Return to Vietnam, 45 Years Later: The Complete Documentary Series
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- čas přidán 28. 05. 2024
- Watch the 10-part series through history, now presented as a complete 1-hour documentary.
Richard did two tours in the Vietnam War and went on to have the kind of 30 year career in Special Forces that spanned every major conflict and mission of his generation. And in 2017, he went back to Vietnam for the first time since "Vietnam."
“I always wanted to wave the American flag in north Vietnam. I didn’t think it would take me 50 years, but we did it for everyone who fought, and for everyone who didn’t come back.”
Read more from Rich about his return to Vietnam here: ruck.ly/vietnam
This is soooo cool!! I’m so happy you got to go back and see. My father was born in Laos and served for the CIA’s secret army in laos. He left in the 80s and never returned, never got to see Laos or Vietnam again. He lived rest of his life in California, and He passed in 2010. I wish he would’ve got to go back and see Laos and Vietnam. I think he would’ve loved to see what the countries are like now.
I’m an American, born and raised and from one of those groups of “montagnards”, the Hmongs.
Edit: holly crap!! This amazing documentary is an advertisement for a boot?!?!!! Hahaha !!!!!
@00ninja00,, About over 100.000 H'mong Peoples Lived in States Minnesota
All most There got good Jobs in Minnesota..l like H'mong New Year so much fun in New Year day..
Visited Vietnam in early January 2020. I stayed at the Caravelle in Saigon! Vietnamese from the South still call it Saigon. They prefer by far Saigon over Ho Chi Mihn City. I’m an Air Force veteran joining in 1976. I served with many Vietnam vets. Felt really bad for them. Those were the days before it was called PTSD. They deserved far better.
Mostly people call it Saigon because it shorter..
where saigon I can't find it on the Google map it's like it's gone like it's wipe from history
@@bamboo9666nah Saigon is always Saigon regardless
it’s just an linguistic phenomenon. People prefer Saigon is mostly because it’s shorter. You surely are oversea vietnamese.
Imagine being 18 years old and being drafted to fight in a war you don't believe in, or volunteering to fight for your country. And coming home to be spit on and called a drug addict. After spending years just trying to survive in a jungle, when you are just fighting for your life and the life of the men next to you, in terrible conditions. The amount of respect theses men deserve is unfathomable. Thank you for your service.
Very well explained, yes 👌🏼
What really haunts these vets is the fact that it was all for nothing, the
USA was the aggressor against a people who wanted self determination, if
some of the people wanted a government of democracy ,let them fight and die for it
WW1 and WW2 were just wars, but not this one, thousands of men women
and children ,were killed by the USA army, which lost thousands of their men
needlessly, today Vietnam is still a peaceful and prosperous COMMUNIST
country, so this USA servicemen's sacrifice was all for nothing, and they know it
He volunteered btw
Nobody spit on anybody, that's just urban myth
@@magnaviator LOL okay bud. I personally know vets who were spit on. Maybe not troll the memory of men who gave everything so you can make shitty youtube videos that average under 100 views.
The fact that my grandpa might have fought this man as a North Vietnamese soldier is crazy.
Well in war, you don't know who is who until the war over.
Any one who watches this should adhere to Richards words about going back..i have been back three times and the good lord willing will go back every year for as long as i live
Thank you. !
Guid lad clan MacAllister. 🏴🇺🇸🙏🏻
Im 28 and i live here now. I would love to meet you and hear your story over some beers.
@@Pellkot Where is here?
Vietnamese people are far more friendlier and open than Chinese. Love from England.
And also almost inhumanely forgiving.
I was trained as a Vietnamese translator/interpreter in a 47-week course at Monterey Language School in 1964 and spent 30 months in country at Tan Son Nhut AFB and Phu Bai, translating North VN telegrams and Viet-Cong tactical messages that we had to decrypt from 4-digit blocks of code that had been received at our "Radio Research Unit" stations. I was fortunate that I was never in direct combat but my base at Camp Davis at TSN was rocketed with one Sgt killed while I was sleeping (the sound woke me up). I used my language training to focus my undergraduate and graduate school education to the Ph.D. Candidacy level in geography on the history and cultures of Central Vietnam. I had just two very memorable interactions with the guys that did fight: one with a someone who spent weeks at a time deep in the forests of Laos and perhaps North Vietnam and other just seeing someone just back from the front in Saigon. Later my buddy at the Corps of Engineers where I did environmental assessment as a career had had spent his time in Vietnam wiggling down through V-C tunnels to set explosives--certainly a harrowing experience. He became an archaeologist.
Wow, that's interesting. Did the language school train you really well for what you actually did in Vietnam?
As a younger veteran I appreciate this story so much for man...words cannot express the respect I have for my older veterans....good stuff my man, peace to you.
Richard, TY for this. My 69-70 tour was in II Corps, half of it within 20 miles of Da Lat. Did a road run there 2 or 3 times and couldn't agree more with your impressions of it. I was also tasked on a Bien Hoa/Long Binh run to pick up radio equipment, which 'of course' took several days, including Saigon. A cabbie insisted "GI likey Caravelle" and in short order I was seated solo in the top bar. It was early afternoon and a city-wide alert ensued. My recollection is of only a patron or two in civvies - and I the only greenie there. Since the alert precluded movement, I wound up imbibing with three non-Tu Do lovelies, only to awake alone hungover in some budget hotel elsewhere. But your account of VC scampering across rooftops conjured another memory. At Don Duong, in the Da Lat AO, I snuck an arguably ill-advised overnight with a local girl. At some point I was roused by a half dozen males in black dress who engaged in brief talk with my 'girlfriend'. Somewhat nerviously, she conveyed sufficiently by gesture (seriously) for me to deem one of them as her friend, or perhaps brother...relievedly so as all of them carried AK's with nary a carbine in sight.
Welcome back to Nam, Charlie! Let your nightmares end here where everything began.
@@vodanh94 Have no love for the gov but your comment is quite funny.
1. There are criticisms being displayed to the government by domestic journal sites. The extremists are the ones who get into trouble. Try making a site about overthrowing the "democracy" in the US and arranging protests or riot and see how fast the FBI would come for your ass.
2. And other countries' governers live in a studio apartment while their children have to compete fairly with other kids for a chance at scholarship? What a dumb take, corruptions are everywhere even the most dignified country (Japan) there still are bad seeds.
Dude, move on. The south Vietnam is long dead. I am not happy with the communist party but all of the whinings about how the north "stole" Vietnam is getting pretty old.
South vietnam will never come back, its leaders abandoned it, economically unstable, no freedom of speech either. wtf u expect from south vietnam?
Charlie is Vietcong ! Learn the definition please !
@@vodanh94 những người cộng sản trước hết là những người theo chủ nghĩa dân tộc, đầu tiên là họ đánh đổ chế độ thực dân của người Pháp, và khi Pháp đã chấp nhận từ bỏ cuộc chơi, người Mỹ lại nhẩy vào, mục đích chia cắt đất nước Việt nam. nước Việt nam là một, dân tộc VN là một. thật nực cười khi bạn nói rằng Miền Nam bị đánh cắp. đánh cắp bởi ai? ngoại bang ư? chắc chắn là không rồi. Bạn muốn Miền nam giống như nam Triều tiên và bắc Triều tiên ư? đó là vì bạn không có lòng yêu một nước Việt nam thống nhất. bạn không có lòng tự hào dân tộc, bạn chỉ muốn mảnh đất của riêng bạn mà do người Mỹ chỉ đạo. nhưng những người yêu nước như Hồ Chí Minh, Võ NGuyên giáp... và những người yêu nước không nghĩ vậy.
@@longdangphi7765 GOOGLE TRANSLATION: The communists were first nationalists, first they overthrew the French colonial regime, and when France accepted to give up the game, the Americans jumped in again, aiming to divide Vietnam country. Vietnam is one, the Vietnamese people are one. it's ridiculous when you say that the South is stolen. Stolen by whom? foreign country? definitely not. You want the South to be like South Korea and North Korea? it's because you don't have love for a united Vietnam. you don't have national pride, you just want your own land run by the Americans. but patriots like Ho Chi Minh, Vo Nguyen Giap... and patriots don't think so.
Richard you did a great job by doing this documentary and expressing your ideas and feelings. Thanks for your service. Greetings from Mexico City
Thank you for all that you and your brothers did, my grandfather fought alongside you guys. He told me stories as a young kid I didn’t care much. Now I find myself lost, don’t really know my roots any further than Vietnam. My people are what they call “ Jarai” from Pleiku are by ia hreng River.
Thoroughly enjoyed this insight into the Vietnam War and Richard's own personal experiences, he seems like a really nice guy. I love how they marked each place with a beer !
I am a Air Force Doc , Vietnam 67-68. I have returned to Vietnam 3 other times to take the ashes of a friend back to a school for disabled Kidd he helped build. I related to all of your experiences an I was at the Hanoi Hilton during one of my trips and inside there was a shrine for the Americans and the Vietnamese prisoners and I did a ceremony and prayers for them.
Respect for calling my old home town Sai Gon . I really don’t care about what is HCM city . Thank you for your service ❤️
I was in "Nam in the Marines all of '69. I'm seeing things on this video I never knew was going on . I was in terrain that was sandy , or low vegetation/rice paddy/swampy , or jungle. I never had in country R&R. One out of country R&R. One time they got my platoon in a rear area for one night . We set up security , I remember , in our AO, where a Army Huey had set down on the waters edge of the South China Sea. My squad was sent out to set up a perimeter so the Army could retrieve the Chopper. When we found the Huey, we looked it over. No shrapnel holes, no bullet holes. No crew . We figured it was mechanical. Also figured that other Army Hueys must of picked up the crew when they set the bird down. After a short time , the sky filled with about a dozen Army Huey helicopters. Several landed. Several Army officers de-boarded those birds .All spit & polish & all starched up . Checked pout their Huey. We told them we didn't see anything wrong with it . No signs of taking any hits. They didn't talk about the Huey. They wanted to know why we looked so rough ? When was the last time we had shaved ? Why did we look so "rag-tag" ? Did we get any hot meals ? Did we ever get any beer ? I couldn't believe the questions. Thought our corpsman was in charge as his face was covered in full beard . Rest of us had peach fuzz on our faces. "Doc" said no , he was the corpsman. One of them kept talking to me ; and I kept back--stepping , trying to keep my distance. This Army officer says, " Son , I'm trying to talk to you and you keep moving backwards away from me". I said "yes sir ...... in case you didn't know it , there's a war going on , and if a sniper takes aim on your insignia that has the sun reflecting off of them ; and the sniper is a lousy shot , I don't want his miss hitting me". This Army officer stopped in his tracks , turned around ,and said to the rest of the officers, " Lets's get out of here." After they were gone , a "Crane" helicopter came and hooked up the Huey. First & last time that I ever saw such a weird looking chopper ....
And one other thing ... This former Green Beret ; talking about the most comfortable pair of boots(shoes ? ) he's ever worn in his life ? C'mon ! Those jungle boots they issued us WAS the most COMFORTABLE pair of "anything" I ever wore on my feet . Period! And I think a lot of other guys would agree with me .
However ... no disrespect to you Green Beret . And thanks for sharing your story .
OooooRah!
marty ivanoff fake Valor
You peeled potatoes behind the lines
Wait what happened to the chopper crew? Did you ever find out?
Thank you!
This was heart felt & moving. Thank you for sharing with us your journey returning back to Vietnam. God Bless You from us here in New Zealand 😊🇳🇿
1979 - 2008 - 2014
Came back to visit my family in Biên Hòa I am lost in my home town.
This video.. can't find words..
Love to all you young Americans and Vietnamese who took part.
Absolutely Superbious listening to Richard, what a legend. Respect from a Scot. 🏴🇺🇸🙏🏻
Thank you for this extremely well done documentary. I was fortunate to have been able to take my best friend back in 2001. He is a 3rd recon Marine, I say is because a Marine, no matter how long they served, is always and forever a Marine. This documentary brought back so many vivid memories for me as my friends guide, the emotion of Richard at different times in his journey back triggered my memories of my buddy staring off into the distance, perhaps remembering long ago battles or the joy of a peaceful moment in the chaos of war. Thank you again for documenting this poignant and beautiful trip.
Very good, very personal but very well structured documentary. Congrats. Thank you.
Richard, Thank you so much for sharing your journey with us.
Loved your story about MarthaRay the nurse lady and your commitment and passion for her kindness etc. very thoughtful
very nice documentary thanks for the upload.
Great job buddy! Many thanks.
Thanks Richard for sharing your good memories/stories....and to share your trip experience back to Vietnam so that other veterans will see how it has helped you bring closure and hopefully will encourage them to do the same 👍
what a emotional video, hope the best for you and family
I liked this video very much.
Welcome home master sergeant.
Excellent production - RESPECT.
This was very well done!
To be able to go back. Grandpa (who lived to 92) never got back to Belgium where he fought and liberated it during WWII - it would have been wonderful if he did ....
Thank you for sharing Richard. David, Saigon.
Good job man ! Thanks for sharing your story .
Just WOW! Wonderful documentary about a equally wonderful journey down the memory lane!
Thank you sir, for sharing your story. Peace to those that served. Vietnam is an awesome place.
Great documentary. So informative.
That was CooL , thank you Sir !!!
Going back for the first time in 50 years. I arrive back in country on my 72 birthday.
Have you arrived the country yet
@@bamboo9666 I arrived Feb 28 and departed March 28 I have been home over a month.
As a Brit who grew up watching the war on tv as a kid, have been to Vietnam 5 times to try & learn about it...so humbled to have met returning vets who gladly gave me their time to talk about their experiences...welcome home.
Fascinating video about a man who had his share of difficult moments but what is obvious in his smile and happy demeanor is that he has had a mostly wonderful life!
It takes a poet to describe these feelings and memories. Amazing interview.
Very nice and emotional ,I myself thanks you and all who were in VN .
God Bless America 🇺🇲
From 🇵🇭
From a current veteran. Welcome home. Thank you.
I was Vegas yesterday (29OCT2023) and saw a guy with a "GoRuck" patch on his back pack. I am leaving for Vietnam this Thursday (2NOV2023), to film a group of ten veterans returning for the first time in 50 years. I can't wait to tell the story.
Great document film
All that matters now, is both country are now friends. I pray for soldiers on both sides to find peace and happiness ❤
Great watch. Im glad that Richard got closure by going back.
Thanks for sharing
Thank you for your service
Very touching story , sir... welcome back to Vietnam..
I am a Brit and live in Buon Me Thuot with my wife and children. My father in law fought with the Americans in and around the area for many years. Its great to see this being filmed in and around the areas near my home. This is one of the best self made videos I have seen...well done to you Sir.
Good documentary.
✔️ a superb documentary; it makes the watcher (1) feel the (his) experience and (2) enjoy the scenery of the country
I enjoyed the video great video. I too was in South Vietnam 1968 1969 I left by way of Cam Ran Bay. I came to South Vietnam thru Danang flew to Quang Tri was stationed there for a short time then was stationed at Con Thein for a time after that stationed remained of my time at Quang Tri. I have thought about going back to South Vietnam but never have. I was drafted into the army stayed two years and left military service.
Tis a very well enlightening, uplifting and well edited be-humbling video, compared to other returnee videos. Thank you for sharing Your service and Your memories and bearing Your Soul and soles. I think I'll buy a pair as they look great for hiking. Yes, Marty Ivanoff, jungle boots are nice as I owned a pair when I was stationed in Okinawa and hiked in the jungles....
A great story and well done.
I live in HCMC for a couple of years. Since I was living in Tan Phu, an area about 7 miles from downtown and the center of SaiGon, it was easy for me to say I lived in HCMC. Had I lived in the area of old SaiGon, I would have had no problem saying that, as most of the locals still do and the as the train station is still named.
At 06:00 he talks about “bar girls” and other women. It’s EXACTLY like this still today. The vast majority of Vietnamese are conservative (as my wife says, “traditional”) far more conservative than western cultures.
At 08:00 he talks about Viet Cong running over the roofs. This is a prefect example of little we Americans understood the war and the different motives of all the parties involved.
A wonderful book about the life of a Vietnamese girl living in the Mekong Delta in the early ‘60’s is: by Bac Eaton. Not only did this help me understand the War and why people in HCMC LOVE Americans, it helped me understand the cultural background of my soon to be wife and family.
His explanation 40:00 to 43:00 about how American Special Forces work with the locals is one of the best explanations I’ve ever heard of the how and why of U.S. Special Forces (now Special Operations).
love americans? you crazy?
I'd never been particularly interested in the Vietnam War until I watched Ken Burns's documentary on it. So fascinating.
Read or listen (I personally recommend the latter) to Dispatches by Michael Herr, never has a better book been written on the culture of the war. It is my favorite literature of all time.
Very powerful, thank you.
Great documentary. Thank you for your service. I grew up at Ft. Bragg in the 80's and early 90's and always really admired the SF guys.
Nice seeing another McGraw appreciating these guys.....
Great documentary. Very informative. People complaining in the comments section obviously didn’t see the video entirely.
Thank you sir for telling your story.
Only 27% of his men came home. No wonder they have PTSD. And they were treated so badly by their fellow Americans. I can remember how pleased my father was when the Wall was built.
You look like Bill, another Viet vet I know, now living in Vietnam, married to the Vietnamese wife, and has been living there for a while, probably for the rest of his life.
Great Video, thank you. I was there in 1966-69, Navy Seabees... Why am I unable to share this video?
Loved this, great to see these guys doing revisiting there past....
MACVSOG vet John Stryker Meyer described House 10 in his podcast with Jocko
I wish I was rich so I could donate as much as possible to organizations that provide this experience to our veterans.
This was awesome. Another great one is "They were young and brave" by ABC News about the veterans of the first big battle of the war between the Americans and North Vietnamese who fought against each other in the Ia Drang Valley. They all go back to LZ X-ray and Albany together and walk the battlefield together and are interviewed. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway wrote the best seller We Were Soldiers Once...and Young that inspired this. A must see.
God bless the gracious and gentle people of Vietnam. They should never forgive us nor we ourselves.
Thank you for your service sir. Stay safe.
Years of hell, moments of heaven, all are just memories...
great story! 👍
I never thought I'd see the day that Vietnam veterans would be returning to Vietnam and socializing and bonding with their former enemies and personally I think it is wonderful. I guess the old axiom 'time heals all wounds' is true. Something else the sticker on the back of my cell phone says made in the republic of Vietnam.
The USA troops trained and fought with the South Vietnamese. Not everyone was an enemy. It was just a dumb war that made no sense
Sir thank you
Love to you
You are one special guy
God bless 🙋🏻🏴
You gave me a lump in my throat Huge Hug x
A gesture that says you warriors did not die but planted yourself in our souls forever.Must be chuckling above when you Unfolded Old Glory.
Thank you for your service....Welcome home!
You have my respect, I'm french
Thumbs Up!
After listening to so much of MACV-SOG stories and hearing about House 10 it was amazing to see it
I hope you enjoyed your trip I spent 27mo. 19days in Tay Nihn, one thing about your lost buddies they are FOREVER YOUNG, RIP BROTHERS.
Excellent Videos for Vietnam Veterans was Service in Vietnam over 45 years ago..
But until now He still looked so young and so healthy Man
And He talk so nicely..and He got many oldest Videos in Central highlands Vietnam
That's very interested Videos
About Vietnam 🇻🇳 Pass & Now..Hopefully you will get over 100 years old in Your home Town with your lovely family in USA 🇺🇸..❤🎉You..
to all the US servicemen in vietnam, thank you for your service. it’s written in the history.
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"to all the servicemen of both sides in vietnam, thank you for your service"
I changed it a lil bit.
Why ? To a war that nothing to do with. ..was it a good deed...
What service? That did no service to anyone. The Vietnamese soldiers did a service by defending their country.
@@phangirlable usa and south vietnam defended south vietnam north vietnam was the aggressor by launching a full scale invasion usa got involved years later and left before the war was lost
Gotta LOVE Martha Raye.........I remember the denture commercials....didn`t know how special she really was to this country and to you guys
I love this film.
Then and now…
Memories. .
I remember seeing Ms.Raye all the time on TV with Bob Hopes' USO shows,but I never heard that she was an Army nurse.She should have been awarded the CMOH.
I returned to VN after my tours there from 1965 to 1967 in 1968 to get married, in 1974 to do research, and last in late April 1975 to bring my first wife's family out of Saigon just four days before Saigon was captured. I never returned to the two places where I was stationed, in part because the war was till ongoing and access to them was limited or non-existant. I did visit Phan Rang where I had not been stationed but it was the center of the minority people I was researching in college, the Cham. In 1974, the war had significantly quieted down. I was able to take a bus from Saigon to Phan Rang through areas that might have been under some level of control by the V-C but I never saw or heard any sounds of war. The same applied to the three days I spent in Saigon just days before the VNA captured it; no sounds of war at all. But then just days later it was all over.
awesome thanks for your service . can you write a book about you magvsog missons that would be awesome
Read Nick Brokhausen’s two books. Outstanding.
🇺🇸👍👍 Great documentary.
You are South Viet nam hero period I love SF. Great stories at last. Love you guys especially the old man RICH very funny stories telling about MP in Dalat.
Vietnam is now a pretty damn country.
It's great to see how modern it is while creating some really amazing historical sites.
What an amazing person
Wonderful Vlog. I want to visit Saigon sometime soon. 🌞 Feel awful for all the animals that were slaughtered.😢
2021 Nothing has Changed.
For anyone that is returning to Vietnam, if you get to Hue City there is a restaurant called The DMZ. I think it’s on Le Loi street. Good food and on the ceiling they have a map of all the Marine outposts in I-Corps. We. Ate there with a group of 15 veterans from the 101st Airborne. We all enjoyed and reminisced about our time many years ago in Vietnam
I think Hue is by far the best destination for anyone interested in the war. From Trancaovan, le loi, duc loa park...bullet holes in the bridge structure & repaired citadel walls...highway1 quang tri & Dong ha..highway9 to Khe Sahn.
.
Wonderful.
MR. RICE you are still Green Beret.
Still Tough. God Bless You.
I am German, but I salute all the Vietnam vets.
Did you recognize the ground terrain and features as you remember as you flew in over the delta?
Im a Vietnam vet. I would never go back. Never.
thank you hero ! great video ! i read both books published by mac v sogs john tilt stryker meyer you guys were a rare breed ! i couldnt imagine doing the things you guys did at 2o years old ! god bless you all !
Very good. Where in Central America did you were? I'm from El Salvador