Vietnam Voices

Joe Dabney served in the U.S. Army, in-country from December 1965 to July 1966, when he was sent home due to war-related injuries. He was a small-arms maintenance person. In this episode, Joe recalls stepping on the landmine and the resultant trauma.

Lee Barbee spent his career in the Air Force, including a year in Vietnam with the K9 corps. Here he recounts one night on the base when they came under attack from NVA, well-armed with satchel charges and successfully blowing up bombs stored at the base.

In this episode, Bo Millsaps, then a young Marine in Vietnam in 1969, describes the sorts of operations they would conduct, the fear that often gripped him, and how he dealt with it.

Marine Capt. Jerry Cunningham, a lawyer with the JAG corps, tells about the time with famed lawyer F. Lee Bailey came to Vietnam to defend a Marine accused of a war crime.

Bill Beaty flew A-7 Corsairs for the U.S. Navy in Vietnam because "I always wanted to fly low and fast." In this episode, he recounts a typical day of duty, if there was such a thing.

Jim Kagley describes a more human side of the war in this special Christmas episode as he recounts his unit ordering cowboy outfits for two Vietnamese boys who did general chores for the soldiers.

Army Sergeant Brent Hammonds describes an attack that the Viet Cong mounted against his air base.

Timothy Lomperis served in military intelligence in Vietnam. Lt. Lomperis served two tours in Vietnam, beginning in March 1972. His initial position was as an intelligence analyst. He saw first-hand during briefs the tensions between the Army and the Air Force over the conduct of the war. He subsequently served in a variety of training positions, including the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California.

As a member of the Army's Corps of Engineers, Richard Chandler built roads while in Vietnam in 1971 and 1972. Some of those roads were the basis for today's interstate system in Vietnam.

Robert Jones was an electronics technician for the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Intrepid during the Navy's Rolling Thunder campaign in 1968. He volunteered for flight deck duty because "that's where the action was."