JFK: "The use which, uh, Communists make of democracy.."
"and then when they seize power, the effectiveness with which they manage…”
Song: "Some must die and shed their blood today."
"While others live to fight another day."
Marine: "Boy, you might need more ammunition than you got in that gun."
Kenny: I haven't always been a good man but in my waning years I've tried to be a better man.
[indistinct radio chatter]
Living a life of never-ending adrenaline rushes.
Marine: "That's my location now if something happens over."
Kenny: And then you come back to the ho-hum of civilian life it's—
It's different. It's hard to get a handle on.
Marine: "It's been a long day..."
"This is what victory is in Vietnam."
"Tomorrow we get to do it all over again."
Kenny: Yeah, to this day.
[rifle fire]
Andrew: In December of 1968, the 26th Marines were staged on the Ant Hill.
An ad hoc base south of Da Nang.
Kenny Woodall—Mike Company, 3rd Battalion— was armed with an M16 and Argus C3 camera.
Kenny: And, uh, the South Vietnamese occupied half the hill and we occupied the other half.
And, uh, it was all jungle around there but they had some fields at the foot of the jungle
and there was always civilians going up and down this mud road and they would work these fields.
Journalist: "Alert to this threat, aware of this danger."
"Why free men fight in the Republic of Vietnam..."
Andrew: The company was then stationed "afloat."
Headquartered across two navy ships, the USS Ogden and USS Tripoli.
Kenny: And this is all muddle, because you’d be on the ship two days.
Then they'd stick you in God-knows-where- you’re-at. You might be there two days.
Then they'd send you back, you might be there five days.
They'll send you back out, you may be there seven days.
And this was non-stop. So...
Nixon: "The times are on the side of peace."
Andrew: Twelve days into 1969, the Marines were assigned to Operation Bold Mariner.
The objective, cleanse the Batangan Peninsula of Vietcong guerillas.
[indistinct radio chatter]
The whole area was a tidal flat, and what was dry during the day, at night —
the only place you could sleep dry would be on a paddy dike.
Andrew: After two weeks of pushing through wetlands the company reached a minefield.
Kenny: We get up in these sand dunes and it's just white sand as far as the eye can see. And, uh —
At some point in time I heard a muffled explosion.
Then I saw a guy come walking through our area and he was crying.
And he said "Copeland's gone, man.”
And he never said another word, he just kept on walking.
Andrew: Randy Copeland, a 22-year-old from Rockmart, Georgia, had stepped on a landmine.
Kenny: His mother sent me a picture of him in his coffin.
He was wearing his dress blues.
Another guy came walking down the line and —
[Landmine blast]
There was a huge explosion.
Just a rush of wind with sand in it, and it blew David and I to the ground.
Andrew: David Riemer, a 21-year-old from Mentor, Ohio had absorbed the blast.
Kenny: His eyes were staring at the sky and I knew he was dead.
I looked down in his chest and there was a hard ball-sized hole
right square in the middle of his chest and it was bubbling.
And he wasn't breathing anymore.
Then a helicopter came in to pick us up and…
I didn't have severe injuries. I just had shrapnel in my calf, my lower leg and my upper thigh.
[Ship horn]
At some point in time, they asked me to go to the fantail and identify the dead.
I went to the fantail and there was sailors there wearing hip boots,
with fire hoses, and they were washing off dead Marines.
Andrew: They never fired a shot in anger.
Weeks later, Woodall left the Ogden for one last fire fight in Vietnam
Behind him, the ghost of Vietnam.
Kenny: Life and death over there was millimeters, inches, feet and yards.
Standing here instead of over there, it's just time and place.
Kenny: Guilty.
Why me? Why do I survive and they don't? It never leaves you.
Journalist #2: "And then it is the time to remember."
"But tomorrow there will be something else."
"In Vietnam, there always is."
Marine: "In honor of the dead, let us stand..."
“Aim, fire.” [3X]