they would wear garments made of home-spun cloth and this home-spun cloth would be much more rough textured, would be much less fine than the kinds of goods that they could import from great britain. but by wearing this home-spun cloth, women were visibly and vividly and physically displaying their political sentiments. >> tonight at 9:00, george mason four-square. follow american history tv all weekend, every weekend, on c-span3 and online at

c-span.org/history. 40 years after the first full-scale engagement between u.s. troops and the people's army of vietnam, the vietnam archive interviewed veterans from the battles of the la drang valleys. up next, airing for the first time on television, excerpts from one of those oral histories. we'll hear from william lund, a forward observer with bravo company and was in charge of launching long range artillery that launched long range ex-way. >> i was married. my high school sweetheart and i got married as sophomore and junior in college. that's why i was in rotc, because lieutenants got more pay than privates. i thought that was a good idea. when i got my orders, i always remember it because it said --

in minnesota when you graduate you put your uniform on, walk across the stage, they pin the bars on you, hand you your diploma and they hand you your orders at the same time. i got my orders. i opened them up and i looked and it said 11th air assault experimental. i thought, i wonder what that is. so i took it back to the captain at the rotc. i said what's that. he said i don't know, but you're in trouble. that's how it started. >> you graduated and got your commission what year? >> march of '64. >> march of '64. so your first place -- first station was ft. benning? >> right. after ft. sills, training -- >> you went to ft. sill first for fo training. >> was it artillery obc? >> yeah. basic. >> basic course for artillerymen but you already knew your new station was going to be ft. benning with the 11th air assault which was part of --

going to become. >> were be the first air cav. oddly enough, i got assigned to a thing they used to call the little john rocket battalion. that's a missile about the length of that table, and that's -- >> nuclear. >> yeah. exactly. that's the one. that was kind of an odd thing to be in. and for a year, that's what i did. and so i became an fo a week or two before we left for vietnam which was kind of an interesting experience. >> what was your major at minnesota in school? >> business. >> you were business major. >> right. >> strong mathematical background. >> no. not at all. but it was -- obviously a real good school and i found it all very -- military all

interesting. i enjoyed the heck out of it. >> you went to ft. sill, eight weeks of obc? >> yeah, about eight weeks. right. >> in that eight weeks, how much of your training was about being a forward observer in vietnam? >> zero. we -- in vietnam. all of it was about -- most of the training was about being a forward observer. i think they realized that most second lieutenants were going to be forward observers. but never had heard the word. never heard of it. and in fact, i don't know if anybody has told you this but when they ordered us to go to vietnam, they actually took a lot of the officers to a movie theater on base and showed us where it was and how you pronounce the name. we had never heard of it. >> what -- i am familiar somewhat with artillery at ft. sill with the iosc and with the

ocs program for artillery. and later in the war i know that there was this rule that said that all combat arms officers should have four months of troop experience before they go to vietnam. and they did that pretty much across the board for a while, but then they found that with artillery people, that when they came out of ocs, they had fo training -- or at least they were ready, and by the time they'd had four months of troop training they'd lost a lot of it. and for a period of time they sent artillery second lieutenants newly commissioned directly to vietnam. >> right. >> i think that was a mistake, then realized it, so went back to the other. but that's my familiarity with artillery. so in your case, you had orders for this new cavalry air unit at ft. benning before you had even before to artillery obc. >> right.

the very first orders i ever got said that's where i was going, but you're going here first. and then to ft. sill first, then to ft. benning. >> so you graduate in spring of '64 and you go to obc until september or so? >> no. i was -- i graduated in march. so i was -- i was at ft. benning in may, maybe? >> you got to benning in may of '64. so you were there with the units for virtually a year before you -- >> before i left. right. yep. >> what was your responsibility at benning? >> i was a platoon leader of the rocket group, and we had three companies. it was set up just like a regular artillery outfit. and you did the same type of things. i had a platoon of people that took care of this rocket. it was so unique, nobody else

knew what we were doing. it was off on the side of the base. but it was fun, because you're playing with a nuke. you had all these drills with the screwdrivers and all this. it was really -- >> but you didn't, for that year, you didn't really train with the infantry or -- >> never. >> -- or you didn't train as an fo with the 1st air cav or anything like that? >> no, not at all. what they did, was somebody on high sent down a list of "we need this many artillery guys to fill the slots," and they posted our name on a bulletin board and there it was. your name, you're going. so i went home and told my wife, i said, wow, you won't believe this. i'm now an fo with the 7th cavalry with the 21st artillery. i've never met guys but i'm going to go over and meet them and i'm going to vietnam. what a shock. >> what was the time between

getting your orders and leaving? >> month and a half maybe? >> so in that six weeks were you trained to become an fo? >> no. >> so your training to be an fo, you remember a little bit of it from obc. >> exactl lyexactly. in fact, the things i did do -- go through the infantry course -- by myself, by the way. guy sets it up and i go around shooting things. this is to get you qualified. >> for your weapons -- >> weapons and stuff. because we're so -- so that whole situation was really interesting. to me, the fo stuff never left me. i had that stuff cold. for some reason. i will tell you about being assigned to this infantry outfit, if that's okay.

i was told to report to the b company of the 2nd 7th. they were smiling on me from above when they assigned me to that outfit because that's as good outfit as there was in vietnam. we were something else. but when i walked in the door, i saluted the captain and he started talking to me. i'm thinking, wow. who is this guy? and it was myron dudurig. who if you read the book, hall moore says was the best company commander he ever saw. this guy was from the ukraine. so in the movie when you see mel gibson say and we've got officers from ukraine, they're talking about myron. so i'm listening to this accent. i can hardly understand him. so i'm -- but he and i became fast friends because i was like attached to the guy the whole time we were there. but what was funnier yet, then

he brought in rick roscola, from corn ball, engla cornwall, england. i'm going what kind of an outfit is this? i'm independent. what are you guys? so i had a lot of fun with them. >> so you went to vietnam with the 1st air cav in august on the troop -- >> on the troop ship. yes. >> did you have any -- you were going -- you knew you were going to be an fo. >> yep. >> so you had anyone else assigned to you or you were a singular -- >> yeah. i was alone -- when we first got there, we tried to do the traditional -- i think the traditional is like a sergeant, a jeep driver and a radio operator. and we started like that.

well, that -- then trust me, nobody wanted to be with the fo. the minute they realized they didn't need it, these guys really bailed in a hurry. then they just rotated a guy. i used to joke are you being punished to come over and be my radio operator for a week or two weeks? because they keep changing these guys. so that -- it really ended up just a radio operator and me. >> so you're going to vietnam, essentially as a one-man show in the sense of you're not a platoon leader in the traditional sense. >> exactly. >> you're not going to be on a firebase, supervising the firing of 105s. you're going to be the if the q fts guy that calls it in. you're going to be out there with the troops. >> yep. >> and your experience so far has been this honest john tactical nuke thing and obc and everything, so you're really going to do some ojt from the

standpoint of not that you don't know fo stuff, but knowing it on the ground in combat is going to be new to you. >> brand-new. never -- never had a clue. i always remember this. we were out on patrol -- the company -- and at that time i wasn't quite -- i was like maybe a platoon back from the company commander. kind of in the middle of that platoon. he thought that was probably a good idea and i thought it was probably a good idea. and we got ambushed a little bit up on the front. in fact, rick roscola got wounded that day. and i remember when the firing started, i turned to the radio operator and i looked at him and i said, well, we either get in or we get out but i think we better get in. so i said, come on, let's go. so i took off for the front.

just as i sat down right behind the dirt, he goes where's the fo? i said right here. he looked at me and said, all right. we're going to -- so i had a rocket ship up there, gunship, and i talked to him and laid out some fire, threw the smoke and now said to the north or east or whatever and i kind of got my feet wet that way. >> and this is at x-ray. >> no. this is before x-ray. >> were you involved in separation silver bayonet? >> yes. yes. i got into a few fire -- we were out all the time. our company was out -- we'd go out for four days, come in for one. go out for a week, come in for two. constantly. we were hardly ever in base camp. we were always moving. >> but it was the contact with the enemy was very light -- >> very light. >> -- in these operations. >> very light. >> your role as an fo in that

was to bring in the world on top of whatever -- wherever the infantry called for it. >> right. >> so when you first get to vietnam, you have this period of time when you get to go out and work with the infantry. that's your ojt. >> right. did you move with the infantry unit around the four or five days before november 14th? >> yeah. i lived with the infantrymen. i never left then. interestingly enough, other fos didn't get assigned directly to one company. i never understood that but i was always with these guys. i didn't know anything about the artillery. >> so in some ways you're kind of -- this isn't a military term -- you're kind of a freelancer in the sense that you're kind of on your own but you're assigned to -- or to the

infantry units, and you've had some combat ojt with these light contact units or operations, silver bayonets, and some of the others. then you go move on a few days before november 14th. when you get the word on november 13th, i believe, or early the 14th, what was your assignment that -- how was it told to you as to what your assignment was going to be on the first initial landing? >> what we were told was that it was by this time i am living in the general's back pocket. i'm right there all the time. so what we were told was the lz was hot.

this was really real action and get ready, and that the dirk was going to report to hall moore to find out what to do. we did not have a prescribed "you will be doing this." >> lz x-ray 20 minutes before the landing, they use artillery preparation. >> right. >> they come in, couple of -- first couple lifts, no enemy contact. then about lifts three and four they start experiencing this. >> right. >> that's the moment at which you hear -- or are you planning -- or do you know -- >> we don't know we're going. we were sitting back somewhere around -- i always kind of remember we were out in jungle grass somewhere when we got a radio call that said, we need -- your helicopters are going to pick you up, are you headed for this landing zone.

by the time we got there, it was under heavy fire. real heavy fire and we were sort of the reason we got attached was they were afraid they were going to run out of people before then to hold it. so we landed -- and the helicopter came skidding in. i think we were landing to the west, of all things. and we came skidding in and jumping out. oh. on the way in -- this is what really set the tone. i'm looking out -- smoke is just billowing up and there's an aie sky raider, an air force plane, on the ground burning and a helicopter's down and i'm going, oh, my god, you know, this is something. i see dudurig going the other way toward the big termite hill. i chase him around behind the hill, i come sliding up and sit

down. he's sitting down. there's general moore, he was so calm and cool. i remember him saying to dudurig -- he says, see up there? he says i got a lost platoon up there. i'm thinking about having you guys go get them. i looked at him and said to myself, oh, my god! what's he talking about? and so fortunately, he said, but, right now i want you to just go right up there to the north end and just hunker down. >> who else was on the slick that brought you in? >> probably my radio operator, dudurig's radio separators, first sergeant, that was probably about it. maybe another couple guys. >> there's no infantry troops on it because they're all down -- they're all there -- >> they're behind us. they're -- we had probably a flight of six or whatever so we're the first one in. then the other five troops --

>> so the lost platoon, that's already happened when you get there. that's kind of the point at which we would find it. >> yeah. >> okay. now, so you hunker down in the cp there with the battalion commander for a time, for some short period of time to decide how you can be used most effectively. >> right. >> and were you there detailed to a particular unit to get to or to a particular location? >> yes. we were detailed to be in reserve and put on the north end of the perimeter. there was nobody on the north end. and the mountain was sort of the southwest end. so that's kind of where they were coming from. we were kind of in reserve up here on the north end. i was also detailed -- if my memory serves me right -- interestingly enough about all this stuff, it doesn't go away. when i read the book, i went,

yeah, that's right. i think they wanted me to put some artillery up around the lost platoon. so that was my first kind of practice. because as you know in artillery, they teach you to shoot it so far away you can barely see it, you have to have a pair of binoculars. now all of a sudden it is right there. >> so tell me how that works. you are the fo. you are truly forward in this case. >> right. >> a literal translation of that word. >> yeah. >> you're talking to an aerial -- >> no. >> you're talking to the battery? >> no. directly back there. >> the battery is located where? >> i think at that time it was called lz falcon. there's two of them, falcon and columbus but i don't think they were at columbus yet. there was one other fo in the

time. other one had been kill already, a friend of mine, timmy blake. >> he was killed at x-ray? >> yeah. right off the bat. so now i am sort of the fo to try to get some stuff up around that lost platoon because i think bill riddle had his hands full over on the other side. >> you were essentially a replacement for the fo that had gone down with alpha company. >> right. all of a sudden we don't have enough fos. we've got three, four companies in there now and we got two fos. >> but you're going to be calling it in from these locations and these are 105s? >> 105s. >> do you have anything to do with the aerial rocket artillery? >> yeah.

one of the things that interestingly enough, i worked air force, i worked aerial rockets. i worked them all. now if we got a -- charlie hastings was in there, but if he wasn't around in later operations, i worked anything. i had no problems with f-4s. aerial rockets, the whole thing. >> and did it seem to you that there was a comfort level -- not really a good term to use in combat but i'll use it here -- that there was a comfort level by the platoon and company commanders of the infantry units to let you do the talking and to do the adjusting no matter what it is, everything from ara, or

everything except their own m-79s is essentially going to be your job. >> yep. yep. dudurig and i had a bond like that that was just fabulous. i don't know how to say this properly. i got blessed. i was really good at this, okay? i don't know why. i could keep more balls in the air after this experience. and maybe that's what did it, x-ray did it. but i had no fear. i was scared to death of the enemy, but i for some reason knew where these rounds were going to go right exactly and i could put them on top of -- i could put them anywhere. i don't know how that happened, but it was a spraining occurrence. >> you're carrying an m-16. right? >> yes. right. >> but you've got more weapons available to you than anybody. >> anybody. i feel great. exactly. >> so in that sense there had to have been a satisfaction that

you really are in control of the things that are going to make the biggest difference in this battle. >> yes. >> and the colonel knows that and every platoon leader and every company commander knows that this is going to be the savior is this technology. >> right. >> you're talking to the technology. maybe that's not a good word for artillery but it is certainly a good word for the -- and ultimately did you bring in the b-52s, i think? >> that i never talk to. that would have been charlie hastings. >> that comes later. >> right. when they backed us out of there. >> but in the meantime to be most effective on this battlefield, you're talking to the people that can get it done. what about your own safety? are you hunkered down below? are you not in a fox hole? >> not at first. i'm not in a fox hole.

i'm just out at a tree. i've kind of lost what i must have been doing. i would go from our little northern spot up here over to the command post over to lieutenant -- general moore's place, and i don't know what i was doing over there. i assume i was sitting there talking to the air force guys trying to figure out what they were doing so i knew where i could be, because when the napalm is dropped on running. i decide i can't outrun this. the guy didn't drop the second one. but i can't figure out what i was doing there. but i was always going back and forth so it must have been to ask them where the jets were and all that. because one fear was to knock a jet out of the air with the artillery. >> sure. >> if they come in on a low run

and i'm firing, then -- >> so you got to -- so it made sense to -- from moore's standpoint, from the company management, to centralize all of that with you and then all they had to deal with were their own soldiers in terms of firing maneuvers. >> and all that. then they had their mortar guys and they had the jets. >> and were they saying to you, bill, put it on this location, put it on -- they're not giving you coordinates, they're just saying over there, over there? >> yeah. with the lost platoon, they're telling me where they think they are. if i remember right, i was very nervous about putting anything up there. so i was kind of far away. >> you were putting artillery into an area where we weren't sure we even knew where they were. >> right. >> where moore and others knew where they were but you thought they did.

and were they signaling to try to have those guys mark or anything at all or they couldn't talk to you? >> they could talk to them a little bit. and i think that those guys tried to call artillery themselves. and i think my job was to try to throw it way up -- way out behind them and just try to keep the enemy moving around so that they couldn't mask maybe and run over them. but it was sort of my first -- i felt really lucky. there was one great thing that saved us in our company was that i got to practice doing that, i could work it around, they'd say bring it a little. i had all afternoon or into the evening to do it. >> did you have any experiences with dud rounds or with short rounds of stuff that you called in and it should have been there

but it wasn't because after malfunction of the round itself? >> not that i knew about. i really tried to keep the rounds at a different angle, but so that if they were short they weren't coming on us. i think i may have done that in albany. i may have had short round. that was so close that it was hard to tell whether it was short or just on top of us anyway. but it was -- i felt comfortable. i don't know why. >> and the more you did it, the better you got at it, like i say, because you were a laboratory and you were just throwing it out there and making notes and knowing that, like you say, it was 500 here, 250, then i can see and now somewhere in between there i'm very confident with that. >> right.

>> how close did you bring it in? >> well, after -- that night i would say 250, 300. somewhere in there. i wasn't real close. i could just kind of hear or see it out there quite a ways. but that's the night that the north enemy's pretty much overran the south end of the perimeter. so then the next night we got put down there, and now we all know that this is going to be db myron dudurik, the captain, said you take everything 100 yards out. that's yours. we'll get everything inside it. i said okay. the 100 yards was about the tree line. so when that night came, prior to that, i sat there and