tracers, you know, it was as if you could walk on them it appeared. and it was a strange, eerie feeling knowing that you were going in to where they were very close range to us. but again, they didn't keep their heads up too long. because the infantry tried, they knew that helicopter was their life line and they worked hard to keep them people from trying to kill us if they could. and some of them got through, of course. >> mm-hmm. >> but, and we always seemed like always took some rounds. but, it was a -- it was a eerie feeling. >> tell me about exhaustion, and sleep deprivation, and how you worked through that stress. >> you know, i wasn't exhausted because i -- i -- my mind wasn't

working well. >> mm-hmm. >> i couldn't remember that -- that -- that i had just finished. i went in and laid down, and immediately, i was in some la la land, drifting. >> mm-hmm. >> and i -- it seemed like i was there ten minutes, or less, and somebody says, ed, daylight, gotta go. and we started all over again. and i felt a little better. but not a hell of a lot. >> mm-hmm. >> but it is -- combat is a strange animal. it's a strange thing. and it does strange things to different people. it treats people different. >> certainly. >> not all are the same. >> how did it treat you? >> again i called on my experience from korea and i accepted the fact that this was probably the end. and i think i got through it a little better than i would have if i had ban -- if it would have been the first time.

>> what do you remember about broken arrow? were you around? >> i certainly was there. >> what did it look like? can you describe it? >> well, it -- they -- the airplanes come from all sides. and some was ridiculous bus a jet come by and a bomb would scoop completely across the area in to la la land some place else, the jets was -- is not close air support machine. and there's a man nodding his head and he agrees. it is entirely too fast to support troops on the ground, because they miss the target, and i don't -- i think the f-104s or whatever you had there at that period of time, i don't know -- >> 105s. >> but they screamed through there, i mean, and i'm sitting right there watching them do this -- and bomb would go skipping. you could see it skip down through the bushes. >> wow. >> you know. you know, i thought it was almost the end of the world,

because they were stacked up, airplanes were stacked, every aircraft available in the country of vietnam come to our aid when that happened. >> right. >> and there were formations of aircraft circling, waiting their turn to come in and drop their ordnance. but still, the a-1e was the best and most effective one of the whole group that i could see. >> mm-hmm. >> and i don't know who put the napalm out but i know who all the kids out, i did, and i owe jimmy -- the japanese -- >> yes. >> by the way, his mother called me probably a year ago, which chatted. i didn't know what to say. but he died the next morning >> for first time she called you? >> yeah. but it was chaos. it was a -- it was almost like a -- a movie scene. >> mm-hmm. >> you know, with amount of aviation that was trying to get in there to support that operation. >> mm-hmm. >> and they were a lot of them

dead. and there was a lot of damage done to the -- to the enemy. >> mm-hmm. tell me about joe galway. what kind of contact did you have with him? >> i didn't have much contact with joe until it was all over with. >> mm-hmm. >> and of course, we used to drink a beer or two together. and i've known him, of course, all them years. he's a straight arrow, straight shooter and a very bright man, very clever. very cagey. very intelligent. good person. good human being. >> okay. hal moore after this battle you said he took you into the tent. what do you remember about those troopers, and him on the 16th when they came out of there? did you -- you looked them up, correct? >> oh, absolutely, yeah. we looked at every one of them just the same as we'd lifted them in. we come in empty and extracted them, which we did a lot. of times.

there was a different look about the young gis in their eyes. general moore, i don't think he ever changed expression. tight jaw, big square jaws. but he -- he -- i think he's a good actor, maybe. he don't show very much emotion, and certainly not among his troops. i think he just -- just steely eyed and just squared away. >> mm-hmm. >> when it comes to that. because he don't want to -- to let any of this emotion move, you know, shed off and get on into his troops. >> yes, sir. >> and i believe that may be right on that. but, joe was a happy go lucky guy as a general rule. and still is. >> mm-hmm. >> the other night at the phoenix, medal of honor society meeting. >> yes, sir. >> 77 of us was showed up by the way and we presented joe with

a -- a journalism award from the medal of honor society. and he got up and made his speech and he says, and by the way -- oh, he the army gave him a bronze star. >> yes, sir, yes, they did. >> he said by the way i should have got another medal for riding around with that freeman all over vietnam. and i forgot to tell him i was going to make him walk the next trip. >> tell me about the movie. how has that changed things for you? because you're a prominent part of this movie? >> well -- >> of course bruce is really the focus there. >> well, bruce was down there. bruce was the more aviation adviser to the -- they called him wanted me to come down, too. but i hadn't lost nothing in fort benning, georgia, except a lot of sweat and blood and tears when i was stationed there. so i decided to have bruce go down and i didn't need to go. but, i -- i thought it was very well done. i enjoyed it. it was about 85% accurate in my

book. and i think most people that i talk to will give it a at least 80% or 85% accuracy. they sent me a copy of the script, and asked for comments. and the big comment i had was, get rid of some of the profanity, in my case, i have had two young grandchildren -- granddaughters, and they probably heard it before but i didn't want them to come hear it out of the movie. >> sure. >> and i don't think that they paid any attention to me because you probably seen the movie. >> yes, sir. >> and you noticed they didn't -- waste of effort when i made my comments. but i thought that did a pretty good job of making it. i didn't approve of some of the things, but most of it was accurate. >> how about the ending when bruce came in, greg kinnear character, bruce, comes in and takes out on that morning -- on the third morning on the 16th. >> he and i in the gunships? >> yeah. >> not true. >> yeah.

>> first place, you can't use a gunship when you've got your own troops on the ground. see the only time we could fire our machine guns, m-60s, was on the side of each of our helicopters, would be on initial trip in. >> right. >> for the first trip in, we could -- we'd hose everything down hoping we'd get any stragglers. but, other than that, you can't come in there -- you got to have some pretty open area. >> right. >> to hose them down with, otherwise your own troops will get it. >> mm-hmm. >> so that was a good -- it looked good on the movie. >> right. >> but didn't happen. >> okay. >> and we did not stack bodies up. we didn't touch them. and you could walk on them. because they were thick. it was very thick with bodies. >> mm-hmm. mm-hmm. >> we didn't stack them up. we didn't urinate on mortar tubes either. and the big chinook didn't come in with all the women reporters. >> uh-huh. uh-huh. okay.

well, this 40th anniversary reunion, what's it been like for you? >> i've -- i've -- i've raced it through my mind a few times and you know replayed it maybe. reruns. >> mm-hmm. >> but i seen the movie, i don't think, since the premiere, maybe i caught it a little on tv one night, maybe the end of it, showing it last year or whatever. >> mm-hmm. >> but i think it was excellent they did that, and i think it showed the if we had a good side, i think at least helped the troops. because the troops took it in the shorts. our troops did not smoke marijuana. first place, we were in a barbed wire entanglement with 23,000 men. and you didn't get out of there except in our helicopters. >> right. >> we didn't go to the town, there was no village, there was a village ten miles away but there was nothing there.

>> mm-hmm. >> so this is -- and i'm not saying that people didn't do this in saigon and whatever. or not picking on say gone. but we didn't have an opportunity to do that. but we had good troops. and they were good american soldiers. and they were vicious fighting men. and i admired them very much. but i think they took a bum rap and i hope this effort helps show the public a little bit that we had some hard -- some tremendous young men on our side. >> mm-hmm. okay. 100 years from now someone's going to be watching this, listening to this. what do you want to tell them about battles of the ia drang valley? what do you want to tell them about the men there, about yourself? >> i would hope that somebody finds a solution other than war. but i don't believe they will. i'll tell you a quick story about my grandson when he was in -- he's my fishing buddy, and he's now schoolteacher.

he went to college, and scholarship, and playing baseball and all that. but he teaches. and when he was about 9 years old, he and i are going up the road fishing in my truck, and out of the blue sky he says grandpa, did they fight wars on weekends? i says, yes. and we drove on around a couple more curves in the rocky road, he says, grandpa, did they fight wars on holidays? i said, yes. another few minutes and he says, grandpa, did they fight wars at night? i says, yes. he didn't say nothing for quite some time. he turned around and looked at me dead in the eye and said, grandma, why did they fight wars? he knew just enough about war that he knew i had been there, but nothing else, because i kept my military life tried to keep it away from my children. >> mm-hmm. >> it was just a job. and i tell you, i wished i would have known what to say to him.

but i've stumbled through something like the fact that i -- a difference of opinion, of beliefs, of two different governments, and they don't agree on certain items. >> right. >> and i says but that doesn't make it right, does it? >> well, major freeman, wow, we're about out of time. and i want to thank you for participating in this -- in this oral history. >> you're more than welcome. >> it's our honor. >> i hope i didn't bore you. >> not at all, sir. >> join us next weekend for more of oral histories from the vietnam archive. that airs saturday at 8:00 a.m., sunday at 3:00 p.m., and monday at 4:00 a.m. eastern. for more information and to watch past oral histories, visit our website, c-span.org/history. next a look at our recent visit to little rock, arkansas. a look at the city's rich

history and literary culture. you're watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend, on c-span3. >> the old statehouse museum in little rock tells the story of arkansas' history. we caught up with curator jo-ellan mack for a preview of upcoming visit there on civil war battle flags. >> we are located at the collection management storage facility for the old statehouse museum in little rock, arkansas. welcome. >> what do we have behind you? >> this is what we call our mobile storage unit. we have stacks. we have everything from in our collection from an electric chair, two electric chairs. >> sure. >> to johnny cash's guitar. so this is where the kind of the heart of our collection at any given time, there's less than 2% of things on exhibit so this is where we keep them.

this is a controlled environment. the temperature and humidity and light levels are all controlled to make sure that the artifacts are safe. >> and this is one of the electric chairs? >> these are two of the electric chairs. the older one here is what they called sparking one. and 166 inmates were executed in that chair. and this one, only one was executed because lethal injection came in shortly after this one was constructed. so we have a large collection of our prison system and a few years ago we had a great exhibit called badges, bandits and bars and we featured a lot of things from the prison. very interesting, colorful history. >> it is. >> so we have our first family, the things that are not on exhibit. we have everything from

chelsea's dress when she was young to current governor b.b. things that we rotate out and we have our paintings and artwork, a lot of textiles. we have our quilts. this is just the treasure trove of where things live. >> now, we're here today to take a look and talk about your new exhibit on the civil war. >> yes, we have a new exhibit that opens may the 4th and it's called wall of fire. what this exhibit will do is exam the civil war in arkansas, and so -- the ladders are in the way. but we'll scoop this by. and one of the main feature of the exhibit will be our civil war battle flag collection. they're kept safe in this flag cabinet that was specially designed for them, where the air can rotate, and it has a

charcoal filtering system that keeps the air pure, and the reason why we keep them like this is the worst thing in the world for flags, or any textiles, really, is gravity. gravity, light, and dirt. and that will just destroy a textile over time. so what this cabinet does, it allows the flags to what we call rest. and so they're laying flat in this safe system, and then we can just bring them out. so these will all go out on exhibit. we'll bring all of our flags out and they will be up for 11 months. and we're having special cases built where they'll slant. >> mm-hmm. >> because if they hang flat on a wall, gravity will pull it

down and that's very hard on the flags. >> right. >> so we're having special cases built. the flags haven't been on exhibit in about nine years. so this is -- this will be a great exhibit and very popular. >> interesting. and what is this one here? >> this particular flag is probably our most popular and there's a wonderful story behind this flag. in 1905, the united states government began to return flags captured in battle to southern states. this was kind of a goodwill gesture, in other words. and so as you can imagine, there were no computer databases to keep up with these flags so a lot of flags were miss-i.d. d. they were given a war department number as you see up here. this one is 227. but they were mis-i.d.'d.

this was an arkansas flag, eight units were under it, but it was sent to alabama. so since 1905 it stayed in the archives at alabama archives and history museum. curator bob bradley contacted me in 2000 and said i think we have finally i.d.'d through scholarly research this flag, and it belongs in arkansas. so they went before their board, showed all the work that they had done, the scholarly research, and very generously they decided to donate the flag to us. so in october of 2001, i went and picked up this flag and brought it back to arkansas. this is the third confederate. we immediately, it had never been conserved, so we immediately began raising money to have the flag conserved.

on the average, a flag of this size is probably going to cost around $12,000 to conserve. and in this economy and museums in particular, that is just a very difficult amount of money to raise, but people were very generous, and we raised enough money to have this conserved. and so this will be one of the centerpieces for our upcoming exhibit. >> you mentioned the third confederate. a little bit of a background on them? >> there were two units from mississippi, and eight units from arkansas that served under this flag. and if you'll see what they would typically do is they would put the battles that they fought in on the flags. so as you can see, this unit, or this command was -- the regiment was very, very busy, and they were at some very important, heavy, heavy battles. murfreesboro,

chickamauga and ringgold gap. this was actually captured in 1864, i believe it was an ohio unit that captured this particular flag. and then it was turned over to the war department. >> what about this one over here? >> this one is what's called a hardee pattern and so is that one. this is a typical hardee pattern. hardee pattern, they were white, usually had a white border around it with a blue field, and then in the center, kind of a crescent moon or a moon shape was usually where the units, the sixth and seventh in this particular one, would -- they would designate the units in there. and this one, once again, it, too, was at ringgold gap and at tunnel hill in tennessee, but more importantly it was at shiloh. another flag that has a very interesting history is this one. it's a hart's battery. first of all you can see it's a

very, very large flag. has some beautiful, beautiful work on it. this flag was returned to missouri, but it was actually an arkansas flag. it's in the first national pattern. it has the two cross cannons, which indicate artillery. but if you'll notice something very interesting about this flag, this is the back of the flag. and that's the reason why people think, why did you do the flag that way? well, this is all that's left of the flag. it was the same on both sides, but unfortunately just age and wear and tear, the front side of the flag did not survive. now, in 2009, we came to an agreement with the state of missouri. we had one of their flags, and so we exchanged this flag for two arkansas flags.

so in 2009, we brought home two flags of arkansas that hadn't been in the state since the war. this, and then an arkansas sixth and seventh. it was very generous of missouri to go into this agreement with us. and we needed to raise money for two flags. and so people donated money. but we also applied for a grant from save america's treasures. and we were awarded a grant, and so we were able to conserve these two flags. and they just recently came back to the state from the conservation in west virginia. so when this exhibit opens in may, this will be the first time that the public will be able to see these flags on exhibit since the war. this is interesting. >> one of the questions i have for you as you pull it out is why are flags so popular? i mean, it seems to be something that a lot of people connect with. >> people are very connected to

flags, because when these -- you have to stop and think. when these young men were out on the battlefield, this was their honor. this was their badge of honor. and it was a great honor, actually, to be designated the flag carrier, the person that carried these flags into battle. and you hear all of these stories about, you know, the flag carrier was shot and fell and someone scooped up the flag to keep it from hitting the ground and to carry on. and that actually did happen. it was a great honor to carry the flag. it was very personal. some of these flags were made by women in their hometowns. and so it was a very personal, personal thing. this flag which is another first national pattern is a great example of what was going on. they used whatever material they had. we don't have any documentation.

but if you look at the pattern in this flag, one has to wonder, okay, did that come from a bolt of fabric or was this a drapery? was this a table linen? what did these women take to make this flag? and it's a great source of pride. and so today, that source of pride carries on. i always tell people that i have the best job in the world. because, as curator, my duty, my job is to care for these artifacts, to make sure that they're not only in the proper environment and maintained, but that we continue to do research to find out what about, give me a story, give me a story with this flag. or give me a story with something that we can tell the public. we can't put the artifacts all

out at any given time, so we have an online database that we're real proud of that we continue to try and update and people -- we have people in ireland that love our battle flag collection, so they can go online and see our flag collection. my job is the caretaker of this. it's the greatest job that anybody could want. i'm a history geek, and so it's just, it's wonderful. it really is. it's a big responsibility to be the caretaker of all of these items, but i have a great staff, a great crew, and a director that really understands artifacts and collection. and he has been supportive for us from day one. and, you know, if we need new equipment, if we need something conserved, he goes out there and tries to get the money for us to do it. so we're very fortunate with our

director and deputy director and our entire staff. they get it. they get history. >> so what happens now, between now and when the collection goes on display? >> what happens now, between now and when it goes on is insanity, is basically what it is. my staff is busy because we have already decided what artifacts will go on exhibit. and so they have to do paperwork. whenever you move an artifact from one place to another, we have to document it for insurance and just for our recordkeeping. so they're busy in the databases doing that. we have to take down an exhibit. we just had an exhibit on why commemorate the war. so that has to come down first, put those artifacts back into their home and let them rest. and then our maintenance crew will go in and paint and get the galleries ready, because it's

five galleries. it's going to be a huge exhibit. and then about mid april, a company will come in that will help us install the flags and they've built special frames for them. so we'll install the flags, and that's a big deal, to move the flags. because we can't just put them in a truck and do it. we have to do this proper and by museum standards and procedures. and what's best for the flags. so we've, we've hired someone to help us with that. and then the final week we'll install the other artifacts that will be on exhibit. and then we open. so there's a lot to do. we have text panels to proof and print. we have labels for all the artifacts. people love to see tons of artifacts on exhibit, but we have to have labels made for all of those.

so there's a lot that goes into exhibits, and i don't think that people quite realize how much. >> well, good luck the next couple of weeks. >> thank you. >> and thanks for taking us behind the scenes here. >> absolutely. absolutely. and we encourage everyone to come see the exhibit. it opens may the 4th. wall of fire. for more information go to oldstatehouse.com. >> 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 a city whose public is dominated by statesmen and generals on horseback this bronze rendition of mathematician and scientist albert einstein stands out. perhaps because there's little of the monumental about this

washington monument. even if it does stand 12 feet tall, and weigh approximately four tons. here robert burks, whose distinctive style led some critics to label him the bubble gum sculpture gives us a genial, almost playful einstein. sitting atop a bench of north carolina granite he holds in his left hand a document with some of his most significant theories. the same bench contains quotes with einstein's unwavering belief in human tolerance, equality of the law, and to reveal his findings no matter where they leaked. the circular floor of the memorial features a map showing much of the universe as it appeared on the date of its dedication in april 1979. which also coincides with einstein's 100th birthday. 30 years later visitors of all ages are drawn to the