vvmf

A few years ago, Lee Ellis noticed that he and the other POWs who made it home from Vietnam were outperforming the general population in the area of romantic longevity. He looked into the reasons why that might be true, and then he published his findings in a book called Captured By Love: Inspiring True Romance Stories from Vietnam POWs. Happy Valentine's Day.

Red Eagle Rael’s tour started in February of 1968 in the Mekong Delta. The guys in his unit called him “Chief,” a common nickname for Native Americans serving in Vietnam. Highly decorated, Rael is a kind of living legend in New Mexico. In this episode we visit Picuris Pueblo, where Red Eagle grants a rare interview to share his story... or, at least, the parts that he is willing to talk about.

In episode 64, we introduced you to the Mobile Riverine Force, a joint Army-Navy task force that patrolled the brown waters of the Mekong Delta in an effort to disrupt the movement of enemy troops, weapons, and supplies. In this episode, we’ll go a little deeper with stories of enemy engagement, environmental hazard, the lingering effects of the River Rat experience, and of course brotherhood and healing.

Commander Task Force 117 was a joint Army-Navy effort to disrupt the movement of communist troops, weapons, and supplies through the Mekong Delta. It was the first time since the Civil War that American soldiers and sailors operated under a joint command. In this episode, veterans of the Mobile Riverine Force — known as “river rats” — share their stories.

Diane Carlson Evans picks a ten-year fight, facing enormous resistance from corners both surprising and unsurprising, resulting in the first memorial on the National Mall to honor the service of women in wartime.

After her tour as a combat nurse in Vietnam, Diane Carlson Evans came home in 1969 to a country she hardly recognized. In 1982, a visit to Washington, DC started an avalanche that surged inside her for more than a decade, culminating in the dedication of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial thirty years ago this month. Diane talks about Vietnam, coming home, and why she picked a ten-year fight for women who served.

From 1968 to 1972, Mobile Advisory Training (MAT) teams worked alongside the South Vietnamese Regional Forces and Popular Forces — known as Ruff Puffs — who were the units responsible for protecting their local villages and hamlets against communist attacks. Bob Blair, who led MAT Team 44 in 1971, shares his experiences in this episode.

Peggy and Maryann were just little girls when a 1969 helicopter crash in Binh Dinh province changed their lives forever. The stories they heard from the adults around them were less than clear... and a long way from comforting. But kids grow up. And when they do, they write their own stories.

Ever since Mike Stubbs left the Army in 1968, he has been trying to find the family of Luther Smith, who was among 64 infantrymen killed at the Battle of Ong Thanh. In this postscript, you’ll hear excerpts from the first-ever live conversation between Luther’s daughter and his best friend. Visit Luther's Wall of Faces page at https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/48432/LUTHER-A-SMITH/

Gus Kappler laughs a lot. If you met him in line at the grocery store, you’d never guess that he spent a year in Vietnam as a real-life Hawkeye Pierce performing unimaginable surgeries on young men with unspeakable injuries. It made him angry, and that hasn’t changed. What has changed is the way he understands his anger… and how he deals with it.

In a remote mountain town, a father turns his devastating personal loss into a place for public healing and remembrance.

U.S. and Australian forces have fought side-by-side in every major conflict since World War I, and some 60,000 Australian service members served in the Vietnam War. August 18 is Vietnam Veterans Day in Australia, and in honor of that commemoration we bring you the personal story of an Australian helicopter pilot who served in Vietnam in 1970 and ’71.

While pursuing his lifelong ambition of becoming an infantry platoon leader, John Hedley overcame a lot of obstacles. His reward at the end of that long, difficult road was a tour in Vietnam starting in July of 1969, where he would lead the Army’s legendary red-scarved recon platoon known as Fox Force. John shares the story of that journey, his experiences in Vietnam, and a surprise ending that will boggle your mind and warm your heart at the same time.

In EP55 we shared the story of Dennis Lobbezoo, one of 142 service members whose names are on the wall and who were born on the fourth of July. In this postscript, his then-fiancée Joyce Washburn shares the story of Denny and the surgeon-turned-sculptor who was inspired to cast the young Marine’s likeness in bronze 45 years after they met aboard the USS Repose.

July 4th is the birthday of the United States of America. It’s also the birthday of 142 service members whose names are on The Wall at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. This is the story of one of them — Dennis Lobbezoo of Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is remembered by his then-fiancée, Joyce Washburn. Visit Dennis' Wall of Faces profile: https://bit.ly/46xI5Hu Read more about Dennis and Joyce: https://bit.ly/46wCLEf

In the wake of Operation Cedar Falls, tunnel-rat duties in the 1st Infantry Division were transferred to the 1st Engineer Battalion where men began to specialize in it. In this episode, we’ll hear personal stories from members of the Diehard Tunnel Rats. [WARNING: This episode contains vivid descriptions of combat, injury, and death.]

Communist forces in South Vietnam used vast networks of subterranean tunnels as hiding places, bomb shelters, weapons factories, food stores, headquarters… even surgical hospitals. In this episode we’ll introduce you to the 1st Infantry Division’s dedicated team of Tunnel Rats — combat engineers who volunteered, whenever necessary, to do their fighting underground.

There are more than 72,000 U.S. service members still unaccounted for from World War II -- a war we fought in for four years. The number missing after 20 years of combat in Afghanistan? Zero. That’s no accident; it represents a dramatic shift in policy and priorities, another unheralded legacy of the Vietnam War generation. In this episode, author Taylor Baldwin Kiland shares the incredible true story of the military wives who fought to make “no man left behind” a promise that America keeps.

For the tens of thousands of families who received tragic news during the Vietnam War, their lives were profoundly changed at that moment and their reactions to the news covered the full range of human grief. Imagine being the person who rang doorbell after doorbell for months on end, triggering that outpouring of emotion over and over, in all its forms. In this episode, two Marines talk about coming home from Vietnam and being assigned that terrible duty.

Throughout the month of April 1975, in a mass evacuation known as Operation Babylift, around 2,000 infants and children were airlifted from orphanages in South Vietnam to the United States. In this episode, we bring you stories from the first and last flights of that operation — one ending in tragedy, the other in joy.