combat is never easy. but in vietnam, it is especially hard. one big reason, the terrain. top paddies with mud boot deep or so worse -- or worse. streams crisscrossing the valleys. hills steep and unfriendly as those in korea. ♪ desert like areas, or temperatures hit 130 in the shade, and there isn't any shade. and tropic jungle. hot, steaming, hostile as any in the pacific during world war ii. nearme answer to the impossibility of the vietnamese terrain is the helicopter.

beneath the rotor blades, marines can move swiftly to wherever the vietcong are reported. and arrive fresh and ready to function. >> prepare the lot, many. -- manny. >> we need some help over here. >> i will give you a hand. >> ok. >> [indiscernible] >> do you want anymore water? chopper saves a lot of lives in vietnam. in minutes, a man can be airlifted direct from combat to aidle station -- to an station. without their weapons, they look so insignificant. but the vc is hard.

takehin, wiry body can much hardship. shrink mind will not from executing all village elders if it might further his aims. hard as he is, however, the via con is no superman -- vietcong is no superman. in operations like starlight and harvest moon, the marines have demonstrated this beyond anyone's doubting, including the vietcong. ♪ >> the vietcong are not the only problem. in a dark little villages, the same ones the vietcong have hated in, marines find the people they have come to help. people who have lived for too long in fear. are wonderfulese people, as far as i'm concerned, and they need help. and we are starting this in --

we are a strong nation and we can give them hell. >> 10 years from now, these people are going to forget the bullets and everything else, but they are going to remember this. if we are going to win this work, we will do it here before we do it on the battlefield. announcer: c-span takes you on the road to the white house and into the classroom. this year, our student cam documentary contest asks students to tell us what issues they want to hear from the presidential candidates. follow c-span's road to the white house coverage and get all the details about our contest at c-span.org. all weekend, "american history tv" feels worcester, massachusetts. city in 1848,s a it is located about 40 miles west of austin. the staff recently visited many

sites, showcasing the city's history. learn more about worcester all weekend here on "american history tv." >> we are in the industrial gallery, called the fuller gallery of industrial history, and the exhibit is called in their shirtsleeves. in their shirtsleeves is the story of worcester's industrial heritage that really start at the time of the blackstone canal. on octoberanal opens 7, and while there is small industry in worcester before that, then it really starts the heyday. it goes through the 20th century. mr. arning: what is interesting about worcester is that it became a shire town. and it is significant because of

the communities, which were much larger than worcester, had the offer to be -- you could be where the court meets, the king's court. none of them wanted it because when you think about you have a major trial, it kind of brings all the crazies out. the communities of seven massachusetts and lancaster, massachusetts were much better and they were also very religious and they didn't want to have those people coming to their community. whereas worcester said, yeah, we will do that. and part of the reason for that was the blackstone canal. folks in providence had a real problem with moving their goods inland because there was no roads. so they built the canal from providence to worcester, and all of a sudden that opens up worcester to the heartland of massachusetts. i think one of the real strong messages to come out of the canal area and to give you

insight into the england mindset, worcester was a hamlet village kind of. it had merchants in town. d.than her all three ian ad in newspapers. and he put in big bold letters, by the canal. and what that told everybody who saw that ad, it was fresh because it had just gotten off the vote in providence. it took a day and a half, two days to get up to two worcester, that was fresh molasses, fresh green. you think about proctor and gamble in marketing, nathan was way ahead of everybody. it is just -- it just

transmitted this wonderful marketing concept to this new republic, this new section here in the center, the heart of the commonwealth here in worcester. so that is an important story to talk about the value of the canals. the way people see things differently and try new things. the top at we have over here -- top hat we have over here, inside the silk lining is this wonderful engraving. why would you put it inside your cell cat? -- silk hat? because the merchants men had great pride in his community. i'm going to make sure they identify new entrepreneurial growth with my silk hat. one of thosehe is great moments of innovation to come out of worcester. you can imagine yourself working in the factory and you are working in tandem, dependent on one another for a successful

operation. rather than shuffling through a box full of wrenches, pullman came up with the idea that by pulling the safety on the machine and having a range you could addressed with one thumb, you could adjusted to the side of whatever you are trying to fix. you could do it quickly, you could go back to work. you could just imagine that in a creative and vibrant workplace, how are we going to fix this immediately. so you create something that is an answer to need, and then you patent it, and then you are selling hundreds of thousands of them all over the world. mr. arning: this case is filled with the products of one particular shop in worcester. the mayort is from field shop. complex inmajor which he had an

lot of good idea, but did not have a lot of capital. he went in for $.10 a square foot per year. you got a workshop and you could tie into his belting system. so you could be the man who wanted to assemble rat traps. twoarning: the rat trap is prongs. head,ongs with a round and the prongs would be held back with a wire spring. when the greater triggered it, -- when the creature triggered it, the prongs would go right through the neck. are in front of the end of a crate from a shredded wheat box. henry first produces commercial wheat in worcester long before it goes to niagara falls.

is often times what you see on the box of shredded wheat. it comes here from denver, upstate new york, and then the boston burbs and he gets a lot of investors. the serial machine company -- cereal machine company. it is part of that tradition of health care, a new approach to your body and how it is going to be kept in good shape because you are no longer working seven days a week and on a farm, you are six days a week in a factory. you might be sitting in an office. he tells people there systems are not working the way they should, so he creates shredded wheat to solve that problem. >> worcester's is pretty much known as an industrial center, but also a machine center. you are not going to find a lot of women working here. one of the places where you would find women working is here.

1915 is a tumultuous -- a tumultuous year in united states history. a lot of the companies are manufacturing for their european buyers. and a lot of money is being made, but a lot of the workers are not seeing that. and the women here at the corset company are a good example of that because they have to buy the thread to make the corset. not uncommon in that timeframe. 1915, they go on strike. 1915, the brewery workers go on strike. and the loom manufacturers go on strike because all this manufacturing is taking place and a lot of people are making money, but it is not the workers. it creates all kinds of problems here. you will find worcester was not a labor town. but this is the one thing people

can begin to focus on that needs to be addressed. so you'll find a lot of unhappy people here who will come from around the world to find their job in worcester, but it is not working for them. this is a display in worcester for its 125th anniversary in 1956. what it is is a representation of worcester's strong tradition as a wire manufacturing city. the first person in new england to draw continuous brands of wire. as a result, he goes gangbusters. in the 1870's and 1880's, he is telling the world he is making close to $1 million a year in his business. he is making cable for bridges, for telephones, he is making pno wire, he is -- he is making piano wire, he is making

literally everything he can out of wire. that continuing tradition of -- of stamping from a wire, you will see what i call a diner knife stamped out of a piece of wire. if you cross the golden gate bridge, it is worcester wire in the original cables. the same thing with the bay bridge from san francisco to oakland, lots of worcester wire. it was a major, major industry of worcester capital and private. the mid-20th century part of the exhibit, what we are looking at is a case of materials from the david clark company. david clark was a weaver who started making underwear and moved on to making integral components for space, and they make the suit for the first american walk in space in 1965. the orange suit is a high

altitude pressure suit, some of it -- what is adjacent to it is one of the backup headsets for the moon landing. when you hear neil armstrong say this is once the -- one small step for a mad, he is saying it through a david clark had said. -- head sets. it is part of the worcester story of innovation and enterprise in the 20th century. part of the exhibit is to give people a sense of pride, but also be a sense that we all contribute to the economic, cultural, and vibrancy of the city. you will find an investor in worcester and you will find a place to apply it. you can stay in worcester, you can create, and have a welcoming workforce, a welcoming group of investors, and exciting community.

-- an exciting community. announcer: our cities tour staff recently traveled to worcester, massachusetts to learn about its rich history. you are watching "american history tv," all weekend, every weekend, on c-span3. >> during the civil war, an unprecedented number of american soldiers were killed in battle. and conventional practices of body recovery, identification, and burial were not able to keep up with the growing number of fallen soldiers. kirk savage gives an in-depth analysis of the practices adopted to identify fallen soldiers and the types of burials given to fallen civil war soldiers. the national gallery hosted this