark.
0:29:54 > 0:29:56Through all these years, the Vietnamese have learned
0:29:56 > 0:29:58to live with crises and war,
0:29:58 > 0:30:01but they haven't learned yet to live as a nation.
0:30:28 > 0:30:33On May 15th, 1966, the government of South Vietnam,
0:30:33 > 0:30:37the country for which so many Americans were risking their lives,
0:30:37 > 0:30:40again seemed on the brink of collapse.
0:30:42 > 0:30:45The ascendancy of Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky
0:30:45 > 0:30:49had dealt a severe blow to activist Buddhists,
0:30:49 > 0:30:51who had been demanding representative government,
0:30:51 > 0:30:57and a negotiated end to the war, since 1963.
0:30:57 > 0:31:01Ky was an unguided missile, according to one US diplomat.
0:31:01 > 0:31:05He once told a reporter that what Vietnam really needed
0:31:05 > 0:31:08was five Hitlers.
0:31:08 > 0:31:10He was a charlatan.
0:31:10 > 0:31:14The man not only has no training, has no education,
0:31:14 > 0:31:19but doesn't seem to be interested in being educated,
0:31:19 > 0:31:21and proud of his ignorance.
0:31:21 > 0:31:24When Ky suddenly fired a rival general,
0:31:24 > 0:31:26a popular Buddhist commander,
0:31:26 > 0:31:32demonstrators poured into the streets of Hue and Da Nang.
0:31:32 > 0:31:36But from his command post on a hilltop outside the city,
0:31:36 > 0:31:40an American Marine Lieutenant had watched in disbelief
0:31:40 > 0:31:44as two battles unfolded simultaneously.
0:31:44 > 0:31:48In the west, his fellow Marines were fighting the Viet Cong.
0:31:49 > 0:31:52In the east, the South Vietnamese Army
0:31:52 > 0:31:55seemed to be at war with itself.
0:32:06 > 0:32:09"May 16th, 1966.
0:32:09 > 0:32:11"Dear Mom and Dad,
0:32:11 > 0:32:16"our operation here on the Cambodian border has been quite a success.
0:32:16 > 0:32:18"No doubt you will hear about it on the news.
0:32:19 > 0:32:22"Whether I will go out again soon, I don't know,
0:32:22 > 0:32:24"but don't plan on steady mail.
0:32:27 > 0:32:30"Tell Randy I'm looking forward to seeing his new dog.
0:32:33 > 0:32:38"I may take a 15-day leave to Tokyo to keep from cracking up."
0:32:41 > 0:32:43It was a lovely spring day,
0:32:43 > 0:32:46and I opened the letter that said that,
0:32:46 > 0:32:50and I was just really devastated, because, by that time,
0:32:50 > 0:32:53Vietnam was in total chaos.
0:32:53 > 0:32:57There was a continuing changeover of people in authority,
0:32:57 > 0:33:00of the government in South Vietnam,
0:33:00 > 0:33:04and there were protests of the Buddhist monks and others that...
0:33:04 > 0:33:07There were anti-American demonstrations.
0:33:07 > 0:33:10I just thought, "Why? Why are we there?"
0:33:12 > 0:33:17To an old high-school friend, Mogie was even more forthcoming.
0:33:19 > 0:33:21"Dear Duff,
0:33:21 > 0:33:23"since I last wrote, which is several months,
0:33:23 > 0:33:28"a number of exciting but terribly unpleasant events have occurred,
0:33:28 > 0:33:30"the worst of which was being pinned down
0:33:30 > 0:33:34"by two Chinese light machine guns firing 900 rounds per minute
0:33:34 > 0:33:37"and having my best friend killed more or less beside me.
0:33:39 > 0:33:40"Someday, I may tell you the whole story
0:33:40 > 0:33:44"if my nerves aren't completely gone by then.
0:33:44 > 0:33:47"Actually, the latter is just wishful thinking
0:33:47 > 0:33:50"in false hope they will take me off the line.
0:33:52 > 0:33:54"I was fantastically religious for a while...
0:33:55 > 0:33:58"..sending up various and sundry prayers,
0:33:58 > 0:34:00"mainly concerned with trying to stay alive...
0:34:01 > 0:34:03"..but I am once again an atheist...
0:34:05 > 0:34:06"..until the shooting starts."
0:34:12 > 0:34:14GUNFIRE
0:34:35 > 0:34:41June 3rd, 1966, was Mogie's 19th birthday.
0:34:41 > 0:34:44His company was involved in yet another campaign
0:34:44 > 0:34:48aimed at finding and killing North Vietnamese troops
0:34:48 > 0:34:52filtering into the Central Highlands from Laos.
0:34:53 > 0:34:57As night fell, Mogie and his squad were ordered to move up
0:34:57 > 0:35:02toward the crest of a hill overlooking a besieged ARVN outpost,
0:35:02 > 0:35:04so that artillery could be brought up
0:35:04 > 0:35:08and positioned to shell the enemy in the morning.
0:35:10 > 0:35:14They moved slowly, wearily, up the slope.
0:35:14 > 0:35:16Mogie was the point man.
0:35:19 > 0:35:23Out of the darkness, a machine gun opened up.
0:35:25 > 0:35:29Denton Crocker Jr never made it to the top of the hill.
0:35:40 > 0:35:42# Down the street the dogs are barking
0:35:42 > 0:35:44# And the day is a-getting dark... #
0:35:46 > 0:35:49It was just a lovely day to be out in our garden.
0:35:50 > 0:35:54But shortly after lunchtime, I stepped out on the porch.
0:35:58 > 0:36:02I saw two men in uniform coming to the house...
0:36:04 > 0:36:08..and I knew something terrible had happened.
0:36:09 > 0:36:13And I ran down the steps, and I just grabbed hold of one of them,
0:36:13 > 0:36:15and said, "Don't tell me.
0:36:15 > 0:36:19"Don't say it. Not my beautiful boy."
0:36:19 > 0:36:21And he just said yes.
0:36:26 > 0:36:29I suddenly heard my mother screaming for my father.
0:36:30 > 0:36:34Like in a movie, here came the priest, up the stairs,
0:36:34 > 0:36:37with a soldier and she was going, "Oh, no."
0:36:37 > 0:36:40And she was calling my dad.
0:36:40 > 0:36:43My reaction was to leap up off the couch,
0:36:43 > 0:36:45race out the back door.
0:36:45 > 0:36:48My dad was standing there
0:36:48 > 0:36:50and I fell into his arms, and I said...
0:36:52 > 0:36:54.."Don't let it be true, Dad.
0:36:56 > 0:36:58"Is it true?"
0:36:58 > 0:37:00And he said yes.
0:37:01 > 0:37:03I just...I remember sitting on the couch,
0:37:03 > 0:37:05and I put my arms around them and I said,
0:37:05 > 0:37:08"We'll love each other and we'll be all right."
0:37:08 > 0:37:11But I don't know how far it carried.
0:37:11 > 0:37:15You know, we all tried.
0:37:22 > 0:37:24Carol said to me one day
0:37:24 > 0:37:26very shortly after Denton was killed,
0:37:26 > 0:37:28probably that very day,
0:37:28 > 0:37:30"How can you believe in God?"
0:37:32 > 0:37:34And I said, "Because we had Mogie...
0:37:38 > 0:37:43"..and I think that his life was a real gift.
0:37:43 > 0:37:45"It was a privilege to have him."
0:37:45 > 0:37:51A friend wrote to me, "Our children are really only on loan to us,"
0:37:51 > 0:37:53which I guess is true.
0:37:57 > 0:38:00We all wish the war would end.
0:38:00 > 0:38:03We all wish the troops would come home.
0:38:03 > 0:38:06There is no human being in all this world
0:38:06 > 0:38:11who wishes these things to happen, for peace to come to the world,
0:38:11 > 0:38:14more than your President of the United States.
0:38:24 > 0:38:29The military claimed to have killed some 57,000 enemy soldiers
0:38:29 > 0:38:34in the first six months of 1966.
0:38:34 > 0:38:36But, privately, the administration worried
0:38:36 > 0:38:39that General Westmoreland's crossover point -
0:38:39 > 0:38:43the moment when more enemy soldiers had been killed
0:38:43 > 0:38:46than could be replaced - seemed no nearer.
0:38:47 > 0:38:51From the first, the joint chiefs had urged the President
0:38:51 > 0:38:52to be more aggressive,
0:38:52 > 0:38:58to permit troops to pursue the enemy into Laos and Cambodia
0:38:58 > 0:39:02and to expand the target list for bombing in North Vietnam.
0:39:03 > 0:39:07Johnson still would not allow borders to be crossed
0:39:07 > 0:39:10by regular ground troops, for fear of bringing China,
0:39:10 > 0:39:14or even the Soviet Union, into the war,
0:39:14 > 0:39:19and he was wary of heavier bombing, fearful of hitting more civilians.
0:39:21 > 0:39:24But despite his concern, the President now agreed
0:39:24 > 0:39:29to intensify the bombing campaign called Operation Rolling Thunder.
0:39:29 > 0:39:32He approved attacks on oil facilities
0:39:32 > 0:39:34all over North Vietnam,
0:39:34 > 0:39:39including some sites adjacent to the cities of Haiphong and Hanoi.
0:39:41 > 0:39:46His commanders assured him that this would be a mortal blow to the enemy,
0:39:46 > 0:39:50sure to force the North Vietnamese to the bargaining table.
0:39:58 > 0:40:01Tens of thousands of sorties were flown.
0:40:05 > 0:40:09Many bombs hit their intended targets,
0:40:09 > 0:40:14but many missed and fell on residential neighbourhoods instead,
0:40:14 > 0:40:17just as the President had feared.
0:40:21 > 0:40:25Things are going reasonably well in the south, aren't they?
0:40:25 > 0:40:30Yes, I think so. We think we're taking a heavy toll out of them,
0:40:30 > 0:40:32but it just scares me to see what we're doing here,
0:40:32 > 0:40:36with God knows how many aeroplanes and helicopters and firepower,
0:40:36 > 0:40:40and going after a bunch of half-starved beggars.
0:40:40 > 0:40:42That's what's going on in the south.
0:40:42 > 0:40:45And the great danger is that
0:40:45 > 0:40:48they can keep that up almost indefinitely.
0:40:49 > 0:40:52The only thing that'll prevent it, Mr President,
0:40:52 > 0:40:55is their morale breaking. There's no question.
0:40:55 > 0:40:58But what the troops in the south - the VC and North Vietnamese...
0:40:58 > 0:41:00They know that we're bombing in the north.
0:41:00 > 0:41:02We just have a free rein.
0:41:02 > 0:41:05When they see they're getting killed in such high rates in the south,
0:41:05 > 0:41:07and they see that the supplies
0:41:07 > 0:41:09are less likely to come down from the north,
0:41:09 > 0:41:12I think it'll just hurt their morale a little bit more.
0:41:12 > 0:41:13And, to me, that's the only way to win,
0:41:13 > 0:41:16because we're not killing enough of them
0:41:16 > 0:41:19to make it impossible for the North to continue to fight,
0:41:19 > 0:41:21but we are killing enough
0:41:21 > 0:41:23to destroy the morale of those people down there
0:41:23 > 0:41:25if they think this is going to have to go on forever.
0:41:27 > 0:41:28All right. Go ahead, Bob.
0:41:55 > 0:41:59People talk about collateral damage, but it means something.
0:42:00 > 0:42:03You don't want to do collateral damage.
0:42:03 > 0:42:06You want to do the damage you want to do.
0:42:06 > 0:42:08That's the winning way to do this.
0:42:16 > 0:42:19SHE SHOUTS IN VIETNAMESE
0:42:22 > 0:42:24Even though I was in a cell by myself,
0:42:24 > 0:42:27and others were by themselves, we weren't alone.
0:42:27 > 0:42:30We were together. In this old French prison,
0:42:30 > 0:42:35gradually, I began to realise this could go on a long time.
0:42:35 > 0:42:39A long time to me was, like, maybe a year or two.
0:42:39 > 0:42:43I never dreamed it would be eight and a half years.
0:42:43 > 0:42:48By the summer of 1966, Lieutenant Everett Alvarez,
0:42:48 > 0:42:52the first American pilot to have been shot down over North Vietnam,
0:42:52 > 0:42:55had been a captive for nearly two years,
0:42:55 > 0:42:58and had been joined, in and around Hanoi,
0:42:58 > 0:43:02by more than 100 other downed airmen.
0:43:02 > 0:43:05The men were forbidden to communicate with one another,
0:43:05 > 0:43:08forced to bow to their jailers,
0:43:08 > 0:43:11and told that their country had forgotten them.
0:43:11 > 0:43:15They were subjected to isolation, beatings,
0:43:15 > 0:43:18and hour upon hour of torture,
0:43:18 > 0:43:21all aimed at forcing them to admit their guilt
0:43:21 > 0:43:24and record statements denouncing the war.
0:43:27 > 0:43:29When that cell door would open,
0:43:29 > 0:43:32when they would say, "You, your turn,"
0:43:32 > 0:43:35you know, the bottom just fell out of you,
0:43:35 > 0:43:39and you knew that you may not come back.
0:43:39 > 0:43:43The manacles, the ropes, the beatings.
0:43:43 > 0:43:46They broke bones. They did everything.
0:43:47 > 0:43:51And they didn't let me die. They just kept the pain.
0:43:55 > 0:43:56The bombing continued,
0:43:56 > 0:44:00and more American planes were shot down.
0:44:03 > 0:44:07The North Vietnamese took pride in capturing American airmen.
0:44:07 > 0:44:11Even children were expected to do their part.
0:44:11 > 0:44:13CHILDREN REPEAT COMMANDS
0:44:13 > 0:44:14- "Hands up!"- Hand up!
0:44:17 > 0:44:19- "Hands up!"- Hands up!
0:44:20 > 0:44:21Hands up!
0:44:21 > 0:44:24The bombing around Hanoi and Haiphong
0:44:24 > 0:44:27that resulted in so many of our people being POWs
0:44:27 > 0:44:31for a long period of time was fought out of the White House basement
0:44:31 > 0:44:33with the President himself picking targets
0:44:33 > 0:44:36and deciding that, "We're going to attack now,
0:44:36 > 0:44:38"and then we're going to pause for a while."
0:44:38 > 0:44:43Air power was being misused big time.
0:44:46 > 0:44:49Operation Rolling Thunder did destroy
0:44:49 > 0:44:53most of North Vietnam's oil storage facilities.
0:44:55 > 0:44:58But the North Vietnamese shifted most of their oil
0:44:58 > 0:45:00to underground tanks,
0:45:00 > 0:45:05and more arrived every day from China and the Soviet Union.
0:45:08 > 0:45:11The bombing was stepped up anyway.
0:45:14 > 0:45:15Throughout the north,
0:45:15 > 0:45:19enough crude air shelters were fashioned from concrete pipe,
0:45:19 > 0:45:22buried 5ft beneath the ground,
0:45:22 > 0:45:25to accommodate some 18 million people -
0:45:25 > 0:45:28virtually the entire population.
0:45:32 > 0:45:36Over a million people were said to be working around the clock
0:45:36 > 0:45:39to undo what American bombs had done.
0:45:39 > 0:45:42When key bridges were destroyed,
0:45:42 > 0:45:47they fashioned pontoon bridges overnight to keep traffic moving.
0:45:47 > 0:45:51Crews waited along the roads with heaps of gravel and stone
0:45:51 > 0:45:54and stacks of wood to fill bomb craters.
0:45:56 > 0:46:02They worked under the slogan, "The enemy destroys, we repair.
0:46:02 > 0:46:06"The enemy destroys, we repair again."
0:46:11 > 0:46:14Rolling Thunder was the dumbest campaign
0:46:14 > 0:46:18ever devised by a human being, because what's irrational to us
0:46:18 > 0:46:20is totally rational to the other side
0:46:20 > 0:46:25if you've decided that you are going to reunify the Vietnams,
0:46:25 > 0:46:29no matter what it takes, no matter how many casualties.
0:46:33 > 0:46:38A lot of the military we talked to shared our concerns
0:46:38 > 0:46:42about how the war was being fought and whether or not it could be won.
0:46:42 > 0:46:45But when it came to an official position,
0:46:45 > 0:46:48it was, "What we know well
0:46:48 > 0:46:51"and we can win this war, and we're doing it right.
0:46:51 > 0:46:56"We just need more - more troops, more bombing."
0:46:59 > 0:47:02Dr Martin Luther King Jr
0:47:02 > 0:47:05had been agonising about the war for months,
0:47:05 > 0:47:09but he had been reluctant to break openly with Lyndon Johnson,
0:47:09 > 0:47:12who had done so much for civil rights.
0:47:12 > 0:47:16Now he could no longer stay silent.
0:47:16 > 0:47:21I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight
0:47:21 > 0:47:27because my conscience leaves me no other choice.
0:47:27 > 0:47:32A time comes when silence is betrayal.
0:47:32 > 0:47:38That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.
0:47:41 > 0:47:4611 days later, King joined perhaps half a million other protesters
0:47:46 > 0:47:49at a massive demonstration in Central Park
0:47:49 > 0:47:52organised by a new coalition -
0:47:52 > 0:47:56the National Mobilisation To End The War In Vietnam.
0:47:58 > 0:48:01# I said, "Hold it, Doc A World War passed through my brain"
0:48:01 > 0:48:04# He said, "Nurse, get your pad The boy's insane"
0:48:04 > 0:48:06# I said that... #
0:48:09 > 0:48:11Stop the bombing!
0:48:12 > 0:48:16Let us save our national honour.
0:48:16 > 0:48:20Stop the bombing and stop the war.
0:48:20 > 0:48:25Let us save American lives and Vietnamese lives.
0:48:25 > 0:48:29Let us take a single, instantaneous step
0:48:29 > 0:48:30to the peace table.
0:48:30 > 0:48:33Stop the bombing.
0:48:33 > 0:48:39The anti-war movement was growing in numbers and militancy.
0:48:39 > 0:48:43"We are no longer interested in merely protesting the war,"
0:48:43 > 0:48:44an organiser said,
0:48:44 > 0:48:46"We are out to stop it."
0:48:49 > 0:48:52Meanwhile, some in the Johnson administration
0:48:52 > 0:48:55became convinced the anti-war movement
0:48:55 > 0:48:59was a communist conspiracy directed by Moscow.
0:48:59 > 0:49:01The FBI and the CIA,
0:49:01 > 0:49:06which was barred by statute from operating within the United States,
0:49:06 > 0:49:10began infiltrating the movement, wiretapping its leaders,
0:49:10 > 0:49:15even inciting violence in order to undercut their appeal.
0:49:19 > 0:49:24At that time, people who supported the war were fond of saying,
0:49:24 > 0:49:26"My country, right or wrong",
0:49:26 > 0:49:29"America, love it or leave it",
0:49:29 > 0:49:32or, "Better dead than red."
0:49:33 > 0:49:37Those sentiments seemed insane to us.
0:49:37 > 0:49:39We don't want to live in a country
0:49:39 > 0:49:41that we're going to support whether it's right or wrong.
0:49:41 > 0:49:44We want to live in a country that acts rightly,
0:49:44 > 0:49:46and doesn't act wrongly.
0:49:46 > 0:49:50And if our country isn't doing that, it needs to be corrected.
0:49:50 > 0:49:54So, we had a very different idea of patriotism.
0:49:54 > 0:50:01So, we began an era in which two groups of Americans,
0:50:01 > 0:50:04both thinking that they were acting patriotically,
0:50:04 > 0:50:06went to war with each other.
0:50:06 > 0:50:11Over 200,000 communist sympathisers in that park this morning
0:50:11 > 0:50:15tried to burn this flag, but they didn't succeed.
0:50:18 > 0:50:20Behind the scenes,
0:50:20 > 0:50:26Robert McNamara, the chief architect of American strategy in Vietnam,
0:50:26 > 0:50:31had grown less and less confident in its ultimate success
0:50:31 > 0:50:35and in the repeated calls for more men and more bombing
0:50:35 > 0:50:38made by the military he oversaw.
0:50:39 > 0:50:45Robert McNamara was the embodiment of intellect and self-confidence.
0:50:45 > 0:50:49If there was a problem, there had to be an answer,
0:50:49 > 0:50:52and that was his fatal flaw.
0:50:52 > 0:50:56The startling thing is that this man,
0:50:56 > 0:51:01who never seemed to doubt anything he said,
0:51:01 > 0:51:06actually began to doubt profoundly what he was doing in Vietnam,
0:51:06 > 0:51:08but we didn't know about it.
0:51:09 > 0:51:12In a private memorandum to the President,
0:51:12 > 0:51:14McNamara told Johnson
0:51:14 > 0:51:17that the picture of the world's greatest superpower
0:51:17 > 0:51:22killing or seriously injuring 1,000 non-combatants a week
0:51:22 > 0:51:26while trying to pound a tiny, backward nation into submission
0:51:26 > 0:51:30on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed
0:51:30 > 0:51:32is not a pretty one.
0:51:32 > 0:51:37He urged the President to limit troop levels, not raise them,
0:51:37 > 0:51:40and to declare an unconditional end
0:51:40 > 0:51:44to all bombing north of the 20th parallel.
0:51:44 > 0:51:48"The war in Vietnam is acquiring a momentum of its own
0:51:48 > 0:51:51"that must be stopped," McNamara wrote.
0:51:51 > 0:51:54"Dramatic increases in US troop deployments
0:51:54 > 0:51:57"and attacks on the North are not necessary
0:51:57 > 0:52:00"and are not the answer.
0:52:00 > 0:52:03"The enemy can absorb them or counter them,
0:52:03 > 0:52:04"bogging us down further
0:52:04 > 0:52:09"and risking even more serious escalation of the war."
0:52:11 > 0:52:15In the end, Johnson tried to find a middle ground.
0:52:15 > 0:52:17He expanded the list of bombing targets,
0:52:17 > 0:52:20but he refused to mine the harbours,
0:52:20 > 0:52:25and he agreed to send Westmorland only 47,000 more troops,
0:52:25 > 0:52:29which would bring the total of US forces in the country
0:52:29 > 0:52:31to more than half a million men.
0:52:33 > 0:52:36That June, 1st Lieutenant Matthew Harrison
0:52:36 > 0:52:41got his orders to join the 173rd Airborne.
0:52:41 > 0:52:45I really felt as though I was uniquely qualified
0:52:45 > 0:52:46to lead American soldiers.
0:52:48 > 0:52:51But I think, the first day I was there,
0:52:51 > 0:52:53some guy showed me what looked like a bunch of apricots
0:52:53 > 0:52:56on a leather thong.
0:52:56 > 0:53:00Turns out they were ears - dried, desiccated.
0:53:01 > 0:53:04I understood, theoretically, what it meant to be in a war,
0:53:04 > 0:53:09but, of course, no-one can really understand it until they've done it.
0:53:14 > 0:53:18Harrison was a platoon leader in Charlie Company.
0:53:18 > 0:53:21They were helicoptered into the heart of the Central Highlands,
0:53:21 > 0:53:25near Dak To, where North Vietnamese regulars
0:53:25 > 0:53:29were said to be threatening a Special Forces camp.
0:53:29 > 0:53:31GUNFIRE
0:54:12 > 0:54:15By dawn, the enemy had melted away.
0:54:17 > 0:54:23Of the 137 men of Alpha Company, 76 lay dead.
0:54:23 > 0:54:2843 had been shot in the head at close range.
0:54:28 > 0:54:31Ears had been cut from some,
0:54:31 > 0:54:34eyes gouged out, ring fingers missing.
0:54:36 > 0:54:3823 more men were wounded.
0:54:40 > 0:54:44This was my introduction to war.
0:54:44 > 0:54:47This was my welcome to Vietnam.
0:54:50 > 0:54:55We spent the rest of the day putting those bodies into body bags
0:54:55 > 0:54:56and getting them out of there.
0:54:58 > 0:55:04Charlie Company found just nine or ten North Vietnamese bodies.
0:55:04 > 0:55:08Harrison and his men were ordered to search the nearby hillsides
0:55:08 > 0:55:10for more enemy dead,
0:55:10 > 0:55:14who commanders assumed had been killed by US artillery.
0:55:14 > 0:55:17MACV needed its body count.
0:55:20 > 0:55:24We never located them, and I believe, today,
0:55:24 > 0:55:26that we didn't locate them because they weren't there.
0:55:26 > 0:55:31I think we just took a terrible loss on June 22nd.
0:55:31 > 0:55:37To admit that a rifle company in the 173rd
0:55:37 > 0:55:40had been wiped out by the North Vietnamese
0:55:40 > 0:55:42was not something our leaders were prepared to do.
0:55:44 > 0:55:48An officer told a reporter that the shattered rifle company
0:55:48 > 0:55:53had killed 475 enemy soldiers.
0:55:53 > 0:55:56When another officer suggested to General Westmorland
0:55:56 > 0:55:59that the figure seemed too high to be believable,
0:55:59 > 0:56:04he replied, "Too late. It's already gone out."
0:56:05 > 0:56:09By then, I had more than just a suspicion
0:56:09 > 0:56:15that this was the fairy tale, that Westmorland was wrong,
0:56:15 > 0:56:18and I didn't know whether he knew he was wrong,
0:56:18 > 0:56:22or whether he believed what he was being told,
0:56:22 > 0:56:24and wanted to believe.
0:56:25 > 0:56:30But this was the first time that I had to come to grips with the fact
0:56:30 > 0:56:35that the leadership was either out of touch or was lying.
0:56:38 > 0:56:43# Hello, darkness, my old friend
0:56:43 > 0:56:47# I've come to talk with you again
0:56:47 > 0:56:52# Because a vision softly creeping
0:56:52 > 0:56:56# Left its seeds while I was sleeping
0:56:56 > 0:57:03# And the vision that was planted in my brain
0:57:03 > 0:57:06# Still remains
0:57:06 > 0:57:11# Within the sound of silence. #