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BILL REYNOLDS: They took us into some harsh terrain,

in nasty, rotten places.

♪ ♪

And the more that we patrolled,

the more we made contact with the enemy.

♪ ♪

LARRY LILLEY: We thought we were pretty tough,

but when you get so many guys killed or wounded,

it's no longer a game.

(explosions, gunfire)

JOHN SCLIMENTI: Bullets were going by us,

we could see the water splashing all over the place.

(gunfire)

STEVE HOPPER: You can smell the blood,

you can smell the explosions.

(gunfire, explosions)

REYNOLDS: I figured that was it.

This is my last day in Vietnam; this is my last day on Earth.

(gunfire)

WILLIE MCTEAR: We were trying to keep each other safe

and come back home alive.

♪ ♪

YOUNG: When we were almost halfway through the tour,

it dawned on all of us that it didn't look like any of us

were gonna be able to make it the year.

(jet passing)

(blast)

(explosion)

♪ ♪

(men yelling)

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: May 1966.

Charlie Company, 4th Regiment, 47th Infantry,

of the 9th Infantry Division

is formed at Fort Riley, Kansas.

(whistle blows)

♪ ♪

99% of the men are draftees,

pulled from nearly every state in the nation

as part of the largest yearly draft call

of the entire Vietnam War.

(chanting)

HOPPER: I was from Illinois,

and I hadn't traveled far from Illinois

in my 19 years I had been on Earth.

And now here we were, brand-new recruits from all walks of life.

MAN: Come on. Get down there.

MCTEAR: Being from the South, I was accustomed to two Americas,

a white America and a black America.

And this, being my first integrated situation,

I was more nervous about that than I was about the training.

♪ ♪

(gunfire)

LILLEY: We all had a job to do, so we worked well together.

It was a blending that made us all better.

It didn't divide us, it made us better.

♪ ♪

HOPPER: We met some crazy guys.

We had one of our guys, Terry McBride,

he had ridden with the Hells Angels.

He was kind of a bad dude, you know.

TERRY MCBRIDE: I'm not going to say

I had a problem with authority,

I think they had a problem with me,

because I didn't want to fit in their mold,

and didn't mind vocalizing it.

(laughs)

LILLEY: Sclimenti was the biggest jokester in the group.

SCLIMENTI: So, when I was in Vietnam,

this is what happened.

LILLEY: You might be asleep,

he'd fill your hand full of whipped cream

and tickle and your nose until you went...

You know, every, ahh, everybody bust out laughing.

RICHARD RUBIO: We were goofing off all the time,

always getting in trouble, and we had a lot of fun.

♪ ♪

MCBRIDE: I never knew that a bunch of guys

could get as tight as we did in a short period of time.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Unlike the majority of Vietnam-era soldiers,

who would be sent as individual replacements

to existing military units, Charlie Company is unique--

one of the last American combat infantry units

to be drafted, trained, and sent to war together.

LILLEY: We were told

that we were going to go to Vietnam as a group,

right from the start.

Pretty soon, through basic training,

you realize, oh, that won't be bad,

I'll be with my buddies.

♪ ♪

But still, Vietnam hung over our heads like a dark cloud.

♪ ♪

(gunfire)

LYNDON JOHNSON: I have come here to report to you

that this is a time of testing for our nation.

RON NESSEN: The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong

are obviously trying to stay away

from any major head-on fights with American combat units,

but the Communists are continuing their offensive

in the form of terror and guerrilla strikes.

JOHNSON: I wish I could report to you

that the conflict is almost over.

This I cannot do.

WALTER CRONKITE: All 10 men aboard were killed

when a U.S. Marine helicopter crashed at sea

along the central coast.

Two other copters were down by gunfire with three men wounded.

JOHNSON: We face more cost, more loss and more agony.

♪ ♪

HOPPER: In December of '66, we had finished all of our training

and declared to be ready to go to Vietnam,

but all of us got to go home for Christmas

and home leave, so to speak, before we left.

♪ ♪

REYNOLDS: I remember coming home and just seeing my mom and dad,

my brother and sister, and my girlfriend was there, and...

you know, my mom was upset.

You know, she was worried about Vietnam.

And I was just upset to be leaving home.

I wasn't really in fear of my life.

♪ ♪

HOPPER: So I flew back to Illinois,

and first thing I did was went out, and...

I bought an engagement ring,

because I wanted the girl that I was dating,

I guess, to give me a real purpose for coming home.

NARRATOR: On January 10, 1967,

the 160 men of Charlie Company depart San Francisco Harbor

on board a World War II-era transport.

♪ ♪

In three weeks' time, they will land in South Vietnam

and begin their year-long combat tour.

JACK BENEDICK: We figured within a year,

the war would be over with once we got there.

That sounds a little, maybe, unrealistic to some people.

But the training that we had at Fort Riley

instilled in our unit this will to win,

that we were going to take care of this war

and get it over with.

REPORTER: Nicknamed the Old Reliables

for their distinguished performance in World War II,

the crack 9th Division

will add an important plus to U.S. operations

and raise total troop strength in Vietnam

to another all-time high.

♪ ♪

[gulls squawking]

♪ ♪

GARY MAIBACH: When we got closer to Vung Tau,

you could see the coastline of Vietnam.

♪ ♪

Shoreline with a beautiful beach,

I mean, it looked more like somewhere

you'd want to take a vacation than you'd want to fight a war.

♪ ♪

HOPPER: We were out on the deck, just talking and looking,

and you'd see a stream of tracers off in the distance

coming down from a helicopter.

♪ ♪

And all of the sudden you realize,

wow, there's some stuff going on here.

REYNOLDS: You know, it was kind of scary.

We didn't know what to expect.

♪ ♪

They immediately loaded us on deuce-and-a-halfs,

and all of a sudden we find ourselves

busting down this dirt road, dust flying everywhere.

♪ ♪

MAIBACH: The sights and the sounds and the smells

of a totally different land and culture.

It had a surreal aspect to it.

♪ ♪

HERB LIND: And they trucked us to Camp Bear Cat,

which was the 9th Infantry Division base camp at that time.

MAIBACH: And there we were, no tents, no cots, no nothing.

Welcome to Vietnam, guys.

♪ ♪

REYNOLDS: They had us digging trenches, filling sandbags.

We were instantly working our tails off

to build our base camp.

♪ ♪

HOSKINS: Hello, Mom and Dad.

The Republic of Vietnam is not

one of the most sought-after vacation spots in the world.

The curfew here at night is from seven o'clock at night

until seven o'clock in the morning,

and during that time

no Vietnamese are allowed to leave their villages

or travel on the roads.

And any Vietnamese you find traveling at night

is considered Viet Cong, and you're authorized to kill them.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: At Bear Cat,

Charlie Company runs its first patrols

outside the base's perimeter.

In this relatively safe area,

they become acclimated to the rigorous Vietnamese countryside

and its oppressively hot and humid climate.

♪ ♪

BILL RYAN: At this time last year,

there were 190,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam.

Now there are 415,000.

That build-up has changed the nature of the war

that U.S. forces are able to fight.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: In April of 1967,

Charlie Company moves to the Mekong Delta

to become part of the Mobile Riverine Force.

The combined Army/Navy element is the first American unit

to be permanently stationed in the delta.

♪ ♪

Charlie and her sister companies

will live on board Navy barracks ships

and will be transported into battle by both helicopters,

and by upgraded World War II-era landing craft,

called Armored Troop Carriers, or ATCs.

♪ ♪

Their mission is to patrol

the delta's 4,000 miles of waterways,

comb through its 15,500 square miles

of dense jungles and rice paddies,

and search out and destroy the 82,000 enemy soldiers

who pervade the region.

♪ ♪

REPORTER: This is where the American war

in the unpacified delta begins.

Half of South Vietnam's population

lives in the delta.

Until now, only Vietnamese forces have tried

and largely failed to rout the Viet Cong

from its strongest hold.

In the last analysis,

the war against the Viet Cong will be won or lost there.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: April 1967.

Charlie Company begins operations in the Mekong Delta.

♪ ♪

It is the largest stronghold of the Viet Cong.

YOUNG: The VC was the military arm

of the National Liberation Front,

which was the political organization

that worked for the North Vietnamese.

The kind of guys who would spend their nights planting mines

and booby traps, in the daytime they're rice farmers.

♪ ♪

HOPPER: The enemy was an expert in camouflage.

♪ ♪

You could be out on a mission and...

things go south real quick.

(men yelling)

We had a couple of guys fall into some punji traps.

You know, hidden underground, and they stepped on it,

and they went down into the hole,

and these punji sticks would penetrate their leg.

(yelling)

SCLIMENTI: You could not get the feeling how scary that was,

because you didn't even know where to step, where to kneel.

♪ ♪

YOUNG: You're always angry and you're always scared,

because you think that could have been me

just as well as him, and--

♪ ♪

and that's the bad thing about mines and booby traps.

You suffer and you can't do any harm back against the enemy.

♪ ♪

And that builds up inside soldiers

to a level at which something's going to happen.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: On the morning of May 15th,

Charlie Company launches its first large-scale operation

in the delta.

They are headed to an area known to American forces

as the Cam Son Secret Zone.

U.S. intelligence has reported

that approximately 200 Viet Cong soldiers

are in the area resting and recovering

after a battle with another American unit.

♪ ♪

Charlie Company's orders are to pin the VC down

and finish them off.

♪ ♪

HERB LIND: In a war like this,

you don't fight to gain terrain and control it.

♪ ♪

You are just trying to eliminate the enemy.

♪ ♪

MCTEAR: We trained as infantrymen

to seek the enemy...

and destroy him.

Period.

♪ ♪

NESSEN: Companies are broken down

into platoons of 20 or 30 men.

Separated by considerable distance,

the platoons are sent into the bush

to search for the Communists.

The Viet Cong's refused to fight bigger American units

unless they are taken by surprise.

So, the idea is to entice the Communists

to jump an outnumbered platoon then rush in reinforcements,

artillery barrages, and air strikes

when the enemy shows himself.

In the simplest terms, the platoons are bait.

♪ ♪

JOHN BRADFIELD: Then we continued to advance,

and it was really quiet, real quiet.

(gunfire)

JAMES NALL: All of a sudden

everything started opening up on us.

(gunfire)

SCLIMENTI: Bullets were going by us,

we could see the water splashing all over the place.

HOPPER: You can smell the blood, you can smell the explosions.

(gunfire)

REYNOLDS: It's amazing, it's chaotic!

You just think, God, this is not like the movies.

(gunfire)

YOUNG: We had just crossed a rather large rice paddy dike,

so we got on the defensive side of that dike

and took stock of what was going on,

and that's about the time that we found out

we had one entire squad still out there

in that rice paddy in the open,

and that it appeared that all of them were down and hit.

(gunfire)

SOLDIER ON RADIO: To your right, and we'll come in

behind you there.

SCLIMENTI: We could hear the radio

starting to squawk all over the place.

You could hear the guys screaming and yelling,

and you could see one or two guys flounder or flop around.

(gunfire)

One of the sergeants says, "Hey, we need some volunteers

to go out there and get these guys."

This group that was trained

and knew their brothers were out there

just took it upon themself.

And people would just jump up and we off and ran.

(gunfire)

♪ ♪

(gunfire)

YOUNG: I was running and running and running,

and finally off to my right, there was a GI lying there.

I said, "This is Sergeant Young,"

I said, "I'm here to take you back."

And he said, "Okay," he said,

"But," he said, "I can't move my legs."

And so I lay down flat in the rice,

and I said, "Can you crawl up on my back?

Can you pull yourself up onto my back?"

And he was able to do that.

♪ ♪

And I got up on my hands and knees

and started crawling back towards the platoon.

♪ ♪

And I finally got back

to where the men who were still back at the rice paddy dike

could see us.

John Sclimenti saw me,

and he came running out to help me

get him the last few meters back.

(gunfire)

NARRATOR: With the wounded out of the way,

Charlie Company's commander can call in helicopter gunships

without fear of hitting his own men.

♪ ♪

(radio chatter)

♪ ♪

(gunfire and shouting)

SOLDIER ON RADIO: Roger, that's the target area there.

♪ ♪

(gunfire)

(radio chatter)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

SCLIMENTI: When you're in battle,

your training takes over;

your emotions are on autopilot.

What's tough for you is when the battle stops.

When the battle stops, all of a sudden you start thinking about

what could've happened to me.

♪ ♪

MAN: Oh, I got you. Say again.

YOUNG: And we knew for sure by then that Don Peterson was dead.

♪ ♪

And two of the men in our platoon

who were good friends of Don Peterson's

were able to go out there in the rice and find him,

find his body,

and carry him back to the platoon positions.

♪ ♪

NALL: Emotionally, it really hurt me,

'cause I had never in my life seen a guy die

until Peterson died.

♪ ♪

MAIBACH: He was going home, but not the way I wanted him to.

♪ ♪

REYNOLDS: They had a poncho covering him.

The chopper lifted off,

and that poncho flew right out the door.

Just looking at him, seeing him dead there

just, was just, God, you know, it was like, this is real.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: In the final tally,

American forces are credited with over 100 enemy killed.

By the military's statistical standards,

May 15th is considered a clear U.S. victory.

♪ ♪

But like most battles in Vietnam,

May 15th is also considered too small for an official name.

Charlie Company's baptism of fire will receive no press

and will be recorded simply as a date.

♪ ♪

HOPPER: May 15th.

Such a important day to us.

♪ ♪

But I doubt if anyone back home heard much about that.

♪ ♪

(radio tuning)

NESSEN: Since I've been home from Vietnam,

dozens of people have asked me, "What's really going on there?"

♪ ♪

If these questioners are representative,

it indicates that many Americans are confused

by conflicting reports about the situation in Vietnam.

♪ ♪

Success in Washington is measured in cold statistics--

the number of Viet Cong killed,

the number of pacification cadres graduated.

♪ ♪

In Vietnam, success is persuading one old man

to point out where the Communists

have hidden a booby trap.

It is talking one old woman

into luring her son away from the Viet Cong.

♪ ♪

YOUNG: I think the great majority of the people

of the delta were in the really sad situation

of being caught in the middle.

If they cooperated too much with us,

it would cost them when the VC showed up that night.

And if they cooperated too much with the VC,

then if we found out about it,

we were going to make it hard on them.

So no matter what they did, they were going to lose.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: On June 19, 1967,

five months into their year-long combat tour,

Charlie Company launches a massive operation

with sister companies Alpha and Bravo.

This time, intelligence has reported

a sizeable Viet Cong force

is near a small village called Can Giouc.

♪ ♪

(creak)

MAN: Head straight forward. Let's go.

SCLIMENTI: We were sweeping an area.

All of a sudden the radios just went crazy.

You could hear them all over.

(radio chatter)

♪ ♪

LIND: What I'm attempting to do is to draw out

what the battle of 19 June looked like from my perspective.

So we were picked up up here,

put on the boats,

brought down here,

and reinserted right here.

We believed that the enemy was to the south

and there would be another American unit

coming up from the south.

And we were going to catch them out in the open.

♪ ♪

YOUNG: We were headed off in the direction

of a scattered group of hooches,

and from just across the canal

a .50-caliber machine gun opened up.

(gunfire and shouting)

♪ ♪

LIND: I had not left the vicinity of the boats.

Lieutenant Benedick, my second platoon leader,

screamed on the radio, "We're hit, we're hit!"

(gunfire)

BENEDICK: We had 15 or 16 guys hit when the fire first started.

They were definitely waiting for us.

(gunfire)

REYNOLDS: And so there we were,

trying to figure out where the hell is the enemy.

(gunfire)

(yelling)

LIND: What we discovered was that the VC were not south of us

but were north of us.

There was a machine gun bunker here,

and a machine gun bunker here, and another one here.

Our best estimation would be that it had to be

at least a battalion-sized unit or larger,

and that would have been in the Viet Cong,

approximately 400 to 500 men.

And our strength at that time would have been right at 120.

(gunfire)

YOUNG: We're up against a seriously oversized enemy unit.

(gunfire)

We were outnumbered on the ground.

(gunfire)

LIND: Once we identified

where the main machine gun fire was coming from,

we pretty much could pin it down,

but we didn't have anything large enough

to destroy the bunkers that the VC had built up.

We determined that we had to call in heavier artillery.

NARRATOR: Four and a half miles to the southeast,

the Riverine Force's mobile artillery barges

key in the enemy's coordinates

and begin blasting the VC bunkers.

SOLDIER: Fire!

LIND: And it looked like direct hits.

♪ ♪

But not stopping the machine guns from operating.

♪ ♪

(radio chatter)

NARRATOR: With artillery ineffective,

Charlie Company calls for air support.

Within minutes, American fighters are streaking overhead

attacking the VC bunkers less than 100 yards away.

♪ ♪

SCLIMENTI: The jets flew by so close,

you could see the guy's face in the plane.

You could see the moisture come off the wings of the airplane.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: But after two hours of intense battle,

the Viet Cong machine guns have not been silenced,

and the number of critically wounded is growing.

(gunfire)

Captain Herb Lind radios a nearby Navy squadron commander

who suggests a risky plan.

LIND: One of the squadron commanders

was a lieutenant commander named Dusty Rhodes.

He had what they called a monitor gunboat.

(radio chatter)

Dusty Rhodes knew that we were in trouble.

He says, "I know that canal."

He says, "It's high tide right now, I think I can make it up."

♪ ♪

YOUNG: If he goes up the canal, he's gonna have to back it down,

'cause there isn't nearly enough room for it to turn around.

And if the tide gets down too far while he's up there,

he could be grounded.

♪ ♪

LIND: There was a risk, a very definite risk,

but what options do we have in a situation like that?

We tried artillery, we tried the air.

I would have welcomed anything that day to help us out.

And Dusty Rhodes was willing to take the risk.

One of the things he needed was somebody to direct his fires.

And when he came in, I said I would do it.

♪ ♪

YOUNG: Captain Lind, carrying his own radio,

stood up and walked alongside that monitor,

selecting targets for it to engage.

♪ ♪

I remember looking up there and seeing him,

and I thought, "If I've ever seen a brave man in my life,

there he is right there."

♪ ♪

LIND: He backed out before the tide came back in,

and that really alleviated the situation for Charlie Company.

♪ ♪

So, Dusty Rhodes is a hero to me.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: With the machine guns finally silenced,

Charlie Company gains the upper hand for the first time

in nearly five hours.

But with the remaining Viet Cong still fighting

from their position on the north side of the canal,

the battle is not yet over.

First and second platoons are ordered

to pull back to the ATCs

and prepare to cross the canal

to launch a final ground assault against the VC.

♪ ♪

REYNOLDS: As we boarded that boat, I figured that was it.

This is my last day in Vietnam; this is my last day on Earth.

♪ ♪

(yelling)

SCLIMENTI: We all got online and we started rushing the fire.

(gunfire)

Everybody's shooting, automatics are going.

(gunfire)

YOUNG: We were all advancing as fast as we could,

and firing weapons as fast as we could.

And I think at that moment,

we all just went a little bit crazy.

(gunfire)

I'm not sure how many we got.

(gunfire)

And then, almost that quickly...

(gunfire)

it was just over.

♪ ♪

LIND: We didn't really know at that time how many of them

we had killed or how bad we had crippled them.

♪ ♪

And by that time it was starting to get dark,

and so we pulled back,

and between myself and the battalion commander

we decided that we better go into defensive posture

for the night.

♪ ♪

MAIBACH: We had no idea if they were going to assault us again,

how many were there.

♪ ♪

We had no idea what was going to happen.

♪ ♪

LIND: The next day we were primed and ready.

We thought we probably were

going to have more battle to face.

And we eased up and started to try to move forward

and received no resistance, no shots fired at us whatsoever.

So eventually we got up and spread out.

♪ ♪

Then we discovered that during the hours of darkness

the enemy retreated.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: June 19th.

Charlie Company's largest battle in Vietnam

would become known as the Battle of Can Giouc.

A decisive U.S. victory,

the combined American forces nearly wiped out

two entire Viet Cong companies,

killing over 250 enemy soldiers.

Charlie Company suffered 11 killed.

♪ ♪

Among the dead is second platoon medic Bill Geier,

who was shot while rushing to save wounded soldiers.

He died in the arms of Bill Reynolds.

REYNOLDS: There wasn't anything he wouldn't do for his buddies.

You know, somebody's wounded somewhere,

he's gonna go help them.

And he was so brave, and for me to see him laying there,

you know, gasping for air and dying right there,

it was just unbearable.

I wrote a letter to his mom and dad

and told them what a wonderful guy he was.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Including nearly 40 wounded,

Charlie Company suffered almost 30% casualties on June 19th,

making it their highest single day of losses

for the entire war.

♪ ♪

But the toll is even greater

for their sister company, Alpha.

LIND: The reports were that A Company

took about 80% casualties.

♪ ♪

REYNOLDS: Several days later, one of the guys got in the mail

the front page of the L.A. Times

where it reported that an entire company was wiped out

by the Viet Cong.

Not once did they mention we had killed 250 VC.

Not once did it say at the end of the battle,

we were there, and they were gone or dead.

And, you know, I think that was kind of like an eye-opener

that America is not with us.

FRANK MCGEE: Right or wrong, for better or for worse,

never have so many Americans had so many doubts,

and never have we been less united.

This attitude is not lost on the men who fight in Vietnam.

But for them, as for all men who fight in all wars,

there is only one meaningful reality--

life or death.

MCTEAR: It was all about us doing for each other

what we couldn't do alone for ourselves.

We were trying to keep each other safe

and come back home alive.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

RUBIO: Hello, Sandy, it's me again.

I guess it's about time I got around to sending another tape.

It's been kind of bad around here,

the atmosphere and everything,

'cause we've been getting hit kind of hard lately.

Watching all these guys, these friends of mine,

get killed and wounded,

they're all so close to me and everything,

they're just like brothers, and it really hurts a lot.

But I've been trying not to think about it

so I won't go out of my head.

♪ ♪

SCLIMENTI: People don't understand what happens

to someone that is in that kind of conflict,

day in and day out.

People's minds have to shut out

a lot of bad things.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: By September of '67, nine months of combat

is taking a visible toll on Charlie Company.

Of the 160 men who left San Francisco in January,

21 have been killed and more than 75 wounded.

Replacement soldiers now outnumber

original Charlie troopers.

♪ ♪

EDWIN NEWMAN: The war in Vietnam has become the central issue

here in the United States.

This week, hundreds of people demonstrated against it,

tens of thousands marched to support it.

It's a political issue, a moral issue,

but most of all, it has become a personal issue.

Each person must come to grips with it himself,

for it affects each one of us.

♪ ♪

YOUNG: We're all accustomed to choosing between right and wrong

and good and evil, that's an easy thing for people to do.

War is a terrible thing.

And it's terrible not only because people get killed,

it's terrible because you have to make some kind of decision,

and there aren't any good options.

You can do something that's cruel and ugly,

or something that's crueler yet and uglier still.

There's no good option to take.

♪ ♪

And I'd really rather not have anybody

who hasn't been through something like that

pass judgment on me.

♪ ♪

Don't be too sure about the decision you would have made.

♪ ♪

And don't be smug about your morality

until you've had it tested.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: November 1967.

Charlie Company has just seven weeks remaining in Vietnam.

At home, the nation they left behind

is growing increasingly tired

of a war in which they see little evidence of progress.

♪ ♪

JOHNSON: Our American people like,

when we get in a contest of any kind,

they want it decided and decided quickly, and get in or get out.

Now, that, that's not the kind of war

we are fighting in Vietnam.

♪ ♪

We don't march out

and have a big battle each day in a guerrilla war.

It's a new kind of war for us, so it doesn't move that fast.

♪ ♪

We are making progress.

We are pleased with the results that we're getting.

♪ ♪

HOPPER: I didn't care what the nation thought

or what some protester might have thought

about what we were doing.

I cared more about the purpose that I had been given

at that point in my life,

and that was to serve my country.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: In January of 1968,

the original members of Charlie Company

reach the end of their year-long combat tour.

♪ ♪

(plane approaching)

MCBRIDE: Seeing that freedom plane come by

and knowing that we were getting on it,

and that we were gonna be leaving,

that's like, it was probably one of the better feelings

that I've had in my life.

♪ ♪

I could remember the pilot saying,

"Well, guys, we'll be up to about 200 miles an hour

here in about 10 seconds," he says,

"so you got 10 seconds to die in this country,

and I think we're all gonna make it."

Boy, he just powered that and hit the thrusters

and shove you back in the seat in that airplane,

and we were on our way home.

LILLEY: When we touched down,

I'd say 50% of us got to the bottom of the stairs

and kissed the ground.

♪ ♪

REYNOLDS: We didn't even stop and think that this is it.

♪ ♪

We've been together for 18 months, I guess.

♪ ♪

You're so young, and all you can think about is get home

and just pick up the life that you had before.

HOPPER: And you walked out and you got in a taxi

and all of a sudden...

♪ ♪

you were all separated again.

♪ ♪

YOUNG: When I left Vietnam,

my parents had known within a couple of days

when I was due home,

but I hadn't been able to be any more exact than that.

And once I landed, I didn't call them either,

I just continued on home to Minnesota.

When I got to Minneapolis, I got off the aircraft

and I took a taxi to my parents' house.

So, the first thing my parents knew

was that a taxi pulled into the driveway

and then suddenly I was home.

♪ ♪

NALL: I got to Mom and Daddy's house, they just celebrated.

They had the whole family, everybody come over.

It was like the prodigal son, you know, come home, you know.

♪ ♪

HOPPER: I came home, and I remember flying,

landed at the airport.

♪ ♪

I walked into the terminal,

and I heard a girl scream.

♪ ♪

And it was Jen.

My fiancée.

♪ ♪

(no audio)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

REYNOLDS: After I returned back to the world, as we called it,

years roll by and, you know,

you're busy moving forward in your life--

getting married, having kids, responsibilities,

home mortgage and so forth.

And so, you know, you lose contact with those guys.

♪ ♪

HOPPER: Because of the protests

and because of the way the country felt

about the Vietnam War,

we kind of hid all of those inside of us

for many, many, many years.

♪ ♪

MAIBACH: I didn't hear from the guys,

but maybe once or twice a year.

And then it got to the point where,

"Doc, what do you think of a reunion of some sort?"

♪ ♪

HOPPER: We finally get together 23 years later

and start reminiscing and sharing stories

for the first time.

It was pretty amazing.

Pretty amazing.

MAN: Alright, John Young.

YOUNG: Oh, hello.

MAN: How you doing?

YOUNG: Meet my daughter Maggie.

We had our first reunion in 1989,

and since that time we've had, oh, I think a dozen or more.

And we'll continue to have reunions.

♪ ♪

"Brothers" is exactly the right term.

Those guys are everything, just everything to me.

It's as plain as that.

♪ ♪

Captioned by National Captioning Institute