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Cable Documentary Revisits Violence Of Vietnam

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By KURT LOFT | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 18, 2008

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother" – Shakespeare

TAMPA - When the dust cleared after the fights at X-Ray and Albany, 234 Americans lay dead, with nearly as many wounded. The North Vietnamese Army killed 155 men in a single ambush alone, setting the tone for a war that grew increasingly protracted and gruesome.

In November 1965, two cultures fought to the death in hand-to-hand combat in the Battle of Ia Drang, a river valley in the central highlands of South Vietnam. Among the dead were Mack C. Cox of Tampa and Arthur R. Moody III of St. Petersburg.

Their regiments consisted of 450 Americans dropped by helicopter onto landing zone clearings, only to be surrounding by an enemy division 2,000 strong.

The United States proved it could disrupt and obliterate opposing forces with heavy artillery and air power. But the Viet Cong countered with engagements at close range — and in great numbers — a tactic its military would later employ in the Tet Offensive.

The blood shed at Ia Drang, during Tet and under Operation Rolling Thunder and other military campaigns paints a chilling new documentary, "Inside the Vietnam War," airing tonight on the National Geographic Channel. The special is not so much about the how and why of the war, but the story of young men and women who fought, prayed and died under the thrash of helicopter rotors and machine-gun fire.

"We wanted to tell the story not from the perspective of policymakers or strategists, but of the people who had seen it and done it," the documentary's producer, Jonathan Towers, says by telephone. "And we had a lot of people talking about how much fear they experienced."

"Inside the Vietnam War" could not be made in one or even two hours, Towers says. It was, after all, a war of enormous length, proportion and complexity.

Nor is it for the squeamish: Footage taken at the time depicts the sheer hell of firefights, lifeless bodies in denuded jungles, the execution of prisoners and the misfortunes of innocent children born into conflict.

"The Vietnam War was coming into people's living rooms," Towers says of the time. "We didn't want to sugarcoat it. We want people to understand the war."

The documentary's first hour concentrates on America's early efforts to counter communism in Southeast Asia, President Lyndon Johnson's decision to build forces through a national draft and the pivotal early battles.

For a soldier, those battles could mean days and nights of continuous terror, of numbing adrenaline that wore to the bone, recalls Joseph Fornelli, who was 20 when drafted for duty.

"Things were so chaotic and sporadic and uncertain," he says in the documentary. "I didn't even wear my dog tags because I didn't care what happened to my body."

The second segment looks at the winter of 1968, when 85,000 North Vietnamese soldiers and Viet Cong insurgents began the Tet Offense, invading more than 100 South Vietnamese cities, towns and villages. Back in the United States, the antiwar movement was in full force.

In hour three, the documentary explains how American forces continued to fight despite declining troop levels and morale. Many of the 50 veterans interviewed reflect on their anguish at the time, even after leaving the jungles and heading home. They say they still live with the war, and friends lost, three and four decades later.

More than 58,000 Americans and 1.5 million Vietnamese did not make it home. Among those are 18 soldiers killed on the final day of a rescue operation in 1975. Seven years after the end of the war, the names of those who lost their lives were literally engraved in stone in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

If all wars share commonalities, it stands to reason that parallels are made with America's current situation in Iraq: a mounting body count, guerrillas fighting a powerful foe, a troubled president, a disenchanted public. But they won't be found in tonight's documentary.

"We weren't trying to make those analogies," Towers says. "If we accomplished anything with this project, it was to get the memories straight."

Reporter Kurt Loft can be reached at (813) 259-7570 or kloft@tampatrib.com.

ON TELEVISION: Inside the Vietnam War

WHAT: Three-hour documentary on America's longest conflict

WHEN: 8 tonight

WHERE: National Geographic Channel

WARNING: Graphic images may not be suitable for children.

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