that i am on call. and then i put them up on the mountain and on the trails and everything i could think of. >> all ag? >> all ag. i fired all ag. >> how about illumination? were you involved in that? >> i was the illumination guy. that's the biggest -- that was the biggest difference first night, second night, in my opinion. well, there's a lot of other differences. we learned from those guys because they got -- we moved our foxholes back and did all that. i didn't think of that, i wasn't smart enough to do that. but the -- myron dudurig was and jim lane, those lieutenants all knew. they had an outfit called smoky the bear. that was an air force dnt -- don't know if c-130 or 123.

>> i think it was 123. >> i think so, too. so i got on their frequency. i don't know if the forward air controller from the air force sitting back behind me with hal moore, he must have called him up and said get up here. i had the air force guys i was talking to them right in the airplane and they were droning around up there at night. and this was embedded forever. it's dark and you can hear them. and after a little while one of the lieutenants called down and said that dudurig, they're right in front of me. and he said how close. he says i can almost touch them. and he said kill them. and he turned to me and he said illumination. i said to the guy -- i said to the air force, kick it out

illumination out now. with that, pretty soon there was this little pop and it was like this, bright as day. i couldn't believe it. >> what did you see? >> well, lots. and they were all around in woods and everything. and then that's when i just cut loose with everything. i'd walk up and down, around and all over. >> the troops in the meantime all around you are firing 60s and 79s, and everything else but you're not. you're talking on the phone or was there a point you had to fire -- >> never pulled a trigger. no, i just kept firing those concentrations, trying to bust up any kind of charge as best i could. and it did dawn on me after though -- because i always remember, i wish rick was still alive because he would be a wonderful interview because the guy was something else.

i always remember him walking up to me in my little foxhole, i'm so scared i'm down in my foxhole peering out. he would walk around while everybody else is in their fox hole pepd hole. he'd say where's your bayonet? bayonet? me? he says give me your bayonet. now you don't put that on the end of your rifle. you stick it right here and he stuck it in the ground. now when you need it you know right where it is. you're either going to put it on or use it. i'm thinking, artillery guys don't do this. what are you talking about? i'm not trained to die this way. so that was something. but we kept it up. i'll finish on the illumination, it was so funny. i kept going all night long. i think this started like at 4:00 in the morning. maybe the sun came up at 6:00 or whatever. the sun was up a little bit. so you could see pretty good. i said, okay, we need another one. guy in the airplane says, need

another one? what are you talking about, the sun's up? i said, i know, but it really makes us feel good. throw one more out, will you? he goes, sure. pop, then there was no hardly anything but it was zbls. >> the illumination fired from a 105, right? >> yes. >> parachute? >> 105s are parachutes. yeah. >> and i have some experience with that as far as how bright it can get. the enemy also uses that illumination. >> yeah. >> obviously it's better for us to know where they are so we can do something about it. but does it help you with that illumination? does it help you as far as adjusting is concerned? >> no. >> it doesn't? >> the difference between the air force's illumination and the 105 illumination is like a power of 10. okay? it covers so much more area

because there's so much higher. so therefore it also lasts a long longer because it's got a lot longer to come down so it is a bigger canister, i assume. but, no. i didn't rely on that. i did all that in the daylight. i put all those concentrations in in the daylight and i didn't have to -- i wouldn't move them because i knew i was right at my limit. i was so close that i didn't want to do that. >> when you call fire for a factfac effect -- the time that the soldier loads it through the breach to impact, how long? >> oh, boy. that distance? minute. half minute. >> the firebase is what? seven miles away? >> five miles away. >> you'd have it -- so you'd

have several rounds. >> right. >> did you tell them how many rounds to fire? >> i actually had that night i might have had 24 guns. 24. i think columbus was up at the same time so i had 12 there and 12 at falcon, i think. so i had them all. all 105s. they were firing and i had them going all the time. i didn't have to -- they didn't have to compute anything or do anything. they just -- i just say fire 20 bravo, 203. whatever they assigned to whatever that concentration was. so that's all we did. >> you were firing to -- using a code for a six-digit coordinate? >> yes. >> that you had preregistered -- >> preregistered. >> when you were putting in your

six-digit preregistries, were you using -- were you on the radio, were you using code for those numbers or were you talking direct? >> talking direct. i'd give them the coordinates. >> you didn't have to -- >> we had what we called the pony code, but no. >> by the time they're listening and trying to translate it, it's too late. >> i had them all over the place so if they were going to get us, they couldn't -- the idea was that i had them at different depths and stuff. the theory was that they would mass and come pouring at you. if they massed enough people, no matter how good they were, they'd overrun. my job was to keep them from massing so i'd move the darn -- i mean i'd have the stuff -- and i suppose at times i would move, i would say add 200 or add 100

or add 50 or something like that just to move it over, back or something. >> bill, did you -- were you able to see -- to see the effect of your efforts? and that is, you're hearing shrapnel through the air. you have trees around. were you able to see them go down as a result of that? >> i really couldn't see them go down. but the next morning it was real obvious because it was pretty bad. and we didn't -- we had six guys wounded or something. that was it. >> how about the -- at x-ray you had no friendly fire at x-ray at all. >> no. you mean zblsh in terms of anything --

>> coming in on us? >> yeah. >> i never heard of any there. i always remember this. the rest of our battalion, 2the were just going to take our fox holes for the night. i always remember going down to -- another fo came in and i went down and said to him, you really got to pay attention and you really got to put the stuff out there and stuff like that. i tried to cheer him up and all that. he got killed in albany before i could see him again. were you his replacement? >> right. that's what happened. very odd thing. we stayed the night -- i always

remember our uniforms were so -- the smell of death and all of that that we burned our uniforms, they had all brand-new nice uniforms for us. jungle fatigues, this time. not the old ones from the states. >> were you still wearing state's -- >> yeah. and we burned our boots and they were so bad. and they gave us all new jungle boots. we were all excited to have new uniforms. and i remember going to the theater. they have a theater there. and i fell asleep in the theater. so they kind of took me back. i was so tired. >> what was the movie? >> some western, i think. you know? >> something with guns. >> guns, yeah. then the next day progressed and you kind of felt better. really pretty stunned.

you know? it was getting sort of towards dusk and they were having a little church service. we had a cross on a little bubble hill, one of those oh-13s. we had a little cross and i was sitting on the ground looking at the cross, listening to the chaplain. and all of a sudden, somebody started yelling "b company, mount up." it was sort of surreal, like b company? what b company? who's yelling, what's happening? it was us. they said their helicopters are coming right there to get you. get out there. run right now, grab your rifle, your ammo and go. no c rations, no nothing. zbruft. so we ran out. i'm not sure how many helicopters -- i would guess maybe six -- and now we're -- myron dudurig is jabbering on the phone about where are we going, what are we doing?

they're telling us this terrible thing has happened at albany and you guys have to try to get in there and try to save them, that type of thing. now we're really, oh, my goodness. you know? and it's getting dark. light enough to see the ground, sort of. and we come in to this lz and albany was not a nice lz. it was short and skinny and -- so we came in there and we started getting -- the pilots started getting shot up. so we jumped from -- i don't know how high up -- 15 feet, 10 feet, whatever. and just hit the ground. what was left of our guys had sort of this side of the lz and the north vietnamese had the other side. so when we got in there they kind of said, just take over and solve -- see what you can do.

and so we sort of established as best we could where people were. if you're familiar with albany, the problem is they're strung out all over the place and there's pockets of people. it's just a horrid, horrid situation because there are guys out there with radios that are wounded calling to try and get in and they can't get in because the enemy's wandering around out there. it's very difficult to put the artillery out there. but eventually i decide -- probably dudurig told me to -- to put it out there. and i first of all ran a sky raider down the other side of the lz and had him just fire cannon after cannon through there. they carried 50 calibers or 30 calibers, to try to shred those trees and try to get those guys out of there. they must have left or we did do

that to try to kind of get our back side. then i started moving the artillery around, but i really sort of had said, okay, this is so bad that no matter what, you just put it right on top of us with it. so i pretty much was at the probably 50 to 100-yard range so that you hear the shrapnel fly around. i don't know if anybody got hit by it particularly. >> you were in it, too. >> oh, yeah. i tried to keep the back side and that side because i knew those were open and i knew that side was open. we were okay over there but out this way i knew that's where our guys were. so i tried to keep it over on the edges. i just did that all night long and it was a terribly sad thing.

i do remember it was the middle of the night and we hear this voice -- like this, you know. we're going what? and it's one of the troops is crawling in and he's got an incredible story. he gets in. he's the guy that north vietnamese walked up to finney, give him the coup de grace and you shot them with a pistol. the guy opened his mouth and it went in his mouth and out over here and missed the vitals and the guy crawled in, but he couldn't talk so he's giving us this horrid sound of trying to tell us he's an american and let him in and all that. and he came in. there were several other heroic guys out there that did stuff that we gathered in the morning

that -- you're just amazed how they lived through it. >> so for you personally, and maybe even militarily, albany was so much worse than x-ray. >> worse in the sense of no -- there was no battle plan. there was no -- this is free-wheeling and it would be the guys -- captain forest -- they called the officers all the way to the front and they're strung out like a mile. and his is way in the back and when all this starts he takes off running all the way at the back and they kill -- his radio operator gets killed running with him and all that kind of stuff. heroic things. he'd have a much better handle on what pockets of people did because we got there, like i say, in the dark. >> after albany and x-ray, you'd

only been in country for four months or so. what about the rest of your tour? >> stayed with dudurig until january or february. then they tried -- executive officer, i guess i was an executive officer of the battalion but i was so screwed up by then that i really wanted to be an fo. i knew it so well. i even told the executive of the battalion, major henry, that, gee, bhmaybe i ought to stay he. he looked at me, you nuts? i'm not letting you stay here, you got to go home, you got a wife. i'm like, i know, but i'm really good at this. now i'm really feeling a responsibility for the troops. i really -- by that stage, i literally was getting out of a helicopter and calling a round

just like that right out in front of us. so the guys knew that i would be walking them down the path in front of us right off the bat. >> did you ever have anything on that scale of -- i know there was never another battle like x-ray and albany and the rest of the war. we can make that argument, at least not for such a short period of time. certain people may have experienced that. but in terms of the large battalion size of operation, there really wasn't anything like it. but for you personally, were you ever in anything else that was even close to that in terms of your own safety? >> no. no. i became an aerial fo for a while. we'd fly around in the little bubble helicopters. they were very kind. i got to go home at the end of march. that was the end of my contract. and so they were very kind to us and put us short time fos up in the sky. but, no, i never again got into

it like that. we got into it but it was -- we were more contained. we were more prepared. >> and then how much more time did you spend in the army? >> that was it. then i did reserve duty for four years after that. >> but you had a three-year commitment? >> two-year. >> two-year commitment after commissioning. >> after commissioning. so end of march '66 i was out. >> you spent almost a year in vietnam. >> yeah. yeah. what a surprise. vietnam, what's that?

recently, american history tv and c-span's local content vehicles visited shreveport, louisiana, to showcase its history and literary culture. founded in 1836, shreveport has a population of about 200,000 people and is located about 250 miles northwest of baton rouge. freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward. and freedom will be defended. i want to re-assure the american people that the full resources of the federal government are working to assist local authorities to save lives and to help the victims of these

attacks. >> i was at home asleep when we got the phone call and an editor of mine said that i needed to head down to barksdale because a plane had crashed into the world trade center and they thought it might be an attack on the country. >> i had heard on the radio that i had turned on in my office that an airplane had apparently hit one of the world trade centers. i had originally thought that perhaps it was the first one was just a terrible accident, sort of like the b-25 bomber that hit the empire state building in 1945. that was sort of the first thing that hit my mine. but after the second airplane hit i realized that this was clearly not an accident, that this was a deliberate action. >> the president was addressing a class of school children in florida at the time of the attacks. an aide came over and told him what had happened and he maintained his composure. he didn't want to alarm the children. he waited until their visit was done, then they immediately

snapped into action and i think he was originally planning on going back to washington, and then they heard that another aircraft was possibly headed that way. my understanding was at that time they decided to come to the closest secure, safe location which was barksdale. >> the base that morning was already on alert because the base was involved in an exercise, a pre-planned exercise that had been going on for several days anyway. so there was already a high level of security at the base. the air crew members were on alert. everybody was already at their duty stations due to this prearranged exercise. so i remember it being sort of a feeling of disbelief myself. that what i was seeing on tv was actually happening and everyone quickly transitioned from this exercise the base was in, into the real world handling of the events that were unfolding.

>> barksdale is a bomber base located in northwest louisiana. it is about 22,000 acres. barksdale opened its gates in early february, 1933. started out as an army airfield. at the time it opened it was called the world's largest airport. on september the 11th, the role of this base was essentially the same as it is today. it was the largest assembly of b-52 aircraft in the world and a major planning base as the headquarters of 8th air force and 2nd bomb wing. >> as i heard this story through our wing commander at the time, brigadier general curtis bedke, as i said, the base was in an exercise mode already, so we already had a command post that was fully activated and general benke was there. as he later reported, when air force one was approaching the base and was requesting clearance to land and to clear all the airspace, he asked well

what is your estimated time of arrival. right about that time the people that were on the flight line radioed in and said it appears that air force one is on final approach. so it was very quickly from the moment that the air force one announced they wanted to land until they were on the ground. i remember looking out the window of the headquarters building and seeing the blue and white aircraft coming in on to the base and at that point we quickly realized the president was going to be our guest for a while. >> i know that when i got here they were already in a full lockdown of the base, only letting essential personnel on. and media, of course we were not considered essential so we were kept off the base. the next thing we knew we were looking at a little monitor in the channel 12 van which i was hanging around at that time. next thing we saw was the president speaking in front of this podium here with barksdale air force base under it. that's how we found out about it that the president was here. >> we have taken all appropriate

security precautions to protect the american people. our military at home and around the world is on high alert status. and we have taken the necessary security precautions to continue the functions of your government. we have been in touch with the leaders of congress and with world leaders to assure them that we will do whatever is necessary to protect america. >> when air force one came in, it was under escort by two f-16 fighters that were -- that had been scrambled from ellington field outside of houston, texas, to meet air force one over the florida panhandle. they were carrying live munitions and were assigned escort duties.

it was interesting that the organization they were from was the 149th fighter wing. that was president bush's old outfit when he was in the texas air national guard. and one of the f-16s landed to refuel, while the other one assumed a combat air patrol over the city. so it was -- you knew that when you looked up and saw that f-16 on that slow loiter all around the area and across the red river that it was armed and it was clearly had orders to shoot down any suspicious aircraft. as soon as they fueled the other one up, the next one took position over the city and they left -- they stayed over the city until air force one left and in both continued the escort mission to off the air force base. so it was just the knowledge, we see f-16s and we see military aircraft all the time in this region, but to know that that one was on an actual combat air

patrol over an american city, it really drove it home that this was anything but a normal day. >> i don't believe that there was a time in its history that this base was as important in the life of this nation as it was that day. in all of its 68 years, this base was there when the president of the united states, the commander in chief, needed it. it was a safe place to be in case we were attacked again, in case something even worse came down the road. this was a central point and in fact within 24 hours aircraft from this base were planning missions and deciding where they would head out and go out and begin what we now know is the global war on terror. >> there really was no sense of, wow, we've participated in history today an it's -- we'll take a moment to reflect on that, because it really wasn't any time.

we simply moved from exercise to real world mode in the blink of an eye. >> by the end of the day, everybody was doing their job 110%, 120%, whereas at the start of the day they were doing their job 98% to 100%. i mean things took on a whole new degree of importance and life and death tone that day because you saw people jumping out of buildings and you saw the two largest buildings in the world come crashing down and the heart of what was supposedly a very safe and prosperous american city. >> find out where c-span's local content vehicles are going next. online at c-span.org/localcontent. you're watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend. on c-span3. in the fall of 2011, american history tv visited old

sturbridge village, massachusetts, an early history museum depicting new england life from 1740 from 1840. we hear from costumed historians who present what was like to live and work in 19th century new england. curator thomas kelleher serves as our guide. >> this is not some little town it is a recreation, kind of a sampling of rural life in new england at the time when society was really transforming from the old order to the modern world we live in today. we're showing you the deck made of the 1830s. american revolution was a couple generations ago, as far away as world war ii is away from us. there are also rum blinblings a slavery but they don't know what's going to happen in 20