SUMMARY: The By War & By God Podcast is a companion series to the award-winning documentary film By War & By God. The podcast will allow us to go deeper into the stories than the film allows.
Kent C. Williamson: Hello, I’m Kent Williamson, the director of the film By War & By God and host of the soon-to-be-released By War & By God Podcast from Paladin Pictures. How soon? March the 8th.
For those that don’t know, By War & By God tells the story of a group of Vietnam Vets who survived the hell of war and who, since 1989, have been returning to Vietnam to care for some of the poorest of the poor of that beautiful land.
The film was recently nominated for an Emmy. It also won Best of Show at the Docs Without Borders film festival where it took home the Human Spirit Award, Best Direction, Best Editing, and Audience Impact Awards.
The reason we’re creating the By War & By God podcast is to go deeper into the fascinating stories these veterans told us. When we edited the film there was so much good content that didn’t make it into the film. But the podcast is the perfect vehicle for us to share these stories. Some episodes will be topical where these men reflect on their very first day as machine gunners, medics, and kids in Vietnam, or they share the stories of their absolute best… or even their worst days during the war. Other episodes will focus on a single Veterans story… their experiences as soldiers in the war… their return to a nation who didn’t appreciate them… and what led them to go back to Vietnam.
So I hope you’ll join us on March 8th as we launch the podcast. Go ahead and subscribe now so you don’t miss a single episode. If you haven’t seen the film By War & by God yet you can stream it or buy the DVD at a variety of online retailers including Vimeo On Demand and Big Heaven Cafe dot com. That’s Big Heaven Cafe dot com.
To give you a little taste of what the podcast will be like here’s the audio of the first few minutes of the film By War & By God….
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Archival Footage – News Clip: Because of the following CBS News Special Report the program normally seen at this time will not be presented today.
Phil Carney: My first recollection is just watching the news as a kid.
Bob Peragallo: There was a broadcast on the television about Vietnam and that Marines had landed there. And I had no idea that there was such a place called Vietnam.
Pat Cameron: The war was going on but I didn’t really pay a lot of attention to it.
Sandy Sturch: Whatever our purposes were, we were going to go in and do and get out and I wasn’t much concerned about it.
Archival Footage – Marines Commercial: If you think every Marine learns how to handle a rifle. You’re right.
Steve Scott: I grew up reading a lot of Kipling and wanted [laughs] some adventure.
Archival Footage – Marines Commercial: But if you think that’s all he learns, you’re wrong.
Archival Footage – News Clip: With American air support, South Vietnamese troops are still engaged in the endless, weary, bloody business of war.
Walt Griffin: Well, I really didn’t know much about until around ’64, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. And I watched the famous Johnson speech.
Archival Footage – News Clip: The confrontation between Reds and the West was the most critical since the Gulf of Tonkin incident last summer. When the US replied just as swiftly to North Vietnam PT boat attacks.
Sandy Sturch: I wasn’t much concerned about it, until my brother was sent to Vietnam
Cal Dunham: In 1967, I found myself with a set of papers that said I was now going to be joining the army
Steve Scott: I think the first time I heard about Vietnam was in boot camp in the Marine Corps. But the drill instructors inured us to the fact that we’re all going to go to Vietnam.
Roger Helle: And I remember one of the teachers one ...