teach a class about the vietnam war, focusing on the mekong delta. professor andrew wiest talks about the area and john young talks about what it was like fighting there. the class is about an hour and 10 minutes. andrew wiest: you guys know that we are talking about the vietnam war. specifically, we will talk about the war in 1967. and even more specific, we will be talking about the mekong delta. 1967 was the year when the general had his chance for his award-winning plans. -- general west moreland finally had his chance. we know this war was complicated, going back to the book, no sure victory, it revolves around everything from counterinsurgency, but probably the two biggest words -- in case

you forgot how pretty he looked, and in the commander and chief advisor to the military, as well. the chief aspect of the strategy that most americans know about was surge and destroy, it is sending out u.s. forces into the lands of vietnam to pin down and destroy the enemy forces, being the north vietnamese or the viet cong. the first main battle of the vietnam war was in the last lecture, about the battles fought in november of 1965. and it was indicated that we had technological advances that would enable us to achieve some startling victories. first off, the helicopter which is one of these images of the vietnam war, it provided us with a maneuverability.

anywhere the viet cong were found, we could hunt them down. once we lost them in the battle, we had the technological advances to destroy them, airpower and artillery, usually used around the countryside. and it had worked so well in 1965, you remember we were talking about that, that battle involved at the most one u.s. battalion and often times just little bits and pieces. they would go into battle and an entire enemy regiment, maybe two of them, this little force though they were vastly outnumbered, the artillery would come in and the helicopters, they had landings -- hopefully you remember that this is covered well in -- from joe galloway, the news

correspondent, in the movie. but that little american force fought that big north vietnamese force. the numbers are always iffy in vietnam. it depends on how you look at the battles, how much you believe the body count, things like that. it is ok to estimate. the enemy lost about 2000 in that battle, we lost about 250. it was indicated to west moreland that is tactics, once fully implemented, would cost the bad guys, the viet cong, so much that if he replicated the valley a couple of times, they would give up. the butcher's bill would be so high, that the north vietnamese would give up. in 1967, that was the year to

test it. 1966, they were bringing in american forces and by 1967, the efforts after was built. -- the infrastructure was built. it was time to search and destroy and make this a one-year war. and it would wind up causing them to in the war. -- end the war. the war in 1967, had been broken down into four separate wars. up here, the northern part of south vietnam, along here we have the dmz. in that area, the third marine division will be located. down here in the southern provinces, the first marine division. and also there are two main divisions, first and second, and during the year as the war ramps

up, we will see more american troops devoted to this area. this is a war in of itself, unlike the other wars in south vietnam. you are facing across the border, you are facing three divisions of the north vietnamese. 35,000 regular troops. and there are troops based in areas along the trail -- the ho chi minh trail, that could threaten from the west. one of the troops -- one of the things troops refacing, a threat from the court. and what are they have, right across the border? right across here? that is when you answer the question with something profound and correct. i will give you a hint. artillery tubes. hundreds and hundreds of their own artillery, so here is a

conventional war where we do not always have the edge with firepower. oftentimes, they have overwhelming firepower, and most of these will be the seized by enemy artillery fire -- the siege by enemy artillery fire. so the numbers can get high in the battles fought near the dmz. and we are facing an enemy with almost equal fire support, but they do not have equal air support. and the second war, what they are looking at, this is the central highlands. this is a war of the jungle, the rain forest, and uninhabited parts of the country. the enemy here we face is a mixed enemy, there are these areas -- base areas, the north vietnamese forces coming across the border. sometimes, there is artillery support, but most times not.

and in the mountains, often they have special forces camps with troops helping them. so what we have is often a situation in which troops come across the border and take the camps, resulting in a battle. and also viet cong troops that are living in the area, providing more of a guerrilla war. most troops are on the coastal areas and they react to whatever threat they face coming across the border. but in many ways it was a reactive war, it was a mixed war, that involves both conventional and unconventional warfare. and this is a war entirely his own -- its own. here is saigon. and as you can probably figure out, this one was going to be really important. saigon is the headquarters of the u.s. forces, a governmental area for the south vietnamese, and it must be kept safe.

they cannot be threatened. and this area is abounding with threat. and this is what we talked about last time, an enemy based area. you see right there, this is the command structure for the viet cong. it is located in or right outside war zone c. and here is the enemy division. sometimes they were two of them, that could slip across the border, or go back to cambodia for a safe haven. it was a direct route to saigon. and this area, d, it is not connected to the trail or a supply network from north vietnam. so look out close that is to saigon, and it is a viet cong base, it has battalion's from time to time. and definitely the last time we talked about this, the triangle.

also, a base area. we talked about the war that was father, this was an area that was shot through with tunnels, the area in which a lot of the planning took place, and essentially this is in the suburbs of saigon. so you can see where in 1967, the war zones, the 3 corps is an important part and it will become the focus of the war for at least the beginning of the year. three operations are run around the iron trying to, in an effort to pacify the area. in many ways, they would see those tunnels remain until we decided to plow them under. also, as you know, we discussed that they had to pause and she had to present this again, it was a free fire zone.

americans can assume anything moving in that area is an enemy force, and everything in that area is deserving of american firepower. this is a very fought over area. but it remains in many ways under enemy control, at least until 1969. the biggest area for 1967, in the saigon region, is war zone c. we run one of the biggest operations of the entire war, from the operation junction, that is worth looking at, maybe underlining it for your test. it was an 82 day operation beginning in february come in 1967. -- february, 19 67. 30,000 u.s. troops, plus at least another division, go to war zone c from both sides. they are trying to pin down the enemy division that lives in the

area, it is on the ninth viacom -- 9th viacom division. -- viet cong division. unlike attleboro from the year before, the had -- the viet cong had gotten away, but this time we were not going to let them get away. paratroopers come in and they tried to seal off the border to cambodia, which is the only escape route. so this operation is going to be what tacticians call a hammer and anvil operation. airborne troopers will be the and bill, invading -- anvil, and the 30,000 forces will be the hammer and we will smash the enemy forces. maybe 2-3 operations like this could in the war -- end the war. you tell me though, do we pin

down the ninth division, or do they make good on there is good to cambodia? the viet cong will be desperately hard to pin down. they know the area, they lived in this area. they know the ways in and out. the anvil breaks and the viet cong getaway. that is not mean that there is not fighting. in the couple months during this operation, we kill about 3000 enemy forces and we lose about 300. so what is this? a crushing victory that they had hoped for? no, the enemy got away. still, a good victory. in the number of folks we killed. but it was not a crushing victory, yet. the enemy is elusive and they get away with pretty great regularity. we are most concerned about today, this area.

this is the mekong delta, the area south of saigon, if you go all the way back to the previous matt. the southernmost -- map. the southernmost area of the not. -- of vietnam. and it is bordered by one of the mightiest rivers. by the time it goes to south vietnam, it is beginning to stagnate and it flows -- slows, and it becomes nine rivers, and the mekong delta dominates this area. what does it mean for the mekong itself. it was flat. if you are driving around louisiana, same thing. there is waterways everywhere. so the ground and a landscape is flat. this is 40,000 square kilometers of wetlands. those that have been tamed by

the vietnamese population. and you can see it reasonably well on the map, there are 600,000 kilometers of rivers, streams, you cannot go anywhere in the area without having to close -- cross a stream or river. so what does this do for the area? it has highways everywhere. a great transportation network. you have plenty of rivers floating around. and second, it gives me a vietnam their most productive soil in the country, the best farming area in the country. dotted with rice paddies, villages that meander on the banks of the river. and one of these ambiguities -- of the code is that one of these rice paddies in vietnam.

it attracts most of the people, 8 million people live in this area in 1967, and that is roughly half the population of the country. it produces almost all of their rice, but it is really important to keep them fed. and the fact that the dense population, over 200 inhabitants per square kilometer. that is the same density that massachusetts had at the same time. so what this means, this is the most valuable real estate in the country. it is a population center, whoever has this area will have the edge in the war. and the viet cong certainly knew this. the rivers give them a way to supply themselves with ease. they can move around as quickly as they like, as long as they are floating. and the population gives them a wonderful place to hide. hide in plain sight among the

people, swimming among the population like the fish would in the ocean. this is a perfect set up for a viet cong war, a different war than what they would need in other -- see in other sectors of the is not. -- of south vietnam. viet cong designates thousands of troops in this area. but not all of those 81,000 troops are fighters, some of them are second line fighters, semi-political operatives, carrying supplies around, some of them plans landmines. -- plant landmines. and do not forget, they lived in this area a long time. some viet cong lived in the area before that word was invented. some of them had been men who fought the french and japanese from this area, so they have long connections to this area. they have built-in advantages. the enemy has advantages.

the south vietnamese know that this is an important area, so they devote three infantry divisions to this area. 40,000. so even before the americans turn up, this will be part of the country where the most difficult, the war once -- runs deep. and we cannot really get into this -- but there is also a kind of different kind of trip -- troop here, from the army of vietnam. do not forget, this out of enemies have what we would -- south vietnamese would happily call the regional guard. they protect provinces, the south the emmys version -- the vietnamese version of

a state. and those that protect villages and let -- hamlet. so what are these national guard guys? we will talk about them later. they are worth noting for a second. and in the hearts and minds of the people, these of the troops that live among the people, they form from the people. it is an important thing. for a war without front lines, and if you have heard anything about vietnam, they did not have front lines. they were all frontlines. they were bobble, they lived -- vulnerable, they lived in the villages. if you look at who loses the most dead in the war on the allied side, it is the regional forces. they would be a huge -- it would be a huge advantage to build them up. that will be another lecture. but too often they are poorly supplied, poorly fed, poorly trained and motivated. perhaps this would have been another way that the war could have been one, but perhaps

giving them a bit more opportunity. so what we have are forces contesting the countryside, and what does it mean? in reality, in 1967 -- again, the numbers are swishy, but the americans believe that the viet cong controls 25% of the people. they are threatening the rice harvest, the shipping of the rice to saigon, and this is a situation they cannot have. this is a situation that could spell the end of the war, and not a very good and -- end for us. so we decide to intervene in 1967. we go to river warfare. if you have a vision of what happens in the war, you have that vision. american troops arriving in battlefield on helicopters.

well, the delta is too wet to land helicopters and it has its own highway system. what these guys will do is take ships into battle. they are based -- the ninth infantry division is reactivated and specially trained to operate in the watery environment. and the second problem, giving them a place to live. every dry piece of ground in the delta has people living on it. and running enough of them out of their to build an american city with an infantry division is a good way to get people to not be on your side. so, a bunch of big brains got together, they got some of the biggest -- in the world, but them in the river, and they made new land by dredging up mud and putting it on to the

countryside. they created a town. it is a wonderful place for the americans and south vietnamese to get on the same page. the ninth infantry division is looking at a big piece of mud, and they have to build a base on it. and eventually, it becomes a much more advanced base later. troops from that base, and also from the mobile phase, sometimes those troops were on chips -- ships, the best way to get them into battle where these ships, they were armored troop carriers. those who rode in them said that they were tango votes -- baots. -- boats. that is how they get from where they're going to start, to where they finished, hopefully a battle somewhere.

this is who the navy ships belong to. their job is to pick up the ninth infantry division troops, use the waterways to get the viet cong no matter where they are. remember, you can get them anywhere across the delta, lock them into battle and destroy them. by the way, these on their own are pretty well armed. they have a 20 millimeter on, sticking out. and machine guns, so these things have a little bit of a punch. usually, the operating groups of four. they would get them, find intelligence, say that the viet cong is located here. the troops would come off and they would begin to search the countryside for the viet cong they heard were located in that area. then they would remain around, because again in the delta,

there is always another river to cross. if you do not find an enemy here, they will pick you up and moving to the next. and move you again. if you wound up any battle, they provided fire support, supplies, and they were also places to take the wounded. so they played a big role. also along with these, you had the marine force, this is a gunship. this is the firepower. if you look at it, you can see it carries to m-16 machine guns, and a cannon in the rear. in the middle, there is a mortar. and a 40 milliliter cannon. if you got locked in a battle with the enemy, this is what would turn the side in your favor.

and downriver, barges that would have artillery on them. the mobile troops get their own artillery. they were significant firepower support. that is what we are doing. what is the enemy doing? to go back to what we remember, if you find american forces that are too far away, what happens? if you are standing off from american forces and they could call in the firepower, what happens? you are dead. aircrafts come in and vaporized you, the other artillery comes in, and kills you. do they have any artillery support of their own? this is as far away from north vietnam as you can get. so what do they have? small arms. the enemy is always going to be outgunned in the delta.

so the first thing that is part of their plan, trying to get as close as possible. the viet cong call this hanging onto american belts. if you can find them for 50 feet away, and they call an artillery and air support, you make this a man on man, rifle on rifle battle, if you can. second thing, you can see a well on the map -- on this picture, the enemy wants to get into the battlefield. you prepare it. this is a standard looking picture from the mekong delta. all over the delta, rice paddies. and they have bunkers.

it will be wet, but you will have a bunker. tree-lined is a really good place to have the bunkers. so they prepare the battlefield and they have had years to do this. the entire mekong delta is a prepared battlefield. when you are in american going through the area, oddly enough, they do not go on that dock itself, you tended to go through the rice paddies. any one of these could be an enemy ambush. you always had to be ready. for instance, using this as an example, the enemy is in the tree-line, when do they want to fire on you? here? when you are there. that is when they had a place where you cannot move or call on supportive fire. say they are over there, and he moved that way.

-- and you move that way. will they fire on you? probably not. you do not know whether there is a bunker system there. you do not know if it is occupied. even when you get past it, you do not know. quite often what we will see in the delta, the enemy will only open fire with a have advantages in place, they have secured the battlefield and the americans are in the wrong spot. otherwise, they hold fire. and also in the delta, maybe a couple of snipers will fire on you and slow you down. are they trying to kill 100 of you? no, to give the mess -- to give the rest of the forces an opportunity to fight another day. when it is more in their favor. so, sniper fire. small contact, that is something you will see a lot of.

and also, what can you run into in these rice patties? what can you run into all too commonly? booby-traps. they are everywhere. they had a chance to get the entire battlefield ready. of the american casualties in the delta, 65% of them are caused by mind and booby-traps. you are walking through and somebody has a leg blown off. does that for you down? quite a lot. you call a medic, a helicopter, and the whole time you are slowed down and the enemy is using it as a chance to get away. so in the mekong delta, this is very much an irregular war against american forces that want to block the major enemy forces, where they can find them. if you are an american trip, the you are dropped off -- troop,

you are dropped off and half the time you might run into what is a long walk in the hot sun. nothing bad happens, maybe you find a couple of people who could be viet cong, you arrest them and as the day goes on. much more likely, you run into sniper fire. and more commonly, you run into booby traps that will mean you before you can -- mame you before you can do anything. but everyone can again, the situation is perfect. more than likely, we stumble into the exact right situation in which the enemy thinks it is a good time to open fire. one such situation was made 15, 1967 -- may 15, 1967. it is charlie company of the ninth infantry division, and battalion of the ninth infantry

division. the class knows who is about to come up, but for those who do not know, we will introduce an. it is john young, a squad leader in the first platoon of charlie company, which means the lead 10 soldiers into battle. he was there on may 15. i can portray to you what the war is and how things worked, but john will tell you about the reality of fighting a small unit battle when things went wrong on may 15 1967. ladies and gentlemen, john young. [applause] john: hi, that picture of the soldiers walking near the tree-line. it brought up something that i have not mentioned.

this photograph, it is typical delta terrain. it is mud and water. and tree lines in the distance. typical delta terrain. this was clearly taken in a secure area, or what was believed to be a secure area. why? because the gis are walking on the dikes. in a nonsecure area, nearly all of the delta, you do not there walk on those -- dare walk on those, because they are mined. you walk through the rice patties, because the enemy has no doubt that landmines in the dikes, figuring that is where the gis want to walk, because it is the easiest way to cross the patties. and you wind up going to the mud to avoid the dikes. and another important thing you can see, it is, when you have your company moving across the country and you have a distant tree line, it may be 100 meters

in front of you, you do not move the entire company into that open area in mass, and move toward the tree line that you hope is empty. because you are likely to come under fire and the entire trip will be stuck -- troop will be stuck. but we did was send out one rifle squad. whether it is 200 meters or 300 meters in the distance, let them walk across the open area, and get into the tree line to see if the enemy is there. the idea, if the enemy is there, you only have 10 guys to get shot at instead of the entire company. and it will be a tripwire to let us know that the enemy is in fact there and we are about to have a fight. the idea also being that the squad is a big enough unit to

essentially be able to take care of itself. enough men to provide firepower, but not so many that you cannot afford to lose them. in theory. so we used to do that. we would send the rifle squad out until one day in mid-july, we sent out a squad to do a routine tree-line recon, and we lost the whole squad. half of the men were killed and the other half, badly wounded. we spent the night in the rice paddy before we recovered then the next day. from that point forward, we only spent three men. we realized it was not worth losing the entire squad and we only send three men out -- cents three men out. it had the decision about who would go?

in my platoon and all the rifle platoons, the company commander would radio and say, you need to send reconnaissance into the tree-line and then he would look at the squad leaders and say, you are going to send three men. and there i am, i am 22 years old and i have a soldier -- and i have been a soldier for maybe one year, five, and now -- five months, and now i will pick three men to walk out and see if the enemy is in the tree-line. who am i going to pick? do you want to go? how about you? you want to volunteer? i need to pick you. within my squad, when the platoon leader tells me it is my turn, i pick myself first off. i took me and two men. my idea was, i could not tell anybody to do something i was not willing to do myself.

believe it or not, i believe it. i was going to run it and i was going to take my chances like everybody else, and full knowledge of the fact that during the rest of the day i will be called on to do the same thing 3-4 more times. every squad have the chance. i picked myself the first ran -- the first one i ran every day. it really puts you on the spot about making a decision and you think, i am nothing but a squad leader, i am not going to make any life-changing decisions about people. you are wrong. you make them every day. and it is not fun. anyway, i am reminded of all those things looking at the delta terrain. and on may 15, 1967, charlie

company was going to run its first operation in the mekong delta. we were going to an area that was called the secret zone, which meant nothing to us at the time, but it was a name that we would dread and fear over the rest of the year, because a long held enemy based area, the terrain was owned by the vietcong and it was always dangerous to us. when we went to the camps, we knew that we were not only going to lose people, we were going to get men killed and lose others. we went to the repeatedly throughout 1967. a most unpleasant experience. we knew none of this in mid-may. we were just told that we were going there, it was our first trip. we took the boats upriver. there is a picture of a bunch of the guys in the first platoon.

you remember the name danny bailey, a man i admired. he is right there in the center of the photograph, with his helmet on. that is danny. a bunch of other guys there, i can see one of them, two of them who did not survive 1967, both killed in the delta. nearly all of them were wounded during that time. we got ready to run operation. we were going upriver and we are beached probably 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning, and started moving inland from the river and each of the platoons in the company was broken up separately, and within the platoon you generally have two squads in the front, and the two of them trailing. and my platoon was going routinely across the rice paddy

toward the tree line. and it was just normal terrain. and nothing seemed out of the ordinary but particularly threatening, and tell my platoon was approaching getting close to the tree line you can see. when our right hand squad was probably no more than 50 meters from the tree line, we came under fire from at least three directions, from the front, from the left, and from the right. and we had david's squad, it just happened to be the squad in that area, that part of the platoon formation, and his squad was caught dead to write -- right in what the enemy intended to be a kill zone. and within seconds, nearly every man in that squad with hit and down, and the rest of us realized the enemy fire was rapidly building and turning

into something heavy, and we pulled back from where we had come under fire to ms. little brown area, -- this little brown area, this dike, we were able to go there and we took cover behind it and returned fire and we spent about the next hour doing nothing much more than that, sadly trying to return fire -- simply trying to return fire. this included rifle fighter and machine gun fire. and we had one entire squad out there in the right, fresh and young, you could not see very far, but we had a squad out there that did not know -- we do not know how bad off they were. but we were worried about all of them. and we probably traded fire with the enemy for about an hour or

maybe two hours. and it was hot in the rice paddies with the sunshine overhead, maybe 115 degrees out there. and after exchanging fire with the enemy for some considerable amount of time, are platoon leader -- our platoon leader, i overheard him say that we needed volunteers to go out there and get the casualties out of the rice. i heard him say that. and he used the word volunteer. well, i was a volunteer. you could not use that word around me without challenging me. i had enlisted, i was an infantry because i asked for the infantry, and i was in vietnam because that is where i wanted to go. so when he said he wanted volunteers to go out, i was one of the first met up. three other men in my squad

decided to go with me, and a couple of other men from other squads decided to go out there. and we all ran out there into the rice, trying to find our casualties. one man relatively quickly found the first one, who was don peterson. he was one of those bigger than life characters in the platoon. he was a big, heavy guy. he looked like a big high school football player, that is what he had been. and don peterson was one of those big personalities, and he was a big man, click to tell a joke -- quick to tell a joke. and before we went out to vietnam, the high school sweetheart that he had married, gave birth to a boy. and don, through bending rules, was able to help -- hold his son

in his arms before he literally had to leave and get on a train to go to the west coast and then vietnam. so he got to hold his son for a few minutes before leaving for vietnam. he was one of the first casualties we found out there, he was dead. he was shot three or four times, the last one went to his heart and he died quickly. that is one of the first things we found out, don peterson was dead. nevertheless, they were men out there that we do not know about and we ran out to find them. and i remember running out there, we took off our heavy gear, nothing but an m-16. i remember running out there and it seemed like a long way at the time, it may have been 75 yards. it is a long way when you are under fire.

i ran to the rice and i cannot see anybody. and finally to my right i saw a splash of green shirt and agi -- gi on his side. i had no idea who it was. i ran up and threw myself down behind him. and as i got close, i could see the jungle fatigue shirt, the whole back of the shirt was covered with a bloodstain, and in the center of the shirt, was able -- bullet hole. and i thought, this will be bad. i can see that. and i hear myself down -- threw myself down behind him. i got up close and i looked over and it was a kid named carl, a brand-new replacement. to the best of my knowledge, that is carl on the left.

that is him recently. as i said, he was one of the most recent replacements that we had gone in -- gotten in, and i am quite sure that this was the first operation he had gone into. he is 19 years old and on his first operation, he had spent an hour in the rice paddy, shot in his spine. and if you are 19 years old and you are brand-new in a unit and he did not know anyone and nobody knows you, and you know you are paralyzed from the waist down, what do you think about? for that hour or two hours that it takes somebody to come out and get you. what do you think about? i don't know.

carl was laying there, i got up behind him and i knew who he was. i knew he was a rookie. and i said, i knew is named by his shirt, i said court right -- cortright, i am here and i am going to take you back. he said, ok. i cannot move my legs. i thought a little, because he was a big enough kid, if i was in a gymnasium with him i cannot pick him up and run with them. i had to think what to do. i guess i had not thought it through very well when i decided to go get him. i said, i am going to lie flat. you crawl up and get on my back. i do not know what else to do. i lay there flat and using his arms and elbows he got onto my back and i got up and i started

to crawl back to the platoon. and it was hot in the rice paddy, i remember. and i called and i crawled -- crawled and i called -- crawled, it seemed like a long time. and i said, i need to catch my breath. he said, ok. and we lay there flat in the rice for a couple minutes. until i got a second wind. i got up on my hands and knees and started going again. and i noticed that this time, carl on my back, he put his hands down to help me there his weight -- bear his weight. and i crawled along with them -- him. and after some time, he said, you better lie down again.

i said, no, i am all right. he said, know you better lie down again. they are shooting at us. i looked around and sure enough, you could see the dust picked up by the machine gun bullets again. so i lay down again. it was for a minute or two. then i went somewhere with him. he was helping to maintain his weight with his arms. i finally looked up when i realized we were maybe 20 meters away from the platoon position and one of the guys from my squad, that had already recovered casualties, he saw me out there. john knew i was struggling. so he ran out and i got up and we each grabbed him by an arm and flipped him on his back and

ran the rest of the way to get him behind the rice paddy. and it was not until we got there -- what was it like to be dragged on his spine? i did not realize until we got her that he was crying. and then of course, the medics went to work on him and that was the last i saw of him for a number of years. it happened in may of 1967, and i think that one of our reunions in the 1990's, he decided to come. and it was in las vegas and from across the room at some point, there were a lot of people milling around in the party room that we had rented, and i looked across and there was a guy in a wheelchair.

and i do not know what -- how you would have felt, but i do not know how i could talk to that guy. i did not know. you understand what i am saying? i did not know if i should talk to him or not. what does carl think of me? he might have wished that i let him out there to die. i do not know what to expect. so i looked at him from a distance for quite some time before i walked over to him. and i walked over to him when he was alone, and i said, you may not remember me, but i am john young. and he looked up and said, i remember you. and i kind of stumbled around, because i did not know quite what to say, i was not sure if he wanted to see me or if i should come say hello. can you understand my

reluctance? i did not intend to talk about this. but i had difficulty approaching him, because i did not know what to think. and he said, if it were not for you i would not be here, what i? i said, well, ok. good enough for me. and karl has been to almost all of our reunions since that one and i always make sure that i spent time with him. he is still in the wiltshire, -- in the wheelchair, but he gets -- wheelchair, but he gets around well. we are having another reunion in mid-may, it will be 50 years since we were thrown together as a platoon. it will be 49 years since the event i am talking about right now. so carl will be there again and i will get to see him again.

he is a good kid. of course, he is 65 years old, not a teenager anymore. none of us are. anyway, i got carl and pretty soon we had medevac's coming and going. we had other casualties, don peterson, david -- the squad leader, we got him out of there. he had been within a few feet of don. they went flat on the ground unwounded, when the shooting started, and when they were laying there, he got a machine gun bullet that went into the top of his shoulder and came out his lower back and of course messed up everything, from his chest cavity all the way down. i do not remember who brought him back, but david was a good friend of mine, and when they brought him back he was barely

breathing. his eyes were closed and he had let all over his face and blood all over his shirt, and i thought i was seeing him at the last time, because he looked like he was going to die. and they got him on a medevac, and it was about two months, he came back to us. i was very surprised. i was sure i was looking at him on the way to the morgue. we got all of our casualties back. don peterson's body we did not recover. gnash your teeth at the thought of -- that was probably march. that is probably my favorite photograph of me and my entire life, because i was telling people who i was.

i was clear eyed, true, honest, confident of myself and absolutely certain of what i was doing. i had never been shot at at that time, i had a look of innocence, and my eyes were blue or -- blue-er than they are now. that is me. we got all of the casualties out. or at least taken care of. at this point, the platoon leader said to me, i want you to take your squad out and assault the enemy's position to the right. which did not make sense to me, because we had not drawn any fire from there, no meaningful fire. i could not see any enemy position in that area and it did not seem like there was a threat at all, and there did not seem to be a tactical reason for sending me out there.

yet, here was the platoon leader, an officer after all, and he is close to 30 years old. he said for me to get my squad together, get a bunch of ammunition, and assault the tree line. now, if i was a mature soldier, i would have had the nerve and good sense to challenge him on that order. i would have said, i would have told him, there is nothing out there. there is no target. nothing for me to attack. and i would have discussed it with him. but, i had been a soldier for barely over a year, and i was a rookie. i did not have the nerve and i did not feel like i had the authority. i shook my head and i said, ok, i will go. and i got my men together and we

got all of the ammunition we could get and we headed out to assault the tree line, even though i could not see the target there. we got maybe halfway to the tree line and -- excuse me, maybe halfway, and i lost a man pretty quickly. he was shot through the wrist. and another man whose rifle was disabled from bullets coming from somewhere. another man that ran out of ammunition. and i thought, we are stuck now. i have lost half our strength. and i need to stop this, i need to get back. and the platoon leader waved me on. and i had another man go out of action, i do not remember what happened, his weapon might of just stopped working. and finally the platoon leader

gave me signals to come back. so i turn around and come back. and that was the stupidest five minutes i think i ever spent in the amount. that was -- vietnam. it was a totally useless order and it cost me a man or two. and we continue to fighting from where we were, but by this time we had artillery fire coming in and we had helicopters going in, and later in the day, we had airstrikes. we had f 100s. and later on in the afternoon, one of the other companies in our battalion started to sweep up the very top corner of where they had come on from up there, started to move into the enemy position, which was -- it meant they had to get up and leave. by doing so, they exposed themselves to us. and our men accounted for quite a number of enemy soldiers that

got up from hidden bunkers and started to run. and our people were able to shoot them down. i remember watching a man running, carrying a rifle, and one of our guys fired a grenade at him, and the man was running along and you could see the hand grenade go off and when that man put one foot down on the ground, it landed right at his foot. and it blew him into a tumbling roll. they reminded me of when a pheasant rolls in the air. we killed him. we killed a number of men doing things like that. and i remember one man carrying machine gun ammunition, and i killed him. i may not have been the only man that hit him, but i thought i was at the time. i watched him go down.

so i killed a man. and we continued to shoot like that for some time. because bravo company was coming and forcing the men to move, and now the tables were turned and they were the ones in the open and we could do the target shooting. it felt good. it really did. a little later, when the shooting had calmed, some of our people were able to go out and recovered. peterson's -- recover don peterson's body. it was too late to get any more medevacs, so we got his body back to the platoon position and we put him anybody back and he stayed -- into a body bag and he stayed with us in the field. four or five of us simply got around -- gathered around in the dark, and none of us were able to talk.

we just had to be close to him. to show you the reality, we do not want to get too close to him, because he was already starting to smell that. -- bad. just one of the little facts of dying as a soldier. you never see that in a movie. so that was the end of that day's fighting, the first fight. and as it was written in the division newspaper within a few days, according to the newspaper, the american forces lost one man killed, don peterson. i believe they claimed we had killed 125 enemy soldiers. that is probably pretty close to true. so the kill ratio was 125-1.

seemed worth it, unless your friend was the one killed, don peterson. and our introduction to the whole thing, endeavored to get a name. -- it never did get a name. i doubt any other newspaper covered it at all. it was no big event. it was our first. first time we had a man killed in action. it did not mean anything to anybody, unless those that were close with don peterson. in the end, those of us on the ground who fought the battle, are never going to forget that day, may 15, 1967. we all remember it. curiously enough, it is the exact date that we will be in

las vegas for the reunion. we, we all learn from it. we all were changed after that day. we would fight bigger battles later on and lose a lot more men in the months to come, but nothing will ever quite replace, nothing will be the same as 15, may. i realized i have talked about this in a disjointed way. you can tell i am rusty about it. i have not covered that hitler -- that particular battle in a class. i realized it was kind of hopscotching around and it was not particularly coherent, i am aware of that fact.

if any of you have any questions? come on now. yes? >> what was your main goal? just getting into battle? what was the main overall objective? john: it was to kill enemy soldiers. we did not hold terrain, we were not moving lines on a map. the objective was to find the enemy forces and destroy them. when you read the military orders, they do not say, go out and kill the enemy. they say, destroy the enemy. that is just the way the military phrases it. yes, ma'am. >> [inaudible]

howm that point forward, did the death of don peterson affect for men? the first man killed in action that way, we had lost men killed already but never in a battle like that. we have had been killed from accidents, had been killed from booby-traps and land mines. was thepeterson's death first man shot to death during a battle. the fact he just happened to be such a large personality made it all that much more painful. his particular personal story of the son who never got to a little more it touching for all of us. we were all aware of that because you could not spend two minutes around don without him whipping out a picture to show you the picture of his son. he was most proud of him.

and losing him was a serious loss to all of us. after that, we, none of us, i do not think any of us ever smiled quite the same as we had before then. it changed us all t teaches you, it taught us, you play for keeps. this is serious stuff. they keep score by that sort of tally. it was tough. yes, sir? >> i have two questions. my first question is, when you were carrying them on your back, you said at one point he told you to get down because they are firing again. do first question is, is they did not stop firing, were they aiming for you from the tree line? john: it rice was probably

between two and three feet high. no, they could not see us. they were simply searching in the rice paddy with machine gun fire. they knew there were americans out there. they just could not see them. knowing into the rice eventually you're going to hit somebody, somewhere. -aimed oras not well we would have all died. but they were trying. it was searching fire into the rice. my second question -- and there may not be an answer for this -- but i know you talk to us about kind of the anxiety gives you from all the booby-traps you do with on a daily basis and that you were not even in a fight and you would get injured. was it easier for people to deal with maybe getting shot and injured that way in a firefight compared to just walking around and getting blown up, or it's

really all the same? john: that is worded kind of clumsily, because it is never easy to become a casualty. but i think i understand what you're saying. and yeah, i think, when you are walking along and it is peaceful and somebody gets blown up into the air and comes down missing a foot, the violence of it, the violence from nowhere is shocking. and all of a sudden you instantly have a serious casualty on your hands and nothing is happening. your anger, what anger you do feel, there is nothing you can do with it. there is no target. there is nothing for you to take anything out o n. booby-trapsd the cost suffering and there was nothing you could do about it. frustrating. on the other hand when you are under fire and men around you are becoming casualties and you are firing back at the enemy, lisa chance of

inflicting casualties on your enemy, that is much -- with at leased the chance of inflicting casualties on your enemy, that is much different. it is not more satisfactory. but it is part of the worlds. those were the territory -- goes with the territory. you are an infantry soldier. you're supposed to get into firefights. you get into firefights and you are so very excited you are running on adrenaline hour after hour. and you are shooting at an enemy who is shooting at you. and although it sounds cheap to say so, that is exciting. and you can get hit. i've this happen. it happened on 15 may. one of the guys in my platoon, i watched him get wounded. we had a casualty lying against a rice paddy dike and fred mcmillan, we called moon. a big boy.

he ran off and got a poncho from somebody and came running back towards us with a poncho to wrap this casualty in. and while he was running towards me, i was watching him. and while he was running, one of his hands just sort of slept out -- slapped out from under him. he never broke stride. he said, here, wrap them up with this. i said, moon, you have been hit. a bullet had gone in one of his thick giners -- fingers and come out on the other side and never hit the bone. he did not even know he had been hit. he said, oh, all right. he went back to work. things like that. you are very excited when you're under fire and you are running on adrenaline. that's kind of overdrive. and it's exciting. you do things you would not otherwise think you could do. thanks for the questions.

prof. wiest: we have five more minutes and maybe one more question? >> another thing on the booby-traps. when you're walking to the rice paddies on a regular day, there is a lot of anxiety. firefight isin a there still anxiety, or does that fear review with -- leave you with pure adrenaline? john: when you're under fire, all you are interested in is under fire. the threat of booby-traps is less because of the nature of that factor under fire means that your where the enemy wanted you to be. you don't spend too much time worrying about them because people are shooting bullets at you and those are more accurate than mines and booby-traps are. so, yes, you're right. prof. wiest: one more? john: yes, ma'am?

>> [inaudible] john: the enemy's biggest tactic in the delta was sickly to draw drawn c-- was simply to you in close -- less than 25 meters. we found that a number of times, if our plan of advance across thiselta would say off in direction and the enemy might be occupying a series of bunkers, a whole battalion position, a few hundred yards away. if our paths did not happen to go where they wanted this to be, they would not even opened fire on us, because they knew we would be too far away. they needed us to march right up on them. they had the battlefield prepared. they had 20 years to prepare the delta. there are parts of the delta

where every single rice paddy dike had firing positions, some with cover, hundreds of them. all a vc had to do is say go over to that bunker complex we dug up two years ago and see if any american units come that way. if they do, shoot it. if we did not have the right target, they would let us go right on by, because we were too far away. they needed us to be in close. that made it very tough for us. did i answer the question? >> i believe so. it sounds like the entire area zone.be a kill john: that is pretty much correct. they have had so long to prepare the battlefield in the delta. were firing positions even with overhead cover in so many of the rise paddy dikes --

rice paddy dikes, at least we used to blow them up with hand grenade. but there were not enough hand grenades in the world to blow up all of the fighting positions. we even step to doing that after a time. they had had a long time to prepare the battlefield. they did it well. thanks very much. thanks for your questions. prof. wiest: everybody thank john. [applause] have a good weekend. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] then july 1, 1976, smithsonian national and air museum opened its doors to the public with president gerald ford on hand for the dedication. friday marks the 40th anniversary in american history tv live coverage starts at 6:00 p.m. on c-span 3. one-of-a-kind

aviation and space artifacts including the spirit of st. louis. learn more about the museum as we talk with its director. the museum curator and valerie neal, chair of the museum's space history department. you can join the conversation as we take your phone calls, e-mails and tweets. the 40th anniversary of the smithsonian air and space me see him beginning at 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span 3's american history tv. on road to the white house rewind we look back to the 1980 presidential campaign. we will hear ronald reagan accept his party's nomination at the 1980 republican national convention in detroit. here is a preview. is the lawns,here in the people. the responsibility to live up to that trust is where it belongs, elected leaders.

that kind of relationship between the people and their elected leaders as a special kind of compact. a grouprs ago in 1620 of families dared to cross an ocean to build a future for themselves and a new world. when they arrived at plymouth, massachusetts, they formed what they called a compact, an agreement among themselves to build the community and abide by its laws. voluntarye act, the binding together a free people to live under the law, set the pattern for what was to come. a century and a half later, the descendents of those people pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to foudnd this nation. some forfeited their fortunes and their lives. none sacrifice honor. [applause] >> watch road to the white house

atind >> the hard-fought primary season is over. historic conventions are to follow this summer. delegatesan, as the consider the nomination of the first woman ever to a major political party. also, the first non-politician in many decades. watch live on c-span. you can also get streaming coverage on www.c-span.org. this all begins on monday, july 18. ♪ >> each week, "american history tv's reel america" gs