the vietcong have had enough.e nowhere to be found. 11 vietnamese are found, however, in a vietcong prison camp. they have apparently received no medical attention while in the hands of the communists. the vietcong for several months, the ailments range from open sores and skin infection toes malnutrition. as well as deformities caused y by -- this man, a forler vietcong was later captured by the vc cannot tell of his unspeakable nightmares. on the 9th of december, the odyssey of the brigade continues. back up north. the vietcong have been cleared from huyan province at this time and the screaming eagles are moved to the north in record time. the deployment of the brigade by means of parachutes marked the first jump in more than a year for many of the men. but they're in superb physical condition and the jump goes well. as 1966 draws to a close, the brigade descends to take part in operation ticket, fighting side by side with vietnamese army forces and militia. the men of the 101st once again will scour the countr

this is all vietcong. their rationale, of course, is that we had undermined prospect of elections which had been agreed upon in geneva a few years earlier. they had a right to challenge us on that front. the fact is that this was not a civil war primarily. it was north vietnamese invasion and vietcong were an arm of the north vietnamese. >> you were already negotiating publicly in geneva, but -- >> in pair zblris. >> in paris. that was going no place? >> we were negotiating publicly and privately. we had some talks. and we reached an agreement just on the eve of the presidential elections in 1968. the greatest pressure to reach some kind of agreement was one month before our elections on a bombing halt and exchange. we would stop bombing north vietnam in exchange for them lowering their attacks on south vietnamese cities and we also agreed that the south vietnamese party represented at the peace talks, which is what led to what, for many people, was this rather absurd discussion for about a month at the en

were losing ground they after day, month after month, to the north guerrilla forces known as the vietcong. so, they wrote what they saw, following the dictum and the elements of journalism you have read now several times, the journalist's first obligation to the truth. they felt not that the u.s. was wrong to be there, but that the american people ought to know what was being done in their name and how the war policy was failing there, or at least looking like it was going to fail. the military took umbrage at this. and halberstam later told the story of how a high-ranking marine general, a veteran of world war ii himself, an older guy, was spreading a rumor around saigon, the capital of south vietnam, that david halberstam had been seen weeping over the bodies of dead vietcong. david halberstam was outraged at this. it was not true. the general was at home. he was flying into the army base outside of saigon. halberstam met his plane. he was a big guy, tough guy. he towered over this general. he chewed him out. it took some guts to do that. he said, don't you ever spread lies like that ar

and you were praising the democrats by compare them to the vietcong. >> in the hanoi hilton could not break john mccain's resolve to do what is best for his country you can be sure the angry left never will. >> jon: what john mccain is a great leader because he endured five and a half years of brutal treatment by his captors... hey, guantanamo bay isn't a prison it's a leadership academy and by the way mccain may escape the wrath of the angry left but mccain is no match for the cuddly left. all throughout the -- stop staring at me. who wants socialized medicine? you do. yes, you do. after honoring the president by allowing him to speak for almost eight minutes it was on to the two real stars senators foghorn leghorn and droopy dog. >> i think -- >> i say, i say -- >> i'll tell you what. >> you know what? >> i appreciate it. [cheers and applause] >> to the distinguished senator from toon town. boing! senator leghorn went first. reaffirming the new republican mantra that the leaders of today are the [bleep]-ups of yesterday. >> he drove a corvette and dated a girl that worked in a bar a

the operative plans only prepared south vietnam's military to cope with vietcong guerillas. if american troops were to withdrawal, south vietnam needed to be capable of fighting north vietnam's regular forces, as well. at the end of march 1969, nixon embraced vietnamzation, expanding the u.s. program to grow and modernize south vietnam's forces so that they could bear the full burden of combat. laird advocated vietnamzation as militarily feasible and politically pragmatic. it was his major policy contribution. he assumed that the new administration had a short breathing spell before war critics resumed their attacks. laird doubted a negotiated settlement could materialize before public and congressional opposition became irresistible. under vietnamzation, south vietnam's a armed forces doubled in size to over a million while the u.s. military presence in south vietnam dropped from $540 tlous in 1969 to under 24,000 at the time the paris peace agreement was signed in january '73. by the way, january of '73 also saw the end of conscription and laird's departure from office. la

he explained the war was lost and had been told that the vietcong planned to cut off the hands and feetof all pilots and kill their families. feeling he had nothing to lose and a lot to gain, the pilot stole the helicopter and flew to his neighborhood and picked up family and friends. just before 11:00 a.m., kirk's cic reported an inbound south vietnamese helicopter which then flew overhead and out of sight. the crew noted that all the vietnamese helicopters thumped over the top of their relatively small ship looking for bigger targets to land on hopefully just over the horizon. from there altitude, doyle realized, they could probably see them, the blue ridge, the hancock, and the midway. and all the rest of those ships that were receiving the big helicopters. doyle and his fellow crewmates were suddenly caught up in the drama and saw the possibilities. we never anticipated a helicopter landing on us, but we started talking about it. chief engineer doyle recalled. wouldn't it be great to grab a helicopter? wouldn't it be great to take part in this? the captain also seemed eager to take

a kind of hippie fantasia perspective, why can't we get i along and the vietcong terrorist who befriends the soldier. and i had a view of what was going on over there.so but that is a rich source ofld material for me, trying to understand the military issues. and obviously if i make blanket statements about troops, that is not going to help me in trying to deal with their issues.atem so i've written about ptsd and e many of the other sorts of tsd wounds that warriors come home with. and it is not that i try not too antagonize them, it is for me, for the brass, because i'm a liberal, there is no reason fore me to be welcomed on military bases and such.ra but enough -- we got enough feedback from the field, the guys writing about our issues. my break through was in 1990 when i got a letter from the then chief of staff in the army gordan sullivan before desert storm saying we're getting good strong response from the field from the soldiers who feel you are connected to their issues, which i was, because i was getting a lot of letters from them.om t so i was invited over and . brought over b

they didn't want to accused by the vietcong and others of being overly soft. what do you think, joe? >> i think here winston and i may differ slightly. i think it's important to have secret negotiations. they accompany almost any negotiation about a serious issue. but i think henry had a somewhat expansive view of that, which is keeping it secret. >> that's a different issue. i meant the public. >> i understand. my point is, for him secret negotiations also meant not telling the state department or pentagon or keeping them somewhat in the dark. >> let's explore that a little while. on one hand you were negotiating, and you were exhausted, negotiating in good faith. everything you seemed to try wasn't working. you were getting beaten up in the press, called you baby killers. it was a terrible time. yet at the same time you were keeping i guess president nixon had the courage to take that because he thought it was the most effective way to negotiate an end to the war. but talk to me about why was it kept secret from the rest of the government? was that essential