gets archived on our website, the c-span video library and we're also doing extensive social media. you'll see our cable partners on face book. you'll see foursquare which is low case based andwitter as wel. a chance get out our message not only on air, but online and through social media as well. that's why it's important. we want to get outside of washington, d.c. and get into places that we don't normally do programming and make a commitment to getting outside the beltway to produce programming for all the c-span networks. >> throughout the weekends here on american history tv on c-span3 watch personal interviews about historic events on oral histories. our history bookshelf features some of the best-known history writers. revisit key figures, battles and events during the 150th anniversary of the civil war. visit college classroomtion across the country during lectures in history.

and the presidency looks at the policies and legacies of past american presidents. view our complete schedule at cspan.org/history and sign up to have it e-mailed to you by pressing the c-span alert button. >> every weekend, american history tv brings you oral histories. first-person accounts of the events and people that have shaped our history. for the next eight weeks, we're featuring oral histories from the vietnam archive at texas tech university in lubbock. and now, an excerpt from an interview with the vietnam oral history project director kelly craiger as he describes the history and the importance of the project. >> oral history project began in 1999. it was an effort by the founders of the vietnam archive to include all of the voices of the vietnam eeps crager, as possible, we tried to create as

broad and as deep a spectrum as we can of those that participated in the war so we can leave a personal nept record for current and future generations of researchers to help them understand what the vietnam war was about. we certainly believe that there is no possible way to do justice to the vietnam war to begin to understand the war, until we have heard from those people who experience it first hand. oral history is, by its nature, subjective. we're asking people to rely on what they remember and, remember, their experiences will be filters through the years and various other considerations so it's incumbent upon the researcher and the historian to use oral history interviews and use them for what they're good for. for the personal aspect as well as corroborating evidence. but no one should ever take one source as being the one source to base their work on. it is -- it's a matter of trying

to try age late, if you will, and triage late. and they have the riches that avery, very important for this. i think that when we look back at the vietnam war, much like when we look back at civil war today, we say, okay. we know about these events. we know about the battle of gettysburg and whatever it may have been. but how cool would it be to be able to sit down and listen to your ancestor explain what his experiences were like in the civil war? it would be absolutely fabulous to be able to do that. obviously we can't do it with the civil war generation but we have the opportunity to do that with the vietnam war generation. this generation is aging, as we all are. i think the vietnam war generation is looking to the

future. what isser t what is posterity going to contribute. by doing the work of the vietnam generation will leave a legacy to help understanding and help bring about reconciliation and help future generations through that vital personal link through oral history. >> 40 years after the first full-scale engagement between the people's troop and people's troops of vietnam, they interviewed veterans. it was after these battled waged in november, 1965, that north vietnamese forces began engaging in guerilla warfare. we'll hear from harold moore, with the first battalion seventh calvary regimen.

and we'll hear his recollections of the battle that he knew that would reverberate in washington, d.c. and hanoi. >> general moore, thank you for being with us today. i am dr. richard perrone conducting this oral history interview and today is november 10th, 2005, we're in washington, d.c. at the 40th anniversary reunion of the battle for the veterans. sir, there's a lot we need to discuss. i would like to ask you something in general before we get to the events that surrounded that. can you talk to memphis about yourself and your training and what you brought with you to vietnam in 1965? and how you saw your men? what you wanted to do with them and how you trained them up for that job?

>> well, this would-be will take about an hour. i'll cut it back to a few minutes. ask i was in the 82nd airborne, i jump-tested chutes. i did this for 2 1/2 years for the cia. had a few sporting events, which were life-threatening. which taught me ethe primary lesson of always keep focused when you're in a tough situation. don't panic. don't do things spontaneously. unless every instinct in your body tells you to. i was -- i served in the

pentagon. as a one-man airborne research and development officer. developing airborne techniques. airborne equipment. army's interest in requirements for air force aircraft. and i was requested by lieutenant, that measured -- the assault division. and to be one of his infantry battalion okay mabders in the 11th air assault division, which was a test division, testing air mobility and air assault concept. so i did that at fort benning for 14 months and i had great troops who had, many of whom who had trained together in advanced infantry training. we trained in a lot of tough exercises in the carolinians,

georgia. and we became bonded as a family team of fighting men. and also, in such a situation, you learn to love your fellow soldiers, which is a phenomenon that many civilians can't understand. but you love your fellow soldiers as if they were your brothers. and if you're the leader, responsible for their total welfare, not only the food, the mail, the hot chow, place to sleep but most importantly, to discipline them. i don't mean punishment. i mean, to discipline them to perform as perfectly as they can

when in battle. be perfectly trained in the use of their weapons. perfectly trained on their duties within the team that they are in, a squad, a platoon. and all that discipline -- and i'm stressing, no punishment involved here -- it will help them to stay alive. on a battlefield. >> did they understand this? >> oh, yeah. oh, yeah. i think that's the primary duty of a commander, whether it's a staff team or a combat team in the air on the ground. your duty is to lead them to be

a beautifully disciplined team, fighting team, fighting family team, of men and women. and i stress the later word "women" because now in the contemporary military, the role of women has been extended so broadly, they are a full member of the fighting team. just like the men. i've always believed since my time at west point, where i was in grave danger of being kicked out because of being so dumb with all the mathematically bizarre subjects. but i had a positive attitude. never quit.

i studied in the hall outside of the room, with a 40 watt light bulb until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. i learned how to sleep fast. i got four or five hours sleep. eight hours and four or five hours sleep. and then i'm proud to say i graduated at the top of the bottom 15% of my class. and i learned -- and i'm glad that i couldn't coast easily through west point, otherwise, i would have never had those two principals sledgehammer me in my head, the attitude. the positive attitude. always, never quit. and i hammered those principals into my troopers. which resulted in them being very tough, fighting men.

and the grave test on x-ray and know the battles in vietnam. i have three or four principles of leadership which i think are applicable any endeavor on the athletic field, boxing ring. in business, military, with what you do. and the first principle is, if you have a baseball, three strikes and you're out. not so in the game of life and other endeavors. three strikes and you're not out.

number two, there's almost always something you can do to influence a situation. and after that, one more thing. and after that, one more thing. and the more "one more things" you do, the more opportunities that open up. and then that connection, whenever i was in a tight spot on the battlefield or in a time-critical decision environment in the pentagon involving tens of thousands of people and millions of dollars, personnel chief of the army for 2 1/2 years. i would think what am i doing that i should not be doing? what am i not doing that i should be doing to influence the situation? in my favor. and associated with that

principle of "one more thing" i've learned in life that in any endeavor, family in battle, in business, after i retired i was vice president of a major ski place in colorado for four and a half years. when there's nothing going wrong, often there's nothing going wrong except there's nothing going wrong. that's when you have to be most alert. and finally, i learned early in my life to trust my instincts. your instincts are the product of your education and training. your work, your personality, and in a tight time-critical situation, especially in most types of situations, if my head

tells me one thing and my gut tells me another, i go with my gut. oftentimes there's no time for a reason to analyze the situation. or an analysis of the situation. you can't take out a notebook and say pros and cons, option one and two. and in seconds, and this worked on the battlefield. we were being assaulted by hundreds and hundreds of men against just a handful of us. i went with my instinct every time. and i turned out to be right. so those are just a few of the basic principles that i've attempted to live by and -- one

of the principle things i learned at west point which i was tried to teach my five children and i applied it to life -- always choose the hard right. instead of the easier wrong. and i've, over the years with also, and i'm proud to say this. years ago, in my youth, i concluded that none of us know where we're going to go out of the game. and our life here on the earth is a tryout. for eternity. and i think a lot of people get

focused on day-to-day earthly activities without paying attention to the fact that if their time on this earth is like a snap of the fingers, compared to eternity, so i've always tried to conduct myself so as to qualify. the older i get, the more vulnerable i get to going out of the game. and i'm doing my best to make a cut. >> what role has your spiritual life played for you in the military? how do you blend those two things? a strong spiritual belief and warfa warfare? >> well, strange as it may seem, when i was set to battle by my

president, and i swore an oath at west point on the plan that west point could follow the orders of the president of the united states. and i trusted my president and i trusted that the orders that i was receiving were honest orders which had to be followed. around no one ever likes taking the life of another person if they're in their right mind. i know that there are many criminals who take great delight in killing other people. but i did my duty. and when we had the terrible three-day shootout, at the end,

when we walked across all those enemy bodies, i was proud of what my men did, but a lot of them could be walked across. i lost 79 men killed, 21 wounded. but as i looked at all those dead north vietnamese soldiers, the thought struck me that they had mothers, too. we did what we had to do. >> the diary you found, that was recovered by the north vietnamese soldiers, tell me about that. personalizing of your enemy. >> the north vietnamese soldier

did when i fought in vietnam, not only in the valley but in other very tough battles. he was a well-trained soldier. highly motivated, was not afraid to die. i think part of his motivation may have been that they were determined to drive the round-eyed western foreigner out of their country. and the thought struck me often in vietnam that we look just like the french. white, black, brown and we were in their country. killing them, dropping bombs on

their cities. and i don't think it was very tough job for the leaders in vietnam to embut the very tough fight to get this round-eyed foreigner out of our country, which had been enslaved by the french for a hundred years. until this. i think they identified us almost like we were french. >> your enemy? you're discussing the -- is this characteristic of people's army of vietnam and the viet cong fighters or did you see a difference? >> oh, i think they're about the same. the same motivation. probably a similar motivation to

the some of the iraqi terrorists. with all the british occupation of the countries in the middle east for years and here come another bunch of white guys that want to take over our country, get our oil. but let's not get off on iraq. >> when did you come to the understanding about that the american forces are similar to the french forces in the eyes of the vietnamese? >> in vietnam. yeah. i have studied history of vietnam and us military history for years. i've been back to vietnam seven times since 1990.

i've talked to the general twice. and the historian for hours, i talk to him. i talk to the lieutenant who was my opponent on the battle field and a lieutenant colonel we were trying to kill each other. i went back to the battlefield with him and you've probably seen that documentary. >> yes, sir. >> and joe galloway and i have visited his widow and his family in hanoi. three or four years after his death. and i have found the military history of vietnam just fascinating. of course, the french were not only in vietnam, they were in laos and cambodia as well.

colonizing the whole place. i have never understood and perhaps you can enlighten me, on why president truman did not strongly object to the french re-colonizing southeast asia after world war ii when they threatened the dutch that they were going to cut off marshall aid if he didn't get out of indonesia and they did. why did we tolerate the french giving birth to another war in southeast asia? it became the siege of the american involvement in our

tragedy. general hon and i, when we met in hanoi we talked for several hours. went to dinner together with some of his officers. and the general, historian, and now his boss who was a brigadier general during the battle. as strange as it may seem, general hon and i became friends. we were together for several days. hotel together, ate together. good interpreter. he was sick with a respiratory

infection and i was, too, and i gave him some of my medicine. he got better and i got better. and we resolved after that trip back to the battlefield in 1993 in october of the attempt to get the vietnamese government to erect a obulist on the clearing at mannings zone x-ray which would say "on this field, november, 1965, u.s. army forces and people's army of vietnam, fought the first major battle of the american war. nothing else. not who kicked who whose ass. just the fact that there was a

battle. and he was when he died the -- when he died the whole project collapsed. i've been back to the x-ray battlefield one other time after the 1993. i went back with 12 of my veterans. you can take me to the west only until the road ones out and then you got to start walking. the first place you hit is lz albany. and then you walk another mile and a half north and you hit lz

x-ray. it's still a strub jingle. high elephant grass. it's still a scrub jungle. there's been some logging out there by the japanese, primarily, but i think all that stopped and -- when we were there in 1993 and '97, there was the remains of a logging road which had all grown over. so as you well know, the tours of veterans of vietnam, they've taken, maybe to hanoi, to the museum won't be donang, the palaces, saigon, the roof on the

care vel. and the outdoor roof on the hotel across the street, i forget the name of it. but they don't take them to -- sometimes, to play me. which is it is handy to get them to play me. you got to be careful when you walk around there with all the unexposed organs. if you push them they'll let a group go to play me but they don't let anybody out into is valley. >> do you think there's another run -- instead of the lack of access? >> well, i have always puzzled over this. i think there may be other reasons, including the presen