 My name is Karen E. Forester My father captain Ron Forester United States Marine Corps is Still missing in action in North Vietnam He is only one of 1621 Americans who are still missing from the war in Vietnam 104 of them are also Texans He is only one of 3,417 Texans who sacrificed their lives in Vietnam But he is the only one that I call daddy My family like all in my a family's still wait for answers In my a family's like our gold star families miss their loved ones every day And we greatly thank our Vietnam veterans for it is you who stand by our side and hold us up Even though many Vietnam veterans still work to resolve their own demons And we can't forget the veterans families because they serve too For POWMA families Gold star families and for many of our veterans the Vietnam war is not really over It really never can be with the empty chair at the holiday table The what-ifs and the constant struggle for closure and healing This is our reality This is the cost of war As a board member with the national league of POWMA families I have the honor of working with other families like mine And representing them and talking with our government and foreign governments as well I also share in the celebration that comes with the any answer to an MIA's fate And answers do come they just come very slowly I'm also a proud participant of run for the wall Which is a cross-country pilgrimage That focuses on promoting our veterans healing Calling for a full accounting of our POWs and MIAs Honoring the ultimate sacrifice of those killed in action And to support our military personnel around the world Our outreach program looks to embrace MIA and KIA families along our route So that we can let them know their loved one is not forgotten And that we appreciate and understand the family's sacrifice Now sacrifice is no stranger to any of your panel members here today While I have just shared with you The reality of life after the war Your panel members will share with you the reality of the war So please allow me to introduce your panel for this afternoon's session The troops of you from the front lines Liz Allen is a graduate of Ohio State University with a master's in psychiatric nursing She joined the united states army to help men like her own brother who were serving in vietnam She requested frontline duty and was assigned to the remote twelfth evac hospital in kuchi In the winter of 1967 she was transferred to a field hospital in play coup Soon to come under attack during the ted offensive Completing her tour of duty in april of 1968. She went on to serve 14 years in the us army reserves John Sibley butler was drafted in the united states army shortly after graduating from lsu He served two years in vietnam and was awarded a bronze star for valor in combat An author and professor in the management department at the macomb school of business at the university of texas at austin His prolific writings include the book all that we can be which he co-authored with charles moscos He also researched the involvement of african americans and the vietnam war isaac camacho enlisted in united states army in 1955 He served as an airborne jump instructor before becoming a member of the newly formed 77th special forces group He served two tours in vietnam one in ashile valley and the other in the province of weyden guia In 1963 he was captured and imprisoned by vietcong forces and became the first gi to escape a vietcong pow camp He earned the silver star and distinguished service cross for his service in vietnam ken wallingford entered the us army in 1969 He was sent to vietnam in 1970 as a sniper with the 25th infantry division A year later he volunteered for a second tour as a military advisor with the military assistance command vietnam In april of 1972 he was captured and imprisoned in the jungles of cambodia for more than 10 months before being released at the signing of the paris peace accords He was awarded the silver star and the bronze star He is currently the senior advisor to the executive secretary of the veterans land board Your moderator today will be dr. William adams William bro adams Formal education was interrupted by three years of service in the us army Including one years of first lieutenant in the vietnam war He credits his experience in vietnam as part of what motivated him to study and teach in the humanities He went on to serve as president of colby college from 2000 to 2014 When in 2014 he became the 10th chairman of the national endowment for the humanities Please join me in welcoming your panel to the stage Well, good good afternoon, and thank you all for coming. We're glad you're here and we're delighted to be here and we're looking forward to this Uh hour or so of conversation about our experiences. This is the moment as President finbas said that we have a chance to talk about the experience Of being in vietnam and that is of course one of the most important dimensions Of this summit and that's what we're going To do today. So thank you again for being with us as we remember and recall some of the Experiences that that we had I'm going to start with that very question and ask starting with liz and going down Uh the line here. I'm going to ask each of the panelists to talk a little bit about daily life In their units. You've heard described their assignments When they were in vietnam generally what they did But I think it's important to talk a little bit more about what the actual daily life in those units was like And so i'm going to start with liz and you can kick us off I was hoping you was going to do him first. No, no i'm doing you first Ha ha Let me tell you there was no Regulation on daily life it depended on what happened in the field How many body bags did you get? How many helicopters came in and living was hell Excuse me for saying that word, but that's what it was The temperature was hot and as those troops came in How do you come to grips With 150 body bags in one day I had two stations in vietnam koo chi Which you know at the tunnels The little guys got to do the tunnels Because the big guys couldn't get through the hole But the real thing about the tunnels Were the spiders at the end Of the tunnel And as those we got them And there was no psychiatric service to help them There cannot possibly be anything worse Than a spider On your face Part of the things that we have to deal with in war are supplies There were days that we thought nothing was ever going to come How do you run out of ammunition? Blood transfusions and water in a war zone That day after day You dealt with it Talk to don't let me talk too long Because I love to talk I'm ain't gonna lie to you Because you don't see many women Who know about war And I did koo chi which you know at the tunnels and play koo which was the Which took the first bomb of the tet offensive And I tell my friends don't ever call me at night Because the first rounds came in at night and There was nothing to do and I knew That the phone was going to ring And I was going to have to go and the chief nurse calls and she says captain allen. I says yes I said what do you need me to do She said you have to go to the unit And the unit was further than this wall and that wall and I said is somebody going to go with me And she said Captain allen I am so sorry You have to go alone And as I opened the door The two nurses that were there with them The guys were on the floor because they were bringing them in You can never imagine the carnage Of that kind of war And I say that to you Because it's not something that I talk about How In the hell Can you deal With 40 Young men Some with no legs Some with no arms Some with their chest open And you have nothing To give them but love And I'm on pass I know you were in the medical side of things as well Or had a pretty good view of that Maybe you could Send this View of what Liz has said Absolutely when I think about it I think of helicopters and blades I think of Body bags and support and I think of guard duty I think of My first flight To americale I was in the americale division And we supported the first of the six The area was shula fuba induct four I think it was very very important for us to Think about what we call mission And that mission was Very very simple We had a war to fight And it was a war that was There were no really front lines I thought that everything was a front line From the pulling of guard duty at night To taking the rounds From the vcs At night also So I think that when you think about the faces And you think about What you've done Think about how do you get a person From the battlefield if you will To an aid station Or to a hospital As quickly as possible And I think america cut that down from Career to vietnam I think it was like ten minutes or so I think about The kind of injuries in vietnam were traumatic Amputations When I say that I mean not only legs But also arms And I think that The idea in terms of the day to life Is to get through And make it to the next day We all had a saying about I can't wait until I go back to quote Of the world So getting through The day to life And remember we didn't have The whole idea of cell phones We didn't have skype We maybe had mail call twice a week So it was very very Isolated What held me together Was understanding that I was part of A tradition that went back to The revolutionary war And I think I belong to a great Faternity of soldiers who served And I think that when you look And think about the day to life Which I really haven't talked about Since I left vietnam It is about services About putting up with just the Continues of war Which in my case is the Of helicopter blaze And we also didn't met caps To the vietnamese people So when I think about that That is what I think about You had two tours I understand So a variety of experiences And a variety of contexts Yeah well my daily life Was different from the first tour To the second tour Of course I was a prisoner of war First tour was mostly combat missions And combat patrols And reconnaissance of the Ho Chi Minh trail Interdicting the enemies lines Of communication And of course trying to stay alive But the Second tour when I was captured I would just try to find ways To mess with the enemy Even though I was a prisoner of war I became the prisoner of war cap Scamp according to them Because I was always doing crazy things For example I broke the rice mill And they found out that it was me But I wasn't about to mill All that rice that they had there And I got pretty tired So I mean the other thing About daily life is just really Trying to stay alive and survive Trying to beat the odds We were affected By the Jungle-born diseases I had malaria, hepatitis, berry Berry And a big strong case of dysentery So We were just trying to survive In prisoner of war cap I always kept my mind Very open And develop a plan to escape And I finally escaped Ken I know you were a POW As well for a period of time Tell us about Well I did do tours also Similar to IC That the military Can do its best to train you But in the end result It's not like OJT You know when I landed at Cameron Bay And got off that airplane It was so hot and dry And said Cameron Bay is a beautiful, beautiful place In Vietnam And then eventually Flew down to Cu Chi And was there for a couple of weeks While I was in processing You know I went to Vietnam I'm a military brat And I went in the military afterwards And we all know how controversial The war was Literally divided this country And you know but I felt As an American citizen It is my duty When Uncle Sam calls You serve Irregardless Of what the conflict is And a lot of people chose to You know run off to other countries President Carter let these guys back in But You know I went because Duty called duty served And so on my first tour of duty I was a sniper And we go out on five to seven men Teams and this is a war too Remember number one Was never declared by Congress We fought it with one hand Tied behind our back For example we weren't supposed to be in Cambodia We were in Cambodia The first unit I was with After six months tour of duty From Cambodia And all they did is really delay the inevitable But when we go out on these Five to seven men teams and sit up In the jungle environment We never fought a jungle warfare in our lives So this is a new experience And so when you're sitting there And you're waiting for the enemy Because there's intelligence that the enemy Has been moving through this area And then I tell school kids this Killing is never right But I was military trained And government issued To do a job And I did it pretty good But when you sit there And see the enemy Cross on a path And you squeeze that trigger And you see them drop That really sets a tone For the rest of your duty And after a while it just became natural And then so I said I like this military stuff Extend and come back And I had to come home for 30 days And then all I had to do was another Seven months of tour And then I would get out of the military five months early My second tour is with McVeer military assistance command Vietnam station out of South Vietnam which is 75 miles North of Saigon And so Six days before my discharge My camp of four Americans Two hundred south Vietnamese soldiers They were here with 30,000 North Vietnamese And Vietnam soldiers This was in 1972 They had the goal then during the spring Offensive of 72 to go to Saigon Like they did in 1968 We just happened to be in their way But We held that camp for three days Before driving Russian tanks And they literally overran the camp And I lost two men On my five man team And we went to the helicopter's land Because it's just too hot And so we went into hiding They found us the next day, started pouring gasoline On top of the bunker we were in And of course you know if you start smelling gasoline Well on top of cocktail, those kind of things So we exited and then And you know probably I can maybe couple people in this whole program That have fought against the enemy And we have lived with the enemy And so we have And I'm not saying this boastfully I say it very humbly And we learned What communism is all about From the enemy's perspective So it literally changed my life Because I went to Vietnam Because I was supposed to But what literally changed my mind And even to this day I was agnostic when I went And on that second day Of a three day battle When I realized And I can remember this day That day as I'm sitting here today Praying And we've all heard the adage There's no atheists in foxholes Battlefield conversions Ladies and gentlemen you are looking at one of them Because there was nothing I could physically do To get out of there And you start praying You raise a very interesting question That might be a good thing for us To explore a little bit I too was with the Vietnamese I was an advisor To a regional The Mekong Delta So my daily life was spent with the Vietnamese I was with an advisory team But it was a small team And our interactions with the Vietnamese Were ubiquitous and they were daily And they were constant I went to training At Fort Bragg Learned some language Some other things But I have to say when I got there I didn't feel very well prepared For what I found I wonder how you all felt about that In terms of your own activities Did you feel well trained Ready for what you saw Or were there things that Surprised you fundamentally And made your experiences Much different from what you expected The real deal Is you can't See here What you saw there One of the things That The most difficult for me Was how do you handle An 18 year old With no legs And no arms How do you handle that And that is a one shot wound And it always happens On tanks Because they sit With their arms Down And as the missile hits This side Both arms and both legs And remember This is an 18 year old With no arms And no legs And I'm the one thing Because I'm going to get to talk again Trust me But When I look at What happened here Because I have to tell you I had two brothers in Vietnam At the same time They told them to give me up My grandmother Almost lost it She has three Grandchildren My grandmother raised us In war at the same time And that was a very difficult Place for her The other thing And I am going to bring race Into the issue You know When a young male Gets into trouble They offer him the military Rather than prison And so Here he comes 18 years old And gets assigned To the wolfhounds Or he gets assigned To An outpost Area Where they sat in that boiling sun All day The movie What was that movie About Vietnam The one that really got to me Where they carried everybody Off in the little bitty white bags And stuff It didn't happen like that Because the plane would come in And they would throw off All of the body bags Because he got to go pick up some more We Actually With as much money As much skill And as much Stuff As we have We ran out of bandages We ran out of water We ran out of medicine Some slip on the floor And I always used to think If you all would quit that damn marching And get something done So that we can do something That we need to do Because All of those people All of those guys Belong to somebody Before they came And there was nothing We could do about that And I'm going to talk About Ted Because it was Our guys in the north That knew about Ted The south did not know About south About Ted And when the first rounds came in We did not know what to do We did not have the supplies To handle that And Being as I Had the surgical units When you see that much carnage And no way to stop it And you look at it Every day Every night And you look at it And it makes sleep Real difficult For people like me And this is the first time I understand this is the first time They've asked a female Who was in Nam On the front line To have something to say Because we Act like We didn't have Let me say one little thing When I came back An adult came up to me And says can I ask you a question And I said sure what She says were they really shooting Real bullets I thought And what did you do during the war John were there things that Surprised you that you didn't feel Prepared for that came to you As a kind of out of the blue I don't think there's Any way to prepare for war I think that the training that we went through Was what most soldiers Are going through that is we were fighting An enemy and we were there To kill the enemy And I think that training meant that Whether it was whatever War that you don't see them Necessarist people You have to have a renegotiation In the training of you know I'm on my way to Vietnam I'm on my way to kill a Charlie Con And I think that Training is almost Wrong but like my colleague Said here it becomes second nature And I think what We did well Was to train in terms of On the weapons side But it was a different kind of war That we had fought over the Year that was different from World War II Plus we had the rotation system Where we went there as individuals Rather as units So if you divide the training Into the psychology part You are a soldier And your deal is to Not to ask why but to do or die And then you add the training Of what you need to do Whether it's in my case learning how to do Bandages Learning how to do guard duty Learning how to go on med cap Learning how to take people in And out of helicopters And I think that became good So I think that In terms of the preparation I think that the American soldiers Did extremely well I think that we had problems Back at home with the Demonstrators and the Congress So I think that if you look at What we were trained for because I think we won Every Ballot So I think that the Training itself was good but there's Absolutely no way To train for being a prisoner of war There's no way to train For all of the mass kinds of Destruction that you see Whether it's standing there And watching a beautiful field And when the marine pilots Do their jobs and the Air Force Is just all ballering So I think that One of the training that we went through Was understanding that although You were fighting the Vietnamese We had a med cap that she had to be kind To the Vietnamese people Of that kind of war And that training for me I would go to villages And I would engage the Vietnamese people But I was always aware that everybody was the enemy Because At Liz and I were talking in the green room It was the kids who would also Blow you up So I think that's important So the training was good for what we knew But I think that we've learned more about That kind of warfare Sort of outside of your expectations I came from a different outfit than these guys Here but I thought I was in special forces And we do Some extensive Area studies before we go into Whatever country we're going to go To include survival language Study of the terrain The mountains, the river, the flow of the current On the rivers, which way they're headed Who we're going to see, who we're going to meet What they talk, what they like, what they don't like And so forth For about six months Before we deploy So our special forces teams Are pretty well prepared Unless they know the mission changes When you're en route out there But most of the time we'll land And go ahead with the mission to our designated Areas We had the The problem with the Mountaineers was that everything That we taught those people We had to go to the interpreter And then that interpreter would go into French The French would go into their lingo Their dialect And so when we trained For example Camp defenses You're talking to an English To a guy that speaks Vietnamese In English and so forth down the line Well a lot of that stuff gets lost In the translation But I think that we were Very well prepared To do our job in our mission And Some of these other units I later learned Thought that they were going to go in Country And find some little Oriental guy With a third world class weapon But they were probably Thinking about the Viet Cong, the VC But you can't differentiate The North Vietnamese From the South Vietnamese They all look alike I kind of had it a little bit closer And I got into them kind of tight The color of my skin Those guys would pull up their arm And put their arm against me And they'd kind of say, hey, we're the same same We're kind of like buddies But We were very well trained To Encounter the mission that we were in But in reality The North Vietnamese soldiers Were the best fighting soldiers Of In this entire world And they had hunger For victory Because in the long run up north They had told them, Ho Chi Minh's dream Is to unite North and South Vietnam And the staff was also told that way So in case Ho Chi when he died Then this guy in command Would do that and they promised themselves that Until the last man standing there Was killed But they were going to reunify the country And so they did And they fought very hard Compared to the soldiers in the South They were nothing These kids were trained to drop their guns And run Leaving us there, the Special Forces guys To defend themselves Against an enemy That was very well trained And it happened in a lot of instances We talk about the tanks When I came back I was given some good intelligence Because I was the first president of war To come back and really explain to them What I had found out I had realistic And truthful intelligence And I told them about the tanks And the little kid from the AMI He said, how do you know they weren't ours I said, my God man What kind of fool are you You can hear a tank right there At the president of war camp Would have been long gone into Cambodia And by the briefing I told them about That they had armor Bill Craig, another Special Forces soldier Was at Lang Vey And when the tanks hit Lang Vey They knocked out those three Russian tanks And down the road Bill thanked me a lot He said, you know what, I read your report And thank you for the intel Nobody was prepared to fight some tanks But when the tanks came over They had 3.5s and all 57s And of course the mines To repel the tank attack So they come up smelling like a rose Ken, what surprised you What was outside your expectations That you had to deal with You stop and think about Vietnam The location 10,000 miles away From the United States of America Until the war started No one had ever heard of We weren't the first There If you look at history Genghis Khan Before them and for them So time was on their side They figured they could out wait us If you will How many lives are we willing to spend In a futile effort As a result But I can remember going through villages And keeping in mind Some of you that maybe were in Vietnam $400 a year Is all they lived off of And they're living on Dirt floors, grass huts No electricity, no indoor plumbing Just hard working Dedicated people All the local South Vietnamese people wanted Is just to exist And they got caught in the crosshairs And you see kids That the Viet Cong had shot And wounded But they wanted to hang out with us Because they didn't like the NVA or the Viet Cong As I said I could always tell the difference between The NVA and the Viet Cong NVA war uniforms the Viet Cong did We kind of said they were the farmers by day Fighters at night And so When we got to prison camp in Cambodia Deep in the jungles of Cambodia And I was putting a five by six tiger cage With a ten foot chain locked around My ankles I had been there probably in 17 shrapnel wounds The first time I was interviewed Now keep in mind there's five tiger cages There's a guard stand with a kid Probably about 14, 15, 16 years of age With an AK-47 And so the guy that took care Of his smoking was fairly well And he came and took me and we went a long story short I went inside for about an hour And a half sitting on a tree stump About six inches off the ground And this guy sitting at a bamboo table In a chair And of course generally speaking Some Vietnamese people are short in stature So as soon as he sat down I immediately figured out This guy's got superior position on me Because I'm having a look up at him So over the next hour and a half During that first session They go well we wish you could go home But there's a war going on and yada yada yada And so he starts getting down to Who are you with, what units are you in So you start making up stuff But it was enough for him to say And it wasn't true or accurate He said well is it with this unit Now this guy is speaking English Better than most Americans And so we do this I call this a little dance because I try to put a positive Or a negative situation I knew someday I was coming home I didn't know when But I made the mental Decision I'm going to beat this thing I don't know how long But I will go home So I live every day Every day is a great day If you're thinking you have it a bad day Let me tell you one day is a PO day But I say that humbly But after we finished this And he asked me about some propaganda Material that they shared with me About some battles that I'd actually been in And I said well I have to Disagree with you on this One particular battle You guys didn't win He looks, leans forward And looks at me with all seriousness No, you've been misled By that propaganda machine We've got in this country called the free press Now I'm 25 I'm kind of cocky But I'm in no position to be cocky In that environment And I'm thinking to myself You've got to be kidding me And that's when it really sunk in Because they reiterated it later on Even if something is false If you repeated a thousand And one times it becomes true And I said to myself Wow So as I mentioned before You're fighting with them Living with them seeing their perspective And knowing that Maybe someday we'll go home Not sure when Like Ike he was fortunate to escape I couldn't figure out how to get out of there Get off the chain, get out of the camp That had punchy sticks on the inside Plus it was late in the war President Nixon was taking 10,000 troops out a month 50, 183,000 troops in 1972 So we said we're going to give it a year And see if it works out And then we try and anticipate escape John, you and Ken Have both raised the important question Of what we heard and knew About what was happening in the United States And how that affected Daily experience I think that would be a good thing to explore I would just remind everybody That as somebody has already said There was no television There was no regular contact Letters took about a week There were no telephone calls There was Vietnam radio In Saigon And made famous In the movie Good Morning Vietnam And in that story Most of the information came slowly And it was difficult To know immediately what was happening At home But we did hear, ultimately Everything that was going on And there was a lot going on When I was there in 1968-69 The anti-war movement was Really becoming very powerful So we heard More and more things about what was happening In the United States And of course it had an effect on us I'm wondering how it affected each of you Liz, if you could talk a little bit About how that news To the degree that you had news How that affected your daily life Answer that question intelligently We didn't get no daily news What daily news The only kind of news we had Was about the people marching over here That's what I mean We heard that all the time And I'm being a lady so I'm not going to cuss today I'm going to hold that back You know what I'm saying We didn't Get any of that kind of stuff There was some radio stuff That we got That We knew what music Was going on in the States But there seemed to be no way To get any information back To the States So that they could get off their duff And do something that was helpful Does that make sense? And so we didn't really get that much radio Especially Because I was always out In the field I didn't want to go to Saigon They wanted me to go to Saigon to work I could stay at home and do this And so radios Didn't work So we didn't get any of that Kind of stuff Most of the stuff that I heard Because I have to tell you I had two brothers also In the war at the same time So there were three of us in the war at the same time Really wore my grandmother down But they were Navy And I was Army And so we just Didn't get that kind of thing And there wasn't the kind Of wiring In the heavy war zones That Would allow radio And that kind of stuff to come through So we didn't know much Until the very, very end About what was going on Here And I have to tell you I was sort of Glad we didn't get to hear it Because when you got 30 guys with their bellies Opened butts broken Eyes blinded I don't want to hear Any about that mess Because I really did have Something to do Does that make sense? I had something to do And I sat around And talked about what I wasn't going to do Because The 25th Infantry Was a mighty infantry group It really was And we had special forces The 25th And they were always In battle I don't think there was one day That I was there That they were not Well But my grandmother would let me know What they were saying here And what I understood Was saying here Didn't have A damn thing to do With what was going on And I used to think If y'all would get From in front of that television And send us some supplies I sure would be thankful John how about you We had to start the stripes But of course You're not too concerned about Debating that And the reality came When I was in Seattle and I got the briefing And the briefing was Take your uniform off and watch out for the hippies In a different kind of situation And I think that The war divided itself And it also divided itself between GIs Who thought that People should serve People who were protesting And going to Canada I had my undergraduate school There were not lots of protests Against the war I went straight from From the military To Northwestern University To graduate school And I wore my jacket Because it was cold And I think that The idea of serving in Vietnam Always put in a forefront When I have it on my resume now My favorite story is I was a veteran of the game For the Kansas State game here at the University of Texas And the veterans called me and asked How could a decorated Vietnam veteran Be a professor at the University of Texas So I think that Paul Woodruff Another good friend of mine Is also a decorated veteran But I think that I really didn't Begin to think about it Because when you're there you think about your duty But I tell you when you got home You had a different kind of vision But it wasn't too interruptive when you were there There wasn't a... I looked at it personally About people who did not want to serve From an academic point of view I thought that the country was changing You go back to the Revolution In a war you had the same kind of Dynamics but a different level And the resentment Is that my hero Are the people that I served with And not the people who demonstrated But that's okay, that's my personal Kind of resentment I know it's a free country and you can do what you want to do But in terms of what I've done And what I did My heroes are the people who did not come home And the people who were main And the people who were traumatized Rather than the people who refused To fight for America And I also have reservations About President Carter Allowing people to come Back in full citizenship But I think that kind of attitude is indicative When you begin to cut Through the layers of what The experience of Vietnam was But I think that the reality Of what happened in the war And the reality of all the demonstrations That took place I think it's a historical question As to what went on I went to Houston to give a talk in Southwest Houston And I was pleased because there was a statue In the Vietnamese Community of an American soldier So I think that It didn't affect me there Because I was Solidarity was with the troops And certainly was not with the protesters How about you? Were you aware Of what was happening? I think we had an edge over the conventional units Because we used Morse code Our commemoration with each one Of our teams has a communicator That's an expert in Morse code And he would get the message And I'll give you a good example President Kennedy was assassinated Minutes after he was shot We knew about it The message came in He deciphered it President Kennedy was shot In Dallas More to follow When he passes away in the hospital We get the message that he's gone With just a small amount of time But conversely The enemy Had very good communications To the Chicago Tribune Washington Post Times It hurt me real bad Because I had BS my way To tell them when they were Interrogating me that I was just a supply man All I do is Give them forms Whenever they need boots I give them boots and all this stuff So I kind of sold them on that story And I said well I think I got over on these guys You know One day they called me in And like Ken said here You're sitting in a little stump like that That guy's way up there He said you've been telling us That all you did that you were a supply man That you gave them boots and uniforms And all this stuff He said yes So he picks up a copy of Time Magazine And he says you know Are you familiar with this publication I said yes Time Magazine He saw Magazine He threw it at me He says turn to page 19 Page 19 There was a picture of my camp Burning Right after the attack And on the bottom caption of that photo It said we're starting in first class I said Kamacho was teaching Anti-Gorilla Warfare I didn't know how to respond to that thing But only one thing I said you know I said well you can't believe everything There's your brother And we then he said now We really want to talk I bet they did And I mentioned to him I said remember in the first days When I was here with you guys I told you that I had seen a bus That was exploded by a mine That you guys looped the bus With civilians and it was About five miles south of Kantube I read that in the Saigon paper And he told me He said well you know Your Americans are so ignorant It's just propaganda And you know you're not supposed to Believe everything you read And so that was my second comeback Remember you told me not to believe Everything you read And it left me alone Ken I wonder if you could talk a little bit About what you were hearing And did it alter your experience To influence your experience Like a lot of these folks You know you got the stars and stripes You were back in base camp When I was in prison camp My parents wrote me letters I wrote a couple of letters They give you a little five by seven Piece of paper with five lines on it What are you going to say I'm deep in the jungles of Cambodia Things aren't going real well Everything's fine The food could be better but I understand I knew those letters were never going to leave Every afternoon and again Every afternoon after siesta time They would come back and unlock the cages Now I had a ten foot chain Around one of my ankles Locked the cage itself and never came off Unless I went to the bathroom or bathed every ten days This I'll call my little friend to be nice Would come in the center of the camp And play this transistor radio The voice of Vietnam Straight from Hanoi Of course it wasn't biased or anything And I can remember very clearly Because This was during 72 When you had the presidential elections going on You had a guy named Richard Nixon On the Democratic side you had a guy named George McGovern Well, again going back What I said earlier They distort, as Hikes said The truth Because it sounded like this young lady From Hanoi That George McGovern was going to win The 72 election I think maybe he carried three states One of them wasn't even his own But it talked a lot about the protesters The anti-American sentiment But you had to kind of filter that stuff out Even though And I'm going to be nice You had a guy on the program The other morning that was married to a famous actress I have a different word That I will not share in public For that individual She Tom Hayden And Fonda did not Help our cause In fact, they played Jane's recorded Message for 30 days And I will never forget When she ended her transmenu These are poor innocent people There was Peo Debes in North Vietnam As you already know that were tortured That refused to meet with her She never did come down to South Vietnam Cambodia or whatever But her ending statement was Who I talked to Your mother, Lucy and Linda Who was embarrassed that the attorney general Under your dad went over there But I go to bed crying Every night thinking of the damage We have done to these poor Innocent people I said really I know she's apologized I'll leave it at that But we talk about Vietnam veterans being recognized today Because we didn't start the war We served each and every one here today And those around the world That wore the uniform during that time period Should be applauded Should be assluted And thanked for your service Because if you were drafted You went some didn't Obviously I volunteered because I felt It was my responsibility and duty But I tell you what, lessons learned And I talked to a guy last night With a San Antonio paper Lessons learned going forward They had to a certain degree I don't necessarily agree with what's going on Militarily But the men and women serving today 12 to 15% of the people serving today Are females which I think is great and wonderful Number two They all volunteered There's no draft And Vietnam veterans, older veterans And even the public in general Is thanking these young men and women When they come through airports Or they're in a restaurant I think we've come a long way And hopefully we can take some of those lessons Forward Besides, let's not get into something That the country is not fully committed There's no vital interest in the United States Let's not play political politics with it Let's not find with one hand Died behind our back And let's go in and win it Immediately I think you're right, we are doing a lot better I think the other part I'm sorry babe She gets one minute We've only got a couple left So I'm only taking one Because I want to piggyback On what you have to say And that is This country here Just got so Flared up When a kid was killed A Vietnamese kid Was killed But we never said a word When The Vietnamese kid Would Hold up a Coke can To a U.S. Soldier And that can Was a bomb And we got them All the time They would throw those Coke cans And to this day Vietnam Vets Who were in prison And I do a lot Of work with prisons The one thing you cannot do Is hand them A Coke can And say here Because It pulls back That memory Of that kid But we could get all Pissed off About About A U.S. Guy Killing a Vietnamese kid But we never said a word When the Vietnamese kids Through those Bombs In the tops Of those APCs And tanks And guys riding on the sides of the truck And we tried To take care Of those kids But those kids blew up A lot Of U.S. Treats. And we have to think About What we think about kids Because kids do What their parents tell them to do And that is not always What Kids do that you know about And I have taken care Of a lot of GIs Who Were wounded Who lost their legs Who were blind From a Coke can And I still have trouble with Coke Thank you I'm going to take the moderator's prerogative And have the last word here Because we're very close to the end I think one of the Difficult things Surely one of the very difficult things Of being there Was that Even people there in the field Executing their mission In the best possible way they could And with great integrity And bravery Had very divided feelings About what they were doing Some people were very supportive Some people were in the middle Some people weren't so supportive One of the complexities of the legacy Of this war I think Of people who fought it There was A hugely divided sentiment About the experience What it meant, what it was for Its purpose And going back to what Ken said I think that For me coming away from that The most important lesson Is that we have to make sure That there's a people in a country We understand what the ultimate meaning Of our engagement is Because without that certainty The price is too high And the Pain is too great And so if there's one thing I think probably we all agree on Is Veterans of that conflict Is that going forward we have to make sure That that's where we Find ourselves when we're making these decisions I want you to join me in thanking These panelists for their excellent work And thanks all of you for coming