billy waugh and his team were plenty business. the dramatic increase in troops change your missions at all? >> drastically. we moved from coast area up to the cambodian and laos border. special forces starting to build to stop the ho chi minh trail. >> we cannot be defeated by a force of arms. we will stand. >> in july, president johnson announced the troop levels in vietnam would rise to 125,000. >> johnson still wants to avoid a debate on vietnam. so what johnson does is he understates the number of troops that general westmoreland requests. he understates the amount of money it's going the take. >> the marines patrol around the air bases in chuy lai and da nang. but they still need to be worried about booby traps. >> it was almost a cakewalk. >> did you have good maps? >> not good maps. good enough to call in air. >> vietnam has a whole lot of nice things like leeches and flies as big as houses. >> oh, yeah. and you get into a fresh water stream and decide it's time to wash up a little bit. and you've got all those leeches hang

. >> while ho chi minh battled the japanese, 16-year-old billy waugh growing up in southeastern texashis first attempt to get into the fight. >> i ran off in 1945 and tried to join the marine corps and asked are you too young? i said i'm 18. he said no, i am not. and he put me in jail until i told him who my mother was and she hauled me back to texas and i got a tailwhiping for that. >> billy would have to wait for his chance. end of world war ii brought peace and jubilation to many. but when paris sent troops back to vietnam, ho chi minh had a message for the french. >> he actually said to one of them "you will kill ten of us for every one of you that we kill, and you will get tired of it first." >> during the late 1940s as ho chi minh fought the french, america was focused on its own post war problems. >> the french are fighting for colonialism, and that's not nice. the viet minh are communist-led and that's not nice. the only nice thing about the problem is that it's not our problem. >> but the cold war made it our problem. >> they start getting military aid coming across the board