JUST LIKE ME: The Vietnam War/The American War

Underwriters [FOREST SOUNDS] I'm still not sure why I had agreed to hike up Hill 861 at 6:00 AM with several Vietnam veterans.

And if the rain, leeches, and razor sharp elephant grass weren't enough of a challenge, I could only imagine what it would have been like with an enemy soldier hiding nearby.

But I need to go back some 50 years to first explain why I was in Vietnam on Hill 861.

[MUSIC PLAYING] It was in 1967 when I found out that the first kid from my neighborhood was killed in Vietnam.

It was inevitable that my draft notice would soon arrive.

It wasn't if, but when.

And when it did, it planted the seed for this project.

{WALKING ON GRAVEL } Every time I go back, I want to engage myself with the culture, so that I can see how they view us, and then I think about how we view them.

I said to one of our interpreters, I said, well, the Vietnam War was pretty significant to us.

And he goes, which war?

I said, the Vietnam War.

He said, I don't understand.

And then the interpreter said, oh, the American War.

That was the first time I realized that they don't call it the Vietnam War.

We call it that.

So anyway-- Listening to Kimo Williams talk about his interest in the Vietnamese culture reinforced the comments from a veteran I had previously interviewed.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Several years earlier, I was producing a documentary film about Vietnam veterans who had children that had served in Iraq.

Someone recommended a veteran living in Atlanta.

I called, his wife answered and said, Arthur needs to talk to you.

He's kept his stories to himself for 40 years.

Months later, I was at Arthur's home.

And after the interview, I constantly thought of one particular story he shared.

After everything was over with, we did a body count.

This Vietnamese-- he was like a sergeant.

He had a book with him, and in it was some letters.

One was a letter from this guy's wife, and the things that she was saying about missing him, and the children.

And he had written a letter that he hadn't posted to her.

He was saying the same things that we complained about.

He had the same feelings.

But unfortunately, he never returned home to his family.

Now I look back on it, and I said, wow, he was just like me, trying to get home.

[MUSIC] Arthur's insight made sense.

Young men and women may fight against one another, yet share similar hopes and dreams for their future.

My curiosity became an obsession.

And I needed to learn more.

I've talked to a lot of North Vietnamese veterans we fought against.

And as combat veterans, we're brothers in a very dark way.

We understand each other, even though we're on opposite sides.

[SPEAKING VIETNAMESE] We are loyal to our country.

We are loyal to our country until now.

I am loyal to the yellow flag with three red stripes.

And we never accept communism, no matter what.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Saw myself as both a soldier and a young man out of place sort of melded together into one thing.

So it felt unreal.

Is my body really doing this stuff?

Am I really pulling this trigger?

Every able young man in this country want to go and fight for the national independence and unification of the country.

So I went.

And I wouldn't mind sitting across from somebody who did about the same thing I did, that was a platoon leader for North Vietnam unit.

I suspect a lot of what we went through would be the same t For me as a child, you saw that you got numb.

You don't really have any feelings back then.

It wouldn't help if you cry.

It wouldn't help if you would just scream.

[MUSIC PLAYING] I decided to produce a documentary, but made the decision to avoid trying to tell the complex history of war.

Just basically, I just-- The idea came with some challenging questions.

Would American veterans participate in a story that included the former enemy?

Would South Vietnamese veterans look past the many years of animosity they have harbored since the war ended?

And was it feasible to find and interview the North Vietnamese?

There was only one way to find out.

I traveled throughout the United States and Vietnam to record stories from veterans and civilians.

While some still struggle with the past, most were reflective and willing to share their personal story.

most were reflective and willing to share their personal story.

most were reflective and willing to share their personal story.

I was asked repeatedly why I was interested in the war since it ended so many years ago.

That was a good question.

I told them that I too was a veteran, and that we can all benefit by understanding and acknowledging the humanity of one another.

I had enlisted in the Navy after being drafted, and made three deployments to the South China Sea on board an aircraft carrier.

Watching planes launch fully loaded and return with no bombs made the war seem somewhat abstract to me.

But it wasn't abstract for those who experienced the devastation from the bombing.

And their stories vary depending on which side one fought.

And they bombed from 30,000 feet.

And this whole valley just completely turned upside-down and just completely turned into a fireball as far as you could see.

You didn't hear it happening because they were so high.

And then we would push through that.

It was still hot, still burning.

And you just feel the heat.

And there was still the chemicals.

And we still took fire.

And you think, how in the hell does anybody live through this?

But the reality was more terrible than that.

As an experienced soldier, you knew when the B-52 was coming.

Suddenly, the battlefield became very quiet on the reconnaissance plane and helicopters and other stuff left the region.

Then we knew that the B-52 were coming.

But we didn't know where the bomb would come.

And you sit there like a duck trying to cover yourself.

and waited.

So I lost one of the hearing of my ears in one of the B-52 bombing.

And lots of my friends died in that bombing, 1971.

We go in the village, and suddenly we see in the sky, the smoke from a B-52 bombing.

And we go in the tunnel.

And you know, it is like this.

We hear every day.

And there were a lot of bombing.

And because we live in the countryside, there were quite a lot of that.

That was my earliest memory of the war.

And then just basically, I just never thought anything was different.

After a few years, you just figured that was the way of life.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] It goes without saying that combat is a formidable topic when we think of war, but unexpected stories are also important.

For example, music and art, and their connection to the war.

[SPEAKING VIETNAMESE] I go to school every day.

And so I walked by this artist, so I could stop by to watch him paint every day.

And he saw me often enough, and he kind of see me not just watching him paint, I'm kind of interested.

So one day, he offered me like, kid, you want to paint?

Oh, yeah.

[CHUCKLING] So he kind of talked to me and gave me a piece of charcoal and a white paper, and he started showing me how to draw.

And then I say to him, but I want to do some coloring.

He said, no, you're not doing coloring until you do black and white.

I knew of the program.

I knew of it from being a kid and going to the Smithsonian and seeing-- beginning with the great Civil War photographs, all the time at the Smithsonian, in the back of my head and always thinking, well, I could do that if I had the chance.

I saw a notice on the bulletin board one day, a call for portfolios for the next Combat Artist team number 11.

So I put together a little portfolio and sent it in.

And then I got in.

Our company was the headquarters company.

So we were a part of this huge brigade.

All these air bases were being built right at the edge of the Mekong River to do bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

And the Viet Cong, they were smart in terms of, the trail started in the North and cut into Laos and Cambodia, both neutral countries.

They didn't think we would go in to that area.

And of course, we did.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [SPEAKING VIETNAMESE] The Ho Chi Minh Trail-- the main artery for resupplying their forces in South Vietnam the main artery for resupplying their forces in South Vietnam ran through Laos and ran through Cambodia.

They certainly were not observing the integrity of those two sovereign nations when they came down.

Tonight, American and South Vietnamese units Tonight, American and South Vietnamese units Tonight, American and South Vietnamese units will attack the headquarters for the entire communist military operation in South Vietnam.

This is not an invasion of Cambodia.

You hear all the rumors, well, whatever you do, try not to get assigned to the 1st Cav Division because they're having a lot of trouble now there in Cambodia.

So the next day, you hear, well, if you've got to go in the 1st Cav Division, just don't get assigned to Charlie Company because they're really getting their butts kicked.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [SPEAKING VIETNAMESE] We were told we were going to Cambodia.

And it was kind of all starting again.

[SPEAKING VIETNAMESE] Down here.

Down here.

Ngoc Tung was here.

And then [INAUDIBLE] and-- And then [INAUDIBLE] and-- He'll show you where he goes in Cambodia.

It's just right up here.

[SPEAKING VIETNAMESE] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] Here is my map drawer.

This is my lensatic compass, that I used to navigate in Vietnam, hung around my neck.

And when I was medevaced from Vietnam, it was still around my neck.

This is an example of the maps we carried.

This one has all the dirt still on it from Vietnam.

On the other side here, right here, this is Duc Lap Special Forces Camp with the fixed-wing area, where we combat assaulted into Cambodia, established Fire Support Base Ranch.

And I was wounded there on the 24th of May, 1970.

[MUSIC PLAYING] [SPEAKING VIETNAMESE] [VIETNAMESE WOMAN SINGING] Well, we are going to the residence of one of the composers.

He was very famous during the war.

If we are lucky, I hope we can hear one of them singing.

As a soldier, you stayed in the jungle a very, very long time.

But when you go to the performance, you can see beautiful performers.

And that's good enough.

[VIETNAMESE WOMAN SPEAKING] [VIETNAMESE WOMAN AND MAN SINGING] [CLAPPING] [INTERPOSING VOICES] And we're going to stay away from Hendrix, right?

[LAUGHING] [GUITAR PLAYING] The thing about getting into the guitar was I was remembering the concert I went to just before I went to Vietnam, which was to see Jimi Hendrix live at the Waikiki Shell.

And that changed my life.

It really sent me into this concept of how powerful music could be.

So I started really getting into music.

And so while I was in Vietnam, I played the guitar probably every day.

And every place I went, I took one with me.

And our first assignment was with this 60th Engineer Company.

We would, every once in a while, have a USO show or a military show come by.

And I'd say, hey, I play guitar, too.

So I talked to a Special Services woman, and I said, look, I would love to put a band together and go out and perform.

And she said, well, let me hear what you can do.

[MUSIC PLAYING] So I called a couple of guys I'd been working with.

We started to practice together, and we started to play some tunes.

And everybody would say, well, what do you know?

What do you know?

And I'm saying, well, Jimi Hendrix.

I know Vanilla Fudge.

I know The Guess Who.

And they're going, The Guess Who?

Vanilla Fudge?

And we know Jimi Hendrix, but for now, what is that?

So I always had a tape recorder that I had right next to me, a little portable tape recorder.

And I would turn it on and then just kind of sing a little song or sing a melody.

So we put a band together, we auditioned for her.

And she said, you guys are great.

We'll put you on 30 days' special duty.

And for 30 days, we just played throughout Vietnam.

Some of the most dangerous times while I was there was when I was in the band.

[MUSIC PLAYING] We were talking earlier about an artist who did sketchbook.

Can you tell me a little bit about him and his work from the American War?

Tam is my friend.

Many times, we work in one same place.

I make a movie, and he paints.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [SPEAKING VIETNAMESE] [MUSIC PLAYING] Officially, we're United States Army Combat Artist Team Number 11.

They would send out one team of four or five people each year to document military and civilian life in Southeast Asia.

That's what our orders were.

We always carried the sketchbooks, small-sized ones that you could put in your field jacket, and then developed a larger thing, a finished piece from those things.

So we had larger, really nice sheets of drawing paper to do a full-scale drawing on and stuff.

So they kept all the sketchbooks.

And they were intact.

And the larger pieces, we matted and framed.

And the larger pieces were the things that were in this final summary exhibit.

And then everything got shipped back.

We always wondered what happened to this work.

And I had heard various stories from other people.

One of them was that one entire crate got misplaced on a dock in Bangkok.

And I was pretty certain that half of our stuff was destroyed.

[MUSIC PLAYING] We right on the Cambodian border, we knew there was tremendous sanctuaries up there.

There were rest areas.

There was areas of caches.

They had heavy weapons, fuel depots, and those sort of things.

What happened, the second platoon had set an automatic ambush up.

And the enemy passed through it.

And several of the enemy were killed, but he didn't kill all of them.

There were some blood trails.

My platoon went back out the next day to follow some of these blood trails.

And they led back down the trail to a bunker complex.

My point man said there's somebody in one of those bunkers.

Not really sure exactly how to approach the situation.

Didn't know whether he was going to fight and end up losing his life in trying to kill some of us.

Or if he was going to try and surrender.

I just took the chance that he wanted to survive.

I crawled forward and tried to encourage him to come out.

I remember my RTO was not very happy.

He was right there with me, and he was-- kept on giving me a lot of hell.

But it turned out I was right.

He was in there.

He was armed.

He was armed with a pistol and had two grenades.

So he certainly could have continued to fight.

But he wanted to surrender.

And we took him prisoner.

We took him back to a landing zone, and brought in a helicopter, and sent him out.

And I really never found out too much more about him.

There was a little bit of readout in the following day, in the S-3 report about who he was.

I always felt pretty good about having done it because you get an opportunity to take a life sometimes, you don't get an opportunity to save a life.

And it was just kind of a unique situation, where I was able to take a chance.

And as far as I know, this guy still lives someplace in Vietnam.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Traveling throughout rural Vietnam can be quite an adventure, especially on a rainy day with confusing directions.

But I was determined to visit my friend, National Liberation Front veteran Nguyen Duc Toan.

I had made arrangements to meet Toan at the Project Renew Mine Action Center The center's mission is to reduce the number of deaths and injuries caused by unexploded ordnance that still remains in the ground.

[SPEAKING VIETNAMESE] Toan captured American Navy pilot Phillip Kientzler when his F-4 crashed just hours before the signing of the Paris Peace Accord, the meeting that ended American involvement in the war-- and Kientzler became the last American POW.

{MUSIC } The center's staff assured us that the crash site had been surveyed, and it would be safe to travel there.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [SPEAKING VIETNAMESE] I'd got to the point of kind of dealing with memories.

And I didn't think I was doing a very good job at dealing with it.

And I asked for some help from the VA and got that, and kind of worked through it.

And in doing that, I realized that probably one of the things I needed to do was kind of reach out to some of the people I served with and kind of get their perspective on things.

After the fact, I found out about Phil Zook, but I didn't meet him there.

In fact, we may have one of these two ships at night crossing.

I could have well been his replacement.

Got to the company, and this guy come around, wonders who's from Indiana.

From basically eight miles apart growing up, we talked a lot and became pretty good friends.

I arranged for Phil and his two buddies from Charlie Company First of the 7th, 1st Air Cav to meet and talk about their experience during what was called the Cambodia Incursion.

We've talked so many times before about the spring of '70.

And it's just a good opportunity maybe for us to get together and kind of put things in order.

When we were in Cambodia on the 13th, the company's strength in the field was 106.

And we continually made contact every day after that.

On the 16th, if our base was hit, they had a ground probe.

The enemy actually got inside the wire.

That was on the 16th.

On the 17th-- The snipers?

Was when the sniper hit the squad from-- Third Platoon.

Third Platoon.

I know I was in the mortar round start.

I was there underneath the biggest, damn tree I could find.

Boy, they were just dropping all over and hit you guys.

We came back, and we'd saddled up, and we were in a kind of night defensive position-- the NDP-- here.

And I had one of the best guys on point.

I had Reuben Less on point.

And we hit an area where it was-- there was a-- a B-52 strike had gone through.

And we just had all this broken up area where trees were down and everything and-- Craters.

Yeah, craters and-- There was mucky water and-- Probably a mistake was we let Reuben get a little too far out, But we had a lot of confidence in Reuben.

He didn't make mistakes.

But he got out, and he got out in this broken area.

And he alerted.

He stopped, and he heard something that happened over on the left, movement or something like that.

And just about the same time that he alerted to the left, somebody shot him from the right.

He dropped, and he was dead.

And that's what started the firefight, the four-hour firefight there on the 24th of May.

We were on the edge of this bunker complex with all this bomb strike in between.

And, you know.

I've often thought if we'd just pushed ahead right through the center-- but we stopped-- we might have been able to get up to his body.

But you know, late in the day-- Rog, you know, late in the day, helicopters broke station.

And they had to refuel.

And they had done it several times.

And every time that the helicopters left a station over us, they tried to mortar us.

You could hear them getting the tube out.

And they'd fire around.

And they were unsuccessful.

But 6 o'clock, and everybody's out in the dark.

And we're going to pull back.

And we're going to try to work up the next day.

And then the rounds dropped on us.

And three rounds initially, something like that.

Right on top.

Yeah.

It just went right down through the company just the way -- a lot of them fell on First Platoon.

up here.

No way to get away from them.

And that's kind of where my day ended as far as it goes.

I'm wounded after the round lands in there.

My RTO was killed.

Nick Thoele, a 19-year-old, killed that day.

I remember seeing that my squad leader, Sergeant Blue, he was laying down.

He was still alive.

We got some guys up and got him moved back towards the rear.

And I'm stumbling back.

And that's when I ran into you.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] When I saw Phil coming, he was still giving orders on the radio, trying to get all of these guys together.

And I looked down, and his boots are all full of blood.

So I said, you're hit.

He said, yeah, I'm hit a couple times.

So I cut a pant leg off to treat him.

Wrong pant leg.

And he let me know about it.

So I cut the other one off.

He's shot through the thighs, bleeding from the butt.

He stands around me with bandages all over.

He has no pants, none.

No long pants on anymore.

The guy was still giving orders.

It was a heck of a day, and he needed treatment.

So a lot of them did that day.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] I don't care if people remember me.

But I want them to remember Manuel Torres, who on the 26th of April, when I'm going to go and try to get back to where the guys are wounded in the second platoon, and my RTO's coming with me, and I turn around and I say, I need a rifleman to cover me-- and I thought that's all I needed, was just a rifleman-- I didn't say you do it or-- he just voluntarily got up, and he came with us.

He ended up getting killed that day.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] I want them to remember Sammy Morrison, who carried my radio.

He got wounded twice.

He got wounded two times.

If I got wounded, he got wounded.

And the second time, he was killed.

And then you wonder what you might have done different.

There's never an answer.

And then you realize how fortunate we are.

At least from my viewpoint, I think of, what have I done to deserve making it through?

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] The middle of the night, about a hundred of us are so saddled up, which means put on your gear, your canteens, and your rucksack, and your ammo, and grab your weapon.

And we walked for two or three hours in the Vietnam dark.

And we encircled the village.

It's called a cordon, where you put three platoons and circled the village.

And the fourth platoon was outside the village, along a paddy dike.

And the idea was that full light, that the three platoons would sweep through the village and push the enemy out of the village into this rice paddy, and the fourth platoon-- my own-- would gun them down in this open paddy.

At full light, three Viet Cong figures came out of this village.

They were as far away as-- I don't know-- 10 yards, 15.

You couldn't see their features because it wasn't light enough, but you could see their silhouettes very clearly against the kind of purple background of the coming dawn.

And we opened up with everything we had.

And 10 minutes later or 15 minutes later, when it was light enough, we found one dead Viet Cong soldier.

I will never know whether that dead body out there was killed by a bullet from my weapon.

However, I was there, and I pulled the trigger, so I can't avoid responsibility for that.

It was like a 16-year-old kid.

It was a young, young kid with a mom and a dad and sisters and brothers presumably, and maybe a girlfriend.

Who knows.

He was dead.

And I could have been dead the next day or the day before.

{MUSIC } A human being.

And so, I have been haunted by a sense of responsibility.

It's true I was a soldier.

And sure, I'd gone, I could have said no.

And so I wake up at night thinking, am I responsible for that person's death?

And the answer has to be, yeah, I am.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [SPEAKING VIETNAMESE] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [SPEAKING VIETNAMESE] [MUSIC PLAYING] In Vietnam, reunification is celebrated as Liberation Day on April 30.

But to most South Vietnamese veterans and refugees, this is a painful day.

And they observe Black Friday on April 30.

Some of the most compelling stories I heard were from refugees.

Haley Nguyen was one of them.

My dad moved my family to Vung Tau, where my grandparents lived.

So when my parents say, let's go, we're going on a boat, and we just-- basically, we did as we were told.

And three days before Saigon fell, we just went out to a fishing boat.

We got picked up by American ship and a aircraft carrier.

And I remember the chaos, that people were trying to get on the ship.

I see people dropping into the water and get shot at, but you were just really kind of numb.

I don't think they were prepared for us.

I think about a week or so on the ship, and then that's when we ended up in Guam.

And then just wait for people to come and tell us And I'm sure my parents-- with seven children just trying to survive-- it was very, very hard.

But at the same time, it's almost like it's this new adventure.

We do just the normal things, try to adapt.

And then we have to wait for the sponsor.

Before, when the whole entire journey, when you get on the ship, come to Guam, you go to a different camp, you were still amongst other Vietnamese.

And when we got to Indiana, we're like, we found ourselves, it was just us.

My family was sponsored by a Catholic church in Indiana.

And they drove us to Floyds Knobs.

Then that's when our life in America really actually began.

That's when we really started crying and said, oh, my God, this is our life, our new life.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] Carol and I went to see Platoon by Oliver Stone.

And it is the first time I ever saw any type of artistic expression connected to Vietnam.

Carol and I stayed up all night just sort of talking.

She finally got me to talk about my experiences in Vietnam in ways that I had never done before.

I decided to release an album that took a lot of the melodies that I had created when I was in Vietnam on a tape recorder.

And I took these melodies because I learned about music composition when I was at Berklee College of Music.

They wanted me to do something classical.

So I had to come up with something new.

So I decided to speak more about Vietnam.

I called it Symphony for the Sons of Nam.

So the march of the sons going to Vietnam, and then the march of the sons leaving Vietnam.

But my favorite composer is Modest Mussorgsky He wrote this piece, and the music is supposed to reflect an individual walking in a museum.

So with my Symphony for the Sons of Nam, because he was my favorite composer, I said, in order for me to give my audience an understanding of my experiences through music, I want them to experience looking at a photograph album.

So the first, Event 1 is called "March of the Sons."

And this is a boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

So I want somebody to have that feel, but they're looking at a photograph album of soldiers marching.

[MUSIC - KIMO WILLIAMS, "MARCH OF THE SONS"] Kimo had been invited to The Vanguard High School in Colorado Springs to talk about his music and how it relates to his experience in Vietnam.

In addition, he mentored the student orchestra, and they performed his composition, "Symphony for the Sons of Nam."

[MUSIC - THE VANGUARD SCHOOL MUSIC STUDENTS, "SYMPHONY FOR THE SONS OF NAM"] Ah, here's some of Richard's work.

I mean his architectural.

And again, these are some of the ink sketches he did.

This was called Different Variations of the Card Game.

We initially met in Indiana.

And some of his artwork was in the exhibit.

He wanted to come and see the collection.

I had gone through our files and drawers, trying to organize artwork by artists, by period.

And I found approximately 2,000 pieces of art mostly from Vietnam, which had never been cataloged, never had been accessioned.

Among these things, these pieces were quite a few sketchbooks.

And as it turned out, some of those sketchbooks were Richard's.

He came, and for the first time, he saw the sketchbooks, which he had thought were lost.

I had understood a lot of the original work had been lost, just sitting on a loading dock somewhere in Asia.

But as it turned out, she said, well, look at this drawer see if you can see if there's anything.

And they were all flat files of sketchbooks.

These kinds of sketchbooks.

One was mine.

I hadn't seen it.

And I thought for all those years, they had been destroyed.

[MUSIC PLAYING] To see him see his sketchbooks again and see-- it brought tears to my eyes because he was so overwhelmed by that moment, to see these works that he had created in the spur of a moment while he was in a country how many thousands of miles away.

And now to find them in Washington DC.

And they were in perfectly good condition.

And he could remember every single piece and what he had done.

It was a magical moment.

[MUSIC PLAYING] So much time had passed.

They looked strange to me.

They almost looked like the work of somebody else.

And you don't.

Sort of like the work of your lost self, [CHUCKLING] that you're getting back.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Well, welcome to the US Army Center of Military History.

We're here today at our Museum Support Center.

So among our other collections here, we preserve the Army Art Collection, which consists of eyewitness artwork by soldiers from World War I to the present day.

Our Vietnam collection is right over here.

So let's take a look at it.

[MUSIC PLAYING] So let me show you some of Richard Nickolson's works.

This is his sketchbook right here.

And it's something that is a very personal item for an artist.

You can see that he took notes on what was happening, so later on when he went to his studio, he'd remember that this happened on a certain day.

So because he is witnessing these things firsthand, he has that personal intimacy with his subject matter, that you wouldn't see if he was working from someone else's photos.

I'm going to put the sketchbook away.

And we'll take a look at some of the finished works.

Now this is actually four different scenes here in one work.

It's called The Card Players.

And this is a great example of how the artist since World Wa but he's continuing that tradition in Vietnam.

He's focusing on the people.

He's not focusing on combat.

[MUSIC PLAYING] On April 30, 1975, North Vietnam Army sketchbook artist Tam witnessed and documented the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government in Saigon.

[SPEAKING VIETNAMESE] [INTERPOSING VOICES] Saigon City was swollen with people.

Someone cries.

Someone shouted.

Just like it's indescribable sight, Saigon.

The whole future shattered.

And after that, we had nothing.

{MUSIC } April come around.

The whole Saigon, actually the whole Vietnam-- South Vietnam exactly-- really in chaos.

I have a friend, his mom told me that she would send him away.

I could come if I wanted to.

And she hesitated a little bit, but said, OK, well, let's go to American Embassy.

The first hour was really relief.

It was so good to get inside the Embassy.

We are really safe now.

Every time a helicopter come down, they pick up 50 people.

So it's not even 10 people in front of us, so we all went in the front line.

Then I look to the wall, that nobody here.

All the Marines guarding the wall with the barbed wire, so people don't climb in.

And all of a sudden now, I didn't see the soldier anymore.

That's when I said, oh, wow, I think this is over.

I remember that was a long, long walk with very heavy step out of the American Embassy there.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] I met Binh at the Mark Adams Woodworking School in Franklin, Indiana.

His experience of being in prison and three attempts to escape is a chilling story, but has a happy ending.

When I get left behind in American Embassy, I have no idea what my life have become.

The next thing I know, I was in prison.

I said, oh, my God.

So those were the two most significant, worst thing in my life at that time.

But as it turned out, that was the best thing that ever happened to me.

The artist is inspired by different things in their life.

At that time, I'm chasing my freedom in how I got here.

Sometimes there's something really bad happened to you.

Don't think that maybe it's not meant after all.

[MUSIC PLAYING] We were lucky that the strangers that took us in were really good to us.

I went into a parochial high school in New Albany.

After that, continuing on to college.

And so I chose Indiana University in Bloomington.

And I have just been over here in this country five years, so my English was not that great yet even.

But somehow, I survived it.

I graduated in 1984.

I have to tell you that my life would not have been the same had it not been for Indiana.

[MUSIC PLAYING] I got out, the first thing I did was buy a car because you have to have transportation.

The second thing, I then went to a gun shop and bought a pistol, a 38.

And I carried that 38 for probably And I carried that 38 for probably almost a year in my back pocket, that I just almost a year in my back pocket, that I just felt naked without a weapon.

I felt-- I had no intention of using it.

I would tell people, I don't know which is stranger, go into Vietnam and walking the trails, or going back to the USA, and you're walking down a concrete street, and people are looking at you.

And they have no idea what's going on inside because you're just another person walking down a concrete street.

I remember working in my mother, dad's house.

And nothing had changed.

But it all looked dangerous.

It all looked-- I didn't trust it any more, and I couldn't stay there.

I never talked about it for years and years and years I realized after all those years, I had never spoken to a Vietnamese.

Never probably saw one that wasn't shooting at me.

I said, I'm moving because I just got rid of everything, quit my job, and moved over here with nothing else, see what happens.

Maybe if I come back, they'll find a way to see me as a human being through their own humanity.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] I didn't know what truth was anymore.

And truth gets undermined.

There's that phrase, truth is the first casualty of war.

It doesn't apply just to journalism.

It applies also to the human soul.

You lose contact with certainty, Im certain about certain things Everything is suspect, including your own heart.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [SPEAKING VIETNAMESE] [SAD MUSIC] [SPEAKING VIETNAMESE] When you think about it, the one who joined the army with you spent days and months and years with you.

And just one day, they died.

You not only missed him or missed them, but you also think, why?

I don't think my father and mother ever recovered from such a loss.

The loss is always in their hearts.

My father used to say to me that if the communists seize South Vietnam, try to look for a boat.

And if you cant go sink your boat and die with the boat.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] Tell me a little bit about this newspaper article.

The editor of The Herald-Times contacted me and sent a reporter over.

And he did a nice article on me about my plans and about my experiences in Vietnam.

And it came out on a Monday.

And that evening, I got a telephone call about 6:30.

And the fellow on the other end said, we had a nephew who was killed in Vietnam.

And he was killed on the 24th of May 1970, the same day that you mentioned that you were wounded.

Is there any possibility that you might have known him?

And he said his name's Nick Thoele.

Well, Nick was one of my guys in my platoon.

And he was killed right beside me.

Nick's uncle asked if he could put me in touch with Nick's mother.

And I wrote a letter and heard back from her in a telephone call and visited her several times.

When she passed away, I was told that the stuff from Nicks room was all boxed up, and that they wanted to send it down here to Bloomington for me to go through and identify some of the stuff that was in it, and kind of share with the family what all of that meant.

So I'm hoping to get that box some time and go over to his aunt, and take a close look at what's in the box.

Don't know what it's going to be.

It'll be surprising.

I can't look at this.

[INAUDIBLE] There's a picture, and Nick here right there.

Got some in my scrapbook.

I wonder if the light would help you.

Don't help much, does it.

Yeah, this is from John Puleo.

He was in the squad.

He's in the picture.

That's John right there.

Oh, it is.

And he was wounded.

It's just hard to talk about that stuff.

You know-- You just-- I think about how hard it was to go over and see your sister the first time.

You feel so guilty about being alive.

I'm just-- I was surprised how she held up.

This is-- Yeah, there's-- There you are.

There's the article that's with-- Yeah, I've got that in my scrapbook, that picture, because they put it in the Bloomington paper.

That was so serendipitous.

I've got one of these, too.

It's in the album.

Sally, let me take all this with me.

Thank you very much.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [INTERPOSING VOICES] The one that you may-- I think you have is the one that I have in my collections, too.

And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

[INTERPOSING VOICES] Nick Thoele was one of the more than 58,000 Americans who died during the war, along with millions of Vietnamese.

I was fortunate to return home without trauma or physical scars like so many did.

I was in a college classroom the following day, and had a crush on a young woman sitting a few seats from me.

We've been married since 1974.

When I first decided to produce the documentary, I wasn't sure where it would lead.

But it's been helpful in trying to understand and have empathy for the former enemy.

During the war, we all had hopes and dreams for our future.

And Arthur was correct when he said, they were just like me.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Underwriters