that also came in. >> so your assumption is that it was ak-47 from the mva. >> this came from that direction over there, this one. but this one came from behind and from below. so i wasn't sure. i hesitated to call the medic. tried to play john wayne. but he came over and told him don't use so many bandages because he was putting bandages all over the place. i was the first casualty in the platoon. >> you thought there may be more, so you wanted to make sure that they held -- >> yeah, and they pulled me out of the line of fire. took my backpack off. i had the water and about 15 to 18 ammunition i had it will. and i told him to strap my m-16

as a splipnt, but it didn't wor. this was really high. but they pulled me back out of the line of fire. and there was a little depression there. so i was comfortable there. >> did you take any drugs, morphine or -- >> i told him not to give me any morphine, but he did. i was the perfect example for a morphine shot. not for head wounds, not for open wounds. and so i had an extremity wound, so just -- >> and then you went to sleep? >> no. i wanted to stay awake. if i fall asleep, they'll come around shooting and probably get me. so i fought the sleep completely. 40 years after the first full scale engagement between u.s. troops and the people's army of vietnam, the vietnam archive at texas tech university in lubbock interviewed veterans

from the battles. it was after these battles waged in november 1965 that north vee he is in a meese forces began engaging in guerilla warfare. the americans outnumbered prevailed, but it was at a heavy cost. up next, an interview with tracey black enders, daughter of charlie black, a reporter for the columbus ledger inquire remember, who was embedded with the 7th calva vavary during the battles. >> tracey, it tell me a little bit about your father and who he was.y, it tell me a little bit about your father and who he was.it tell me a little bit about your father and who he was.t tell me a little bit about your father and who he was. tell me a little bit about your father and who he was. >> was was a reporter for the hometown paper. he started covering them when they were the 11th air assault division. basically followed them through, somehow got himself on the troop buses and took the troop ships over to vietnam with them. so he actually traveled on the ships with them.

a lot of the guys into to the know them then, got to trust him. which was important for a reporter.hem then, got to trust. which was important for a reporter.iem then, got to trust him. which was important for a reporter.m then, got to trust h. which was important for a reporter. landed in vietnam with them. >> how did he get himself embedded? >> early embedding. he was just so persistent. but even more than that, i think that the public information officers saw a great deal of -- they just felt as though they could trust him and they felt as though he could take the story back to the hometown where the wives war waiting. and so he was just a very persuasive man. >> he was a career journalist? will is whs wh >> he kind of fell into journalism. he was a marine.

knocked around with a lot of jobs. he was an ironworker. basically hurt himself doing iron working, had fallen on a job. and some gentleman offered him a tiny sum of mean to read the news on the radio station while he was recovering and found a passion for it at that point. was really self made. >> tell me about his personality. >> he told a great story. was incredibly smart. i mean, and with a photographic memory. he had a great deal of respect for the military and was a real patriot. i mean, a real patriot. in my house, you stood up even if the national anthem was on

tv. >> wow. >> and to this day, i've never seen a jane fonda movie because he was against anything with jane fonda in it. >> a big supporter of the troops. >> big supporter of the troops. >> what did you you hear about the vietnam war in general before he went over? >> in the beginning, i think his interest was in following the first cav. and i know that he believed that we needed to stop communism and he really did believe in the mission in vietnam. what he became angry about and very upset about was the fact that men went over, and women, they went over and they served and they did so honorably and

when everything went bad politically, the american public couldn't separate the two. they couldn't separate the honorable service from the politics of the war. and he became very bitter about the treatment of the soldiers when they returned home. not so much in columbus, but he just saw it in general. and so i think he believed in america being there in the beginning. i think he believed that we didn't fight the war to win it by the end. >> he went over in 1965? >> yep, he wento over with the cav. and he went seven separate times. i think his latest might have been 1969. >> he saw a lot. >> he saw a lot. >> an evolution of the war. >> absolutely. >> how old were you when this was all happening? >> i was born november 20th,

1964. so just not even a year old when he was over there. as a matter of fact, i remember one of my earliest memories is of crying trying to pull my mom away from dad because i didn't know who he was. >> wow. okay. >> because then he would get himself over there, but they never really gave him a lot of money. and so he would stay for a long period of time because that was more cost effective than making these multiple trips. and it wasn't until i guess "newsweek" maybe did a profile on him will and presented hinte weekly salary that i think they almost quadrupled his salary. he was making next to nothing to be over there. >> tell me about what he saw in '65 and part of the reunion here is about the 40th anniversary much the battles. did he witness any of those?

>> oh, yeah, absolutely. >> tell me about that. >> he was with them -- he was with them that entire campaign essentially. he was a reporter, but they would actually bring him into planning meetings when they would be planning going into planning zones and what have you to ask his opinion because he really was self-taught on military strategy and they had a lot of respect for him with that. but he would probably be in places that today, you know, they would shudder to think a journalist could get into, but they trusted him. that's what came across. and it still comes acrosses to this kay is how much the guys trusted him. and he went into -- they did a night landing. he went in with colonel stockton with the first of the ninth who

was just shortly after this relieved of his command. >> yes. >> he was the third person off the helicopter behind colonel stockton and his radio operator. and the story is, as i get it, my mom retold it and others have retold it, is that stockton turned around and asked him what his wife's name was. and he says mary. and he says fine, you son of a bitch crazy enough to get off the helicopter if he doesn't have to, this is now landing zone mary. and i read about the account first in a book by j.d. coleman about the campaign because he was really the historian that documented the entire campaign at that time. and i called my mother and asked her about it. because -- i said did you know? yeah, i'd just forgotten about it, time, age, whatever. and she says, yeah, remember the

old tobacco tin that i keep up on the shelf. and i says, yeah, the red one with the hole in it. she says, yeah, that was in his left breast pocket during that landing zone and she says that's what stopped the bullet. >> wow. >> but she says he was almost killed two or three times during -- because they got themselves in an ambush. and i guess it got pretty hot and heavy. so he was there, he was at landing zone falcon. he came if towards the end i believe of albany, but everything was over at that point. really he was there for the entirety of the campaign. >> do you remember based on what your mother has said and based on what you've read how he remembered that that whole campaign and significance of the campaign? >> he understood the significance of the new air

mobile concept. and i think that he also understood that what they did during that battle was really going to change the face of warfare to a great degree. he always talked to me even before i could really understand and relate it to the rest of this about how -- in gore ril that oig warfare. and had got that early organization you couldn't fight a conventional war and he thought that's what this campaign proved, that you had to take to them where they were and your conventional war was just not going to work in vietnam. >> did he ever talk with then lieutenant colonel moore? >> oh, yeah.

>> tell me about that conversation -- those conversations. what he gleaned. >> he had a lot of respect for colonel moore. and colonel moore has a lot of respect for him still. dad never talked a lot about that part of his life with me, so i can't say i know of any conversations in specific. >> do you know what your mother has told you? >> what my mom's told me was that they talked a lot about tactics and repelling out of helicopters. dad was actually certified to repel out of a helicopter with these guys. >> wow. >> and a lot of -- he talked a lot with colonel moore about the actual how do you get the guys out of the helicopters and on to the ground. you know, the real nuts and bolts of the 11th air assault division and what became the first cav. how do you make it happen without getting your guys shot

before they even put a boot on the ground. so there was a lot of that, i think, before they left for vietnam where they talked about it. >> right. and i'm remembering now having read the book again for the fifth or sixth time that colonel moore mentioned your father. he only saw just a few ju journalists who was worth their salt. >> yes. him and bob. >> did your father know bob and joe? >> yeah. actually, when i found this group, joe was the first guy that i really talked to. i took this book and there were some articles with some names during the 10th anniversary of the vietnam wall and they started helping me plug names in and they all kept coming up at the arlington hyatt at some reunion and i called and left a message at the hospitality suite and the guy says if anybody knows your dad, we'll give you a

call back, i'll let general moore and joe galloway know if anybody is going to know, it will be them. and so i figured i'd hear something the next day because it was pretty late already. and about midnight, i got a phone call. and it was joe galloway. and he said i couldn't wait until tomorrow to find out -- i'm sorry -- if you're the daughter of my good friend, charlie black. it was nice because after all those year respect somebos, som remembered. >> a direct connection. what did joe tell you about your father, were you able to go over the next day? >> yeah, i did. and i was able to talk to him. his first words to me were thank god you didn't look anything like your father. >> thanks, joe. >> i think he was expecting maybe a female version of my dad and that would not have been pretty. but i was able to talk to him will and he just talked a lot about how much dad taught him as

a reporter and keeping confidenced and really about how to get the story from the guys. the thing that everybody talks about in dad's articles are all the names and the hometowns. and when you think about this, a lot of the time, he was going in when a landing zone was already hot. he's hitting the ground and he's getting these names. and it was his photograph he can m ic memory that loud him to remember all of this because there's no time to write it down. there was a another reporter who i've since met and he talked about he just followed him into a landing zone one day and was amazed thatanother reporter who i've since met and he talked about he just followed him into a landing zone one day and was amazed thatnother reporter who i've since met and he talked about he just followed him into a landing zone one day and was amazed that in two minutes he had 20 names and hometowns and

everybody's story. so i think joe felt as though dad was a real mentor to him. >> that book is written a lot like that because there are constant mentions of names and where they're from throughout the book. >> i think that's something that joe really learned from dad is it was important to give their name and their hometown because people were so desperate for news. we didn't have the instant news of today where, you know, my god, this was -- where was it? we everybody saw the first marine hit the beach somewhere. its e's instant on. then you could wait because these guys would type their stories over there and if you were like my dad, you waited until you could get some soldier to frank it back for you. >> right. >> you know? and so but they would really wait, you know, that's how wives found out that their husbands were still okay, or they found out where their husbands were and what they were doing. and mothers and fathers, you

know, found out, okay, he mentioned my son. and it was particularly important for that community in columbus. >> right, absolutely. >> with so many people twh waiting for news. so i think joe really learned that from dad, how important that aspect of it was. the first time that i went over to the arlington hyatt, it was weird for me because as soon as people started finding out who i was, i was just surrounded by a group of guys. and -- butt thing th the thing husband noticed and it strikes knee this day, they always touched me. one way or another, they need that physical connection because they had such respect for dad. thattic th i think they see me wave, you know -- >> that personal connection. >> that personal connection. and to this day, it still exists.

even if they did at the present time kndidn't know dad, they wanted to connect in some way. i think it was because of his anyone and where he was in his life that he wasn't a father that was always there, you know. he was gone a lot. and then then there was a divorce between he and my mother. and it wasn't until probably i was 15, 16, maybe the three years before i lost him, that we started getting a really close relationship. but what i always saw, that even though maybe he wasn't the greatest father, he was a really good man. just a very -- i mean, there were people who depended on him who shared foxholes with him and whose lives he he saved. and they tell me about it. and he had qualities that he was just a very good man.

>> when did he pass away? >> in 1982. i was 17. and i was born it will '64. let's do the math. i kind of blank it out a little bit. it was really hard. >> i can imagine. tell me your experience with this book coming out in '91, '92. here's galloway and your dad's mentioned. did general moore or joe contact you about your dad? >> they had tried to find me. that's why he was so anxious to speak to me because he said they had been trying to find me for a while. but my parents h s divorced and moved to north carolina, and i went to college, moved to d.c. and was actually living in d.c. whenever i finally connected with them and i was working two doors down from where the reunion was that year. >> amazing. tell me about the book and seeing your father's name in there three times.

>> yeah, that was pretty amazing. it was just like, you know, here's tangible proof, you know, >> because i think that because of the newspaper that he worked for, it was such a, you know, it was a small home -- not small, but a hometown newspaper, he never gained the fame that perhaps some of the other journalists did. and my mother -- my mother says, you know, that dad always had a very healthy ego. and i think that always bothered him a little bit, you know, that he felt like, okay, you know, i should have my -- i should -- people should know my name a little bit more. because he knew what he did. he understood what he did. but i think that he would have loved it. and had he been alive, he would have been able to have contributed a lot to it. >> right. sure. >> but he would have loved the notoriety of the division, you know. he would have wanted people to know what he knew about these guys. that they really were heroes,

and that they went over there and they did their jobs and they did it well. >> mm-hmm. >> and so he would have been very proud of that. >> yeah. and you brought some pictures with you and some other information. what do you have here of your father's, if you could kind of describe it? >> sure. well we started a website called charlieblack.net. and that has a lot of his works on there. he would sometimes -- he would just write a ton of articles, i mean, the big joke was that somebody would make him come out of the field, and sit him down until he produced enough that he could go back out into the field. but he wrote so many articles that sometimes they would publish two or three in a day. and -- and so we put a lot of those works on the website. >> who was doing this? >> my husband and i. my husband, michael, and i. and michael really is the one, he did it for me as a surprise. and gave it to me as a gift.

>> oh, how nice. >> yeah. >> and what do the troopers who see these articles, these things, how do they react to that? >> well, it's so funny because even in the room waiting, there were three guys who came in, and one of them overheard me talking to another gentleman and he had to come over and shake my hand and, you know, i knew your dad and he told me stories. and they don't really have to wait for me, because so many of them still have these yellowed scraps of papers that they saved. and that's how we've collected a lot of those works. guys send us things that maybe we didn't have previously, and we send them back because through some unfortunate circumstances, there's no good archive at the columbus paper of his works. so we collect a lot from the men

who attend this reunion. they'll send us scrapbooks and they trust us to take it and copy it and mail it back to them. which we had a gentleman from the last reunion from maine. he sent us a whole box of scrapbooks. >> wow. >> and we copied and cleaned it up and sent it back to him. and they trust us with it. which i think is an important thing. >> your father, it speaks a lot about him. and you all, too. >> yeah. and so, but, they all like to look through the scrapbook. you know, and they're going to like the website, i think. they're going to be able to do searches, maybe come up with their name, if he wrote about them. or come up with, you know, battles that they may have been in that they couldn't read again, and remember. but they like to see things that belong to him. and they like to tell me stories about their interaction with him, if they knew him.

>> right. i imagine you learn a lot about your father every time you have these conversations. >> absolutely. and because so many different people find the reunion, every year, we hear new stories every year. >> right. >> and you know, it's just -- it's amazing, really. at the dinner i'll stand up and introduce myself on saturday night, and i guarantee you that i'll meet 15 new people who want to tell me stories about him. and their contact with him. >> that's great. we're going to take this interview, we're going to preserve it for multiple generations into the future. so people can hear what you're saying about your father, and what you're doing now. >> mm-hmm. >> in 2005 for him. what would you like to tell people, 100 years from now, who will be listening to this, about charlie black, and about vietnam, and his experience there? >> charlie black believed in the soldiers that he covered. 100%.

he trusted them with his life, and they, in turn, trusted him with their lives. and i think that says something about the quality of a man. and never once, even though he may have hated the politics of the war, never once would my father have ever said anything derogatory about a man or woman serving in the armed services. you know. >> he was way ahead of the time. >> he felt that that was sacred. i mean, i remember watching the p.o.w.s come home. my dad had to stay home from school so that we could watch it on tv, because they would do it live then. i mean, he just -- he wanted people to understand the sacrifices that were made in vietnam, and to get over the politics of it. and to understand how special these guys were. and i think that's what i would

want people to know about him, is just how much he loved the soldiers, and his country. >> tracy, thank you very much. >> you're welcome. >> for sharing this with us and honoring your father and doing this. and we'll take this forward and make sure he's never forgotten. throughout the weekend here on american history tv, on c-span3, watch personal interviews about historic events on oral histories. our history book shelf features some of the best known history writers. revisit key figures, battles and events during the 150th anniversary of the civil war. visit college classrooms across the country during lectures in history. go behind the scenes at museums and historic sites on american artifacts. and the presidency looks at the policies and legacies of past american presidents. view our complete schedule at c-span.org/history and sign up to have it e-mailed to you by pressing the c-span alert

button. each week american history tv's american artifacts takes viewers into archives, museums and historic sites from around the country. next, a visit to yorba linda, california, and the birthplace home of president richard nixon. docent darlene sky gave american history tv a tour of the house that rests on the ground of the richard nixon presidential library and museum. the 37th president was born there in 1913 and he was laid to rest near the house in 1994. >> welcome to richard nixon's presidential museum. it really is an honor having you here today and most fortunate to be able to share with you where our 37th president of the united states, richard millhouse nixon was born. so if you look behind me, you can see this wonderful house. this is the birthplace of president nixon. i'm very excited and pleased to tell you that the most often asked question i get out here, has the house ever been moved? and, no, it's never been moved.

it's always been on this spot. it's actually a kit house. and please use your imagination for a moment, because let's go back to 1912. in 1912 frank and hannah nixon arrived in this area, and believe it or not, there was only 200 people in population in yorba linda. now there are thousands. look around. see how beautiful the grounds are here today. 1912, there was plenty of lemons and orange groves and frank and hannah nixon arrived here and thought, what a great place to raise a family. he literally, frank nixon literally went through a catalog. it wasn't a sears catalog, and wasn't a montgomery ward catalog. we still don't know the identification of the manufacturer of this wonderful house and, but we know that it was a kit house. so he actually took his horse and buggy and drove it to the train station. there's actually a section of the train still there on imperial highway that you can

see. frank nixon brought these boxes and crates back to this yorba linda site and he built this wonderful house. as you can see, as i mention to you, it's never been moved. as you look around to see that this, the millhouse nixon family came to this area to raise a family. so 300 orange trees and 300 lemon trees were planted by frank nixon, but they did struggle financially. and hannah nixon would actually walk to a packing house, there was two packing houses here in yorba linda, and to help with the income, she actually would go pack lemons. she would walk over there, and remember, there was no concrete and there was no cement. it was lots of dirt. lots of mud sometimes. but she would walk there and put lemons into a crate. you may find it interesting to know that president nixon as a small child would attend the yorba linda elementary school