Wisconsin Vietnam War Stories

Told in a roughly chronological order, each chapter begins with a detailed historical introduction. The chapters focus on US involvement prior to the war and continue through the chaotic American withdrawal from the Vietnam and the service members’ return home—naval explorations of Vietnam’s waterways; Army and Marine ground combat with the Vietcong; the Tet Offensive; battles at Hamburger Hill, Khe Sanh, and Hue; medical units evacuating the wounded; firefights on besieged firebases; the POW experience; and life after Vietnam.

The veterans’ need for mental, emotional, and physical healing continued for decades after the end of the war. Several veterans joined support groups started through the Veterans Administration and other veterans groups, counseling one another through the experiences of PTSD, survivor’s guilt, and the ongoing effects of war wounds and exposure to Agent Orange. This collection, produced as a companion book to the PBS Wisconsin documentary of the same name, offers an opportunity for others to better understand the veteran experience in a war that nearly tore this nation apart.

“Thanks to this wonderful collection, we are able to discover previously untold stories of combat, camaraderie, and the challenges of dealing with wartime experiences. Strength, sorrow, triumph, and tragedy: this powerful book has it all. It is a timeless testament to Wisconsin’s fighting men and women.”

—Retired Brigadier General Andrew M. Schuster, former Administrator, Division of Veterans Services, Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs

“The testimonies of these Wisconsin veterans confront us with the hard realities of our longest and most wrenching foreign war and may, if we listen, help us toward the full reckoning we’ve yet to achieve.”

— Christian G. Appy, author of Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides

“Whether they were drafted or enlisted, came from the city or the farm, served on land or on water, were there in ’65 or ’69, every veteran has a different story to tell. This book covers the gamut. Vietnam veterans should read this book because it will help fill in their gaps in the history of the war.”

—John Rowan, President and CEO, Vietnam Veterans of America

“A rich and powerful collection of voices that gives us a moving history of the Vietnam War. These stories take us back to that tumultuous time, but also make us think hard about today. Clearly one of the best oral histories of the war and its aftermath.”

—Robert K. Brigham, author of Iraq, Vietnam, and the Limits of American Power

“The experiences related in this volume span the Vietnam War from its real beginning in the 1950s to its disastrous end twenty years later. Its range goes beyond the usual collection of Vietnam War stories, including memories of Saigon in the early days of the Diem regime, prisoners of war in Hanoi, Hmong fighters on the Lao border. A sober warning against military intervention, it makes painful, if necessary reading in this time of ongoing wars of equal futility.”

—Marilyn B. Young, author of The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990

“A poignant and painful account of the nation's most divisive war as seen through the eyes of 40 Wisconsin Vietnam veterans. From the US advisory role to the French in the 1950s, to the brutal combat at Khe Sanh and Hue in the late 1960s, to the arduous ordeal of POWs, this oral history touches a nerve that needs to be stirred. While we can't bring back the 1,239 Wisconsin fathers, brothers, sons, uncles, friends and neighbors who died during the war, we can open our hearts to the 140,000 who are still among us. And thank them, too, for their service and sacrifice. You will be deeply moved by their powerful stories.”

—Veteran Doug Bradley, Information Office, USARV–Long Binh, 1970–1971