Echoes of the Vietnam War

Good Morning, Vietnam is entertaining. But art, in this case, is a thin imitation of real life. For six months in 1967, John Bagwell was an Armed Forces Vietnam Network disc jockey, playing rock and roll to the First Cavalry Division out of a bunker in An Khe. He'll tell you it was the best job in Vietnam — until it wasn't. This 104-pound deejay came home with a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star with a V for valor.

Sixty-five years ago today, a test aircraft sprayed herbicide over Bien Hoa province. The operation that grew from that test lasted a decade and dumped roughly 20 million gallons of herbicide on South Vietnam. In this episode we’ll explore how Operation Ranch Hand affected the people who served in Vietnam — and their descendants — and how the U.S. government has responded since.

In July 1969, Job Gonzalez was lowered into a tunnel where his enemy was waiting. When he resurfaced minutes later, he was out of the frying pan and into the fire. His valor that day earned him a Silver Star recommendation that lost its way in the chaos. A mechanical engineer, Job describes trauma in the only language that fits: the point where a material bends and can't spring back.

In EP118, "The Void," we joined Mark Coonrad on a road trip to visit the graves of three men who died serving with the 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division — the "Braves." Heavily engaged in the Central Highlands, this unit earned high commendations for its bravery and combat effectiveness, and enduring legendary battles like Dak To. In this conclusion, we hear from Jim Wytko, one of the surviving Braves who's still around to tell their story.

The Braves of the 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment fought a hard, largely unsung war in Vietnam's Central Highlands. Nearly 300 never came home, and most of their families received little more than a telegram — hardly enough to understand what happened. A veteran of the Iraq War has set out to fill that void: to visit every one of their graves and remember each as "more than just a name on The Wall."