On September 13, 2017 the Standard Bearers of Headquarters Battalion, 1st Marine Division, hosted a PME for their Marines and Corpsmen. The acronym, PME, stands for Professional Military Education, which covers a wide array of subjects that the Marine Corps deems critical to achieving its mission.

At the September event, the subject matter of the session was a screening of BRAVO! COMMON MEN, UNCOMMON VALOR followed by a question and answer session with Marines who survived the Siege of Khe Sanh.

At the PME with the Standard Bearers, Headquarters Battalion, 1st Marine Division. Left to right: Colonel Carlos Urbina, Colonel John Kaheny, Bill Rider, Lt Colonel Ken Pipes, Ken Rodgers, Sergeant Major M. P. Chamberlin. Photo courtesy of Betty Rodgers.

Colonel Carlos Urbina, commanding officer of Headquarters Battalion, 1st Marine Division, introduced the session by pointing out the future wars will require an awareness of a different kind of combat from the asynchronous fights in which the Marine Corps has been involved since 9/11. The enemy may very well be more like the conventional forces of the United States and thus the fights will be more like what Marines endured in World War II, Korea and in battles between Marines and the North Vietnamese Army in the 1960s and 1970s.

After Colonel Carlos Urbina’s introduction, BRAVO! co-producer and former Marine Ken Rodgers talked a bit about the film to the two-hundred-plus active duty personnel who watched a well-produced screening of BRAVO!.

Colonel John Kaheny and BRAVO! co-director, co-producer Betty Rodgers. Photo Courtesy of Ken Rodgers.

The question and answer session included Khe Sanh Marines Rodgers, retired Colonel John Kaheny, USMCR, and medically retired sergeant Bill Rider. Colonel Kaheny served an eighteen month tour of duty with the 26th Marines, including command postings with Alpha, Charlie and Delta Companies. Bill Rider was a squad leader and platoon sergeant with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines.

One of the most discussed questions from the audience was how current Marines go about teaching their new Marines to deal with fear. The discussion investigated whether it was even possible to teach someone about being frightened when faced with the possibility of death.

The event finished up with a rousing speech by retired Lieutenant Colonel Ken Pipes, Commanding Officer of Bravo Company, 1/26 during the 77-day Siege of Khe Sanh, about the legacy of the Marines of Bravo Company, 26th Marines at the siege, and a call to action for contemporary Marines to carry on the storied status of the USMC.

Prior to the screening, Colonel Urbina and Battalion Sergeant Major M. P. Chamberlin hosted the guests in their offices. We had a chance to share lunch and talk about the film, the Vietnam War, and the Marine Corps in general.

One of the highlights for us was having Colonel Urbina present both Skipper Pipes and us, the Rodgerses, with handsome plaques that recognized Skipper Pipes for his past, present and ongoing actions and inspiration to and for Marines, and the Rodgerses for creating BRAVO! and educating the public, and Marines, about the events and aftermath related to the Siege of Khe Sanh.

Colonel Carlos Urbina, right, presenting memorial plaque to BRAVO! producers Ken and Betty Rodgers. Photo courtesy of Derek Clark.

BRAVO! continues to be used in schools, colleges and the military, including at The Basic School and at PMEs, as a source of education material relative to both the history of this country and as a lesson to what the future most surely will bring to us. Betty and Ken Rodgers are most gratified that their film has become an educational tool!

You can watch a segment of Lieutenant Colonel Pipe’s stirring remarks here:

Following the screening, the active duty personnel returned to their posts.

As noted by Ken Pipes during his remarks, it appeared to all of us that the future of the United States Marine Corps is in very good hands.

Lt. Colonel Ken Pipes visiting with Marines. Photo courtesy of Derek Clark.

Thanks much to Colonel Carlos Urbina and Sergeant Major M. P. Chamberlin for the grand welcome we received for this event.

In other screening information, Idaho Public Television screened BRAVO! on Sunday, September 24th as a follow up to the Ken Burns and Lynn Novick produced series, THE VIETNAM WAR. The producers of BRAVO! wish to thank Idaho Public Television for this event as well as the Idaho Division of Veterans Services for underwriting the IPTV production of BRAVO!.

For a few more days, BRAVO! will be available to view on Idaho Public Television’s website at :
http://video.idahoptv.org/video/2365119915/.

Also in conjunction with the Ken Burns documentary, the Nampa Public Library in Nampa, Idaho, will screen BRAVO! on November 1, 2017. Doors open at 6:30 PM and the free program will begin at 7:00 PM. A panel discussion with Vietnam Veterans is scheduled to follow. The Nampa library’s website is http://nampalibrary.org.

On April 7, 2018, the Warhawk Air Museum in Nampa, Idaho, will host a one-day symposium in recognition of the 50th Anniversary of the Siege. The event will encompass a forum for educating the public about the Siege of Khe Sanh and the Vietnam War, as well as an opportunity for a Khe Sanh Veterans Reunion. Activities will include a screening of BRAVO! and guest speakers remembering the battle. Khe Sanh Vet Mike Archer, author of two heralded non-fiction books on his Khe Sanh experiences, will be one of the featured speakers. You can see more about Mike at http://www.michaelarcher.net.

Mark your calendars now, as this will be a stellar event in a world-class air museum. We are still in the planning stage, so if you would like to participate and were involved with the siege, or just want to help, please contact me at 208-340-8889. An event like this can only happen with a core group of committed volunteers. We can’t do it without you! For more information on the Warhawk Air Museum, check out their website at https://warhawkairmuseum.org.

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If you or your organization would like to host a screening of BRAVO! in your town, please contact us immediately.

DVDs of BRAVO! are available. Please consider gifting copies to a veteran, a teacher, a history buff, a library, a friend or family member. For more information, go to https://bravotheproject.com/store/.

BRAVO! has a page on Facebook. Please “like” us and “share” the page at https://www.facebook.com/Bravotheproject?ref=hl.

Most independent filmmakers produce a film, get it out to the public as far as quickly possible, and then move on to the next project.
When Betty and I started this experience of making BRAVO!, we had little idea about how films are made and in some ways we have continued to operate outside the normal purview.

One of the things we have done differently than a lot of independent filmmakers is to keep pursuing the distribution of BRAVO! even though we finished the film a number of years back.

Our feelings and thoughts on the subject are that if there is somewhere we can manage to get BRAVO! on a screen and inculcate a discussion about war and combat and the aftereffects of these activities, then we will do our best to make that happen.

Our friend, Marine and former prison warden, Terry Hubert, earlier in the life of BRAVO! suggested to Betty and me that we were educators and we have taken that suggestion to heart. And as we approach the 50th anniversary of the Siege of Khe Sanh, there is flurry of activity coming up in BRAVO!’s screening arena which we think will offer more opportunities for us to share history, art and education.

Ken Pipes, Skipper of Bravo Company, 1/26 at the Siege of Khe Sanh.

Later in the month we will travel to Fallbrook, California to meet with BRAVO! Marine Skipper Ken Pipes where we will then screen the film at Camp Pendleton on September 13. The screening will be part of H & S Battalion, 1st Marine Division’s PME program. Skipper Pipes and I will be joined by several other survivors of the Siege in this presentation that will begin at 1300 and end at 1400. Location for this event will be specified soon.

On September 21st, 2017, BRAVO! will be broadcast on Idaho Public Television immediately following Ken Burns’ documentary, The Vietnam War. The broadcast will begin at 9:30 MDT (and PDT in IPTV’s Pacific Time Zone locations).

PBS will also show the film on its PLUS channel at 7:00 PM MDT (7:00 PM PDT), September 24, 2017.

In conjunction with the PBS showings of the film, Idaho Public Television will also rebroadcast Marcia Franklin’s DIALOGUE segments of her interviews with us—Ken and Betty Rodgers—and BRAVO!’s Steve Wiese. The two segments will run back-to-back starting at 10:00 PM MDT (10:00 PM PDT) on September 26, 2017. You can take a look at Idaho Public Television’s schedule, plus a lot of other informative info, here.

Also in conjunction with the Ken Burns documentary, the Nampa Public Library in Nampa, Idaho, will screen BRAVO! on November 1, 2017. Doors open at 6:30 PM and the program will begin at 7:00 PM. A panel discussion with Vietnam Veterans is scheduled to follow. The Nampa library’s website is http://nampalibrary.org.

On November 17 and 18th, BRAVO! will be screened in Santa Fe, New Mexico, twice on the 17th (once in the afternoon and once in the evening) and on the evening of the 18th at the New Mexico National Guard Bataan Memorial Museum. Details are forthcoming. You can access information about the New Mexico National Guard’s Bataan Memorial Museum here.

On April 7, 2018, the Warhawk Air Museum in Nampa, Idaho, will host a one-day symposium in recognition of the 50th Anniversary of the Siege. The event will encompass several goals: a forum for educating the public about the Siege of Khe Sanh and the Vietnam War, as well as an opportunity for a Khe Sanh Veterans Reunion. Activities will include a screening of BRAVO! and guest speakers remembering the battle. Khe Sanh Vet Mike Archer, author of two heralded non-fiction books on his Khe Sanh experiences, will be one of the featured speakers. You can see more about Mike at http://www.michaelarcher.net.

BRAVO!’s Steve Wiese.

Mark your calendars now, as this will be a stellar event in a world-class air museum. This last event is still in the planning stage, so if you would like to participate and were involved with the siege, or just want to help, please, please contact me at 208-340-8889. An event like this can only happen with a core group of committed volunteers. We can’t do it without you! For more information on the Warhawk Air Museum, check out their website at https://warhawkairmuseum.org.

As BRAVO!’S Steve Wiese says, “Bravo lives on!”

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If you or your organization would like to host a screening of BRAVO! in your town, please contact us immediately.

DVDs of BRAVO! are available. Please consider gifting copies to a veteran, a teacher, a history buff, a library, a friend or family member. For more information, go to https://bravotheproject.com/store/.

BRAVO! has a page on Facebook. Please “like” us and “share” the page at https://www.facebook.com/Bravotheproject?ref=hl.

On September 15 of this year the folks who live in Pocahontas, Virginia, are going to rename and dedicate the Center Street Bridge, Route 1103, as the “Donald R. Rash Bridge.”

Donald Rash was a Marine in Bravo Company, 1/26 who was killed in action on March 30, 1968 in what has become known as the Payback Patrol where the Marines of Bravo Company went outside the wire at Khe Sanh to kick some butt, get even and find their fallen comrades still out on the battlefield since the Ghost Patrol of February 25, 1968.

Photo of Donald Ray Rash in Marine Corps blues. Photo credit: Virtual Wall

I didn’t know Don Rash, or if I did it was by sight and not by name. He was in the third platoon and I was a radio operator with the CP for Second Platoon. I didn’t know a lot of the men I served with outside of those whose lives were tangled up with my routine—standing radio watch, mail call, patrolling, noshing on C rations, sitting around “shooting the moose.”

Don Rash was posthumously awarded a Navy Cross for his action on the Payback Patrol. A Navy Cross isn’t a medal handed out for anything less than life threatening actions performed without regard for one’s own safety to help save fellow warriors, and/or for extraordinary combat action.

Navy Cross Medal

An excerpt from his Navy Cross citation gives an idea of what Don Rash did to deserve his award:

“Company B suddenly came under a heavy volume of small-arms fire from a numerically superior North Vietnamese Army force occupying fortified positions. Although the majority of the hostile fire was directed at his squad, pinning down his companions, Private Rash disregarded his own safety as he unhesitatingly left a covered position and launched a determined assault against the enemy emplacements. Ignoring the hostile rounds impacting near him, he fearlessly advanced across the fire-swept terrain, boldly throwing hand grenades and delivering a heavy volume of rifle fire upon the enemy force. Although continuously exposed to the intense hostile fire, he resolutely continued his vicious attack until he had destroyed five enemy positions and killed numerous North Vietnamese soldiers. When his company was subsequently ordered to withdraw while under accurate enemy mortar fire, he steadfastly remained behind, and as he delivered suppressive fire to cover the evacuation of casualties he was mortally wounded.”

You can read Don’s entire Navy Cross citation here.

Pocahontas, Virginia

Sometimes it seems to me that these citations for actions above and beyond the call of duty read a little like a stiff collar. On page 274 of Ray Stubbe’s book about Khe Sanh titled Battalion of Kings the entry about Don’s actions reads more like someone telling us a story about Don’s heroism on March 30, 1968:

“PFC Donald Ray Rash, a Marine with the point squad of B-3, overcame 3 NVA positions with grenades and small arms fire. When the company was ordered to break contact, PFC Rash remained behind to provide effective suppressive fire for the evacuation of KIA and WIA, and was killed when he was struck with shrapnel from one of the NVA mortars.”

But I think the most gut-wrenching words that move me more than anything when I think about Donald Rash’s award come from his fellow warrior, Michael E. O’Hara, who states in the documentary film Bravo! Common Men, Uncommon Valor:

“You just don’t know what it’s like to see a nineteen year old kid—I believe it was Rash, but I’m not sure, I think it was Rash—laid out on his belly in the mud, sticking his rifle in that direction and give you the thumbs up and tell you to go that (O’Hara points the opposite way) direction and he knows damned well he’s never going to get up out of that mud. He knows he’s dying for you.”

Pocahontas, Virginia, is an old coalmining town hard by the Virginia/West Virginia border in Tazewell County, and according to Wikipedia had a population of 389 folks in 2010.

So many of the men I served with in Vietnam were from towns the approximate size of Pocahontas. Maybe it was the Selective Service draft that was in place nationally back then that hastened young men to join the Marine Corps and/or maybe it was their patriotism that threw them in the trenches with me. Maybe it was something else.

Whatever the reason, we spent some intensely intimate moments together and not the romantic kind, but moments of fear and rage and revenge and redemption; moments of dark humor. I only met one or two Marines who set out to earn medals. Most of my comrades were just trying to survive, to do their jobs and to take care of their buddies.

I suspect that’s what Donald Rash was doing out there on March 30, 1968, just trying to survive, just trying to do his job, just trying to take care of his Marines. I bet he didn’t have any notion of being selfless when we first went outside the wire on that foggy morning.

Michael O’Hara. Photo credit: Betty Rodgers.

And thanks to men like Don Rash, I get to sit here and think about those days at Khe Sanh nearly fifty years ago when the Marines of Bravo Company, 1/26 stood knee deep in killing and misery.

So, here’s a salute to the memory of Donald R. Rash and what he did for us—all of us—on March 30, 1968. Semper Fidelis.

And may Don Rash’s bridge in Pocahontas be a suitable memorial to the price he paid in 1968.

If you are anywhere near Pocahontas on September 15, 2017, consider attending the dedication.

You can take a look at Don Rash’s Virtual Wall page here:

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On the screening front, BRAVO! will be screened on Idaho Public Television at 9:30 PM, September 21, 2017 in conjunction with Ken Burn’s documentary PBS series on the Vietnam War.

On November 1, 2017, BRAVO! will be screened at the Nampa Public Library, Nampa, Idaho. Doors open at 6:30 PM and the screening will begin at 7:00 PM.

On November 17 and 18th, 2017, BRAVO! will be screened in Santa Fe, NM. On the 17th, there will be an afternoon screening and an evening screening. On the 18th, there will be an afternoon screening. More details to follow.

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If you or your organization would like to host a screening of BRAVO! in your town, please contact us immediately.

DVDs of BRAVO! are available. Please consider gifting copies to a veteran, a teacher, a history buff, a library, a friend or family member. For more information, go to https://bravotheproject.com/store/.

BRAVO! has a page on Facebook. Please “like” us and “share” the page at https://www.facebook.com/Bravotheproject?ref=hl.

I recently heard someone on the radio talking about an Austrian composer and violinist named Friedrich “Fritz” Kreisler who fought with the Austrian army during the early days of World War I.

Here is a short biography from Wikipedia about Fritz Kreisler:

Friedrich “Fritz” Kreisler (February 2, 1875 – January 29, 1962) was an Austrian-born violinist and composer. One of the most noted violin masters of his day, and regarded as one of the greatest violin masters of all time, he was known for his sweet tone and expressive phrasing.

Photo of Fritz Kreisler.

He served briefly in the Austrian Army in World War I before being honourably discharged after he was wounded.

On the radio show, the announcer talked about Fritz’s perfect pitch, or absolute pitch. According to Wikipedia:

Perfect pitch is a rare auditory phenomenon characterized by the ability of a person to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of a reference tone.

Besides its value in the realm of music, Fritz’ perfect pitch endeared him to the men who served with him in the trenches during World War I. Perfect pitch enabled Fritz to distinguish the sounds of incoming and to tell his comrades where incoming artillery rounds were going to hit.

In his memoir, Fritz said this about the sound of incoming:

I, too, soon got accustomed to the deadly missiles, in fact. I had already started to make observations of their peculiarities. My ear, accustomed to differentiate sounds of all kinds, had some time ago, while we still advanced, noticed a remarkable discrepancy in the peculiar whine produced by the different shells in their rapid flight through the air as they passed over our heads, some sounding shrill, with a rising tendency, and the others dull, with a falling cadence.

Hearing about Fritz’ abilities to pinpoint artillery round sounds and the location they would strike led me to think about the trenches of Khe Sanh and how, if one survived long enough and had scrambled away from close encounters with 152 millimeter shells lobbed at us from Laos, then he may be gifted with the ability to tell where a round was going to hit.

I remember yelling at new arrivals during the months of February and March that it was time to move when I heard the report of certain 152s leaving the mouths of caves across the Laotian border on their way to wipe us out. There was a particular “thump” sound—more hollow than the sound of the rounds that fell farther away—that told me it was time to di-di mau for a safer place. Usually, the new guys would look at me like I was stupid or crazy, but if they survived that round, they paid attention to me the next time I announced it was time to move.

Michael O’Hara at Khe Sanh. Photo courtesy of Michael E. O’Hara.

Unlike Fritz, I couldn’t accurately predict the impact area for all the incoming: the 130 MM, the 122 MM, the various mortar and rocket rounds, the sniper rounds, all of which we received plenty.
And every one of them made a different sound.

I remember those big rounds, those 152s sounding like a train.

In our film, BRAVO!, Michael O’Hara made this comment on 152s:

“But it’s like a freight train coming through the bathroom when you’re taking a shower. And you know it’s coming and you can’t get out of the bathroom.”

Michael also said this about the big guns firing into Khe Sanh Combat Base:

“I thought to myself, this is crazy. People don’t understand what it’s like for all that artillery to come in like that. It’s just terrifying. It’s meant to do more than just tear up your body. It’s meant to tear up your mind. It will scare you to death.”

But it wasn’t just the 152s that could kill you. It was all of the various types of hardware the NVA threw at us.

The late BRAVO! Marine Lloyd Scudder said this about incoming:

“Every time there was incoming or the ammo dumps, you know, were blowing up, I was scared to death. That shhhheeeww and the whistling of the rockets and the poof of the mortars and the kapoof sheeeewhirwhirwhir. That right there scared the hell out of me.”

Yes, the big stuff could kill and maim, but the silent slap of a sniper round could get you, too. And the worst part about it, as anyone who has been sniped at knows, is you don’t hear the round coming because that sleek and stealthy killer travels faster than the speed of sound. I suspect that muzzle velocity is responsible for the old saying, “You don’t hear the one that kills you.”

BRAVO! Marine Ron Rees had this to say about snipers:

“ . . . rounds from a sniper. It was like a mosquito. They were buzzing your head constantly . . . you just realized that was a bullet.”

Lloyd Scudder. Photo courtesy of the late Lloyd Scudder

Besides being killed or maimed, there was the psychological assault–as alluded to earlier by Michael O’Hara–that all of that incoming delivered to each one of us in the Khe Sanh area; not just the Combat Base, but Hills 861, 861A, 558, 950, 881 South, Lang Vei, and Khe Sanh Ville.

Again, Ron Rees:

“You hear it leave the tube and then just the seconds that it takes . . . and you know how long it is . . . when you heard it leave the tube, you knew how long you had, and from the time you heard that round leave the tube until it hit, you imagined death; you’re thinking all along, Is it you?”

And as this happened, sometimes over a thousand times a day, day after day, it had an effect, a life-long effect.

When people plan for the future, near-term or farther out, and I’m involved in their plans, I often times find myself thinking, “Why are we spending all this time working on plans? We don’t know what the future will bring. This is all a waste of time. A minute from now we might all be dead.”

Ron Rees. Photo Courtesy of Ron Rees.

Ron Rees had something to say about that, too:

“I really learned to live—because of the incoming and counting and everything else—to live by the second. You hear people say they live like that, I mean they literally live like that. My whole life I’ve never stopped living like that.”

As I thought about Fritz Kreisler in World War I and the men at Khe Sanh during the Siege, I felt a strange sensation, a linkage, related, I suppose, to the notion that even though there was a span of more than fifty years between Fritz’ experiences with the horrors of war and mine, we both learned to survive, and in some instances that survival was related to our ability to employ perfect pitch or some facsimile thereof.

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If you or your organization would like to host a screening of BRAVO! in your town, please contact us immediately.

DVDs of BRAVO! are available. Please consider gifting copies to a veteran, a teacher, a history buff, a library, a friend or family member. For more information, go to https://bravotheproject.com/store/.

BRAVO! has a page on Facebook. Please “like” us and “share” the page at https://www.facebook.com/Bravotheproject?ref=hl.

Spring started off with a bang for BRAVO!. The City of Idaho Falls in conjunction with Idaho Humanities Council and the Veterans Affairs Committee of Eastern Idaho sponsored a screening of BRAVO! in Idaho Falls’ historic Colonial Theater on April 6, 2017.

Over one hundred folks attended the screening which was followed by the audience’s spirited discussion of the film with a panel of Vietnam vets, a Vietnam-era vet, and a veterans’ counselor. Thanks to Mr. Ed Maronh and Mr. Bob Skinner and Idaho Falls Mayor Rebecca Casper along with the folks at the Idaho Falls Arts Council, the Colonial Theater, the City of Idaho Falls, the Idaho Humanities Council and the Military Affairs Committee of Eastern Idaho for their efforts in making the screening a big success.

Entrance to the Colonial Theater, Idaho Falls, Idaho

One of the most gratifying experiences for us was the number of youngsters who came to the event and who had a number of great questions about the history of the war and about current affairs including US involvement in the wars of the Middle East.

A number of folks also introduced themselves as teachers and college professors who entertained interest in showing the film to their students. We always love seeing BRAVO! used as an educational tool.

Coming up on the screening front: On or around Veterans Day, 2017, BRAVO! will be screened in Santa Fe. Please stay tuned for details.

Since since tomorrow is June 1, 2017, we thought a look back at some events and experiences in Vietnam fifty years ago, around June 1, 1967, would fit the moment.

The men of Bravo Company, 26th Marine Regiment, were dug in on the crest of wet and breezy Hill 881 South, not far south of the DMZ, not far from Laos, and west of the Khe Sanh combat base. At that time we Marines were patrolling off the hill, down tree lined draws, into monstrous swamps, along the ridges and into the shattered tree line of Hill 881 North, wearing only soft covers and no flak jackets.

That behavior would soon change, and we’d begin to go out of the wire wearing flak jackets and helmets. On June 7, 1967, elements of Bravo would walk into an ambush sprung by North Vietnamese troops that would leave 19 Marines and Navy Corpsmen dead and because the men were not wearing helmets and flack jackets, the damage inflicted by the NVA was much worse.

I remember enjoying going out on patrol without worrying about flak jackets and helmets, all the extra weight and the rivers of sweat they generated. But after June, 7, I didn’t mind wearing that extra gear.

As for June 1 itself…according to the command chronologies of the 1st Battalion 26th Marines, Bravo Company didn’t even go outside the wire on that date other than the requisite listening posts and ambushes (referred to quite often as “night activities”) that sneaked outside the concertina wire after dusk and hustled back before the sun came up.

It might have been about June 1 that we knocked down the copse of tall trees that obscured the fields of fire in front of 2nd Platoon’s sector down on the southern end of the hill.

I remember being on a work detail with a combat engineer—I think his name was Treadway—stuffing a satchel of C-4 plastic explosives inside a big roll of barbed wire. We inserted a blasting cap into one of the C-4 sticks, ran the wire back to a claymore mine detonator, and then we all ducked.

“Fire in the hole!”

What had once been a stately stand of very tall trees was gone. We knew it before the smoke cleared from the explosion. We knew it because as we knelt in the trench the overhead whine and whistle of what once was barbed wire and statuesque trees hurtled over our heads..

After that, we could see quite well, down to where the bend of the terrain turned steep towards the creek that babbled way below.

We needed to see so the NVA didn’t sneak up on us in the night and cut our throats. We had to destroy the trees and underbrush to clear our fields of fire. It was going on all over the Vietnam war zone from south to north. The enemy used the cover to his advantage and we destroyed the cover. Fire, explosives, bombs and Agent Orange. We needed to kill the trees.

The trench line on Hill 881 South.

Those early days of June 1967 were also encounters with huge rats and snakes and dripping mist and nights on listening posts with leeches crawling up your nose and into your mouth. It was violent thunderstorms with barrages of hail and so much precipitation that the runoff barreled down the trenches.

We were covered in mud and shivered, the skin of our hands wrinkled with too much moisture. Nasty sores that oozed puss day and night and hurt every time you moved appeared on arms and legs. Huge hives hung in the bamboo patches with the meanest bees in the universe. When they attacked, they came full bore and in depth, leaving the Marines who were unlucky enough to disturb the hive with hands and faces swollen several times their normal size.

But yeah, compared to what we encountered a week later on 6/7/67, or seven months later when the Siege of Khe Sanh began, these inconveniences were really nothing.

If you or your organization would like to host a screening of BRAVO! in your town please contact us immediately.

DVDs of BRAVO! are available. Please consider gifting copies to a veteran, a teacher, a history buff, a library, a friend or family member. For more information, go to https://bravotheproject.com/store/.

BRAVO! has a page on Facebook. Please “like” us and “share” the page at https://www.facebook.com/Bravotheproject?ref=hl.

We have great news to announce! BRAVO! has been accepted in the inaugural GI Film Festival San Diego! Thanks to the Skipper (Ken Pipes) and his son and daughter-in-law, Tim and Sandra, we learned about this film festival and sent in our application. Lo and behold, we are in and scheduled with a prime time slot! What makes us happiest about this is that it couldn’t be more appropriate for BRAVO!’s first film festival, since every man in the film went to Camp Pendleton (San Diego County) for staging to go to Vietnam. San Diego County is where the story begins. And it’s the home of Bravo Company’s illustrious commander. Perfect.

Ken and I will be driving to San Diego for the event. We would love it if each and every one of you could be there, too, but we know some of you cannot. If you ARE able to join us, we’d love to visit with you.

In order to get the attention of folks who could help BRAVO! find a national audience, the most important thing we can do right now is sell out the theater. This gets their attention. There are 200 seats, and anything you can do to help would be deeply appreciated.

BRAVO! will be shown at 12:30 PM on Sunday, October 18. The theater is located very near where last year’s Khe Sanh Veterans Reunion was held. It is located off the 163 freeway in the bottom section of the Hazard Center just off Friars Rd. (7510 Hazard Center Drive, San Diego, CA 92108.)

Here is the link to purchase tickets. There is a discount for veterans and military, as well as members of KPBS public television. Scroll down to BRAVO!, and we encourage you to take a look at the rest of the festival, too.

We will be creating a Facebook “event” which you are welcome to “share.” It’s a great way to help get the word out.

The best part of this wonderful news is that it means more and more people will see and be aware of this story.

A heartfelt thank you to each one of you, in the film or not, for your interest, participation and encouragement in this journey. It has meant everything to us.

I found them in an old blue binder, one of those flimsy ones with a cheap vinyl cover. All the letters I sent to my family while I was in the service from 1966 through 1969. I had no idea my mother had kept them. As I re-read them, I was surprised by a number of things: back then I had very poor penmanship although it was much more legible than it is now; I initially wrote in cursive, something that one sees very little of these days; I was naive at the beginning of my Vietnam tour, cynical and somewhat bitter at the end; except for several letters sent berating the anti-war protesters back home after we Khe Sanh defenders got infamous on the covers of Time and Life and Newsweek, for the most part, I shined my parents on about what was going on in the places I was located in Vietnam.

An envelope I used to write my parents while I was in Vietnam.
© Ken Rodgers 2014

Here is an excerpt from a letter I wrote on March 28, 1967, the day I got to Danang, Vietnam:

“Instead of getting 3-4 weeks of jungle training in Okinawa, we got 60 hours of shots, blood donating, plus work parties. We got here at 3:30 this morning via Continental Airlines. We’ve just been sitting around in the filth and heat and humidity–getting sticky and dirty…”

Or this from November 17, 1967:

“I got a new pair of jungle boots today–my other pair, 5-1/2 months old, were literally falling apart at the seams.”

On January 8, 1968 I wrote:

“By the time you receive this letter I should have only about 90 days left in country.”

On February 26, 1968:

“A newsman from NBC got my picture the other day. Look for my flick on TV.”

Ken Rodgers, co-producer, co-director of BRAVO!, photo courtesy of Kevin Martini-Fuller

On March 10, 1968, I wrote a diatribe, what I described at the time as “podium pounding” that included deleterious comments about the North Vietnamese and about the war protesters at home. Some of the more plain vanilla narrative from that letter follows:

“…we aren’t sitting around waiting to die, we are sitting around waiting for the time we can go home because we are alive and are going to live because it takes more than 16,000 (the real number of NVA was closer to 40,000)…idiots to beat 5000 (the real number of US personnel–USMC, Navy, Army, Air Force and South Vietnamese allies was closer to 6000) Marines face to face…”

As I read these letters I reflected on how long it took for letters to get delivered from my family and friends to me while I was at Khe Sanh, and vice versa, how long it took for mine to get home. It usually took weeks for correspondence to get from back-in-the-real-world (as we called it) to me in the bush. Oftentimes letters and packages got lost. Mail was our lifeline from the “real world.” It helped keep our morale up, helped stiffen our spines.

Photo of part of a letter I wrote my parents on March 28, 1967, the day I arrived in Vietnam. By this time I was trying printing my words as a way to make my letters more legible.
© Ken Rodgers 2014

Now, troops overseas can communicate almost instantly with the folks back home. Besides the old method—the mail—one can telephone, email, Skype, video teleconference and instant message. Same results, I think, but the immediacy of it all, I suspect, makes those direct contacts pretty common should a warrior choose it to be so.

Back in my day, you could go to Danang and wait in line in the middle of the night to call home. I only knew of one or two Marines who took advantage of the service. Most of the time I was mired in the bush and Danang was a long ways off, and when in Danang I was going somewhere, to a school or on R&R or to raise some hell at China Beach.

Think about how it must have been for Caesar’s legionnaires back in 53 BC. Correspondence must have taken months, if it happened at all, and once a warrior tromped off to Gaul, he may never be heard from again.

For most of us, family ties are strong and the memories of home and thoughts of returning there are a powerful bond that help Marines keep their spirits up and allows them to function whether it be on watch, on a work party or in battle.

While we fought in Vietnam, our loved ones needed our letters. We needed theirs.

On the screening front, we are pleased to announce that BRAVO! will be shown at Idaho’s historic Egyptian Theater in Boise on March 30, 2015. We will post updates to this event here as they become available.

If you or your organization would like to host a screening of BRAVO! in your town next spring or summer, please contact us immediately.

DVDs of BRAVO! are available. For more information, go to https://bravotheproject.com/buy-the-dvd/.

BRAVO! has a page on Facebook. Please “like” us and “share” the page at https://www.facebook.com/Bravotheproject/. It’s another way to stay up on our news and help raise more public awareness of this film.

This past week the BRAVO! team spent the week at the Khe Sanh Veterans annual reunion at the Town and Country Resort in San Diego, California.

We met again with men who served with Bravo Company, First Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment before, during and after the Siege of Khe Sanh. We also met new friends and old friends from other outfits and shared stories, memories, tears and laughs.

Every year these events get more intimate and emotional for us. The ties that bind the survivors of any crisis are strong and can only be severed by death. This is very true for the men who served during the Siege. For those of us who endured the horror of that prolonged battle, the bonds of comradeship are stout. As one looks across a room full of veterans of that action, he knows that the people sitting out there, even if he does not personally know them, all understand the lifelong tensions and anxiety that simmer down inside.

One of the most exciting things that happened to us at the 2014 reunion was being joined by our family. Son Jim and his wife Norma, along with their daughters Justyce and Jayden drove over from Casa Grande, Arizona. Daughter Sarah and husband Baruch along with their daughter Isadora came in from Seattle, Washington. We were all present at the reunion banquet when Justyce, who received a scholarship from the Khe Sanh Veterans Association, was recognized by the scholarship committee chair, Dan Fisher.

BRAVO! Corpsmen and Marines: Back (L to R): Jim Beall, Charles McIntire, Tom Quigley, John Cicala, Tom Kupcho, Ken Pipes, Front (L to R): Ken Korkow, Ken Rodgers, Mike McCauley, Ben Long
© Betty Rodgers 2014

Thanks to Tom Eichler, John Pessoni and the rest of the leaders of the Khe Sanh Veterans for all their hard work in putting the event together. Now, next year, on to Savannah, Georgia.

While we were at the reunion, we slipped away to screen BRAVO! COMMON MEN, UNCOMMON VALOR at American Legion Post 291, Newport Beach, California. While the calming Pacific breezes wafted over the sailboats berthed at the pier outside the post, an earnest audience of seventy-plus people saw the film. Among the attendees were BRAVO! Marines Skipper Ken Pipes, Ben Long, Ken Korkow, Mike McCauley, John Cicala and Tom Quigley. Also there were other men who served with Bravo Company, Jim Beall and Charles McIntire. Area residents Ray and Barbara Doyle and Robin Zimmermann who contributed both music and expertise to the film came and visited with us and watched BRAVO!

A big shout-out to Tony Arrigo, Jim Kaylor and Roger Henry who worked hard to make sure the event came off without a hitch.

Something about the contrast between balmy southern California weather outside and the intense representation of the violence, agony and redemption depicted inside during the screening of the film seemed to make the day more poignant.

At the Newport Beach Screening, left to right: Barbara Doyle, Ray Doyle and Robin Zimmermann.
© Betty Rodgers 2014

Aside from the Khe Sanh Veterans reunion and the Newport Beach screening, BRAVO! was featured in an outstanding news feature by reporter Matt Burke in The Stars and Stripes which serves the United States’ military community worldwide. You can read the article here.
http://www.stripes.com/news/special-reports/vietnam-at-50/the-bloody-battle-of-khe-sanh-77-days-under-siege-1.314627

Up next for the BRAVO! team, back to Idaho for a battery recharge and plans for screenings in March 2015 to coincide with the first year of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War and for Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day.

If you or your organization would like to host a screening of BRAVO! in your town this winter or spring, please contact us immediately.

DVDs of BRAVO! are available. For more information, go to https://bravotheproject.com/buy-the-dvd/.

BRAVO! has a page on Facebook. Please “like” us and “share” the page at https://www.facebook.com/Bravotheproject/. It’s another way to stay up on our news and help raise more public awareness of this film.

I used to travel to Sonoma County, California, back in the early seventies and it seemed to me the place seethed with hatred of our war efforts in not just Vietnam, but all over the world. In my mind, the place was anti-war, anti-Vietnam, and in some cases anti-me.

I don’t think I’m the only person who felt that way. Parts of Northern California have earned a reputation as anti-military, anti-war.

Nevertheless, Betty and I moved to Sonoma County in 1990. Was it anti-war? Maybe. For a lot of folks. Did I care? Hard to say. Mostly I kept my nose to the work stone and spent my time living, keeping my war experiences held close and not for public consumption.

Tom Croft, emcee for the 14th Annual Sonoma County Tribute to Our Veterans.
© Betty Rodgers 2014

We moved from California after living there for 15 years. After our move, we began to travel, to write, to photograph and make a film about the Siege of Khe Sanh. The genesis of BRAVO! COMMON MEN, UNCOMMON VALOR has led us across the country, Massachusetts to Texas, Idaho to Rochester, Minnesota. Fallbrook, California and Vista, California and San Francisco.

Last week we were back in Sonoma County where we were guests at the Sonoma County Tribute to Veterans Celebration. Eight hundred folks—some veterans, some not—attended the luncheon and panel discussion.

This tribute has been going on for 14 years. When we lived in Sonoma County, I’d heard about it. But Sonoma County, in my mind, was a place that didn’t have much truck with warriors. I was wrong.

Sponsored by a number of local Sonoma County Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs and emceed by our friend, Navy Corpsman Tom Croft, this event is one successful model for, in my estimation, how an homage to veterans tribute should look.

Vietnam War Army medic Ezbon Jen proctored a panel of veterans who talked about their war experiences. I (Ken Rodgers) served as a representative for the Vietnam War. Retired Army Colonel Pete Peterka, who first fought in World War II as a Marine, represented WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Regan Masi, a United States Air Force vet, represented the post-9/11 conflicts. Phyllis Gould spoke to the audience as one of our country’s original “Rosie the Welders” during World War II.

Out in the crowd, I saw uniforms on bent bodies that spoke to me of Bastogne and the Battle of the Bulge. I met Vietnam vets who ride their motorcycles all over the west to funerals for Vietnam vets. I met a former Navy pilot whose father was a colonel of Marines who spoke out against Senator Joseph McCarthy’s allegations against loyal American citizens. The Commandant of the Marine Corps eventually asked for this colonel’s resignation and got it, and now the colonel’s son has carried on the family tradition as an ardent spokesman for Veterans for Peace.

I once thought that Veterans for Peace were men and women who, because they were for peace, were against those who fought in war. But in my recent experience, I don’t think that’s the case. They just want peace and who doesn’t? No one hates war like a man or woman clamped in the teeth of fright as he or she is compelled to kill his or her enemy.

Panel Members, left to right: Phyllis Gould, Regan Masi, Colonel Pete Peterka, Ken Rodgers.
© Betty Rodgers 2014

And so, last week it was very gratifying for me to see the nearly 800 folks collected together to honor veterans of many wars. And in a place that has had a reputation for not liking or supporting veterans.

You can view a short YouTube clip of Ezbon Jen interviewing Ken Rodgers @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyvcD-XMSWY.

On the screening front, BRAVO! will be shown in Newport Beach, California, this Saturday, November 15, at 10:00 AM. American Legion Post 291 will host the screening at their facility located at 215 E. 15th Street, Newport Beach. Your $10.00 donation at the door will benefit the Fisher House of Southern California which offers shelter and support for veterans who are dealing with a medical crisis. Come out and see this profound film and support the Fisher House.

If you or your organization would like to host a screening of BRAVO! in your town this winter or spring, please contact us immediately.

DVDs of BRAVO! are available. For more information, go to https://bravotheproject.com/buy-the-dvd/.

BRAVO! has a page on Facebook. Please “like” us and “share” the page at https://www.facebook.com/Bravotheproject/. It’s another way to stay up on our news and help raise more public awareness of this film.

One of the more gratifying experiences we’ve enjoyed with our BRAVO! encounters is the recognition that is coming to so many of the men who served with Bravo Company, 1/26, during the outfit’s time in Vietnam. On September 28, 2014, Vincent Mottola was honored in his hometown of Medford, Massachusetts.

Unlike a lot of other wars in which United States armed forces have been involved, the honors and remembrances due the men and women who served in Vietnam have been slow to come.

Regardless of how one feels about the morality or efficacy of our efforts in that war, the men and women who fought and died there, not to mention those who have returned, were not responsible for our government’s choice of wars. They were called to serve and they did, some giving the ultimate sacrifice for, in most cases, something they thought was worth doing.

Honoring Vincent Mottola. Photo Courtesy of Marie Chalmers

So we are very happy to crow about the honors that are coming now to the men of Bravo who gave up their youth, their naiveté, and in many cases their lives for something they thought was of value.

Below are some photos taken and sent to us by Vincent Mottola’s cousin, the vibrant Boston native, Marie Chalmers. These photos are of the ceremony conducted in Medford, Massachusetts, where Vinnie Mottola was memorialized by having a street corner named in his honor.

Vinnie is one of the veterans to whom BRAVO! is dedicated, thanks to the generosity of the Mottola family. He was killed in action at Khe Sanh Combat Base on February 23, 1968. You can find out more about Vinnie here.

Below are some photos of the event in Medford. Photos courtesy of Marie Chalmers.

This first photo is of the street sign for the newly named corner.

Vincent A Mottola Square

The second photo in this three-photo series is of Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn and the Marine Corps color guard.

The last is a photo of Vincent Mottola’s family who joined together at the naming of Vincent A Mottola Square.

Ooorah and Semper Fidelis, Vincent Mottola!

We look forward to upcoming screenings at the Meridian Library in Meridian, Idaho, on October 22; Oceanside, CA, on November 1; and Newport Beach, CA, on November 15, 2014. Please join us and invite your friends.

If you would like to host a screening of BRAVO! in your town this winter or spring, please contact us immediately.
DVDs of BRAVO! are available. For more information, go to https://bravotheproject.com/buy-the-dvd/.

BRAVO! has a page on Facebook. Please “like” us and “share” the page at https://www.facebook.com/Bravotheproject/. It’s another way to stay up on our news and help us reach more people.