so to close the meridian to leave the show to the hotel it's church in new delhi who took the mower maybe her to carry collection remote a closer view of the maidens hotel. pagosa movie to render some ships and it was punished but they protest protests. but we can review on our to the president to meet their mates very difficult for timor to be drug trafficking and terrorism as he meets with his central asian counterparts afghanistan remains the world's largest opium producer while wash is the world's largest consumer. iran feels up as local and russian engineers load up its first nuclear power plant under strict supervision of the un's atomic watchdog

moscow has vowed to look after the site to prevent tehran from using it to make nuclear weapons. the thai government says it has the final say on whether to hand over a suspected russian arms dealer to the u.s. after a local appeals court ruled in favor of his extradition moscow has condemned the ruling on victor boot as almost full and politically motivated and says it will do everything possible to bring him home. and youngsters are step up their game in hope of becoming football stars of the future as chief inspectors assassin the country's ability to host the world cop in eight or twelve years time russia is up against the u.k. and the u.s. among others the decision will be announced in december. more on those stories coming up in thirty minutes time now for a special report on the vietnam war and what veterans have to say about wife then and now. vietnam

province klavan forte was a u.s. marine in the one nine hundred sixty s. against vietnamese communist guerrillas today for mob boss or is recall the time when they could only look at one another through the cross as we got better and better at it but still never as good as that we had the means that camouflage found hiding out using the jungle for their advantage the course of the war shifted when the soviet union sent anti-aircraft missile systems and military specialists to vietnam in his first action targeting us aircraft nicholai kolesnik brought down for almost. the first rockets reached the targets in exploded then the second and i can still picture these throwing skies that many of the local fighters trained by soviet missiles specialists later rose to the highest ranks of the vietnamese army and we were so good at disguising soviet missiles with three branches that american pilots could see nothing but thick forest that one did fifty eight thousand u.s.

army servicemen and over a million vietnamese soldiers dying full how have the wars veterans fed sins. now think about thirty five years old. hanoi the capital of vietnam six am morning exercises in the city's main square the mostly in the center is the resting place of the vietnamese communist leader who team in the movement for the country's independence the vietnamese managed to oust their french colonizers but the united states was seriously concerned with a new state of mind in line with communists and they were willing to use force to prevent that from happening. i signed up to join the military because i thought that it was my duty that it was something that i could do to help my country i believed my government that it was necessary for americans to

come to vietnam to help you by. greg klavan was born in california but now he lives in vietnam south with his girlfriend he first came here with a u.s. marine unit not long after his eighteenth birthday now only a few faded photos with his friends remind him of that period in his life. this was my best friend. with. this. one nine hundred sixty seven. by the one nine hundred sixty s. the had been divided into two parts with the border of the seventeenth parallel communists led by control of the north washington back politicians were of the helm in the south at its peak in the late sixty's the us supported them with more than half a million troops. thinks the most realistic of the war is francis ford coppola's film apocalypse now.

vietnam us troops stop short of nothing in a bid to achieve their objectives. they burned the jungle that served as a hideouts of vietnamese. but they also used a chemical weapon called agent orange to smoke them to the fullest. i just assumed that. was right and that we needed to be here but after a few months i started to change my mind and i started to doubt that we were doing . anything about it i still. couldn't just leave. the mccomb river delta new trees. destroyed the forest nearly forty years ago. but the chemical weapon has had

a sting effect on the people. in many villages there are many with birth defects these people were born after the war but the effects will pass to them genetically many years happened to be in the age and. these children live in a special village near there under the constant care of the. and psychologists. has been here for more than ten years she only visits her parents during the holidays. so when i was at primary school other children often teased me and it was their difficult for me to join the community and to play with friends. to be a doctor when she grows up so that she can treat children with ailments caused by chemical weapons. many are still hard to diagnose american and vietnamese soldiers as well as civilians felt the effects of agent orange in one thousand nine hundred .

and she died when she was six months old. and one of the first questions were asked me. so they knew. the facts. but they still. side all over the country. nine hundred sixty five. the u.s.s. often. around the same time defense units hold massive training exercises. constantly.

defense force during the exercises he heard rumors about defense units getting ready to go to a far away country to take part in. it before was sent to vietnam we get strict orders not to tell anybody we're going to distant places. what that place was. the defense missile system was to be tested for the first time in history in vietnam in military conditions. had a crew. i know this launches down to the last i felt at. times. the first soviet rocket specialists came to viet nam in april one thousand sixty five here they were officially called military advisors they organized a crash course training the vietnamese to. get teams did their work. and.

the vietnamese were generally not very tall rather short actually. it was hard for them to load the rockets. around. so when one of us was enough to load the launcher two or three vietnamese had to do it. was one of vietnamese colleagues he served in the army throughout the war when he was discharged from the vietnamese air defense force he held the rank of major general today he's a frequent visitor to today's a defense units he tells young servicemen how vietnamese fighters learned to handle soviet rockets the hard way and how they used the rocket systems in real life fighting it. at first they thought a launcher crew would take eight months to learn the system you. know war was our towns were being bombed so we had to hurry. we learned the make up of the hardware

down to the last in a matter of two and a half months. the vietnamese army is still equipped with soviet military hardware and it's still in working order despite its advanced age engraved inscriptions in russian and kept intact as a sign of respect but. most of the units of vietnamese army included men from small villages where people had never. even seen so much as a simple radio set but still they quickly learned the a.b.c.'s defense and even invented some tactical tricks of their own. for example they

camouflaged bulky soviet anti-aircraft missile systems so effectively that even that soviet instructors took home some valuable lessons. we learned to become a fire soviet rockets was. the place for them but as usual it was near the high tree after the come a flock american pilots most of thought it was thick forest. wartime films give an idea of what soviet rockets in vietnamese camouflage looked like. posts as well as launches were disguised. we see general. entering a makeshift command post it was from here that he controlled rocket launches twenty five of them hit the american bombers. while the rocket specialist spent a good deal of time trying to figure out american tactics that american pilots drop metal paper from their aircraft to distort radar pictures. and we did learn to tell

genuine targets from fake wants. the very first bottle in which soviet anti-aircraft missile systems took part was crammed with success they pulled down three american. music tree came less than a month later three rockets destroyed for want to go. and. as nic was in command of the launch of that brought them down. we see all three rockets explain. there is a flare each time the. sky is a good the american planes fall to pieces and to the ground like smoldering pieces

of wood. soviet and vietnamese servicemen manning rocket launches destroyed a total of more than eight hundred u.s. aircraft and helicopters during the war. afterwards fragments gathered from across the country were taken to vietnam's capital hanoi today they are exhibits at the national museum of the armed forces it centerpiece is a giant created from the twisted components of downed bombers. hungry for the full story we've got it first hand the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers. every month we give you the future we help you understand. and to bring the best in science and technology from across russia and around the world. knology update on our g. each year. the

former commander of a crew of soviet rocket specialists visits a restaurant in moscow to meet with vietnamese war veterans. they marked the anniversary of his crew's first victory. after that battle a table was laid for soviet specialists but the menu was filmed. the food was somewhat exotic we've never eaten anything like that tasted and looked like nothing when. the vietnamese to tell us about the food we were eating. the russians from vietnamese soldiers in the field will pull however they received additional supplies from local peasants defense units were normally stationed. most of villages. chante gum is ninety five years old both of his sons were guerrillas they lost their lives fighting in what was then

south vietnam. she joined fellow villages in the north to help the launch a crew who took part in the first battle. i remember exactly how it happened. the acrobats wings fell to the ground on the house next to mine later we went there to see the remains. today there is a thick jungle where joint soviet vietnamese crews for their first battle there's no trace left of the rocket systems camouflaged with tree leaves which were once stationed here. in the first burnell soviet specialist died in rockets towards their targets as we look done. we were overjoyed to know that all the targets had been here and that was our first victory. despite that subject change their tactics as soon as soviet anti-aircraft missile

systems appeared in vietnam. in an attempt to evade soviet rockets they had to fly into no well to shoot. the found made them easy prey for the vietnamese women who served us and. you have gone through so many different emotional turns in the process of making your mission accomplished and by the time you return to base. you are totally exhausted and probably wet. bum a pilot pete peterson was downed over north vietnam in september one thousand nine hundred sixty six he returned home after a seven year. in captivity nearly a quarter of a century later after official relations between the two states were finally restored peterson became the first u.s. ambassador to vietnam today he lives with more than just memories of the.

probably somewhere back. part of a russian missile somewhere. at least in my memory. the truth lies in the center of the capital where there is a monument among its banks with the names of american pilots who were shot down among them is united states senator john mccain written in vietnamese. one of those who took naval part of the mccain prisoner whose patrol. on july the twenty ninth one thousand nine hundred sixty seven he was on duty near the lake. i saw a plane right there then i saw a parachute. and headed for the parachute by boat. this picture shows members of a vietnamese militia units lifting mccain out of the lake. is among them.

dragged him ashore. at first i couldn't quite understand how he felt. the pilot noticed a knife in my belt his face showed that he was. john mccain mistakenly thought that he would be killed instead he was immediately given first aid later he spoke in an interview for french television from his hospital ward. he served most of his term in this prison. it's housed in a colonial era building today it's a museum but in the one nine hundred sixty s.

imprisoned u.s. pilots jokingly called the prison the hanoi hilton. during the war captain chang jones who it was the jails warden his job was ideological work with inmates including john mccain. finally a moment that he had strongly held beliefs that mccain never agreed that american pows seen vietnam was wrong but i had my own opinion he was a republican i was a communist the americans troy to establish their order there but we fought for freedom. five and a half years later john mccain returned to the usa and continued to serve in the navy. but as a presidential candidate in two thousand and eight he used rhetoric that not knowing his background might have even being considered pacifist america is the

greatest force for good in the history of the world my friends we have gone to all four corners of the earth and shed american blood in defense usually of somebody else's freedom and our own so we are peacemakers and we're peacekeepers. evidence of war crimes against vietnamese civilians started coming out while john mccain was still serving his prison sentence. a horrific massacre took place in the brutal community of my lai in one hundred sixty eight villages was suspected of helping the guerrillas will than four hundred people were murdered in a matter of hours. reports concerning vast and other episodes critically undermined the morale the among us troops stationed in vietnam. there was a lot of drug use there was a lot of murder of american officers by american soldiers there were

a lot of units who refuse orders to go out and buy they said no we're not going to fight. in the united states meanwhile the movement against the war in vietnam was gathering steam. there were mass protests. antiwar rallies and the famed march on the pentagon organized by peace activists. later many vietnam war veterans joined the protests themselves former fighters would drop the medals they'd been awarded in vietnam in front of the u.s. congress. before the war i always thought i wanted to win a lot of medals i wanted to have a lot of decorations but afterwards i realized that they they don't mean anything they're not that important. i don't i don't i never kept the medal i never.

ever did anything about it. is a district twenty kilometers from hoochie minh city formerly known as saigon ex marine greg played in. a former vietnamese guerilla. nearly forty years ago they were bitter adversaries fighting each other below them lie two hundred fifty kilometers of underground tunnels vietnamese guerrillas would dig them around the clock covering over the fresh earth and disguising numerous entrances to caves . going down there i don't want to try. even if the entrance to a tunnel was discovered it was hardly possible for most american soldiers to get inside but vietnam these guerrillas were able to crawl through even with rifles in their hands they would vanish into thin air after taking several shots from

a camouflaged dug out. during a raid made by b. at the emmys gorillas in the jungle a bullet fired by a sharpshooter narrowly missed greg klavan. on the one hand the jungle was very beautiful very exciting to watch and to be in but on the other hand it was very frightening knowing that any time. could attack the freedom fighters go in and weapons from north vietnam there was a whole system of secret supply routes locals called it the home team in trail american forces potentially. with the help of the vietnamese peasants the guerrillas how to restore the trail constantly. the traces which led to the jungle routes were fully hidden to misguide the enemy. each time we were on the. tracks with

a tree branch. and. december one thousand nine hundred seventy two the americans make a last ditch attempt to force north vietnam to surrender. operation linebacker two so the largest heavy bombers strikes since the second. into leaks of continuous raids u.s. aircraft dropped more than twenty thousand tons of explosives on towns in north vietnam. that combined power much thought of the atom bomb dropped on hiroshima in one thousand four hundred five. just absolutely normal it's explosions and. at the same time i think it also persuaded. that. it was time.

to. that diplomatic story. the city of hanoi the wreckage of one of thirty u.s. b. fifty two bombers is still buried in a lake here the consequences of the military operation called linebacker two soon after that the u.s. troops started to leave vietnam. in van mean often brings his grandchildren here when the war was over he served in the vietnamese army for a further twenty years retiring as a general now he writes his memoirs about how his battalion took part in resisting the last american air raid. that happened right here. because it was subjected to very heavy bombardment. and the wreckage of this aircraft is a good illustration of the defeat suffered by the united states here. unlike his vietnamese counterpart sergeant nicholai kolesnik decided against continuing

his military career. after his return from vietnam nicholai left the armed forces to become an electrical engineer but he meets several times a year with his comrades in arms who served with him in vietnam. the former u.s. marine greg klavan returned to vietnam in one nine hundred eighty six he makes a living by giving private english lessons when he left vietnam off to being wounded in the war it never occurred to him that some day he might come back let alone share a table with vietnamese guerrillas so coming back and seeing. the fellow people . get to go into school he didn't normal life made me feel better that we didn't completely destroyed all of the. things that we.

have gone through i wish that the people of the united states the people of vietnam and all nations always live in peace and understanding. since the end of five years ago many things in vietnam have changed in some can expected ways. one of the buildings of the jail with us in mates nicknamed the hanoi hilton is now indeed a moat and the hotel. the u.s. flag is often seen side by side with the vietnamese flag on the facades of joint ventures college undergraduates domes to modern pop music near a monument to soviet leader lenin. but one thing remains the same. is guarded around the clock by the soldiers of the vietnamese army the army the guadalupe.

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