Friendly Fire (1979) - full transcript
In March 1970, a U.S. Army officer arrived at the Iowa farm of Peg and Gene Mullen and informed them that their son Michael had been killed in Vietnam by "friendly fire." Their determined attempts to learn more about the circumstances of their son's death are the subject of this true account film.
(birds chirping)
(wind whirring)
(crow squawking)
(cows mooing)
(gentle harmonica music)
(pigs oinking)
(cows mooing)
(dog barking)
(cows mooing)
(birds chirping)
(hammer tapping)
(pigs oinking)
(rooster crowing)
- Looks nice.
- Tell John to give it plenty
of water the first week.
- You gonna finish packing?
- Later.
I wanna clean up that cornfield.
(tools clanking)
(birds chirping)
(pig oinking)
(engine rumbling)
(tractor humming)
(machine chugging)
- Hi!
We tried to get back earlier.
- We had to go to Wilburton.
But we found a nail file and
clippers in a little kit.
(machine chugging)
- [Peg] Nail file and clippers?
- You know Mike,
he'll clean his nails
in the jungle.
(tractor revving)
(birds chirping)
(whistle blaring)
(machinery rumbling)
- We had the same
trouble last week.
So why don't the three of
us get together and talk?
- Hal, can we talk
about it tomorrow?
My boy's home on terminal leave.
- Oh sure.
Where's he stepping out to?
- Vietnam, tomorrow.
- Well, tell him to give
'em hell, huh?
(engine revving)
- You could tell the way the
quartz side gets
orange and black.
Down at the base there.
- Suppose old Black Hawk
fired it himself?
- [Michael] Eh.
- [John] No?
- Well.
Could be, out there
hunting for deer.
- [John] Or for our
great-great grandpa.
(Michael scoffs)
- Hey, it's yours.
- Thanks.
Suppose if it was up
to Black Hawk
none of us would ever
have farmed this land.
There probably wouldn't
have even been an Iowa.
- Oh, there'd a been an Iowa.
Just, uh, the people
might have been different.
There's a story about Black Hawk
when he was 71 years
old and they,
they took him out of prison
and put him and his
family on the reservation.
On that first 4th of July
when Iowa became a territory
they had a big celebration
and invited him to
make a speech.
By then his old legs were wobbly
but he pushed himself
up on a cane
and he said, I love my
village, my cornfields,
the home of my people.
I fought for them.
(poignant orchestral music)
(clattering)
(moves into tense music)
- [Announcer] And Willy Davis
lined and doubled to left field
giving the Los Angeles
Dodgers a five-four victory
over the New York Mets.
In Saigon the latest
casualties were released today
reflect a deceleration in
South Vietnam's ground war.
The U.S. Command reports
185 Americans killed
and 1,057 wounded in the
week ended last Saturday
compared with 197 killed
and 1,367 wounded
the previous week.
Enemy deaths were put
at two thousand, four--
- Remember dad always
telling the story
about you running away?
When he was slaughtering hogs?
How are you gonna be able
to kill someone?
- (sighing) They teach you.
(knocking on door)
I didn't hear you come in.
Tired?
- Yeah, a little.
Why, you wanna talk?
- [Michael] No.
We all better get some sleep.
- You want something
from the kitchen?
- No.
- A beer?
- No thanks, Dad.
(crickets chirping)
- Mikey?
- Yes.
- Be careful.
- I will, Dad.
(thoughtful music)
I'll be gone a good
while this time
so there'll be a lot
more work around here.
More than Dad can handle
doing two jobs.
- Don't worry, I'll help him.
I'll do whatever you did.
Try, anyway.
- Help Mom too.
That's harder, she
doesn't ask for it.
All right?
(dramatic orchestral music)
(engine revving)
Oh I forgot.
Tell John I sprayed the
lawn for dandelions so
he won't have to do it
for a couple of months.
- That won't exactly
make him mad.
- Well, he's not much
of a farmer.
But he's a good kid.
- You didn't always
feel that way.
When I was pregnant with him,
remember?
You came up to me and you said
Mom, we haven't got enough room
and we haven't got enough money.
You said--
- [Both] Ask the doctor,
I bet there's a pill you
can take. (all laughing)
(shoes tapping)
- It's early.
- Yes, it's very early.
There's no one else here.
Maybe I can check in.
- He looks scared.
- He's fine.
He's fine.
(engine whirring)
Over here.
- Did you get a magazine?
- Mom, they have them
on the plane.
- Well do you need anything--
- Nothing Mom, really.
(jet engine whirring)
- I'll write you every
day from school.
- [Michael] Not every day.
- And I'll pray for you.
(lips smacking)
- (laughing) Oh, I'll miss you.
- Remember, even if you and Alan
are serious about
getting married
you have to go on to
finish college, all right?
- I will. (chuckling)
I promise.
(lips smacking)
- Dad, you look after--
- Mikey.
I was given this medal,
holy medal
and I wore it all during
the second World War.
It protected me.
I'm giving it to you.
Let me hold that.
There you go.
- Mom.
You never cry.
Don't worry.
Come on now, Mom, please.
The war will be over
in six months.
(lips smacking)
Okay?
- Okay.
(jet engine whirring)
- [Michael] Wouldn't
you know I'd hit Saigon
the start of the monsoon season.
Rain, rain, and more rain.
(thoughtful music)
Only have a minute to say hi.
Same old stuff.
Going to the mountains so
won't write for a few days.
We're supposed to be
building bunkers
but typical army, no
materials and no tools.
Oh by the way, I ran
into a boy from Waterloo
by the name of Huddleston.
(thoughtful music)
Got the stuff, thanks.
Would you send some
canned grapefruit juice?
We're supposed to have
the battalion commander
out here sometime this week.
You know, they've gotta
have their body counts.
(dramatic violin music)
Come on Mom,
don't write me about these
soft smart kids
that re-enlist to get
out of combat.
I've got no stomach
for that type.
I don't wanna be here
but if you are you do
the job the best you can.
(dramatic orchestral music)
We pounded a VC village
for three hours
in the middle of the night.
About dawn we burned
out the whole village.
Can't say much more except
eight months left in
this hellhole.
(tense orchestral music)
Some GIs, out of frustration,
are inhuman to these people.
You don't really know
who your enemy is
and the GI believes better
me alive and him dead.
It's just too
complex to explain.
(birds chirping)
(engine revving)
Things have been quiet of late.
I hope they stay that way.
I'm counting the weeks,
the days.
It's all a crock.
Oh yes, Mom, thanks for
the tennis shoes.
They're lettin' my feet dry out.
(engine revving)
- [Pastor] Oh Lord, make me
an instrument of your peace.
- [Children] Oh Lord, make me
an instrument of your peace.
- [Pastor] Where there is
hatred, let me bring love.
- [Children] Where there is
hatred, let me bring love.
- [Pastor] Where there is
injury, let me bring pardon.
- [Children] Where there is
injury, let me bring pardon.
- [Pastor] Where there is
sadness, let me bring joy.
- [Gene] Letter from Mikey!
- [Peg] What's he say,
when did he write it?
- Well about a week ago.
Dear Mom and Dad,
went off the hill to
get a haircut
but ended up hitching
a ride to Lai.
MAR station wasn't busy
so got to phone you.
- Oh he must have written this
the same day he called us.
- Sure.
He says we'll be on the
bunker line two more days
then back in the field.
- [Peg] That means more
search and destroy.
- [Gene] No it doesn't.
Now he's been doing company
sweeps, he told us that
that letter ago.
- All right, all right.
Finish the letter.
- He says weather here
has been pretty good.
Have decided not to
take an R and R
if I can get my early drop,
so, 'til later, hang loose.
(scoffing) Hang loose.
- I don't like that he's
going out in the field again.
- He says it's one of
the safer places though.
What's the matter?
(birds chirping)
- (sighing) Oh I don't know.
All day yesterday I felt jumpy,
mad.
I want to do something
about this war, something.
So, I cleaned the whole house
and I made curtains for
the boys' room.
- Well now you've written
to Senator Miller,
you wrote to Nixon.
- Yeah, it's not enough.
- You're just unhappy 'cause
Michael had to go, that's all.
- No, it's not just Michael.
It's all of 'em.
Only I guess you don't
feel the same way
until it's one of your own.
- You wouldn't want him to
get out of it, would ya?
- No, I guess not.
- Mother, chances are
he'll be home by summer.
- Knock wood.
- Well, wind's died down.
I'm gonna go fix your
television antenna for ya.
(birds chirping)
(pigs oinking)
(engine whirring)
(birds chirping)
(pigs oinking)
(engine rumbling)
(birds chirping)
(engine rumbling)
(birds chirping)
(crow squawking)
(gravel crunching)
(engine revving)
(gate creaking)
(birds chirping)
Is my boy dead?
- Gene, this is
Sergeant Fitzgerald.
He's from 5th Army headquarters.
(birds chirping)
- Is my boy dead?
- Come into the house with us.
Please.
(birds chirping)
- It's Mikey!
It's Mikey!
It's Mikey.
- Mrs. Mullen--
- [Gene] Now I want the truth.
Is my boy dead?
- Yes.
- Yes.
Gene, Peg, I'm sorry.
- Why?
Why?
- How was he killed?
- I only know what the
5th Army headquarters
gave me over the phone
this morning.
(zipper whizzing)
Sergeant Michael Eugene Mullen,
US-5493 et cetera,
died while at a night
defensive position
when artillery fire from
friendly forces
landed in the area.
Non-battle casualty.
I really am very sorry.
- What do they mean by friendly?
- It just means it wasn't
enemy artillery.
Your son was killed by
friendly fire.
- Friendly fire?
Friendly fire?
- It means any artillery
from forces not the enemy.
- You mean American forces.
Why don't you say American?
- Because it wasn't American.
Maybe you heard on the
news last night
about Bien Hoa.
South Vietnamese
artillery accidentally
shelled an American position.
- Michael wasn't anywhere
near Bien Hoa.
He was three or 400 miles away.
- Well it often happens that
the Viet Cong infiltrate
these South Vietnamese units,
get onto their radio channels
and call in the wrong
artillery coordinates.
So when the ARVN fire
they hit Americans.
I'm not saying
officially that's it
but it has happened before.
- [Gene] That's what's
meant by non-battle.
- That means any casualty
not directly from action
by hostile forces.
I am sorry.
- You're just doing your job.
I was a master sergeant myself.
That was the second world war.
- You have the right to
request a special escort
to accompany your son's
body back from Vietnam.
If there's some special
friend of his,
anyone in particular
you might want.
- Michael had lots of friends.
- Well you don't have to
decide right now.
Or about the funeral home.
I'll be in touch with
you tomorrow.
(somber orchestral music)
If there's nothing else then,
I'll--
- How long will it be
before Michael,
Michael's body comes back?
- Just as soon as they
have a plane full.
(tense orchestral music)
(crickets chirping)
(gentle harmonica music)
- [Pat] Mary?
(dramatic orchestral music)
(box clattering)
- What is it?
- Names.
Everybody in Michael's life.
I don't even know some of them.
- They must have been
important to him.
Better find out, get in
touch with 'em. (sobbing)
(crickets chirping)
- I'm going to write down
everything Sergeant
Fitzgerald told us
about how Michael was killed.
Everything we know.
- Why?
- I want to see it.
In words.
(machine tapping)
- [Mary] Mom?
- What time is it?
- [Mary] Almost 9:30.
It's all right.
Everybody's had breakfast.
- [Gene] Tom Loomis just phoned.
Michael's body is coming
in tomorrow night,
accompanied by a
Sergeant Glenn Marin.
- Who?
- Yes I did telegraph the names
of the two men you
requested to the Pentagon.
And it may have been passed over
because Monday was an
official holiday
since Washington's
birthday fell on a Sunday.
- Sergeant Fitzgerald
may I remind you
that our son tramped
through the mud of Vietnam
for six months
regardless of holidays.
We want one of the
escorts we chose.
You said it was our right,
didn't you?
- [Sgt. Fitzgerald] It is, but--
- Now Roy O'Connor
and Leo Manoli
were both friends of his.
- Call up the Pentagon.
- I did this morning,
when you called me
and they say, (groaning)
I'll give it to you straight.
The men in charge of
special escort said
tell those people they can
insist on one of these escorts
but if they do, they'll
have to wait.
Take it or leave it, 10
to 15 more days.
- Sergeant Fitzgerald,
my son is dead.
He's coming home in a casket.
You can tell the
Pentagon from me
that I can wait 15 more years.
(machine tapping)
- So on this Armed Forces Day
what we're doing is
saluting our fighting men
who are stationed all
over the world,
especially our troops
in South Vietnam
who are doing a great job
in very tough conditions.
Some people say that when
we go to the aid
of a little country like Vietnam
we're taking it away
from the people.
But what we're doing is helping
the right people to keep it.
Freedom and a
democratic way of life,
that's what America's always
stood for and always will.
Now if there is any
questions here
I'll be glad to answer them.
Yes, sir.
- When are more of our
troops coming home?
- Well only President Nixon
could answer that, sir,
but I can tell you this, though.
That we'd like to be
home as soon as possible.
But you don't want us
to walk away
and leave our grandsons
to finish a job
that we didn't have the
courage to stick with.
What we need from you
people at home
is to know that you're behind us
so we can go on and do
the job right.
The president said it's
got to be peace with honor.
- Why does the army
divide casualties
into battle and non-battle?
- Well there is a difference,
ma'am.
Non-battle casualties
are the ones
that don't result from
action by hostile forces.
- Those boys died in this
war didn't they?
- [Officer] Yes.
- Then why aren't they included
in the casualty count we hear
on the TV news every night?
- I don't know that they aren't.
- Well they aren't.
And they don't even
count the boys
who are wounded and
die later in hospitals.
Why are they listed
as non-battle
when they're just as dead
as anybody else?
- Ma'am if you'll write to the
army's public affairs office
I'm sure you'll get a
satisfactory answer.
Alright, are there any
other questions please?
(engine revving)
- Everyone keeps asking me
when the funeral's gonna be.
I can tell they think Mom's
making too much of a fuss.
- I don't care what they think.
- I'm no good at
expressing myself
but I had to tell you
your grief is shared.
Our Michael was killed
last November.
- All these Michaels.
Seems like everybody
25 years ago
named their boy Michael.
- I never would've
thought that people
would write us like
this but they do.
- More letters.
Oh, this one's from
the president.
- Dear Mrs. Mullen,
because of past correspondence,
which you've addressed to
the White House,
President Nixon
wishes you to know
he is truly sorry to hear
of the death of your son.
What's all this?
Photocopies of his
speeches from Vietnam.
- I'm calling the airline.
Maybe they'll know something.
Hello.
This is Mr. Gene Mullen.
We have been informed
that our son's body
is being flown in here from
the Oakland Army Mortuary
but we haven't been told when
and we're just waiting here.
An entire family just
waiting here,
and I was wondering if
you would have any record
on any of your flights.
Michael Mullen.
Yes, I'll hold on.
They're gonna check their log.
(sighing)
(dramatic music)
Thank, thank you very much.
Tomorrow afternoon, 4:45,
accompanied by Sergeant
Roy O'Connor.
(dramatic orchestral music)
(military drumming music)
(moves into dramatic music)
- [Peg] Where's Dad?
- He's in with Michael.
- Is it Michael?
- Yes.
- Are you sure?
(coffin tapping)
- Dad.
- Get me to the car.
(crickets chirping)
- You all right?
- I'm all right, I just
want to sit awhile.
You go on back in.
- Are you sure?
- Go on, go on.
- Feel better?
Can I get you anything?
Any water?
- No.
- I want to know how
my son died.
I want a death certificate
stating how he was killed.
- I told you Mr. Mullen
right in here.
Died while at a night
defensive position when--
- That isn't it.
And you know it isn't.
Take a look at him.
There ain't a mark on that boy.
Is there?
- When I lifted up the body
I couldn't feel any
broken bones or abrasions.
- [Gene] I wanna know
what killed him.
- Mr. Mullen all I
have is this--
- Don't hand me that!
I want a death certificate.
I want to see it
before I bury him.
- I don't have one, sir.
- When I saw Michael
lying there, whole,
without a mark on him,
I wanted to,
I don't know what I wanted
but I don't think I wanted
to see him whole, you know?
I got so angry 'cause he,
he doesn't look as if he...
You understand?
- [Pat] I think so.
- I wanted him,
I think I wanted him to
have been blown to bits.
I know, I know I did
but he was whole.
He was all whole.
Oh God.
Why couldn't he have
been blown to bits
so I could believe he
died in a war?
(zipper whizzing)
- Here's the release paper
giving you possession
of the body.
I signed it.
- You can give me his dog tags.
- I'm sorry, I have to
keep those, sir.
They're part of your
son's military equipment.
They have to be
retained for record.
But I have a gold star here
the army wants you to
have in recognition--
- You keep it.
I don't want it.
- If you feel up to it, Gene,
there are a couple of things
I have to check with you.
The wake will be at
home tomorrow
and the funeral mass
at 10 o'clock Tuesday.
The burial will be private at
Mount Carmel in Eagle Center.
Now the VFW wants to provide a
military funeral for Michael.
They'll supply the
honor guard, the bugler,
and fire a salute if you want.
- I don't want it.
My son was a farmer,
not a soldier.
- Would you want a flag
draped over the coffin?
- Yes.
Yes I want a flag.
♪ Oh beautiful for
spacious skies ♪
♪ For amber waves of grain
♪ For purple
mountain majesties ♪
♪ Above the fruited plain
♪ America, America
♪ God shed His grace on thee
♪ And crown thy good
with brotherhood ♪
♪ From sea to
- [Byron] Department of
the Army, Headquarters,
1st Battalion, 6th Infantry,
198th Infantry Brigade,
Americal division.
Dear Mr. And Mrs. Mullen,
it is with deepest sorrow
that I extend to you
the sympathy
of the men of the 1st
Battalion, 6th Infantry
on the loss of your son,
Michael.
Michael's unit was located
in their night
defensive position
near the village of Tau Chien,
approximately 13 miles
south of Tam Ky City,
in Quang Tin Province,
Republic of Vietnam.
At 2:50 a.m., the unit
was adjusting artillery
to provide a
predetermined range of fire
in the event of enemy contact.
During the testing,
Michael received a
fatal missile wound
when an artillery round fell
short of its intended target
and detonated near his position.
Now you gain some
consolation in knowing
that Michael was not subjected
to any brutal suffering.
I sincerely hope that
the knowledge
that Michael was an
exemplary soldier
who gave his life in the
service of his country
will comfort you in this
hour of great sorrow.
A memorial service was
conducted for your son.
Michael's comrades joined
me in rendering
military honors and final
tribute to him.
The sincere sympathy of his unit
has extended to you in
your bereavement.
Sincerely yours,
Byron Schindler,
Lieutenant Colonel,
infantry commanding.
- That's very nice.
- What's nice about it?
- I just mean that part
about the memorial service
with Mikey's--
- Gene, I've been going over it.
I read it 10 times.
The unit was
adjusting artillery.
Now that means it wasn't
all that stuff
that Sergeant Fitzgerald told us
about the North Vietnamese
infiltrating radio channels.
It was someone in
Michael's own unit
that fired that artillery.
Now why?
Why should they be doing that
at nearly three o'clock
in the morning
unless they were being attacked?
And they weren't because it says
in the event of enemy contact.
- That's true.
It was his own unit that
called in that artillery.
He would've been in a foxhole
and he would've had his
flak jacket on.
- That's right.
And if it was a shell fell short
and detonated near his position
then why did he just have
this tiny hole in his back?
Isn't that what Tom Loomis
told you at the funeral home?
- That's all he found.
It wasn't any bigger
round than a top of a pen.
- Or a bullet.
And why wasn't there any
investigation?
Why wasn't there anything
in the papers about it?
Didn't anybody else get hurt?
- Well sir, we're just
going to have to find out.
- How?
They're not going to tell
us any more than this.
- We can write to some of
Mikey's buddies.
- We don't know their names.
He never told 'em to us.
- They should've written to us.
It's been two weeks.
I just don't understand that.
- Wait a minute,
there was someone.
Somebody from Waterloo.
It's in one of his last letters.
- Waterloo?
- Yes.
Here.
Here it is, ran into a
boy from Waterloo
by the name of Huddleston.
- Huddleston?
- H-U-D-D-L-E-S-T-O-N.
- Okay.
(tense music)
Right, here we are.
There's four of 'em in here.
- I'll just call.
Find out if one of 'em
has a son in Vietnam.
- Peg.
It's after midnight.
(tense music)
We'll call 'em all in
the morning.
(tense music)
(phone clattering)
- [Peg] Dear Willis,
I got your first name from your
father, Reverend Huddleston.
I think you knew my son,
Michael Mullen.
You are the only one we know
who fought with him in Vietnam.
We want to find out more
about how Michael was killed.
Anything you can tell us
about that night
will be greatly appreciated.
- As I understand it,
the army is asking us to
sign a blank pay voucher
for our son's final 18
days of pay, is that right?
Well sir, I'm a working man
and I have never in my life
signed a blank pay voucher
and I'm certainly not gonna
start at this sad moment.
- Mrs. Mullen, let me
start again.
I'll see if I can
make this clear.
Your son accumulated
44 days leave
from 4 September 1968
through date of death.
Now his military pay
record shows
that he took 21 days
advance leave
prior to his
departure for Vietnam,
which, when added to previous
Christmas and other leaves
comes to a total of 53 days.
Now since members on
excess leave
are not entitled to pay
in allowances
these were withheld from the
period 23 to 31 August, 1969.
- Are you telling me that
the army is billing my son
for the nine days he took
but didn't live long
enough to earn back?
- Well that's a way of
putting it but--
- And that to collect full pay
he made the mistake of
dying before August of 1970?
- Mrs. Mullen, these are just
standard operating procedures.
I mean it's nothing personal.
- Personal.
They don't know what
that word means.
You tell the army they can
keep that final paycheck.
It'll pay for
embalming his body.
They forgot to bill us for that.
(telephone ringing)
- [Man] Know what
you want on it?
- Michael's full name,
Michael E. Mullen,
son of Peg and Gene.
The day he was born,
September 11th, 1944.
- Born September 11th, 1944.
And the date he died?
Died on?
- Not died.
Killed.
- You want it to read killed?
- Yes.
(somber music)
- [Willis] Dear Mr. and Mrs.
Mullen.
Yes, I knew your son
pretty good,
for we often talked together,
and he always let me read
his Des Moines newspaper.
- The short round
that killed Mike
also killed another
soldier named Hamilton
and wounded six or seven others.
The army has this thing
they call DTs.
That's defensive targets
that they shoot about two
or 300 meters away from you.
They used to do this
almost every night
but now they stopped.
And you know why.
Because when two men die
and seven are wounded and
there's no investigation
and nothing about it
in the papers
then they're hiding something
that they don't want us
or anybody else to know.
- Mom I've got to study.
- And then he ends up
if the army story is
different please let me know.
Sincerely, Willis B. Huddleston.
- Can't believe everything
a GI's gonna tell you, Peg.
Never met one yet
thought the army was
fightin' the war right.
- Yeah, any war.
- I wouldn't let
myself get riled up
over somethin' like that.
- Well at least he
answered our letter.
I can't get anything
from the army.
Simple request like the
casualty list
for the week Michael died.
I wrote and asked them
for it twice.
- Well the army is a
little busy, Peg.
They're fightin' a war.
(chuckling)
- Don't you think I know that?
(crickets chirping)
- Oh Peg, Gene.
There isn't anybody in this town
doesn't feel bad about Michael.
We've known him since
he was born.
- I remember the
first 4-H project
he had at the county fair,
that big Berkshire sow.
- Yes he was a fine young man,
a real credit to the community.
- Earl, let me ask you.
Doesn't it bother you
that we're in a war that
Congress never declared?
- Now look, we're having
a real nice dinner here.
I don't want to get involved
in a discussion of--
- [Gene] But doesn't it?
- Well, I don't like it that--
- Does anyone here know
why we're in this war?
- I can't say that
that's been answered yet
to my satisfaction, but--
- Well then why don't you
say something,
let them know you care?
Don't you have any questions?
- Sure.
Well, I don't believe
in tearing down the flag
to find out the answers.
I mean listen, I've been there.
- We all have, all the
men at this table.
- And you learn a few things.
Well for instance,
you learn that this country
is certainly worth defending.
- Nobody says it isn't, Earl.
There are just different
ways of defending it.
- Yes, but you don't do it by
going out on college
campuses and throwing rocks
or to trying to tell the
army how to run the war.
I mean, I've got to believe
that they know a little bit
more about it than I do.
And by God, if my country calls,
I'll be one of the first
guys out there
with the bayonet to
stab somebody.
(crickets chirping)
- I think we should stop
talking about the war
and start paying some attention
to Peg's turkey croquettes.
There you go honey,
help yourself.
- I don't want to do
that anymore.
Spend an evening talking
about turkey croquettes.
- I guess they were just
trying to change the subject.
- I know.
But I don't want the
subject changed.
- They're old friends, Peg.
- Yes, and they feel
guilty and we feel jealous
because their sons
didn't have to go or die.
- I don't.
- Yes we do, Gene.
We can't help it.
It's like we're on
different roads now.
I feel closer to all
those fathers and mothers
that write to us that I've
never even met.
- I know.
It's 15 minutes 'til the news.
- How much time on the
television would $2,014.20 buy?
It's Michael's six month
gratuity check.
It's been sitting
here for a week.
- Not much.
TV's expensive.
I've been thinking about what
Michael would want us
to do with this.
John's tuition to Rockhurst,
the farm machinery
needs repairing.
Could put up a new
fence for the hogs.
- We've got to do
something to get to people.
To wake them up.
- A silent message to
fathers and mothers of Iowa.
We have been dying
for nine, long miserable
years in Vietnam
in an undeclared war.
How many more lives do
you wish to sacrifice
because of your silence?
The 714 crosses represent
the 714 Iowans who have
died in Vietnam.
In memoriam to the Vietnam
War dead whom our son joined
and to those awaiting the
acceptable sacrifice in 1970.
Those are the words on the
advertisement you see behind me
which appeared this morning
in a Des Moines newspaper.
It was sponsored by Mr.
And Mrs. Gene Mullen
of La Porte City, Iowa.
It was paid for by a
gratuity payment
sent them by the army
to defray their dead
son's funeral expenses.
(horn blaring)
I venture to predict
that this Iowa family,
living in the heartland
of President Nixon's
much vaunted silent majority
have dropped a powerful
bomb of their own
into the already troubled
consciousness of this nation.
- [Reporter] Mrs. Mullen,
Mr. Mullen, I'd like to ask--
- [Female Reporter] Mrs.
Mullen are you surprised
by the reaction to your ad?
- Yes, we were, uh--
(telephone rings)
- The telephone hasn't
hardly stopped ringing.
- [Reporter] And what
did you want it to say?
- Well we wanted to say
something to other fathers
and mothers whose sons
are still alive.
- [Reporter] Did you write it
or did some anti-war group
do the writing for you?
- Oh no.
Gene here thought up
all the crosses--
- Peg did the words.
She's a lot better
with the words.
(telephone ringing)
- [Female Reporter] Do you
consider yourselves members
of the silent majority?
- Well.
- Maybe we were once, but,
now we both feel that
it's time for people--
- It's just time that
people stopped being silent
and they started to speak
out against this war.
- Is it true that you
turned down your son's
posthumous medals?
- Well, yes.
Why should they give him
a good conduct medal?
For not complaining about
what they did to him?
- The Bronze Star now,
that's given for bravery.
The whole time he was over there
he only saw the enemy
three times.
- See, we don't need them to
give him a medal for dying.
- [Reporter] If you
feel that way,
then do you think people should
keep their sons from going?
Did you try to stop yours?
- No.
We didn't.
- [Announcer] And facing
rising opposition
against widening the war
into Cambodia,
the defense department
said again today
that American
involvement is restricted
(drowned out by
traffic whirring)
resisting South Vietnamese
forces fighting in Cambodia.
Secretary of State--
- [Peg] Thanks, Gus.
- You gotta keep picking
up your mail for awhile.
It's getting a little heavy
to be delivering out
to your box.
- All right, I will.
- [Announcer] That the
president has the authority--
- Earl!
Earl!
I called your office, they
said you were at lunch.
- Well if that's what you
call a dip of cottage cheese
and two skinny slices
of tomato. (chuckling)
Gotta watch it.
- I need a favor.
That copy machine at the
high school broke down again.
I've got these
letters to run off.
They're from mothers all
over the country,
telling me their sons' units
have been going into
Cambodia since April 1st,
in spite of what the
defense department says.
So I'm sending copies
to Senator Fulbright.
- I'd like to oblige you, Peg,
but
well, I can't today.
- It'll only take a
half hour or so
and I'll pay for the paper.
- I can't do it.
It's the last day for
filing state returns
and you know what that means
to an accounting office.
- What if I wait 'til
the end of the afternoon?
- I'm sorry Peg, but,
both my girls are gonna be tied
up at that machine all day.
- [Peg] That isn't the reason,
Earl.
Why don't you just say so?
- I wouldn't let the
president of the United States
use that machine today
and that's it.
- That isn't it.
- I don't want to talk about it,
Peg.
- You don't like what I'm doing,
it's written all over you.
- All right!
I don't Peg, it's trash.
These letters, that ad,
getting on the air attacking
the army, the government.
It's a disgrace to this town.
And to your boy's memory.
(traffic rumbling)
- [Willis] Dear Mr. And Mrs.
Mullen,
today we were informed
of rights by the army.
If any of us have written
to you in the mail,
we can be
court-martialed for mutiny
and undermining the army.
- Don't publish any
article about this,
for it would bring harm to
people and their futures.
Anything sent to you
can be censored
as we are in a war zone.
Your friend sincerely,
Willis G. Huddleston.
(Peg sighs)
Willis didn't write
this by himself.
Someone dictated it, look here.
He misspelled the word censored
and it's been crossed
out and corrected
in a different handwriting.
Gene, they don't even
try to hide it.
- Like they want us to know.
- I'm not scared of the army.
But what I am scared of
is having a letter to
me opened and censored.
Never thought it could
happen in this country.
- The way I understand that
is what they're saying, we
keep on asking questions
we're aiding and
abetting the enemy.
- No.
What they're saying is we
are the enemy.
(upbeat orchestral music)
(birds singing)
(upbeat orchestral music)
(somber music)
(moves into suspenseful music)
(bells ringing)
(background chattering)
- [Alan] I really don't know.
Hang on a second, Peg, I
think she's just comin' in.
- Hi.
- Hi.
- [Alan] It's your mom.
- Oh, did you tell her
about the Washington trip?
- She doesn't want to go.
Says she's not the type
that clergymen want along
when they're gonna go
lobby against the war.
Said she doesn't know
how to talk politely.
- Hello, Mother.
How are you, how's Dad?
- [Peg] We're fine.
- Mother, CALCAV isn't
just clergymen.
It's students, it's,
anyhow they really do
want you to go.
Now I'm gonna put
Ralph Jenner on.
He's the chaplain here
and he's going to head up
the U of Iowa group.
- Hello, Mrs. Mullen?
We not only want you,
we need you.
You see, when you say
something people listen.
You're a celebrity.
- I, uh, I don't like that word.
- I know, I know, but uh,
it's a fact
and you have to use it.
- But I'm just not a
public speaker.
- Well perhaps if you,
just a moment please.
- Mom will you just think
about it please?
- [Peg] Yes but don't
(mumbles) on me, Pat.
- I can't hear you, your
voice is fading out.
Can you hear me?
- No, not very well.
This phone's been
acting up lately.
Wait.
(phone clanking)
Is that better?
Can you hear me?
- [Pat] Yes.
- I said don't count on me.
- All right.
I'll talk to you soon.
Goodbye.
(phone clattering)
Oh, Mother can be so stubborn
when she puts her mind to it.
- That's why we need her.
(background chattering)
(acoustic guitar music)
- Oh there's Mom.
- All right.
(laughing and clapping)
- Hello Mrs. Mullen.
- Hello.
- I'm Ralph Jenner.
We talked on the phone.
- That's right.
This is my son, Jack.
- How do you do?
I just want you to know
that I'm very happy
that you decided to
come with us.
- Thank you, I feel
like a den mother.
(all laughing)
- Well we could use some
of that here too, I'm sure.
- [Man] All aboard!
- I have some
information for you here
about the senators that we
hope to see, may I take that?
You know, about their
voting record,
about the Vietnam War,
et cetera et cetera.
Have you lobbied before?
- I lobby every day of my life.
- And she's not joking.
(background chattering)
(traffic whirring)
♪ We shall not
♪ We shall not be moved
♪ We shall not
♪ We shall not be moved
♪ Just like a tree
standing by the water ♪
- If the ladies in my card
club could see me now.
♪ We shall not be moved
♪ We shall not
♪ We shall not be moved
♪ We shall not
♪ We shall not be moved
♪ Just like a tree
standing by the water ♪
(engine revving)
- How's Dad?
- Oh he's fine.
I don't like leaving him
alone like this
but he wanted us to go.
- Mother, Alan and I want
to go ahead and get married.
- When?
- Next month.
We've been putting it off,
we wanted to for awhile,
but now.
I know how Dad feels.
- He just lost Mikey, he's
afraid he's going to lose you.
- He's not going to lose me.
- He doesn't know that.
And he misses you.
You haven't been home at
all this summer.
- It's too hard.
I feel this thing in people
I've known all my life.
The kind of resentment of you,
of Dad,
all of us.
- I know.
(Peg sighs)
- We'd rather be
married in Iowa City.
All of you can come there,
it'll be much easier all around.
- Let me talk to Dad.
He just needs a little
time to get used to it.
- How much more?
- Another month?
- Okay.
- The meeting's have
been pretty good so far.
Senator Hughes was cooperative.
He listened.
But I had a real shouting match
with a couple of the others.
They say we're living
in a dream world
if we think we can end
this war fast.
How are you doing?
- Fine.
We got that list that
we've been asking for.
The casualty list for
the week Michael died.
- You did?
- Senator Fulbright got
it from the Pentagon.
Michael's name wasn't on it.
- It wasn't on it, are you sure?
- Of course I'm sure.
And I'll tell you who
else's name wasn't on it.
That Hamilton boy that
died the same night.
If we had any other names
we could check them out too.
And I wasn't
(crackling) (mumbling)--
- Gene I can't hear you.
- Damn this phone.
Can you hear me now?
- Gene speak up, I
can't hear you!
- Can you hear me now?
(crackling)
- [Peg] I'll talk to you later.
(background chattering)
(acoustic guitar music)
- Everything okay at home?
- What does it mean when
the phone keeps clicking?
Fading in and out?
- I'd say your phone
was being tapped.
(background chattering)
- And what we're trying
to accomplish
is a completely new dimension
in the history of warfare.
Now with these
pacification programs
we're fighting on two fronts.
One with weapons,
the other with traditional
American generosity and
know-how.
We're taking in lumber, cement,
tools,
things that can help the
people of South Vietnam
to help themselves and improve
the quality of their life.
I think I can safely say
that no nation
has ever embarked on such
an ambitious program.
Not to destroy, but to build.
Not to enslave, but to uplift.
Not to terrorize and kill,
but to ensure an environment
in which a free people
can survive and prosper.
(background chattering)
Hope this briefing has
been helpful.
Lieutenant General Reese and I
will be glad to answer
any questions.
- We have bombed and
napalmed most of Vietnam.
That doesn't sound very
pacifying to me.
- I asked for questions.
- Well in the past year
we've been going into
neighboring countries.
How come the public is
not being told
about these secret operations?
- There are no secret
operations in those countries.
- We have photographs here
of unmarked American aircraft
bombing Laos during 1969.
- I don't know what
pictures you've got
but the rumor that we're
bombing Laos is a lie.
(audience groans)
(chattering)
- Isn't that what you kept
telling us about Cambodia?
And we know how long we
were in there
before anyone admitted it.
- How do you know that?
- Because almost every
mother who had a son there
heard from him that he
was in Cambodia.
I talked with mothers whose boys
were with the 198th
Brigade of the Americal,
the 25th Infantry, the
marines, the first--
- Ma'am, I think--
- [Peg] The first air-calv.
The 11th armored--
- Ma'am, just what is
your question?
- Are you denying that
American boys
were in Cambodia weeks, months
before President Nixon
went on TV and said so?
- No.
You're right, American
troops were there.
(background chattering)
Are there any other?
- I haven't finished yet.
- Are you a newspaper woman?
- No.
I'm a farmer's wife.
Matter of fact we just
finished hauling our manure
before I came down here.
(audience laughing)
- Well I just thought that,
you seem to be quite well
informed about the war.
- Farmers read, Mr. Dietrich,
and the war has gotten to Iowa.
- You have another question?
- I'd like the casualty
figures for this week.
- Would you have that figure,
Colonel?
- 125.
- I want the total
casualty list,
not just the number you publish.
- I don't quite understand,
Mrs.?
- Peg Mullen.
- That would be 25 more.
- Non-battle?
Why does the public hear on TV
that 125 die when 150
fathers and mothers
know that their sons are dead?
- Ma'am, I can't quite
see how this applies to--
- I'll tell you how.
I happen to be the mother
of one of those boys
you didn't count.
- I'm sorry.
- Mr. Dietrich, it might be
helpful if I took Mrs. Mullen
to the office where
the lists are compiled.
- I don't need to go
to any office.
I just want to know why
you're lying to us
about the losses in this war?
- Please, if you'll
come with me.
(background chattering)
Mrs. Mullen.
(background chattering)
(typewriters tapping)
Now Mrs. Mullen, if you
have any specific requests
I'll be glad to get out
the records and oblige you.
(typewriters tapping)
- These are all lists of
dead boys' names?
What kind of a man are you
who could work on this
day after day?
(somber music)
And you, what kind of
women are you?
- Mrs. Mullen.
I'm just trying to be helpful.
(somber music)
I'm sorry.
Is there anything else you want?
- I want you to send
me the names
of all the boys who
died in Vietnam
the week my son was killed.
Every name.
- [Pat] Mother they can't
help it, it's their job.
- [Peg] I just wanna
get out of here.
(suspenseful music)
(soft thoughtful music)
(birds singing)
- [Walter] Legislative
Liaison Office, Army,
Major Walter Alison, GS Chief.
I have been asked by
Senators Hughes and Javitz
to respond to some of
your questions.
Firing defensive targets
is a standard
precautionary measure
whether or not there is
contact with the enemy.
Such artillery fire is requested
by the forward observer
assigned to the company.
As to censorship of mail
from Vietnam, there is none.
- A serviceman is not
prevented from communicating
with the next of kin
of a deceased comrade.
He is often encouraged.
Do they think we're crazy?
We've got Willis
Huddleston's letter
saying they won't let him
write to us and they know it.
What kind of game are
they playing with us?
- Well we did find
out one thing.
There was a forward observer
who called in the artillery.
Now I bet you he could
tell us something.
- Yes.
If we had his name.
They're never gonna
give us any names.
- And out of the blue we hear
from this woman in Kentucky.
She's the mother of the boy
who was killed with Michael.
Leroy Hamilton.
And she said that the
Pentagon gave her our name
and asked them to write us.
- Oh, it's just beautiful.
- [Peg] Now why would
they do that?
- And Mary's dress too.
- And the bridesmaids.
You must've done so much work.
- Unless of course they
figured that her son was dead
and he couldn't say anything
that would get 'em into trouble.
Anyway I wrote her back
and I said that your father
and I would pay them a visit
as soon as we could.
- I never thanked you for
talking to Dad.
- Oh, well.
It's still hard for him.
I heard where two
Waterloo fathers died
within the past year after
they heard that their sons--
- Mother, I don't want
to hear that, not today.
This is my day, mine and Alan's.
I want it to be joyful
for all of us.
Living people need that.
It doesn't take away
from Michael, it doesn't.
- I know it doesn't.
- You never stop,
you never let up.
- Come on, it's alright.
- I'm sorry.
But I don't want anyone to cry.
- [Minister] My beloved
spake and said unto me,
rise up my love, my fair one.
And come away, for lo,
the winter is passed.
The rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth.
The time of the singing
of birds is come.
And the voice of the turtle
is heard in our land.
What God has joined together,
let no man put asunder.
("Wedding March" by Mendelssohn)
- [Gene] Well, how
are you feeling?
- [Peg] A little scared.
- [Gene] Mother, their son
died with ours.
We'll be talking with folks
who know exactly how we feel,
feel the same way.
- Well they must be excited too.
(dog barking)
They know we're coming.
- (sighing) Maybe it's
milking time.
(chickens clucking)
(birds singing)
Hello there.
- I'm Michael's mother.
- I'm Leroy's mama.
- This rhubarb is real special.
It's tart, just the
way I like it.
- I have a whole shelf
full in the root cellar.
You can take some home.
- I'll have to get your recipe.
- How many acres do
you have here?
- A hundred.
It's hard land though
compared to Iowa.
- Any land is hard if you
don't have enough hands.
- I ain't a good as I used to be
since I had that tree
fall on my back.
- My youngest son,
he tries hard.
- Michael was the one
who loved it.
We miss him.
I guess like you miss Leroy.
- Well, I better feed the dogs.
(door slams)
- Sure was a nice-looking boy.
Big for his age.
We used to go huntin'.
Climb up them hills.
It was real pretty.
- Always thought I knew
what this country stood for.
It had a purpose.
I don't know, I feel like
we're losing our country.
Losing it.
We should never have been
involved in this war in
the first place,
should never have sent
American boys to Vietnam, or--
- You keep dogs?
- No sir, I never went
in much for hunting.
- Good to have around.
Friendly. (chuckling)
Good boy.
- And on his last leave,
he stayed past his time.
He already had his
orders for Vietnam
but he didn't want to go.
- But you could've
kept him here.
Didn't you know that?
With your husband's disability,
all you had to do was
sign a paper saying
Leroy was needed here
on the farm.
- [Mrs. Hamilton] He couldn't
bring hisself to do it.
- Well why didn't Leroy ask him?
- He was ashamed.
- Oh dear God what did we
do to our sons?
We taught them to believe
that you obey,
that you did what you were told,
that you didn't question.
But it was wrong.
It was so wrong.
They would be alive today.
That's what we have to
live with. (sobbing)
(somber music)
That's what we did.
That's what we did.
(Peggy sobs)
(engine revving)
- [Man] John Mullen, Rural
Route 2, La Porte City, Iowa.
This is your notice of
classification,
advising you of the
determination
of your selective service board.
Your draft classification is 1A,
available for military service.
The law requires you to
have this notice
in your personal
possession at all times.
Do not leave the Unites States
or change your address
without informing this office,
149 Pea Street, Waterloo, Iowa.
(thoughtful music)
- Hi.
- When did this come?
Your mother found it
in your room.
- Yesterday.
- Why didn't you tell us?
- It's not important.
- Not important?
John, you should be
4A, sole surviving son.
Now we have to call up
the draft board.
- I don't want it changed.
When it comes time to induct
me, then I'll tell 'em,
watch 'em wriggle.
Or maybe I'll cut out to Canada.
- [Gene] John, I don't like
that not even as a joke.
- I am going to call up
the draft board
right now.
- Mother, don't!
Don't fight my wars.
I can take care of it myself.
Just leave the draft
board alone.
- Damn it to hell!
(pigs squealing)
Pigs, get out of there!
Go on, get, get!
Go on!
- [Peg] Get 'em off,
get 'em off the grass!
- John!
(pigs squealing)
(shouting drowned out
by squealing)
- Go on, go on!
(John wailing)
(pigs oinking and squealing)
- Come on!
- I get it, I got it.
(pigs squealing)
- Pick her up!
- Come on pig.
I got 'em, I got 'em!
(pigs squealing)
Hey here pig, come on!
(shouting)
(squealing)
(Gene wailing)
- [Willis] Ya!
- [Gene] Get back!
(pigs squealing)
- [Peg] Hang on!
In there, in there.
- Get 'em back.
- The gate!
- Okay, alright.
- Thank you.
We need all the help we can get.
- You Mr. Mullen?
- Yes.
- I'm Willis.
Willis Huddleston.
- Oh, Willis.
Huddleston.
- Hello.
- This is Peg, Willis,
and my son John.
- How nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you. (sighing)
(cows mooing)
There was this one kid
they all named Perfect.
See, everybody had nicknames.
Like it was Perfect, uh,
Razzle-Dazzle.
Prince.
Prince had this funny
thing going about
having royal blood. (chuckling)
- [Peg] Did Mike
have a nickname?
- Uh, I don't remember.
But anyway though, Perfect.
Perfect sent home enough
money from gambling
to buy himself a brand
new Dodge Charger.
It was waitin' for him
when he came home.
Only, he got killed.
Not the same night as Michael,
you know.
Later on.
- [Gene] What happened
that night, Willis?
We want to know what went wrong.
- Well, we heard these
different rumors, like,
okay somebody said that,
that it was the same gun
that killed some guys in
Bravo Company.
- [Peg] The same gun?
- Yeah, something about
it always fired low.
Then we heard that, that the
officer in charge of the guns,
he was drunk or the guys
firing the guns was drunk.
- [Gene] Who?
Give me their names.
Who was drunk and killed my boy?
- I don't know, Mr. Mullen.
I mean it's just
something that I heard.
Nobody ever said any names.
So a guy starts bitchin' about,
you know,
what good are helmets,
stuff like that.
It must've been about 5:30,
six o'clock
because it was just
getting dark.
- Is that Quintaro?
- Yeah, he was our
forward observer.
And, so everybody was in
these foxholes
and they were gonna
fire the DTs.
You see the DTs are supposed
to be for our own protection.
At least that's what the colonel
kept telling us, you know?
If they want to get at ya,
let 'em come through a
ring of steel
and all that over gung-ho
mess they kept feedin' us.
- The colonel.
Now, was that Schindler?
- Yeah.
- [Gene] What was he like,
Willis?
- Well, he was kinda young
for a lieutenant colonel
and everything was by the book.
You know, the type of guy
who wants to make
brigadier general
by the time he's 35.
- I know the type.
- [Willis] Anyway, they
called off the DTs.
- Now who decided to fire them
later at three in the morning?
Was that him?
- I don't know.
I don't know.
The only thing I know is,
is that it was a funny time.
You know, everybody was asleep.
I'd just come off guard duty
and I strung up my hammock.
I couldn't sleep on the ground
because of the damn leeches.
Anyway, I dropped right
off to sleep.
And then, all of a sudden like,
I heard this (grunting).
I didn't even really
hear it, I just woke up
and rolled out of my
hammock, I grabbed my gun
and then there was just this,
it was just death stillness
for about 30 seconds.
And then I heard this scream.
I mean, I've never heard
anything like it in my life.
And all the moaning started
from all the guys who
had gotten hurt.
I heard somebody yelling medic,
medic!
(chickens clucking)
(birds singing)
I didn't mean to be hurtful,
I'm sorry.
- It's all right.
- This is the first time
I've talked about it,
I guess it just all came out.
- It's alright Willis.
- I'm really sorry.
- It is.
We asked you.
- A lot of people
don't understand.
Like when a GI comes home
the first thing
anybody asks him is
hey man, did you kill somebody?
You say nah, you didn't.
And they say aw, come
on, I don't believe you.
You didn't kill nobody man?
You didn't see no action, man?
You say yeah, I got shot at.
(scoffs)
- Did you kill someone, Willis?
You don't have to tell us,
not if you don't want to.
- Yeah.
It was right after Perfect,
he was my best buddy.
Right after he got it.
See the dink, he had
these two grenades,
only I thought he had a pistol,
that he was reachin'
for a pistol.
There wasn't really
no way to tell.
So I stitched him, you know?
(mimics machine gun)
And 14 times, you know?
I felt so damn good.
I killed me one of
them damn gooks.
And then I saw him dead
and I realized
that I had killed
another human being.
I can't explain the feeling,
you know.
It's like it made me, made
me want to cry.
And then you know
everybody was just,
everybody was just hittin'
me on the back
and telling me, you know,
hey man
you got yourself one, man.
You killed him, man!
(sobbing) Oh Jesus, God, oh.
(somber music)
(John moaning)
(tense music)
(John sighs)
- [Peg] Dear President Nixon,
it is now just over a
year since our son died
a needless death in Vietnam.
Michael's father and I find it
very difficult to
live these days,
but because we do
have faith in God
we feel there will be
a special hell
for the men and governments
that have allowed this
war to continue.
It will be a
judgment to be faced
and it will be as swift as
was the death of our son.
Mr. President your plan
to end this war
is now going into
the third year.
In the name of God
stop the insane killing
of our young men.
(thoughtful music)
Mr. Bryan?
- Mrs. Mullen.
Thank you for letting me come
to see you, I appreciate it.
- [Peg] My husband
will be right up
from the lower field.
- Good.
- Just look at that grass,
the hogs keep breaking
out and getting at it.
Michael would've just
died if he'd seen it.
Come in.
How do the folks back
east feel about the war?
- Well I know how I feel.
I hear the president say the
heart of America is good,
the heart of America is sound.
I just drove across
half the country.
It isn't.
(chicken clucking)
(birds chirping)
When the government of
the United States
loses the loyalty of an
Iowa farm family
it's in very bad trouble.
- Well, we're not exactly
your typical Iowa farm family,
Mr. Bryan.
Just ask anyone in
La Porte City.
- I did.
- Coffee?
- The waitress at
Mom's Cafe said
other people have lost
their sons in the war
and they don't go
around protesting.
The man at the gas
station told me
they must be crazy with grief
or they wouldn't be dancing
on their son's grave.
Thanks for
interrupting your work.
- How did you come to call us?
Peg didn't get it straight
over the phone.
- A friend of mine
sent me your ad.
We're both novelists,
taught together for awhile
at the University of Iowa
in the writer's workshop.
In fact I think your
daughter Patricia
might have been in one
of my classes.
- I see.
- Anyway, he knows I have
strong feelings about the war
so he thought this might
be a magazine article
I'd be interested in doing.
- What would you put in
such an article?
- I don't know yet.
Whatever you and your
wife want to tell me.
- I'd like the people to know
what it feels like to have
your telephone tapped.
What it's like to be
considered an enemy
in a country that
you've always loved.
What it's like to walk down
the streets of your own town,
have people turn
their heads away.
- What is it like?
- Lonely.
- The army has told us
our son was killed
by an artillery round
that fell short.
Now what they haven't told
us is how it happened.
Who was responsible?
- Are you saying you believe
they're deliberately
concealing something from you?
- Yes.
- Maybe doing this article
would help us find out.
- I don't know, it might.
(cow mooing)
- Well let's get started.
Well we know a good deal
about what happened.
We know that the guns
were fired from a hill
about four miles off
and Michael was killed here.
Leroy Hamilton here.
And there was a colored
boy named Polk from Detroit
was sleeping right between
'em right here.
- We located him in the federal
penitentiary in Terre Haute
and they told us he
went berserk.
- Yeah.
Said he shot at somebody,
or something?
- No, yeah.
- [Polk] Mr. And Mrs. Gene, I
was glad to get your letter.
The reason why I'm in the
lock-up, well,
it started a couple
nights after Michael died.
I was out in the field when
this E5 called me a nigger
and I almost shot him.
And then I woke up in the
hospital with a concussion.
They said I hit a lieutenant
and some civilians
and then somebody hit me.
All the time I kept seeing
the death of your son.
I have dreams about him, Mrs.
Gene.
I tried to write you before but
they wouldn't give me
your address.
- [Peg] Why would they stop
that boy from writing us
and keep him locked up in jail?
- We found out the
charges against him, Polk,
were signed by
Colonel Schindler.
You see, everywhere we turn
it comes right back to him.
- Right, there was an
investigation
of the night Michael died,
and a report,
and we wrote this Colonel
Schindler and we asked him for
it
but he never sent it.
- [Gene] That's right.
Never heard a word.
Not the first thing.
- [Peg] No it's not
the first time
we haven't heard
from him either.
- You know, you see if
Mike had died
on the streets of La Porte City,
if some drunk had run over 'em
that would be manslaughter
and there'd be a trial.
But we're sick and tired
of the military
never having to answer to
anybody but themselves.
- What are these letters?
- The boys in Mike's platoon.
They ended up writing us even
though they told them not to.
Here's some letters
from the army.
There's some missing
I sent to Pat.
- All of this is great
for me to have, Peg.
What I'd like to do
is xerox them
and send them back to you.
Would that be okay?
- Course.
Here's the death certificate,
we finally got it.
- A missile wound in his chest.
- See, even that's not true.
The wound was right here.
Tiny little hole.
How could it be so small?
- You got any land Courty,
back there in Connecticut?
- Just about one acre.
Mostly planted in
children and dog.
Nothing like this of course.
- There's a smell in this earth.
Not many catalog of smells.
Sweet.
Every time I walk these fields
I'm wondering if I'm puttin'
my foot down
where my grandfather walked
or my great-grandfather.
It isn't the land, the acreage.
It's all those generations
walkin' beside you
every time you turn the soil.
Mikey knew that.
He knew.
He was going to carry it on.
(Gene sighs)
- This is Gene's
grandfather and grandmother.
- [Courty] Patrick and Maryanne.
- Yeah.
Here are all their children,
their sons and daughters.
- Pretty stern stock.
- [Peg] These kind of
people built this country.
- You called the draft board.
I asked you not to.
- John you could've
found yourself in Vietnam
before it all got
straightened out.
Now you don't fool around
with the army.
- Damn the army!
I am sick of hearing about them.
I'm sick of the war.
I'm sick of this house.
- John?
Look maybe it had
something to do with me,
coming here, stirring it all up.
I'm sorry.
- I don't know.
I just know I can't
listen to any more.
Too much can turn you off
and it's not gonna
bring Mike back.
- It's none of my business,
I know.
But they need you.
- I'll be back.
I always come back.
(engine revving)
(somber orchestral music)
- He just went into town.
- That basketball hoop.
Michael brought it home
when he was about 14.
I said Mikey it'll never stand.
The wind will blow it down.
I was only trying to
protect him.
But I guess you never can
protect them, can you?
Anyway, he went ahead
and put it up.
He was determined.
Look at it, it's still up there.
- Peg, I've got to
back tomorrow.
- Oh so soon?
- I've been here nearly a week.
- [Peg] It doesn't
seem that long.
- [Courty] Besides you and Gene
have given me a ton of stuff.
I'm going to need time to
absorb it all.
What I have to do is
go back to Connecticut.
Get a little distance
so I can begin to see
the shape of what you told me.
- [Peg] How long does that take?
- [Courty] Oh it depends.
It's kind of a strange process.
Sometimes it all just
falls into place.
More often it doesn't.
- [Peg] You won't forget
us Courty, will you?
- Forget?
I've been playing those tapes
all the way through from Iowa.
And then at night I play
the damn things
through again in my head.
I'm sorry darling, I
let the laundry pile up.
I don't know how to describe it.
The two of them there,
locked into a kind of exile,
needing to tell it all.
And they're convinced
that the army's involved
in some sort of a coverup.
- Are you?
- Well they certainly
went to great lengths
to shut them out.
Mail's been censored,
phone's been tapped.
- Sounds like a hell of a piece.
What'll you do, about
6,000 words?
- I think I wanna do a book.
Am I out of my mind?
- Yes.
Tell him.
You're his agent.
- I'm afraid I have to
agree with her.
- Who in America wants to read
a book about the Vietnam War?
I mean they see it in
the news every night,
they get it in the papers.
They're sick of it.
- And the bigger question is
who wants to write about it?
Obviously you do.
Why?
- I don't know.
I've protested, I've marched.
I'm tired of marching.
I listen to the news reports
of the casualty figures
and my eyes glaze, I yawn.
My God.
45,000 men are dead and I could
turn over and go to sleep.
Three quarters of the country
turns over and goes to sleep.
Maybe it's because
nobody gives them names.
The casualties.
How do you make a war personal?
Who was Michael Mullen?
How much of all of us
died with him?
(background chattering)
- Each day, to
facilitate the process
by which the Unites States
washes her hands of Vietnam
someone has to give up his life
so that the Unites States
doesn't have to admit something
that the entire world
already knows.
So that we can't say that
we've made a mistake.
Someone has to die so that
President Nixon won't be,
and these are his words,
the first president
to lose a war.
We're asking Americans
to think about that.
Because how do you ask a man
to be the last man to
die in Vietnam?
How do you ask a man to
be the last man to die
for a mistake?
And so, in 30 years from now
our brothers go down the
street without a leg,
without an arm, or face,
and small boys ask why,
we will be able to say Vietnam
and not mean a desert, not
a filthy, obscene memory
but mean instead the place
where America finally turned
and where soldiers like us
helped it in the turning.
Thank you.
(audience clapping)
- [Announcer] Former Navy
Lieutenant John Kerry's speech
before the Senate Foreign
Relations committee
set the tone for yesterday's
speech march in Washington.
(telephone rings)
When almost half a million
men, women, and
children from all--
- [Courty] Hello?
- [Gene] Hello Courty?
This is Gene.
- Gene.
Where are you?
- In Washington.
- I've just been watching
the march on television,
it's terrific.
- [Gene] Look, we will drive
up to New Haven tomorrow.
Can we come out to see you?
- Sure I'll come and
pick you up.
But what's up?
- Courty, we found him.
We've located Colonel Schindler.
(dinging)
Are you all right?
Lieutenant Colonel Schindler?
I'm Gene Mullen,
this is my wife.
- Pleased to meet you both.
This is Major Knapp.
Want to pull up a
couple of stools?
If you don't have a bad back
they're guaranteed to
produce one.
- We don't need to sit down.
As I told you on the phone,
I intend to press charges
against you in a federal court
for killing my son.
- Okay now wait a minute.
- I consider you the
man responsible.
- Mr. Mullen I don't know
where you got that idea.
- Also for covering up the
circumstances of his death.
- Mr. Mullen, please.
There's some
misunderstanding here.
I had nothing to do with
the death of your son.
Or the investigation.
Believe me, no one was more
upset about Michael than I was
and that's why I wanted
you to come here today
so we could talk face to face.
- [Peg] And all the
time we were there
that major, what was his name?
- [Gene] Major Knapp.
- [Peg] That Major Knapp,
he was just sitting there
in his uniform, listening
to everything.
- [Gene] He was there
when we got there
like it was all prearranged,
just sat.
- [Peg] Never said a word.
Made me sick.
- [Courty] Did they say
why he was there?
- I think maybe, you see,
they wanted to scare us.
Make us go easy.
But I didn't.
I said to him you tell
us your story
of what happened that night.
- Then he started to
talk about it,
how he was on the hill
with the artillery
when the captain radioed him.
- [Gene] Yeah, that's right,
that's right.
- So I ran right over
to that artillery unit
and I ordered them to
stop firing their guns
and to lock the guns.
You see it was the second
friendly incident like that
to happen to my
battalion in a month
and I was furious.
I was so damned mad that
when that artillery
battalion commander
flew in the next morning
with the investigating team
I couldn't even talk to him.
- Then he was the man
responsible.
- No I'm not saying that,
only in the sense that
the unit commander
is on the line for everything
his unit does or fails to do.
- Were the men at the
guns drinking?
- Yes they were, but that,
maybe you better talk to that
artillery battalion commander.
He's in Washington now,
assigned at the Pentagon.
- Yes I remember the incident.
- [Peg] Colonel ever
since our son died
we have been trying to find
out who was responsible.
- I didn't conduct the
investigation you understand.
That was done by artillery
officers from other companies
and then the results were
given to General Ramsay.
- [Peg] We heard the men at
the guns were drinking beer.
- That's not so.
- [Peg] Then why does
Colonel Schindler say so?
- I'll discuss that with him.
- [Peg] He says a lot
of procedures
were changed after that night
and it was about time
because two many men
were getting killed.
- What do all you
people think?
That we run around with
pistols shooting everyone?
Artillery fire isn't
100% accurate.
When we fire 400 rounds a night
we're going to kill a
few we shouldn't.
If you want to ask questions
why don't you ask the
commanding officer
what they were doing in
six inch sleeping trenches
instead of foxholes.
- There's no love lost
between the artillery and
the infantry you know.
- Has your attitude towards
Colonel Schindler changed
now that you've had a chance
to sit down and talk to him?
- I don't know.
When I first saw him in
the body cast
I thought well the good
Lord has taken
care of you.
- Courty, that's enough.
Let Peg and Gene relax
and enjoy their tea.
Did Courty tell you how much
we loved the time we
lived in Iowa?
- Yes he did.
- People were so friendly.
We used to take all our
things to the laundromat
and they'd say just go and do
your shopping and come back
and we'll have it all
folded for you.
I got spoiled.
- You see, I think he's changed,
laying there with
that back injury.
- When I heard the boys
talk about him
I absolutely hated him,
and then he told us I
insisted on discipline,
I required the boys to
wear helmets, jackets,
to take proper precautions.
I tried to save their
lives and I don't know.
If Michael had worn his
flak jacket that night.
(Peg sighs)
Oh I'm sorry.
Don't let me sleep too long.
- For God's sake Peg,
you could take an hour
without feeling guilty.
She's exhausted.
- You know, we still
get hundreds of letters.
Some of them are just addressed
to Peg, La Porte City, Iowa.
She answers every one.
Every phone call.
People say to her what
are you accomplishing?
You're just exhausting yourself.
She says to me maybe we
can save one life.
We didn't save Michael's.
(crickets chirping)
- [Sam] Aren't you
coming to bed?
- In awhile.
Sam?
Thanks.
- For what?
- For the lunch, the flowers.
It was nice.
- I don't think they
even noticed.
- They did.
They've just been at
this for such a long time
fighting for every crumb.
They're in a lot of pain.
- I know.
But why do you have to
make it yours?
- If I can just get
ahold of Schindler,
couple of the others.
Listen to what they have to
say objectively, sort it out.
- Then what?
- Then I may be able to tell
them what they need to know.
How their son died.
So they'll be able to put
it to rest once and for all.
- I didn't know quite
what to expect.
- Is that why you wanted
Major Knapp there?
- He was from the judge
advocate's office.
I thought it was best to
have a witness.
- Were you worried about
the possibility
of being taken into court?
- I was shocked.
You know what was going
on with the Americal.
Medina, Calley, under
investigation,
so I thought okay, it's my turn.
But I knew I had
nothing to hide.
I just wanted to set these
people's minds at ease
so they could see that I
was a human being
that cared about their son.
Or do they think my only
concern was for myself?
- They think you were ambitious
and that you went back
to Vietnam a second time
to further your career.
- That's hogwash.
I didn't need my ticket punched.
I went back because I knew the
country, I could save people.
(machine clattering)
- Was there any reason to
anticipate an attack that night?
- Yes, we had
intelligence reports
that a North Vietnamese army
rocket battalion commander
had been moved into the
valley with sizeable security.
- And you expected contact?
- I tried to impress that on
my men so they'd be ready.
- What about your
junior officers?
Did they have any
experience in the field?
- Not always.
I'd say the best, most
experienced officer I had
was in Charlie Company.
Captain Bannock,
company command.
- Our first lift came
in pretty fast
because we didn't know
what to expect.
And Colonel Schindler,
he wanted to know our
tactical situation
the minute we hit the ground.
- Was Mike Mullen in
that first lift?
- I think so but I'm not sure.
Hey, look.
Frankly if you like,
you're sitting up there
in this glass elevator that
makes a great moving target.
I mean the VC, they love
to shoot down helicopters.
- [Courty] Did your men
have to make a jump?
- No, uh-uh.
But we were carrying extra
ammo for the mortar platoon.
So we had to land in
those damn weeds up there.
(helicopter whirring)
- [Byron] Black Smoke One
this is Black Smoke Six.
Can you hear me?
- Black Smoke One, over.
- [Byron] This is
Black Smoke Six.
Do you have any contact?
- No, we have no contact.
Our LZ is cold.
- [Byron] Roger.
(helicopter whirring)
- [Courty] Was it
your first jump?
- [Bannock] Yeah, but I
wasn't scared.
You don't get scared
until you see someone die.
- What you think is it's a movie
and you're John Wayne.
Have a seat.
(typewriter tapping)
- Why did you go in as a medic?
- Didn't have any choice.
They sent me to medic school.
10 week course, mostly
dressings,
a little bit of needles.
That's generally all
you have to do
before you call in med-evac.
- Did you think there'd be
trouble on this mission?
- Well they kept telling
us how dangerous it was
but we never saw anything.
Except leeches.
Plenty of those.
You could follow their trail
right up to the command post.
(exhaling) Be careful
with this bag.
(clattering)
- Okay.
- How close do you want
those ditches?
- Quintaro about 200 meters out.
I mean if they're
gonna come at us
I want 'em to face us
or our guns.
- I don't think artillery
would fire under 400 meters.
- Oh yeah?
- For safety reasons.
Check that out, will you Dapoe?
You can always adjust
later if you need to.
- (grunting) Damn blood suckers.
I'm gonna string me up a
hammock tonight.
They don't eat off of me.
- [Man] Rodriguez.
- [Rodriguez] Hey all right.
- Hey Prince.
- Turkey.
- Leeches bond to you, huh?
- Ah, leeches do not
touch blue blood.
Hey Mullen!
Mullen!
Kiss that.
(clattering)
(background chattering)
- Hey.
- Thanks.
Stupid mosquitoes.
This place ain't good
for nothing.
Hey Leroy where's the
bug spray man?
- Best spray your fatigues too.
- Lieutenant Quintaro.
Negative clearance
on 200 meters.
They say at least 400.
- [Quintaro] Okay.
- No sweat.
(sighing)
(birds chirping)
- Know what Mullen?
I'm gonna get myself outta
here one way or another.
What are you gonna do
when you get out?
- Well.
There's a girl I like.
I might get something
like a VW bus
and drive around the country,
all the different states.
'Til school starts.
- Yeah you gettin'
short ain't ya.
- Yeah, about a
hundred days more.
If I get my early out.
- Sergeant Mullen.
Tell your squad to put
on their flak jackets
and get in their foxholes.
Artillery's firing our DTS now.
- All right, sir.
Hey Leroy!
- Yo!
- Put on your flak jackets,
they're gonna fire the DTs,
and stay in your foxholes.
Hey Prince!
Believe it or not
that means you.
- Hey, do you know what
the chaplain's name is?
- What's that?
- It's Do-Good.
- Bull.
I believe you made that up.
- Oh come on Leroy, could
I make that up? (laughing)
Come on, he spells it
D-U-I-G-U-I-D.
Do-Good. (chuckling)
- Hey you clowns, wake up.
They're gonna fire the DTs.
Put on your flak jackets
and stay in your foxholes.
- Hey.
What are these damn
DTs for anyway?
- Shoot, Mago, will you
stop being such a new boy?
You know the colonel
keeps telling us
these are practice shots, men.
For your own protection.
- Sure, he's up on the
hill with the guns.
(crickets chirping)
- [Bannock] Lieutenant
Quintaro says
they just called off the DTs.
- Must have fouled up.
- In the army, man.
- Artillery's just
called the DTs off.
- All right, listen.
We all might as well
get some sleep.
I'll stand guard first.
Then you Cactus, then you Polk.
- Well goodnight, girls.
- [Leroy] Goodnight, Princess.
- Hey Prince.
- [Prince] Yeah.
- They got you pullin' guard.
- The Prince does
not pull guard.
The Prince protects his
friends. (mimics gunshot)
Hey Polk, you should
know that by now.
(Michael exhales)
(snoring)
That Leroy.
He doesn't even dream.
Is it time to retire?
- [Michael] Hey Cactus.
Cactus wake up.
(booming)
- What's that?
- Shh.
It's the RDR-410.
Shh.
(booming)
(crickets chirping)
(booming)
- Sounds like they're
firing over Delta Company.
Think they're under attack?
- At O-200?
That's a hell of an
hour for a war.
(crickets chirping)
- Sir.
Lieutenant Quintaro.
They're going to fire
our DTs now.
- Now?
- Shall I wake the men?
Tell 'em to put on
their flak jackets?
- No, no.
We already dealt one
false alarm tonight.
Let 'em sleep.
Do tell the captain though.
- Yes sir.
- I'll do it.
(crickets chirping)
Captain.
Our DTs are gonna fire now.
Lieutenant Quintaro
wanted you to know.
- Thanks.
- Willy Peter, testing their
birds 50 meters up, over.
(missile whizzing)
(booming)
- Just where we wanted it.
You can tell fire
direction okay.
- Willy Peter, on target.
Repeat, H-E.
- Repeat, H-E!
- [All] Repeat, H-E!
- Fuse quick!
- [All] Fuse quick!
- Charge three!
- [All] Charge three!
- Deflection five, six, zero,
zero.
- [All] Deflection five, six,
zero, zero.
- Elevation two two two!
- [All] Elevation two two two.
- [Soldier] At my command.
- [All] At your command.
(crickets chirping)
(metal clanging)
(tense music)
(missile whizzing)
(suspenseful music)
(booming)
- [Man] Medic!
(men shouting)
- If he fires, he fires!
Tell him not to fire again!
(men shouting)
- [Bannock] Cease fire!
Cease fire!
- Prince grab your rifle,
we're being overrun.
(men chattering)
(Prince screams)
- [Man] Medic!
- Get a medic over here!
Medic!
- Stupid bastards.
They're supposed to be
shooting on the outside.
They're shooting at us.
- Medic!
(Prince wails)
- Help! (wailing)
- Anyway, take it easy.
- Oh God!
- You're gonna be okay.
- Mulls.
Mullen you all right?
Mullen!
- This is Black Smoke One Oscar.
We need immediate med-evac
helicopter now.
Over.
- Gonna be okay.
(Prince exhales)
Okay, you're all right.
- It's a traumatic amputation,
sir.
I'll have to put a
tourniquet on his leg
and then straighten it
so I need somebody to
help hold him down.
- Yeah, all right, I'll do it.
- Kill me, doc!
Die captor!
Doctor, captain.
Tell me something.
- Yeah?
- How bad is it?
Am I gonna walk?
- Yeah, yeah, you're
gonna be fine.
Doc's taking care of it.
(men shouting)
- Rodriguez, hold the, hold
the tourniquet right here.
- Damn it Rodriguez,
not so tight.
- I got to.
The Prince must not bleed.
- Doc, will I be able to walk?
- Sure.
It's bad but you'll be
able to walk.
- Almost safe. (wailing)
Will I be able to waltz?
- Doc, Leroy, he's hurt too.
- Oh no not Leroy.
- Hold this.
(crickets chirping)
- [Doc] His guts are all shot
out but I still feel a pulse.
Try mouth to mouth and
keep working at it.
- Doc!
I think Mullen's been hurt.
- Mulls.
Still warm.
A piece of shrapnel must
have entered his back.
No exit wound.
- I was sleepin'
right next to him
and I didn't even get hurt.
(exhaling)
- Tags and Mullen are dead sir.
- Son of a, son of a bitch.
- It's no use, sir.
He's dead.
(background chattering)
- Black Smoke One.
Black Smoke One.
Black Smoke One.
- [Bannock] Black Smoke Six
this is Black Smoke One.
- Stay near your radio.
I need to know what's going on.
Have you got a landing
zone for the med-evac?
- [Bannock] Yes, sir.
Look I've got seven wounded.
Two of my men have
bought the farm.
If I don't get it soon
two more will.
- Okay, that's what I
needed to know.
Stay in touch.
Black Smoke Six out.
(crickets chirping)
Keep those guns frozen
'til the investigating team
looks at them tomorrow.
(crickets chirping)
And I don't want
anything touched.
Anything.
- Let's go.
- Give us a hand here, Harrison!
- Come on, we need some help.
(men mumbling)
- Okay, down slow.
Okay.
(Prince wails)
No, no.
- [Doc] Watch his leg.
Take it easy, real slow, okay?
One, two, three.
- Watch your step.
- Slow man, don't jerk.
(helicopter whirring)
- It was a waste.
A damn, stupid waste.
Which if I had to dwell on it'd
get me absolutely teed off.
- [Courty] Does it make
you feel foolish
that you were a part of that?
- No, why should it?
It wasn't like someone said
we're having this little war
and anybody who wants
to can come and join in.
It was you're in the army
man, shape up and ship out.
Hey look, I don't wanna get
hung up on all this again.
I gotta go.
- Can I talk to you tomorrow?
- I don't know.
(engine revving)
(birds chirping)
(Peg laughing)
- [Peg] Ah!
You feel thinner.
- You must be hugging my wallet.
Gene, look who's here.
- Gene.
- [Gene] How's the family?
- Everybody's just fine.
- It's been almost nine
months, I can't believe it.
- [Gene] You staying to dinner?
- [Courty] Uh-huh.
- And tomorrow?
You know, tomorrow's two
years since Michael came home.
- I know that.
- We got a special
treat for you.
- [Courty] What's that?
- Pork tenderloins,
about the best cuts
you can get from a hog.
One of our own.
- [Courty] That was terrific.
I hope at least it was
that character
that kept busting
through the fence.
(Gene chuckles)
- It's them or us.
Feed and fertilizer
just went up 8%.
- Gene's on a two month
layoff from the factory.
- People around here must
be feeling it.
- They are.
They're startin' to realize
what this war has cost 'em.
- But you know somethin' Courty?
Things are changing.
We went to a funeral last week,
a neighbor of ours,
Burton Lynch.
Everybody loved old Burt
and it was a big turnout.
- People who would
turn their heads
when they saw me on the street
were walking right up
to us and saying hello
and I returned the cordiality.
And they wanted to stand
there and talk to us.
Even about the war. (chuckling)
Didn't they Peg?
- Michael loved Burt.
Even on his last day,
when he had all the work
to do around the farm here
and he just didn't
have enough time,
Michael made the time to go
over and visit with Burt.
(Peg sighs)
Why does this always happen
when I'm around you Courty?
I don't know, I don't
cry very much anymore.
- Well sir.
- Look, I don't know if it's
the proper time or not but
I spent the last few months
talking to some of the men.
Bannock, the Prince, Barrows.
Colonel Schindler.
As much as anyone can know
another person's death
I think I know about Michael's.
And I can give you all the
information I've learned.
- I don't know if
that'll be necessary.
- Of course it's up to you.
- We know.
He was hit between the
shoulder blades wasn't he?
- Yes, a piece of
shrapnel entered his back
and pierced his heart.
He died right away in his sleep.
But what I mean is I can
give you the background
on the operation, what
the mission was.
- I tell ya, Courty.
There's somethin' that
always bugged me.
Why did they cover it up?
- I don't think it was a
conspiracy, Gene.
- It was never in the news.
Two boys were killed,
seven were wounded.
Why wouldn't they ever send
us the investigation report?
- Because it was classified
for official use only
which kept it from being
released to civilians.
Even parents.
- Who told you that, Schindler?
- [Courty] Yes.
- I thought so.
Did any of these people
you talked to
tell you why the guns
were fired so late
and not at eight o'clock?
- [Courty] Yes Gene, he
explained that.
All artillery firing
is done on priorities.
In this case, Charlie
Company's firing time
was preempted so
they had to wait
'til time was available.
- 2:30 in the morning?
- [Courty] At any time.
- What about the
drinking at the guns?
Schindler told us about
that himself.
- Yes there was drinking
but it didn't matter
because the error
wasn't on the guns.
- Well then where was it?
- It was at the fire direction
center 10 miles away.
Evidently someone
failed to compute
the correct height of the trees.
So the round hit a tree
and was deflected.
- Hit a tree?
- The man responsible was
given an official reprimand.
It wasn't deliberate negligence,
Peg.
Just a stupid, senseless
accident of war
that happens occasionally.
- Occasionally?
Would you call thousands
of deaths occasional?
Misadventures, that's what
they call them.
And they don't even list
them in the casualty counts.
- 'Cause they don't
want you to know
how many are killed that way
by the army's own mistakes.
That's why they threatened
the boys with court martial
when they tried to write
us about that.
Now did you ask your Colonel
Schindler about that?
- Yes.
He says it's a matter of policy.
- Whose policy?
- It was a directive from
the top, Gene.
They want to be sure that no
conflicting details are given,
no inconsistent facts.
- [Gene] We didn't
get any facts.
Except for the ones they
wanted us to get.
- [Courty] What they
were trying to do
was to spare you the anguish
that varying stories might give.
- Spare us anguish?
- Colonel Schindler gives
you these nice, neat answers.
Now the man has had
time to think,
to get his story straight.
- [Courty] Gene I don't
think that Colonel--
- When I saw him at
the Walter Reed
I was looking at an officer
of the United States Army
with guilt complex.
- He didn't kill Michael,
you know that.
Why should he feel guilty?
- Because he was hungry.
It's actioned on the
morning report, body counts.
- Gene, we're just
going around in circles.
Now I didn't come here
to defend the military,
the government or the system.
That's not what I
came back to do.
- What did you come back for?
- I thought that if I could
find out the facts for you,
if I could learn what happened
to Michael, how he died,
I might be helping you.
(scoffing)
I guess I don't know
what you want from me.
- What we want from you?
You came out here.
I thought you wanted
something from us.
- What do you mean?
What do you think I
wanted from you?
- You wanted a story.
You wanted a book.
- Well yes, but I
wanted the truth.
- Whose truth?
Their truth or ours?
- The truth is not
yours or theirs.
The truth is just the truth.
- You think the truth is theirs?
- Peg.
Gene, I don't want to
have to choose sides.
I think you should know
that Colonel Schindler and
Captain Bannock
were good officers and good men!
- I don't buy Schindler and
I don't buy the military.
Now if that is a slanted
bias on my part
there's just nothing that's
ever gonna change that.
(tense music)
- I thought you understood,
but you don't.
Maybe you can't.
When you lose your son
there's only one side.
(rain pattering)
(dramatic music)
(telephone ringing)
- Hello?
- [Carl] Courty, where
have you been?
- I went for a walk in the rain.
- Well I've been trying
to get you for hours.
How are the Mullens?
Are they pleased?
Do they like what you're
doing with the book?
- I don't know if
I've got a book.
- What do you mean?
- They think I'm using them.
- Well you are.
You want to tell a story,
they want a story told.
You're using each other.
- Carl, I'll call you
when I get back to the
city tomorrow night, okay?
- All right.
And Courty, stop bleeding.
(rain pattering)
- [Prince] 'Cause
ignorance is bliss, right?
- [Courty] Well then how
do you let them know?
- [Prince] You can't.
That's what I've been
trying to tell you.
You can write a million
books like this
and you still won't get through.
'Cause people will read it and
go ah, ah, gee, is that so?
- [Courty] Sometimes
you get through.
- [Prince] Yeah.
But how's that gonna help me?
'Cause even if the whole
world reads this story,
still not gonna--
- [Courty] Bring your leg back?
- It's not gonna change
anybody's mind.
It's not that close to 'em.
- You won't let people
get close to you.
How do you feel?
What did you lose your leg for?
- Look, I don't want to get
into these deep thoughts.
- Do you have deep
thoughts like that?
- Yeah.
- [Courty] Do you share
them with anybody?
- Sometimes.
Some people.
- [Courty] What kind of people?
- Vietnam vets.
- Doesn't that make you
some kind of a snob?
He can't possibly
understand what happened
'cause he wasn't there.
Look, I came down here because
I really wanna know you.
- You came down here
'cause you're a writer.
We're not just sittin'
around and BS-ing.
- I'm always a writer.
- That's what I'm talkin' about.
You don't want to know me.
You want me to fit into
some kind of character--
- I don't want you to fit
into anything.
I want you to be
whoever you are.
- [Prince] Then turn
off the tape.
(machine clicking)
(thoughtful music)
- Well there's a lawyer
who specializes in
military cases.
The thing is, don't worry.
Everything's going to
be all right.
Yes.
It's a widow with six children.
Her son's a helicopter
gunner in Vietnam,
God knows how he survived.
He's gone AWOL three times
this year to come home
because she's sick.
Now they're holding him
at Fort Hood.
I can stand anything but
when they start to cry
how can I help her?
- You did.
You were there with names,
phone numbers.
- Well if she doesn't
get anywhere
I'll call Senator Hughes
myself, or maybe that major--
(Gene sobs)
No Gene, now don't.
Not today.
- Are we crazy?
Are we?
How long can we go
on doing this?
- That lady who came to see
us whose son got killed,
what was it, 15 years ago.
I listened to her talking
about him and I said
my God am I going to be doing
this the rest of my life?
How can you live a
lifetime of being angry?
But we have to.
We have to so that
Michael's death,
all their deaths,
will have some meaning.
(engine rumbling)
(dog barking)
- I'd like to come with you.
(dramatic orchestral music)
(wind whirring)
(crow squawking)
(cows mooing)
(gentle harmonica music)
(pigs oinking)
(cows mooing)
(dog barking)
(cows mooing)
(birds chirping)
(hammer tapping)
(pigs oinking)
(rooster crowing)
- Looks nice.
- Tell John to give it plenty
of water the first week.
- You gonna finish packing?
- Later.
I wanna clean up that cornfield.
(tools clanking)
(birds chirping)
(pig oinking)
(engine rumbling)
(tractor humming)
(machine chugging)
- Hi!
We tried to get back earlier.
- We had to go to Wilburton.
But we found a nail file and
clippers in a little kit.
(machine chugging)
- [Peg] Nail file and clippers?
- You know Mike,
he'll clean his nails
in the jungle.
(tractor revving)
(birds chirping)
(whistle blaring)
(machinery rumbling)
- We had the same
trouble last week.
So why don't the three of
us get together and talk?
- Hal, can we talk
about it tomorrow?
My boy's home on terminal leave.
- Oh sure.
Where's he stepping out to?
- Vietnam, tomorrow.
- Well, tell him to give
'em hell, huh?
(engine revving)
- You could tell the way the
quartz side gets
orange and black.
Down at the base there.
- Suppose old Black Hawk
fired it himself?
- [Michael] Eh.
- [John] No?
- Well.
Could be, out there
hunting for deer.
- [John] Or for our
great-great grandpa.
(Michael scoffs)
- Hey, it's yours.
- Thanks.
Suppose if it was up
to Black Hawk
none of us would ever
have farmed this land.
There probably wouldn't
have even been an Iowa.
- Oh, there'd a been an Iowa.
Just, uh, the people
might have been different.
There's a story about Black Hawk
when he was 71 years
old and they,
they took him out of prison
and put him and his
family on the reservation.
On that first 4th of July
when Iowa became a territory
they had a big celebration
and invited him to
make a speech.
By then his old legs were wobbly
but he pushed himself
up on a cane
and he said, I love my
village, my cornfields,
the home of my people.
I fought for them.
(poignant orchestral music)
(clattering)
(moves into tense music)
- [Announcer] And Willy Davis
lined and doubled to left field
giving the Los Angeles
Dodgers a five-four victory
over the New York Mets.
In Saigon the latest
casualties were released today
reflect a deceleration in
South Vietnam's ground war.
The U.S. Command reports
185 Americans killed
and 1,057 wounded in the
week ended last Saturday
compared with 197 killed
and 1,367 wounded
the previous week.
Enemy deaths were put
at two thousand, four--
- Remember dad always
telling the story
about you running away?
When he was slaughtering hogs?
How are you gonna be able
to kill someone?
- (sighing) They teach you.
(knocking on door)
I didn't hear you come in.
Tired?
- Yeah, a little.
Why, you wanna talk?
- [Michael] No.
We all better get some sleep.
- You want something
from the kitchen?
- No.
- A beer?
- No thanks, Dad.
(crickets chirping)
- Mikey?
- Yes.
- Be careful.
- I will, Dad.
(thoughtful music)
I'll be gone a good
while this time
so there'll be a lot
more work around here.
More than Dad can handle
doing two jobs.
- Don't worry, I'll help him.
I'll do whatever you did.
Try, anyway.
- Help Mom too.
That's harder, she
doesn't ask for it.
All right?
(dramatic orchestral music)
(engine revving)
Oh I forgot.
Tell John I sprayed the
lawn for dandelions so
he won't have to do it
for a couple of months.
- That won't exactly
make him mad.
- Well, he's not much
of a farmer.
But he's a good kid.
- You didn't always
feel that way.
When I was pregnant with him,
remember?
You came up to me and you said
Mom, we haven't got enough room
and we haven't got enough money.
You said--
- [Both] Ask the doctor,
I bet there's a pill you
can take. (all laughing)
(shoes tapping)
- It's early.
- Yes, it's very early.
There's no one else here.
Maybe I can check in.
- He looks scared.
- He's fine.
He's fine.
(engine whirring)
Over here.
- Did you get a magazine?
- Mom, they have them
on the plane.
- Well do you need anything--
- Nothing Mom, really.
(jet engine whirring)
- I'll write you every
day from school.
- [Michael] Not every day.
- And I'll pray for you.
(lips smacking)
- (laughing) Oh, I'll miss you.
- Remember, even if you and Alan
are serious about
getting married
you have to go on to
finish college, all right?
- I will. (chuckling)
I promise.
(lips smacking)
- Dad, you look after--
- Mikey.
I was given this medal,
holy medal
and I wore it all during
the second World War.
It protected me.
I'm giving it to you.
Let me hold that.
There you go.
- Mom.
You never cry.
Don't worry.
Come on now, Mom, please.
The war will be over
in six months.
(lips smacking)
Okay?
- Okay.
(jet engine whirring)
- [Michael] Wouldn't
you know I'd hit Saigon
the start of the monsoon season.
Rain, rain, and more rain.
(thoughtful music)
Only have a minute to say hi.
Same old stuff.
Going to the mountains so
won't write for a few days.
We're supposed to be
building bunkers
but typical army, no
materials and no tools.
Oh by the way, I ran
into a boy from Waterloo
by the name of Huddleston.
(thoughtful music)
Got the stuff, thanks.
Would you send some
canned grapefruit juice?
We're supposed to have
the battalion commander
out here sometime this week.
You know, they've gotta
have their body counts.
(dramatic violin music)
Come on Mom,
don't write me about these
soft smart kids
that re-enlist to get
out of combat.
I've got no stomach
for that type.
I don't wanna be here
but if you are you do
the job the best you can.
(dramatic orchestral music)
We pounded a VC village
for three hours
in the middle of the night.
About dawn we burned
out the whole village.
Can't say much more except
eight months left in
this hellhole.
(tense orchestral music)
Some GIs, out of frustration,
are inhuman to these people.
You don't really know
who your enemy is
and the GI believes better
me alive and him dead.
It's just too
complex to explain.
(birds chirping)
(engine revving)
Things have been quiet of late.
I hope they stay that way.
I'm counting the weeks,
the days.
It's all a crock.
Oh yes, Mom, thanks for
the tennis shoes.
They're lettin' my feet dry out.
(engine revving)
- [Pastor] Oh Lord, make me
an instrument of your peace.
- [Children] Oh Lord, make me
an instrument of your peace.
- [Pastor] Where there is
hatred, let me bring love.
- [Children] Where there is
hatred, let me bring love.
- [Pastor] Where there is
injury, let me bring pardon.
- [Children] Where there is
injury, let me bring pardon.
- [Pastor] Where there is
sadness, let me bring joy.
- [Gene] Letter from Mikey!
- [Peg] What's he say,
when did he write it?
- Well about a week ago.
Dear Mom and Dad,
went off the hill to
get a haircut
but ended up hitching
a ride to Lai.
MAR station wasn't busy
so got to phone you.
- Oh he must have written this
the same day he called us.
- Sure.
He says we'll be on the
bunker line two more days
then back in the field.
- [Peg] That means more
search and destroy.
- [Gene] No it doesn't.
Now he's been doing company
sweeps, he told us that
that letter ago.
- All right, all right.
Finish the letter.
- He says weather here
has been pretty good.
Have decided not to
take an R and R
if I can get my early drop,
so, 'til later, hang loose.
(scoffing) Hang loose.
- I don't like that he's
going out in the field again.
- He says it's one of
the safer places though.
What's the matter?
(birds chirping)
- (sighing) Oh I don't know.
All day yesterday I felt jumpy,
mad.
I want to do something
about this war, something.
So, I cleaned the whole house
and I made curtains for
the boys' room.
- Well now you've written
to Senator Miller,
you wrote to Nixon.
- Yeah, it's not enough.
- You're just unhappy 'cause
Michael had to go, that's all.
- No, it's not just Michael.
It's all of 'em.
Only I guess you don't
feel the same way
until it's one of your own.
- You wouldn't want him to
get out of it, would ya?
- No, I guess not.
- Mother, chances are
he'll be home by summer.
- Knock wood.
- Well, wind's died down.
I'm gonna go fix your
television antenna for ya.
(birds chirping)
(pigs oinking)
(engine whirring)
(birds chirping)
(pigs oinking)
(engine rumbling)
(birds chirping)
(engine rumbling)
(birds chirping)
(crow squawking)
(gravel crunching)
(engine revving)
(gate creaking)
(birds chirping)
Is my boy dead?
- Gene, this is
Sergeant Fitzgerald.
He's from 5th Army headquarters.
(birds chirping)
- Is my boy dead?
- Come into the house with us.
Please.
(birds chirping)
- It's Mikey!
It's Mikey!
It's Mikey.
- Mrs. Mullen--
- [Gene] Now I want the truth.
Is my boy dead?
- Yes.
- Yes.
Gene, Peg, I'm sorry.
- Why?
Why?
- How was he killed?
- I only know what the
5th Army headquarters
gave me over the phone
this morning.
(zipper whizzing)
Sergeant Michael Eugene Mullen,
US-5493 et cetera,
died while at a night
defensive position
when artillery fire from
friendly forces
landed in the area.
Non-battle casualty.
I really am very sorry.
- What do they mean by friendly?
- It just means it wasn't
enemy artillery.
Your son was killed by
friendly fire.
- Friendly fire?
Friendly fire?
- It means any artillery
from forces not the enemy.
- You mean American forces.
Why don't you say American?
- Because it wasn't American.
Maybe you heard on the
news last night
about Bien Hoa.
South Vietnamese
artillery accidentally
shelled an American position.
- Michael wasn't anywhere
near Bien Hoa.
He was three or 400 miles away.
- Well it often happens that
the Viet Cong infiltrate
these South Vietnamese units,
get onto their radio channels
and call in the wrong
artillery coordinates.
So when the ARVN fire
they hit Americans.
I'm not saying
officially that's it
but it has happened before.
- [Gene] That's what's
meant by non-battle.
- That means any casualty
not directly from action
by hostile forces.
I am sorry.
- You're just doing your job.
I was a master sergeant myself.
That was the second world war.
- You have the right to
request a special escort
to accompany your son's
body back from Vietnam.
If there's some special
friend of his,
anyone in particular
you might want.
- Michael had lots of friends.
- Well you don't have to
decide right now.
Or about the funeral home.
I'll be in touch with
you tomorrow.
(somber orchestral music)
If there's nothing else then,
I'll--
- How long will it be
before Michael,
Michael's body comes back?
- Just as soon as they
have a plane full.
(tense orchestral music)
(crickets chirping)
(gentle harmonica music)
- [Pat] Mary?
(dramatic orchestral music)
(box clattering)
- What is it?
- Names.
Everybody in Michael's life.
I don't even know some of them.
- They must have been
important to him.
Better find out, get in
touch with 'em. (sobbing)
(crickets chirping)
- I'm going to write down
everything Sergeant
Fitzgerald told us
about how Michael was killed.
Everything we know.
- Why?
- I want to see it.
In words.
(machine tapping)
- [Mary] Mom?
- What time is it?
- [Mary] Almost 9:30.
It's all right.
Everybody's had breakfast.
- [Gene] Tom Loomis just phoned.
Michael's body is coming
in tomorrow night,
accompanied by a
Sergeant Glenn Marin.
- Who?
- Yes I did telegraph the names
of the two men you
requested to the Pentagon.
And it may have been passed over
because Monday was an
official holiday
since Washington's
birthday fell on a Sunday.
- Sergeant Fitzgerald
may I remind you
that our son tramped
through the mud of Vietnam
for six months
regardless of holidays.
We want one of the
escorts we chose.
You said it was our right,
didn't you?
- [Sgt. Fitzgerald] It is, but--
- Now Roy O'Connor
and Leo Manoli
were both friends of his.
- Call up the Pentagon.
- I did this morning,
when you called me
and they say, (groaning)
I'll give it to you straight.
The men in charge of
special escort said
tell those people they can
insist on one of these escorts
but if they do, they'll
have to wait.
Take it or leave it, 10
to 15 more days.
- Sergeant Fitzgerald,
my son is dead.
He's coming home in a casket.
You can tell the
Pentagon from me
that I can wait 15 more years.
(machine tapping)
- So on this Armed Forces Day
what we're doing is
saluting our fighting men
who are stationed all
over the world,
especially our troops
in South Vietnam
who are doing a great job
in very tough conditions.
Some people say that when
we go to the aid
of a little country like Vietnam
we're taking it away
from the people.
But what we're doing is helping
the right people to keep it.
Freedom and a
democratic way of life,
that's what America's always
stood for and always will.
Now if there is any
questions here
I'll be glad to answer them.
Yes, sir.
- When are more of our
troops coming home?
- Well only President Nixon
could answer that, sir,
but I can tell you this, though.
That we'd like to be
home as soon as possible.
But you don't want us
to walk away
and leave our grandsons
to finish a job
that we didn't have the
courage to stick with.
What we need from you
people at home
is to know that you're behind us
so we can go on and do
the job right.
The president said it's
got to be peace with honor.
- Why does the army
divide casualties
into battle and non-battle?
- Well there is a difference,
ma'am.
Non-battle casualties
are the ones
that don't result from
action by hostile forces.
- Those boys died in this
war didn't they?
- [Officer] Yes.
- Then why aren't they included
in the casualty count we hear
on the TV news every night?
- I don't know that they aren't.
- Well they aren't.
And they don't even
count the boys
who are wounded and
die later in hospitals.
Why are they listed
as non-battle
when they're just as dead
as anybody else?
- Ma'am if you'll write to the
army's public affairs office
I'm sure you'll get a
satisfactory answer.
Alright, are there any
other questions please?
(engine revving)
- Everyone keeps asking me
when the funeral's gonna be.
I can tell they think Mom's
making too much of a fuss.
- I don't care what they think.
- I'm no good at
expressing myself
but I had to tell you
your grief is shared.
Our Michael was killed
last November.
- All these Michaels.
Seems like everybody
25 years ago
named their boy Michael.
- I never would've
thought that people
would write us like
this but they do.
- More letters.
Oh, this one's from
the president.
- Dear Mrs. Mullen,
because of past correspondence,
which you've addressed to
the White House,
President Nixon
wishes you to know
he is truly sorry to hear
of the death of your son.
What's all this?
Photocopies of his
speeches from Vietnam.
- I'm calling the airline.
Maybe they'll know something.
Hello.
This is Mr. Gene Mullen.
We have been informed
that our son's body
is being flown in here from
the Oakland Army Mortuary
but we haven't been told when
and we're just waiting here.
An entire family just
waiting here,
and I was wondering if
you would have any record
on any of your flights.
Michael Mullen.
Yes, I'll hold on.
They're gonna check their log.
(sighing)
(dramatic music)
Thank, thank you very much.
Tomorrow afternoon, 4:45,
accompanied by Sergeant
Roy O'Connor.
(dramatic orchestral music)
(military drumming music)
(moves into dramatic music)
- [Peg] Where's Dad?
- He's in with Michael.
- Is it Michael?
- Yes.
- Are you sure?
(coffin tapping)
- Dad.
- Get me to the car.
(crickets chirping)
- You all right?
- I'm all right, I just
want to sit awhile.
You go on back in.
- Are you sure?
- Go on, go on.
- Feel better?
Can I get you anything?
Any water?
- No.
- I want to know how
my son died.
I want a death certificate
stating how he was killed.
- I told you Mr. Mullen
right in here.
Died while at a night
defensive position when--
- That isn't it.
And you know it isn't.
Take a look at him.
There ain't a mark on that boy.
Is there?
- When I lifted up the body
I couldn't feel any
broken bones or abrasions.
- [Gene] I wanna know
what killed him.
- Mr. Mullen all I
have is this--
- Don't hand me that!
I want a death certificate.
I want to see it
before I bury him.
- I don't have one, sir.
- When I saw Michael
lying there, whole,
without a mark on him,
I wanted to,
I don't know what I wanted
but I don't think I wanted
to see him whole, you know?
I got so angry 'cause he,
he doesn't look as if he...
You understand?
- [Pat] I think so.
- I wanted him,
I think I wanted him to
have been blown to bits.
I know, I know I did
but he was whole.
He was all whole.
Oh God.
Why couldn't he have
been blown to bits
so I could believe he
died in a war?
(zipper whizzing)
- Here's the release paper
giving you possession
of the body.
I signed it.
- You can give me his dog tags.
- I'm sorry, I have to
keep those, sir.
They're part of your
son's military equipment.
They have to be
retained for record.
But I have a gold star here
the army wants you to
have in recognition--
- You keep it.
I don't want it.
- If you feel up to it, Gene,
there are a couple of things
I have to check with you.
The wake will be at
home tomorrow
and the funeral mass
at 10 o'clock Tuesday.
The burial will be private at
Mount Carmel in Eagle Center.
Now the VFW wants to provide a
military funeral for Michael.
They'll supply the
honor guard, the bugler,
and fire a salute if you want.
- I don't want it.
My son was a farmer,
not a soldier.
- Would you want a flag
draped over the coffin?
- Yes.
Yes I want a flag.
♪ Oh beautiful for
spacious skies ♪
♪ For amber waves of grain
♪ For purple
mountain majesties ♪
♪ Above the fruited plain
♪ America, America
♪ God shed His grace on thee
♪ And crown thy good
with brotherhood ♪
♪ From sea to
- [Byron] Department of
the Army, Headquarters,
1st Battalion, 6th Infantry,
198th Infantry Brigade,
Americal division.
Dear Mr. And Mrs. Mullen,
it is with deepest sorrow
that I extend to you
the sympathy
of the men of the 1st
Battalion, 6th Infantry
on the loss of your son,
Michael.
Michael's unit was located
in their night
defensive position
near the village of Tau Chien,
approximately 13 miles
south of Tam Ky City,
in Quang Tin Province,
Republic of Vietnam.
At 2:50 a.m., the unit
was adjusting artillery
to provide a
predetermined range of fire
in the event of enemy contact.
During the testing,
Michael received a
fatal missile wound
when an artillery round fell
short of its intended target
and detonated near his position.
Now you gain some
consolation in knowing
that Michael was not subjected
to any brutal suffering.
I sincerely hope that
the knowledge
that Michael was an
exemplary soldier
who gave his life in the
service of his country
will comfort you in this
hour of great sorrow.
A memorial service was
conducted for your son.
Michael's comrades joined
me in rendering
military honors and final
tribute to him.
The sincere sympathy of his unit
has extended to you in
your bereavement.
Sincerely yours,
Byron Schindler,
Lieutenant Colonel,
infantry commanding.
- That's very nice.
- What's nice about it?
- I just mean that part
about the memorial service
with Mikey's--
- Gene, I've been going over it.
I read it 10 times.
The unit was
adjusting artillery.
Now that means it wasn't
all that stuff
that Sergeant Fitzgerald told us
about the North Vietnamese
infiltrating radio channels.
It was someone in
Michael's own unit
that fired that artillery.
Now why?
Why should they be doing that
at nearly three o'clock
in the morning
unless they were being attacked?
And they weren't because it says
in the event of enemy contact.
- That's true.
It was his own unit that
called in that artillery.
He would've been in a foxhole
and he would've had his
flak jacket on.
- That's right.
And if it was a shell fell short
and detonated near his position
then why did he just have
this tiny hole in his back?
Isn't that what Tom Loomis
told you at the funeral home?
- That's all he found.
It wasn't any bigger
round than a top of a pen.
- Or a bullet.
And why wasn't there any
investigation?
Why wasn't there anything
in the papers about it?
Didn't anybody else get hurt?
- Well sir, we're just
going to have to find out.
- How?
They're not going to tell
us any more than this.
- We can write to some of
Mikey's buddies.
- We don't know their names.
He never told 'em to us.
- They should've written to us.
It's been two weeks.
I just don't understand that.
- Wait a minute,
there was someone.
Somebody from Waterloo.
It's in one of his last letters.
- Waterloo?
- Yes.
Here.
Here it is, ran into a
boy from Waterloo
by the name of Huddleston.
- Huddleston?
- H-U-D-D-L-E-S-T-O-N.
- Okay.
(tense music)
Right, here we are.
There's four of 'em in here.
- I'll just call.
Find out if one of 'em
has a son in Vietnam.
- Peg.
It's after midnight.
(tense music)
We'll call 'em all in
the morning.
(tense music)
(phone clattering)
- [Peg] Dear Willis,
I got your first name from your
father, Reverend Huddleston.
I think you knew my son,
Michael Mullen.
You are the only one we know
who fought with him in Vietnam.
We want to find out more
about how Michael was killed.
Anything you can tell us
about that night
will be greatly appreciated.
- As I understand it,
the army is asking us to
sign a blank pay voucher
for our son's final 18
days of pay, is that right?
Well sir, I'm a working man
and I have never in my life
signed a blank pay voucher
and I'm certainly not gonna
start at this sad moment.
- Mrs. Mullen, let me
start again.
I'll see if I can
make this clear.
Your son accumulated
44 days leave
from 4 September 1968
through date of death.
Now his military pay
record shows
that he took 21 days
advance leave
prior to his
departure for Vietnam,
which, when added to previous
Christmas and other leaves
comes to a total of 53 days.
Now since members on
excess leave
are not entitled to pay
in allowances
these were withheld from the
period 23 to 31 August, 1969.
- Are you telling me that
the army is billing my son
for the nine days he took
but didn't live long
enough to earn back?
- Well that's a way of
putting it but--
- And that to collect full pay
he made the mistake of
dying before August of 1970?
- Mrs. Mullen, these are just
standard operating procedures.
I mean it's nothing personal.
- Personal.
They don't know what
that word means.
You tell the army they can
keep that final paycheck.
It'll pay for
embalming his body.
They forgot to bill us for that.
(telephone ringing)
- [Man] Know what
you want on it?
- Michael's full name,
Michael E. Mullen,
son of Peg and Gene.
The day he was born,
September 11th, 1944.
- Born September 11th, 1944.
And the date he died?
Died on?
- Not died.
Killed.
- You want it to read killed?
- Yes.
(somber music)
- [Willis] Dear Mr. and Mrs.
Mullen.
Yes, I knew your son
pretty good,
for we often talked together,
and he always let me read
his Des Moines newspaper.
- The short round
that killed Mike
also killed another
soldier named Hamilton
and wounded six or seven others.
The army has this thing
they call DTs.
That's defensive targets
that they shoot about two
or 300 meters away from you.
They used to do this
almost every night
but now they stopped.
And you know why.
Because when two men die
and seven are wounded and
there's no investigation
and nothing about it
in the papers
then they're hiding something
that they don't want us
or anybody else to know.
- Mom I've got to study.
- And then he ends up
if the army story is
different please let me know.
Sincerely, Willis B. Huddleston.
- Can't believe everything
a GI's gonna tell you, Peg.
Never met one yet
thought the army was
fightin' the war right.
- Yeah, any war.
- I wouldn't let
myself get riled up
over somethin' like that.
- Well at least he
answered our letter.
I can't get anything
from the army.
Simple request like the
casualty list
for the week Michael died.
I wrote and asked them
for it twice.
- Well the army is a
little busy, Peg.
They're fightin' a war.
(chuckling)
- Don't you think I know that?
(crickets chirping)
- Oh Peg, Gene.
There isn't anybody in this town
doesn't feel bad about Michael.
We've known him since
he was born.
- I remember the
first 4-H project
he had at the county fair,
that big Berkshire sow.
- Yes he was a fine young man,
a real credit to the community.
- Earl, let me ask you.
Doesn't it bother you
that we're in a war that
Congress never declared?
- Now look, we're having
a real nice dinner here.
I don't want to get involved
in a discussion of--
- [Gene] But doesn't it?
- Well, I don't like it that--
- Does anyone here know
why we're in this war?
- I can't say that
that's been answered yet
to my satisfaction, but--
- Well then why don't you
say something,
let them know you care?
Don't you have any questions?
- Sure.
Well, I don't believe
in tearing down the flag
to find out the answers.
I mean listen, I've been there.
- We all have, all the
men at this table.
- And you learn a few things.
Well for instance,
you learn that this country
is certainly worth defending.
- Nobody says it isn't, Earl.
There are just different
ways of defending it.
- Yes, but you don't do it by
going out on college
campuses and throwing rocks
or to trying to tell the
army how to run the war.
I mean, I've got to believe
that they know a little bit
more about it than I do.
And by God, if my country calls,
I'll be one of the first
guys out there
with the bayonet to
stab somebody.
(crickets chirping)
- I think we should stop
talking about the war
and start paying some attention
to Peg's turkey croquettes.
There you go honey,
help yourself.
- I don't want to do
that anymore.
Spend an evening talking
about turkey croquettes.
- I guess they were just
trying to change the subject.
- I know.
But I don't want the
subject changed.
- They're old friends, Peg.
- Yes, and they feel
guilty and we feel jealous
because their sons
didn't have to go or die.
- I don't.
- Yes we do, Gene.
We can't help it.
It's like we're on
different roads now.
I feel closer to all
those fathers and mothers
that write to us that I've
never even met.
- I know.
It's 15 minutes 'til the news.
- How much time on the
television would $2,014.20 buy?
It's Michael's six month
gratuity check.
It's been sitting
here for a week.
- Not much.
TV's expensive.
I've been thinking about what
Michael would want us
to do with this.
John's tuition to Rockhurst,
the farm machinery
needs repairing.
Could put up a new
fence for the hogs.
- We've got to do
something to get to people.
To wake them up.
- A silent message to
fathers and mothers of Iowa.
We have been dying
for nine, long miserable
years in Vietnam
in an undeclared war.
How many more lives do
you wish to sacrifice
because of your silence?
The 714 crosses represent
the 714 Iowans who have
died in Vietnam.
In memoriam to the Vietnam
War dead whom our son joined
and to those awaiting the
acceptable sacrifice in 1970.
Those are the words on the
advertisement you see behind me
which appeared this morning
in a Des Moines newspaper.
It was sponsored by Mr.
And Mrs. Gene Mullen
of La Porte City, Iowa.
It was paid for by a
gratuity payment
sent them by the army
to defray their dead
son's funeral expenses.
(horn blaring)
I venture to predict
that this Iowa family,
living in the heartland
of President Nixon's
much vaunted silent majority
have dropped a powerful
bomb of their own
into the already troubled
consciousness of this nation.
- [Reporter] Mrs. Mullen,
Mr. Mullen, I'd like to ask--
- [Female Reporter] Mrs.
Mullen are you surprised
by the reaction to your ad?
- Yes, we were, uh--
(telephone rings)
- The telephone hasn't
hardly stopped ringing.
- [Reporter] And what
did you want it to say?
- Well we wanted to say
something to other fathers
and mothers whose sons
are still alive.
- [Reporter] Did you write it
or did some anti-war group
do the writing for you?
- Oh no.
Gene here thought up
all the crosses--
- Peg did the words.
She's a lot better
with the words.
(telephone ringing)
- [Female Reporter] Do you
consider yourselves members
of the silent majority?
- Well.
- Maybe we were once, but,
now we both feel that
it's time for people--
- It's just time that
people stopped being silent
and they started to speak
out against this war.
- Is it true that you
turned down your son's
posthumous medals?
- Well, yes.
Why should they give him
a good conduct medal?
For not complaining about
what they did to him?
- The Bronze Star now,
that's given for bravery.
The whole time he was over there
he only saw the enemy
three times.
- See, we don't need them to
give him a medal for dying.
- [Reporter] If you
feel that way,
then do you think people should
keep their sons from going?
Did you try to stop yours?
- No.
We didn't.
- [Announcer] And facing
rising opposition
against widening the war
into Cambodia,
the defense department
said again today
that American
involvement is restricted
(drowned out by
traffic whirring)
resisting South Vietnamese
forces fighting in Cambodia.
Secretary of State--
- [Peg] Thanks, Gus.
- You gotta keep picking
up your mail for awhile.
It's getting a little heavy
to be delivering out
to your box.
- All right, I will.
- [Announcer] That the
president has the authority--
- Earl!
Earl!
I called your office, they
said you were at lunch.
- Well if that's what you
call a dip of cottage cheese
and two skinny slices
of tomato. (chuckling)
Gotta watch it.
- I need a favor.
That copy machine at the
high school broke down again.
I've got these
letters to run off.
They're from mothers all
over the country,
telling me their sons' units
have been going into
Cambodia since April 1st,
in spite of what the
defense department says.
So I'm sending copies
to Senator Fulbright.
- I'd like to oblige you, Peg,
but
well, I can't today.
- It'll only take a
half hour or so
and I'll pay for the paper.
- I can't do it.
It's the last day for
filing state returns
and you know what that means
to an accounting office.
- What if I wait 'til
the end of the afternoon?
- I'm sorry Peg, but,
both my girls are gonna be tied
up at that machine all day.
- [Peg] That isn't the reason,
Earl.
Why don't you just say so?
- I wouldn't let the
president of the United States
use that machine today
and that's it.
- That isn't it.
- I don't want to talk about it,
Peg.
- You don't like what I'm doing,
it's written all over you.
- All right!
I don't Peg, it's trash.
These letters, that ad,
getting on the air attacking
the army, the government.
It's a disgrace to this town.
And to your boy's memory.
(traffic rumbling)
- [Willis] Dear Mr. And Mrs.
Mullen,
today we were informed
of rights by the army.
If any of us have written
to you in the mail,
we can be
court-martialed for mutiny
and undermining the army.
- Don't publish any
article about this,
for it would bring harm to
people and their futures.
Anything sent to you
can be censored
as we are in a war zone.
Your friend sincerely,
Willis G. Huddleston.
(Peg sighs)
Willis didn't write
this by himself.
Someone dictated it, look here.
He misspelled the word censored
and it's been crossed
out and corrected
in a different handwriting.
Gene, they don't even
try to hide it.
- Like they want us to know.
- I'm not scared of the army.
But what I am scared of
is having a letter to
me opened and censored.
Never thought it could
happen in this country.
- The way I understand that
is what they're saying, we
keep on asking questions
we're aiding and
abetting the enemy.
- No.
What they're saying is we
are the enemy.
(upbeat orchestral music)
(birds singing)
(upbeat orchestral music)
(somber music)
(moves into suspenseful music)
(bells ringing)
(background chattering)
- [Alan] I really don't know.
Hang on a second, Peg, I
think she's just comin' in.
- Hi.
- Hi.
- [Alan] It's your mom.
- Oh, did you tell her
about the Washington trip?
- She doesn't want to go.
Says she's not the type
that clergymen want along
when they're gonna go
lobby against the war.
Said she doesn't know
how to talk politely.
- Hello, Mother.
How are you, how's Dad?
- [Peg] We're fine.
- Mother, CALCAV isn't
just clergymen.
It's students, it's,
anyhow they really do
want you to go.
Now I'm gonna put
Ralph Jenner on.
He's the chaplain here
and he's going to head up
the U of Iowa group.
- Hello, Mrs. Mullen?
We not only want you,
we need you.
You see, when you say
something people listen.
You're a celebrity.
- I, uh, I don't like that word.
- I know, I know, but uh,
it's a fact
and you have to use it.
- But I'm just not a
public speaker.
- Well perhaps if you,
just a moment please.
- Mom will you just think
about it please?
- [Peg] Yes but don't
(mumbles) on me, Pat.
- I can't hear you, your
voice is fading out.
Can you hear me?
- No, not very well.
This phone's been
acting up lately.
Wait.
(phone clanking)
Is that better?
Can you hear me?
- [Pat] Yes.
- I said don't count on me.
- All right.
I'll talk to you soon.
Goodbye.
(phone clattering)
Oh, Mother can be so stubborn
when she puts her mind to it.
- That's why we need her.
(background chattering)
(acoustic guitar music)
- Oh there's Mom.
- All right.
(laughing and clapping)
- Hello Mrs. Mullen.
- Hello.
- I'm Ralph Jenner.
We talked on the phone.
- That's right.
This is my son, Jack.
- How do you do?
I just want you to know
that I'm very happy
that you decided to
come with us.
- Thank you, I feel
like a den mother.
(all laughing)
- Well we could use some
of that here too, I'm sure.
- [Man] All aboard!
- I have some
information for you here
about the senators that we
hope to see, may I take that?
You know, about their
voting record,
about the Vietnam War,
et cetera et cetera.
Have you lobbied before?
- I lobby every day of my life.
- And she's not joking.
(background chattering)
(traffic whirring)
♪ We shall not
♪ We shall not be moved
♪ We shall not
♪ We shall not be moved
♪ Just like a tree
standing by the water ♪
- If the ladies in my card
club could see me now.
♪ We shall not be moved
♪ We shall not
♪ We shall not be moved
♪ We shall not
♪ We shall not be moved
♪ Just like a tree
standing by the water ♪
(engine revving)
- How's Dad?
- Oh he's fine.
I don't like leaving him
alone like this
but he wanted us to go.
- Mother, Alan and I want
to go ahead and get married.
- When?
- Next month.
We've been putting it off,
we wanted to for awhile,
but now.
I know how Dad feels.
- He just lost Mikey, he's
afraid he's going to lose you.
- He's not going to lose me.
- He doesn't know that.
And he misses you.
You haven't been home at
all this summer.
- It's too hard.
I feel this thing in people
I've known all my life.
The kind of resentment of you,
of Dad,
all of us.
- I know.
(Peg sighs)
- We'd rather be
married in Iowa City.
All of you can come there,
it'll be much easier all around.
- Let me talk to Dad.
He just needs a little
time to get used to it.
- How much more?
- Another month?
- Okay.
- The meeting's have
been pretty good so far.
Senator Hughes was cooperative.
He listened.
But I had a real shouting match
with a couple of the others.
They say we're living
in a dream world
if we think we can end
this war fast.
How are you doing?
- Fine.
We got that list that
we've been asking for.
The casualty list for
the week Michael died.
- You did?
- Senator Fulbright got
it from the Pentagon.
Michael's name wasn't on it.
- It wasn't on it, are you sure?
- Of course I'm sure.
And I'll tell you who
else's name wasn't on it.
That Hamilton boy that
died the same night.
If we had any other names
we could check them out too.
And I wasn't
(crackling) (mumbling)--
- Gene I can't hear you.
- Damn this phone.
Can you hear me now?
- Gene speak up, I
can't hear you!
- Can you hear me now?
(crackling)
- [Peg] I'll talk to you later.
(background chattering)
(acoustic guitar music)
- Everything okay at home?
- What does it mean when
the phone keeps clicking?
Fading in and out?
- I'd say your phone
was being tapped.
(background chattering)
- And what we're trying
to accomplish
is a completely new dimension
in the history of warfare.
Now with these
pacification programs
we're fighting on two fronts.
One with weapons,
the other with traditional
American generosity and
know-how.
We're taking in lumber, cement,
tools,
things that can help the
people of South Vietnam
to help themselves and improve
the quality of their life.
I think I can safely say
that no nation
has ever embarked on such
an ambitious program.
Not to destroy, but to build.
Not to enslave, but to uplift.
Not to terrorize and kill,
but to ensure an environment
in which a free people
can survive and prosper.
(background chattering)
Hope this briefing has
been helpful.
Lieutenant General Reese and I
will be glad to answer
any questions.
- We have bombed and
napalmed most of Vietnam.
That doesn't sound very
pacifying to me.
- I asked for questions.
- Well in the past year
we've been going into
neighboring countries.
How come the public is
not being told
about these secret operations?
- There are no secret
operations in those countries.
- We have photographs here
of unmarked American aircraft
bombing Laos during 1969.
- I don't know what
pictures you've got
but the rumor that we're
bombing Laos is a lie.
(audience groans)
(chattering)
- Isn't that what you kept
telling us about Cambodia?
And we know how long we
were in there
before anyone admitted it.
- How do you know that?
- Because almost every
mother who had a son there
heard from him that he
was in Cambodia.
I talked with mothers whose boys
were with the 198th
Brigade of the Americal,
the 25th Infantry, the
marines, the first--
- Ma'am, I think--
- [Peg] The first air-calv.
The 11th armored--
- Ma'am, just what is
your question?
- Are you denying that
American boys
were in Cambodia weeks, months
before President Nixon
went on TV and said so?
- No.
You're right, American
troops were there.
(background chattering)
Are there any other?
- I haven't finished yet.
- Are you a newspaper woman?
- No.
I'm a farmer's wife.
Matter of fact we just
finished hauling our manure
before I came down here.
(audience laughing)
- Well I just thought that,
you seem to be quite well
informed about the war.
- Farmers read, Mr. Dietrich,
and the war has gotten to Iowa.
- You have another question?
- I'd like the casualty
figures for this week.
- Would you have that figure,
Colonel?
- 125.
- I want the total
casualty list,
not just the number you publish.
- I don't quite understand,
Mrs.?
- Peg Mullen.
- That would be 25 more.
- Non-battle?
Why does the public hear on TV
that 125 die when 150
fathers and mothers
know that their sons are dead?
- Ma'am, I can't quite
see how this applies to--
- I'll tell you how.
I happen to be the mother
of one of those boys
you didn't count.
- I'm sorry.
- Mr. Dietrich, it might be
helpful if I took Mrs. Mullen
to the office where
the lists are compiled.
- I don't need to go
to any office.
I just want to know why
you're lying to us
about the losses in this war?
- Please, if you'll
come with me.
(background chattering)
Mrs. Mullen.
(background chattering)
(typewriters tapping)
Now Mrs. Mullen, if you
have any specific requests
I'll be glad to get out
the records and oblige you.
(typewriters tapping)
- These are all lists of
dead boys' names?
What kind of a man are you
who could work on this
day after day?
(somber music)
And you, what kind of
women are you?
- Mrs. Mullen.
I'm just trying to be helpful.
(somber music)
I'm sorry.
Is there anything else you want?
- I want you to send
me the names
of all the boys who
died in Vietnam
the week my son was killed.
Every name.
- [Pat] Mother they can't
help it, it's their job.
- [Peg] I just wanna
get out of here.
(suspenseful music)
(soft thoughtful music)
(birds singing)
- [Walter] Legislative
Liaison Office, Army,
Major Walter Alison, GS Chief.
I have been asked by
Senators Hughes and Javitz
to respond to some of
your questions.
Firing defensive targets
is a standard
precautionary measure
whether or not there is
contact with the enemy.
Such artillery fire is requested
by the forward observer
assigned to the company.
As to censorship of mail
from Vietnam, there is none.
- A serviceman is not
prevented from communicating
with the next of kin
of a deceased comrade.
He is often encouraged.
Do they think we're crazy?
We've got Willis
Huddleston's letter
saying they won't let him
write to us and they know it.
What kind of game are
they playing with us?
- Well we did find
out one thing.
There was a forward observer
who called in the artillery.
Now I bet you he could
tell us something.
- Yes.
If we had his name.
They're never gonna
give us any names.
- And out of the blue we hear
from this woman in Kentucky.
She's the mother of the boy
who was killed with Michael.
Leroy Hamilton.
And she said that the
Pentagon gave her our name
and asked them to write us.
- Oh, it's just beautiful.
- [Peg] Now why would
they do that?
- And Mary's dress too.
- And the bridesmaids.
You must've done so much work.
- Unless of course they
figured that her son was dead
and he couldn't say anything
that would get 'em into trouble.
Anyway I wrote her back
and I said that your father
and I would pay them a visit
as soon as we could.
- I never thanked you for
talking to Dad.
- Oh, well.
It's still hard for him.
I heard where two
Waterloo fathers died
within the past year after
they heard that their sons--
- Mother, I don't want
to hear that, not today.
This is my day, mine and Alan's.
I want it to be joyful
for all of us.
Living people need that.
It doesn't take away
from Michael, it doesn't.
- I know it doesn't.
- You never stop,
you never let up.
- Come on, it's alright.
- I'm sorry.
But I don't want anyone to cry.
- [Minister] My beloved
spake and said unto me,
rise up my love, my fair one.
And come away, for lo,
the winter is passed.
The rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth.
The time of the singing
of birds is come.
And the voice of the turtle
is heard in our land.
What God has joined together,
let no man put asunder.
("Wedding March" by Mendelssohn)
- [Gene] Well, how
are you feeling?
- [Peg] A little scared.
- [Gene] Mother, their son
died with ours.
We'll be talking with folks
who know exactly how we feel,
feel the same way.
- Well they must be excited too.
(dog barking)
They know we're coming.
- (sighing) Maybe it's
milking time.
(chickens clucking)
(birds singing)
Hello there.
- I'm Michael's mother.
- I'm Leroy's mama.
- This rhubarb is real special.
It's tart, just the
way I like it.
- I have a whole shelf
full in the root cellar.
You can take some home.
- I'll have to get your recipe.
- How many acres do
you have here?
- A hundred.
It's hard land though
compared to Iowa.
- Any land is hard if you
don't have enough hands.
- I ain't a good as I used to be
since I had that tree
fall on my back.
- My youngest son,
he tries hard.
- Michael was the one
who loved it.
We miss him.
I guess like you miss Leroy.
- Well, I better feed the dogs.
(door slams)
- Sure was a nice-looking boy.
Big for his age.
We used to go huntin'.
Climb up them hills.
It was real pretty.
- Always thought I knew
what this country stood for.
It had a purpose.
I don't know, I feel like
we're losing our country.
Losing it.
We should never have been
involved in this war in
the first place,
should never have sent
American boys to Vietnam, or--
- You keep dogs?
- No sir, I never went
in much for hunting.
- Good to have around.
Friendly. (chuckling)
Good boy.
- And on his last leave,
he stayed past his time.
He already had his
orders for Vietnam
but he didn't want to go.
- But you could've
kept him here.
Didn't you know that?
With your husband's disability,
all you had to do was
sign a paper saying
Leroy was needed here
on the farm.
- [Mrs. Hamilton] He couldn't
bring hisself to do it.
- Well why didn't Leroy ask him?
- He was ashamed.
- Oh dear God what did we
do to our sons?
We taught them to believe
that you obey,
that you did what you were told,
that you didn't question.
But it was wrong.
It was so wrong.
They would be alive today.
That's what we have to
live with. (sobbing)
(somber music)
That's what we did.
That's what we did.
(Peggy sobs)
(engine revving)
- [Man] John Mullen, Rural
Route 2, La Porte City, Iowa.
This is your notice of
classification,
advising you of the
determination
of your selective service board.
Your draft classification is 1A,
available for military service.
The law requires you to
have this notice
in your personal
possession at all times.
Do not leave the Unites States
or change your address
without informing this office,
149 Pea Street, Waterloo, Iowa.
(thoughtful music)
- Hi.
- When did this come?
Your mother found it
in your room.
- Yesterday.
- Why didn't you tell us?
- It's not important.
- Not important?
John, you should be
4A, sole surviving son.
Now we have to call up
the draft board.
- I don't want it changed.
When it comes time to induct
me, then I'll tell 'em,
watch 'em wriggle.
Or maybe I'll cut out to Canada.
- [Gene] John, I don't like
that not even as a joke.
- I am going to call up
the draft board
right now.
- Mother, don't!
Don't fight my wars.
I can take care of it myself.
Just leave the draft
board alone.
- Damn it to hell!
(pigs squealing)
Pigs, get out of there!
Go on, get, get!
Go on!
- [Peg] Get 'em off,
get 'em off the grass!
- John!
(pigs squealing)
(shouting drowned out
by squealing)
- Go on, go on!
(John wailing)
(pigs oinking and squealing)
- Come on!
- I get it, I got it.
(pigs squealing)
- Pick her up!
- Come on pig.
I got 'em, I got 'em!
(pigs squealing)
Hey here pig, come on!
(shouting)
(squealing)
(Gene wailing)
- [Willis] Ya!
- [Gene] Get back!
(pigs squealing)
- [Peg] Hang on!
In there, in there.
- Get 'em back.
- The gate!
- Okay, alright.
- Thank you.
We need all the help we can get.
- You Mr. Mullen?
- Yes.
- I'm Willis.
Willis Huddleston.
- Oh, Willis.
Huddleston.
- Hello.
- This is Peg, Willis,
and my son John.
- How nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you. (sighing)
(cows mooing)
There was this one kid
they all named Perfect.
See, everybody had nicknames.
Like it was Perfect, uh,
Razzle-Dazzle.
Prince.
Prince had this funny
thing going about
having royal blood. (chuckling)
- [Peg] Did Mike
have a nickname?
- Uh, I don't remember.
But anyway though, Perfect.
Perfect sent home enough
money from gambling
to buy himself a brand
new Dodge Charger.
It was waitin' for him
when he came home.
Only, he got killed.
Not the same night as Michael,
you know.
Later on.
- [Gene] What happened
that night, Willis?
We want to know what went wrong.
- Well, we heard these
different rumors, like,
okay somebody said that,
that it was the same gun
that killed some guys in
Bravo Company.
- [Peg] The same gun?
- Yeah, something about
it always fired low.
Then we heard that, that the
officer in charge of the guns,
he was drunk or the guys
firing the guns was drunk.
- [Gene] Who?
Give me their names.
Who was drunk and killed my boy?
- I don't know, Mr. Mullen.
I mean it's just
something that I heard.
Nobody ever said any names.
So a guy starts bitchin' about,
you know,
what good are helmets,
stuff like that.
It must've been about 5:30,
six o'clock
because it was just
getting dark.
- Is that Quintaro?
- Yeah, he was our
forward observer.
And, so everybody was in
these foxholes
and they were gonna
fire the DTs.
You see the DTs are supposed
to be for our own protection.
At least that's what the colonel
kept telling us, you know?
If they want to get at ya,
let 'em come through a
ring of steel
and all that over gung-ho
mess they kept feedin' us.
- The colonel.
Now, was that Schindler?
- Yeah.
- [Gene] What was he like,
Willis?
- Well, he was kinda young
for a lieutenant colonel
and everything was by the book.
You know, the type of guy
who wants to make
brigadier general
by the time he's 35.
- I know the type.
- [Willis] Anyway, they
called off the DTs.
- Now who decided to fire them
later at three in the morning?
Was that him?
- I don't know.
I don't know.
The only thing I know is,
is that it was a funny time.
You know, everybody was asleep.
I'd just come off guard duty
and I strung up my hammock.
I couldn't sleep on the ground
because of the damn leeches.
Anyway, I dropped right
off to sleep.
And then, all of a sudden like,
I heard this (grunting).
I didn't even really
hear it, I just woke up
and rolled out of my
hammock, I grabbed my gun
and then there was just this,
it was just death stillness
for about 30 seconds.
And then I heard this scream.
I mean, I've never heard
anything like it in my life.
And all the moaning started
from all the guys who
had gotten hurt.
I heard somebody yelling medic,
medic!
(chickens clucking)
(birds singing)
I didn't mean to be hurtful,
I'm sorry.
- It's all right.
- This is the first time
I've talked about it,
I guess it just all came out.
- It's alright Willis.
- I'm really sorry.
- It is.
We asked you.
- A lot of people
don't understand.
Like when a GI comes home
the first thing
anybody asks him is
hey man, did you kill somebody?
You say nah, you didn't.
And they say aw, come
on, I don't believe you.
You didn't kill nobody man?
You didn't see no action, man?
You say yeah, I got shot at.
(scoffs)
- Did you kill someone, Willis?
You don't have to tell us,
not if you don't want to.
- Yeah.
It was right after Perfect,
he was my best buddy.
Right after he got it.
See the dink, he had
these two grenades,
only I thought he had a pistol,
that he was reachin'
for a pistol.
There wasn't really
no way to tell.
So I stitched him, you know?
(mimics machine gun)
And 14 times, you know?
I felt so damn good.
I killed me one of
them damn gooks.
And then I saw him dead
and I realized
that I had killed
another human being.
I can't explain the feeling,
you know.
It's like it made me, made
me want to cry.
And then you know
everybody was just,
everybody was just hittin'
me on the back
and telling me, you know,
hey man
you got yourself one, man.
You killed him, man!
(sobbing) Oh Jesus, God, oh.
(somber music)
(John moaning)
(tense music)
(John sighs)
- [Peg] Dear President Nixon,
it is now just over a
year since our son died
a needless death in Vietnam.
Michael's father and I find it
very difficult to
live these days,
but because we do
have faith in God
we feel there will be
a special hell
for the men and governments
that have allowed this
war to continue.
It will be a
judgment to be faced
and it will be as swift as
was the death of our son.
Mr. President your plan
to end this war
is now going into
the third year.
In the name of God
stop the insane killing
of our young men.
(thoughtful music)
Mr. Bryan?
- Mrs. Mullen.
Thank you for letting me come
to see you, I appreciate it.
- [Peg] My husband
will be right up
from the lower field.
- Good.
- Just look at that grass,
the hogs keep breaking
out and getting at it.
Michael would've just
died if he'd seen it.
Come in.
How do the folks back
east feel about the war?
- Well I know how I feel.
I hear the president say the
heart of America is good,
the heart of America is sound.
I just drove across
half the country.
It isn't.
(chicken clucking)
(birds chirping)
When the government of
the United States
loses the loyalty of an
Iowa farm family
it's in very bad trouble.
- Well, we're not exactly
your typical Iowa farm family,
Mr. Bryan.
Just ask anyone in
La Porte City.
- I did.
- Coffee?
- The waitress at
Mom's Cafe said
other people have lost
their sons in the war
and they don't go
around protesting.
The man at the gas
station told me
they must be crazy with grief
or they wouldn't be dancing
on their son's grave.
Thanks for
interrupting your work.
- How did you come to call us?
Peg didn't get it straight
over the phone.
- A friend of mine
sent me your ad.
We're both novelists,
taught together for awhile
at the University of Iowa
in the writer's workshop.
In fact I think your
daughter Patricia
might have been in one
of my classes.
- I see.
- Anyway, he knows I have
strong feelings about the war
so he thought this might
be a magazine article
I'd be interested in doing.
- What would you put in
such an article?
- I don't know yet.
Whatever you and your
wife want to tell me.
- I'd like the people to know
what it feels like to have
your telephone tapped.
What it's like to be
considered an enemy
in a country that
you've always loved.
What it's like to walk down
the streets of your own town,
have people turn
their heads away.
- What is it like?
- Lonely.
- The army has told us
our son was killed
by an artillery round
that fell short.
Now what they haven't told
us is how it happened.
Who was responsible?
- Are you saying you believe
they're deliberately
concealing something from you?
- Yes.
- Maybe doing this article
would help us find out.
- I don't know, it might.
(cow mooing)
- Well let's get started.
Well we know a good deal
about what happened.
We know that the guns
were fired from a hill
about four miles off
and Michael was killed here.
Leroy Hamilton here.
And there was a colored
boy named Polk from Detroit
was sleeping right between
'em right here.
- We located him in the federal
penitentiary in Terre Haute
and they told us he
went berserk.
- Yeah.
Said he shot at somebody,
or something?
- No, yeah.
- [Polk] Mr. And Mrs. Gene, I
was glad to get your letter.
The reason why I'm in the
lock-up, well,
it started a couple
nights after Michael died.
I was out in the field when
this E5 called me a nigger
and I almost shot him.
And then I woke up in the
hospital with a concussion.
They said I hit a lieutenant
and some civilians
and then somebody hit me.
All the time I kept seeing
the death of your son.
I have dreams about him, Mrs.
Gene.
I tried to write you before but
they wouldn't give me
your address.
- [Peg] Why would they stop
that boy from writing us
and keep him locked up in jail?
- We found out the
charges against him, Polk,
were signed by
Colonel Schindler.
You see, everywhere we turn
it comes right back to him.
- Right, there was an
investigation
of the night Michael died,
and a report,
and we wrote this Colonel
Schindler and we asked him for
it
but he never sent it.
- [Gene] That's right.
Never heard a word.
Not the first thing.
- [Peg] No it's not
the first time
we haven't heard
from him either.
- You know, you see if
Mike had died
on the streets of La Porte City,
if some drunk had run over 'em
that would be manslaughter
and there'd be a trial.
But we're sick and tired
of the military
never having to answer to
anybody but themselves.
- What are these letters?
- The boys in Mike's platoon.
They ended up writing us even
though they told them not to.
Here's some letters
from the army.
There's some missing
I sent to Pat.
- All of this is great
for me to have, Peg.
What I'd like to do
is xerox them
and send them back to you.
Would that be okay?
- Course.
Here's the death certificate,
we finally got it.
- A missile wound in his chest.
- See, even that's not true.
The wound was right here.
Tiny little hole.
How could it be so small?
- You got any land Courty,
back there in Connecticut?
- Just about one acre.
Mostly planted in
children and dog.
Nothing like this of course.
- There's a smell in this earth.
Not many catalog of smells.
Sweet.
Every time I walk these fields
I'm wondering if I'm puttin'
my foot down
where my grandfather walked
or my great-grandfather.
It isn't the land, the acreage.
It's all those generations
walkin' beside you
every time you turn the soil.
Mikey knew that.
He knew.
He was going to carry it on.
(Gene sighs)
- This is Gene's
grandfather and grandmother.
- [Courty] Patrick and Maryanne.
- Yeah.
Here are all their children,
their sons and daughters.
- Pretty stern stock.
- [Peg] These kind of
people built this country.
- You called the draft board.
I asked you not to.
- John you could've
found yourself in Vietnam
before it all got
straightened out.
Now you don't fool around
with the army.
- Damn the army!
I am sick of hearing about them.
I'm sick of the war.
I'm sick of this house.
- John?
Look maybe it had
something to do with me,
coming here, stirring it all up.
I'm sorry.
- I don't know.
I just know I can't
listen to any more.
Too much can turn you off
and it's not gonna
bring Mike back.
- It's none of my business,
I know.
But they need you.
- I'll be back.
I always come back.
(engine revving)
(somber orchestral music)
- He just went into town.
- That basketball hoop.
Michael brought it home
when he was about 14.
I said Mikey it'll never stand.
The wind will blow it down.
I was only trying to
protect him.
But I guess you never can
protect them, can you?
Anyway, he went ahead
and put it up.
He was determined.
Look at it, it's still up there.
- Peg, I've got to
back tomorrow.
- Oh so soon?
- I've been here nearly a week.
- [Peg] It doesn't
seem that long.
- [Courty] Besides you and Gene
have given me a ton of stuff.
I'm going to need time to
absorb it all.
What I have to do is
go back to Connecticut.
Get a little distance
so I can begin to see
the shape of what you told me.
- [Peg] How long does that take?
- [Courty] Oh it depends.
It's kind of a strange process.
Sometimes it all just
falls into place.
More often it doesn't.
- [Peg] You won't forget
us Courty, will you?
- Forget?
I've been playing those tapes
all the way through from Iowa.
And then at night I play
the damn things
through again in my head.
I'm sorry darling, I
let the laundry pile up.
I don't know how to describe it.
The two of them there,
locked into a kind of exile,
needing to tell it all.
And they're convinced
that the army's involved
in some sort of a coverup.
- Are you?
- Well they certainly
went to great lengths
to shut them out.
Mail's been censored,
phone's been tapped.
- Sounds like a hell of a piece.
What'll you do, about
6,000 words?
- I think I wanna do a book.
Am I out of my mind?
- Yes.
Tell him.
You're his agent.
- I'm afraid I have to
agree with her.
- Who in America wants to read
a book about the Vietnam War?
I mean they see it in
the news every night,
they get it in the papers.
They're sick of it.
- And the bigger question is
who wants to write about it?
Obviously you do.
Why?
- I don't know.
I've protested, I've marched.
I'm tired of marching.
I listen to the news reports
of the casualty figures
and my eyes glaze, I yawn.
My God.
45,000 men are dead and I could
turn over and go to sleep.
Three quarters of the country
turns over and goes to sleep.
Maybe it's because
nobody gives them names.
The casualties.
How do you make a war personal?
Who was Michael Mullen?
How much of all of us
died with him?
(background chattering)
- Each day, to
facilitate the process
by which the Unites States
washes her hands of Vietnam
someone has to give up his life
so that the Unites States
doesn't have to admit something
that the entire world
already knows.
So that we can't say that
we've made a mistake.
Someone has to die so that
President Nixon won't be,
and these are his words,
the first president
to lose a war.
We're asking Americans
to think about that.
Because how do you ask a man
to be the last man to
die in Vietnam?
How do you ask a man to
be the last man to die
for a mistake?
And so, in 30 years from now
our brothers go down the
street without a leg,
without an arm, or face,
and small boys ask why,
we will be able to say Vietnam
and not mean a desert, not
a filthy, obscene memory
but mean instead the place
where America finally turned
and where soldiers like us
helped it in the turning.
Thank you.
(audience clapping)
- [Announcer] Former Navy
Lieutenant John Kerry's speech
before the Senate Foreign
Relations committee
set the tone for yesterday's
speech march in Washington.
(telephone rings)
When almost half a million
men, women, and
children from all--
- [Courty] Hello?
- [Gene] Hello Courty?
This is Gene.
- Gene.
Where are you?
- In Washington.
- I've just been watching
the march on television,
it's terrific.
- [Gene] Look, we will drive
up to New Haven tomorrow.
Can we come out to see you?
- Sure I'll come and
pick you up.
But what's up?
- Courty, we found him.
We've located Colonel Schindler.
(dinging)
Are you all right?
Lieutenant Colonel Schindler?
I'm Gene Mullen,
this is my wife.
- Pleased to meet you both.
This is Major Knapp.
Want to pull up a
couple of stools?
If you don't have a bad back
they're guaranteed to
produce one.
- We don't need to sit down.
As I told you on the phone,
I intend to press charges
against you in a federal court
for killing my son.
- Okay now wait a minute.
- I consider you the
man responsible.
- Mr. Mullen I don't know
where you got that idea.
- Also for covering up the
circumstances of his death.
- Mr. Mullen, please.
There's some
misunderstanding here.
I had nothing to do with
the death of your son.
Or the investigation.
Believe me, no one was more
upset about Michael than I was
and that's why I wanted
you to come here today
so we could talk face to face.
- [Peg] And all the
time we were there
that major, what was his name?
- [Gene] Major Knapp.
- [Peg] That Major Knapp,
he was just sitting there
in his uniform, listening
to everything.
- [Gene] He was there
when we got there
like it was all prearranged,
just sat.
- [Peg] Never said a word.
Made me sick.
- [Courty] Did they say
why he was there?
- I think maybe, you see,
they wanted to scare us.
Make us go easy.
But I didn't.
I said to him you tell
us your story
of what happened that night.
- Then he started to
talk about it,
how he was on the hill
with the artillery
when the captain radioed him.
- [Gene] Yeah, that's right,
that's right.
- So I ran right over
to that artillery unit
and I ordered them to
stop firing their guns
and to lock the guns.
You see it was the second
friendly incident like that
to happen to my
battalion in a month
and I was furious.
I was so damned mad that
when that artillery
battalion commander
flew in the next morning
with the investigating team
I couldn't even talk to him.
- Then he was the man
responsible.
- No I'm not saying that,
only in the sense that
the unit commander
is on the line for everything
his unit does or fails to do.
- Were the men at the
guns drinking?
- Yes they were, but that,
maybe you better talk to that
artillery battalion commander.
He's in Washington now,
assigned at the Pentagon.
- Yes I remember the incident.
- [Peg] Colonel ever
since our son died
we have been trying to find
out who was responsible.
- I didn't conduct the
investigation you understand.
That was done by artillery
officers from other companies
and then the results were
given to General Ramsay.
- [Peg] We heard the men at
the guns were drinking beer.
- That's not so.
- [Peg] Then why does
Colonel Schindler say so?
- I'll discuss that with him.
- [Peg] He says a lot
of procedures
were changed after that night
and it was about time
because two many men
were getting killed.
- What do all you
people think?
That we run around with
pistols shooting everyone?
Artillery fire isn't
100% accurate.
When we fire 400 rounds a night
we're going to kill a
few we shouldn't.
If you want to ask questions
why don't you ask the
commanding officer
what they were doing in
six inch sleeping trenches
instead of foxholes.
- There's no love lost
between the artillery and
the infantry you know.
- Has your attitude towards
Colonel Schindler changed
now that you've had a chance
to sit down and talk to him?
- I don't know.
When I first saw him in
the body cast
I thought well the good
Lord has taken
care of you.
- Courty, that's enough.
Let Peg and Gene relax
and enjoy their tea.
Did Courty tell you how much
we loved the time we
lived in Iowa?
- Yes he did.
- People were so friendly.
We used to take all our
things to the laundromat
and they'd say just go and do
your shopping and come back
and we'll have it all
folded for you.
I got spoiled.
- You see, I think he's changed,
laying there with
that back injury.
- When I heard the boys
talk about him
I absolutely hated him,
and then he told us I
insisted on discipline,
I required the boys to
wear helmets, jackets,
to take proper precautions.
I tried to save their
lives and I don't know.
If Michael had worn his
flak jacket that night.
(Peg sighs)
Oh I'm sorry.
Don't let me sleep too long.
- For God's sake Peg,
you could take an hour
without feeling guilty.
She's exhausted.
- You know, we still
get hundreds of letters.
Some of them are just addressed
to Peg, La Porte City, Iowa.
She answers every one.
Every phone call.
People say to her what
are you accomplishing?
You're just exhausting yourself.
She says to me maybe we
can save one life.
We didn't save Michael's.
(crickets chirping)
- [Sam] Aren't you
coming to bed?
- In awhile.
Sam?
Thanks.
- For what?
- For the lunch, the flowers.
It was nice.
- I don't think they
even noticed.
- They did.
They've just been at
this for such a long time
fighting for every crumb.
They're in a lot of pain.
- I know.
But why do you have to
make it yours?
- If I can just get
ahold of Schindler,
couple of the others.
Listen to what they have to
say objectively, sort it out.
- Then what?
- Then I may be able to tell
them what they need to know.
How their son died.
So they'll be able to put
it to rest once and for all.
- I didn't know quite
what to expect.
- Is that why you wanted
Major Knapp there?
- He was from the judge
advocate's office.
I thought it was best to
have a witness.
- Were you worried about
the possibility
of being taken into court?
- I was shocked.
You know what was going
on with the Americal.
Medina, Calley, under
investigation,
so I thought okay, it's my turn.
But I knew I had
nothing to hide.
I just wanted to set these
people's minds at ease
so they could see that I
was a human being
that cared about their son.
Or do they think my only
concern was for myself?
- They think you were ambitious
and that you went back
to Vietnam a second time
to further your career.
- That's hogwash.
I didn't need my ticket punched.
I went back because I knew the
country, I could save people.
(machine clattering)
- Was there any reason to
anticipate an attack that night?
- Yes, we had
intelligence reports
that a North Vietnamese army
rocket battalion commander
had been moved into the
valley with sizeable security.
- And you expected contact?
- I tried to impress that on
my men so they'd be ready.
- What about your
junior officers?
Did they have any
experience in the field?
- Not always.
I'd say the best, most
experienced officer I had
was in Charlie Company.
Captain Bannock,
company command.
- Our first lift came
in pretty fast
because we didn't know
what to expect.
And Colonel Schindler,
he wanted to know our
tactical situation
the minute we hit the ground.
- Was Mike Mullen in
that first lift?
- I think so but I'm not sure.
Hey, look.
Frankly if you like,
you're sitting up there
in this glass elevator that
makes a great moving target.
I mean the VC, they love
to shoot down helicopters.
- [Courty] Did your men
have to make a jump?
- No, uh-uh.
But we were carrying extra
ammo for the mortar platoon.
So we had to land in
those damn weeds up there.
(helicopter whirring)
- [Byron] Black Smoke One
this is Black Smoke Six.
Can you hear me?
- Black Smoke One, over.
- [Byron] This is
Black Smoke Six.
Do you have any contact?
- No, we have no contact.
Our LZ is cold.
- [Byron] Roger.
(helicopter whirring)
- [Courty] Was it
your first jump?
- [Bannock] Yeah, but I
wasn't scared.
You don't get scared
until you see someone die.
- What you think is it's a movie
and you're John Wayne.
Have a seat.
(typewriter tapping)
- Why did you go in as a medic?
- Didn't have any choice.
They sent me to medic school.
10 week course, mostly
dressings,
a little bit of needles.
That's generally all
you have to do
before you call in med-evac.
- Did you think there'd be
trouble on this mission?
- Well they kept telling
us how dangerous it was
but we never saw anything.
Except leeches.
Plenty of those.
You could follow their trail
right up to the command post.
(exhaling) Be careful
with this bag.
(clattering)
- Okay.
- How close do you want
those ditches?
- Quintaro about 200 meters out.
I mean if they're
gonna come at us
I want 'em to face us
or our guns.
- I don't think artillery
would fire under 400 meters.
- Oh yeah?
- For safety reasons.
Check that out, will you Dapoe?
You can always adjust
later if you need to.
- (grunting) Damn blood suckers.
I'm gonna string me up a
hammock tonight.
They don't eat off of me.
- [Man] Rodriguez.
- [Rodriguez] Hey all right.
- Hey Prince.
- Turkey.
- Leeches bond to you, huh?
- Ah, leeches do not
touch blue blood.
Hey Mullen!
Mullen!
Kiss that.
(clattering)
(background chattering)
- Hey.
- Thanks.
Stupid mosquitoes.
This place ain't good
for nothing.
Hey Leroy where's the
bug spray man?
- Best spray your fatigues too.
- Lieutenant Quintaro.
Negative clearance
on 200 meters.
They say at least 400.
- [Quintaro] Okay.
- No sweat.
(sighing)
(birds chirping)
- Know what Mullen?
I'm gonna get myself outta
here one way or another.
What are you gonna do
when you get out?
- Well.
There's a girl I like.
I might get something
like a VW bus
and drive around the country,
all the different states.
'Til school starts.
- Yeah you gettin'
short ain't ya.
- Yeah, about a
hundred days more.
If I get my early out.
- Sergeant Mullen.
Tell your squad to put
on their flak jackets
and get in their foxholes.
Artillery's firing our DTS now.
- All right, sir.
Hey Leroy!
- Yo!
- Put on your flak jackets,
they're gonna fire the DTs,
and stay in your foxholes.
Hey Prince!
Believe it or not
that means you.
- Hey, do you know what
the chaplain's name is?
- What's that?
- It's Do-Good.
- Bull.
I believe you made that up.
- Oh come on Leroy, could
I make that up? (laughing)
Come on, he spells it
D-U-I-G-U-I-D.
Do-Good. (chuckling)
- Hey you clowns, wake up.
They're gonna fire the DTs.
Put on your flak jackets
and stay in your foxholes.
- Hey.
What are these damn
DTs for anyway?
- Shoot, Mago, will you
stop being such a new boy?
You know the colonel
keeps telling us
these are practice shots, men.
For your own protection.
- Sure, he's up on the
hill with the guns.
(crickets chirping)
- [Bannock] Lieutenant
Quintaro says
they just called off the DTs.
- Must have fouled up.
- In the army, man.
- Artillery's just
called the DTs off.
- All right, listen.
We all might as well
get some sleep.
I'll stand guard first.
Then you Cactus, then you Polk.
- Well goodnight, girls.
- [Leroy] Goodnight, Princess.
- Hey Prince.
- [Prince] Yeah.
- They got you pullin' guard.
- The Prince does
not pull guard.
The Prince protects his
friends. (mimics gunshot)
Hey Polk, you should
know that by now.
(Michael exhales)
(snoring)
That Leroy.
He doesn't even dream.
Is it time to retire?
- [Michael] Hey Cactus.
Cactus wake up.
(booming)
- What's that?
- Shh.
It's the RDR-410.
Shh.
(booming)
(crickets chirping)
(booming)
- Sounds like they're
firing over Delta Company.
Think they're under attack?
- At O-200?
That's a hell of an
hour for a war.
(crickets chirping)
- Sir.
Lieutenant Quintaro.
They're going to fire
our DTs now.
- Now?
- Shall I wake the men?
Tell 'em to put on
their flak jackets?
- No, no.
We already dealt one
false alarm tonight.
Let 'em sleep.
Do tell the captain though.
- Yes sir.
- I'll do it.
(crickets chirping)
Captain.
Our DTs are gonna fire now.
Lieutenant Quintaro
wanted you to know.
- Thanks.
- Willy Peter, testing their
birds 50 meters up, over.
(missile whizzing)
(booming)
- Just where we wanted it.
You can tell fire
direction okay.
- Willy Peter, on target.
Repeat, H-E.
- Repeat, H-E!
- [All] Repeat, H-E!
- Fuse quick!
- [All] Fuse quick!
- Charge three!
- [All] Charge three!
- Deflection five, six, zero,
zero.
- [All] Deflection five, six,
zero, zero.
- Elevation two two two!
- [All] Elevation two two two.
- [Soldier] At my command.
- [All] At your command.
(crickets chirping)
(metal clanging)
(tense music)
(missile whizzing)
(suspenseful music)
(booming)
- [Man] Medic!
(men shouting)
- If he fires, he fires!
Tell him not to fire again!
(men shouting)
- [Bannock] Cease fire!
Cease fire!
- Prince grab your rifle,
we're being overrun.
(men chattering)
(Prince screams)
- [Man] Medic!
- Get a medic over here!
Medic!
- Stupid bastards.
They're supposed to be
shooting on the outside.
They're shooting at us.
- Medic!
(Prince wails)
- Help! (wailing)
- Anyway, take it easy.
- Oh God!
- You're gonna be okay.
- Mulls.
Mullen you all right?
Mullen!
- This is Black Smoke One Oscar.
We need immediate med-evac
helicopter now.
Over.
- Gonna be okay.
(Prince exhales)
Okay, you're all right.
- It's a traumatic amputation,
sir.
I'll have to put a
tourniquet on his leg
and then straighten it
so I need somebody to
help hold him down.
- Yeah, all right, I'll do it.
- Kill me, doc!
Die captor!
Doctor, captain.
Tell me something.
- Yeah?
- How bad is it?
Am I gonna walk?
- Yeah, yeah, you're
gonna be fine.
Doc's taking care of it.
(men shouting)
- Rodriguez, hold the, hold
the tourniquet right here.
- Damn it Rodriguez,
not so tight.
- I got to.
The Prince must not bleed.
- Doc, will I be able to walk?
- Sure.
It's bad but you'll be
able to walk.
- Almost safe. (wailing)
Will I be able to waltz?
- Doc, Leroy, he's hurt too.
- Oh no not Leroy.
- Hold this.
(crickets chirping)
- [Doc] His guts are all shot
out but I still feel a pulse.
Try mouth to mouth and
keep working at it.
- Doc!
I think Mullen's been hurt.
- Mulls.
Still warm.
A piece of shrapnel must
have entered his back.
No exit wound.
- I was sleepin'
right next to him
and I didn't even get hurt.
(exhaling)
- Tags and Mullen are dead sir.
- Son of a, son of a bitch.
- It's no use, sir.
He's dead.
(background chattering)
- Black Smoke One.
Black Smoke One.
Black Smoke One.
- [Bannock] Black Smoke Six
this is Black Smoke One.
- Stay near your radio.
I need to know what's going on.
Have you got a landing
zone for the med-evac?
- [Bannock] Yes, sir.
Look I've got seven wounded.
Two of my men have
bought the farm.
If I don't get it soon
two more will.
- Okay, that's what I
needed to know.
Stay in touch.
Black Smoke Six out.
(crickets chirping)
Keep those guns frozen
'til the investigating team
looks at them tomorrow.
(crickets chirping)
And I don't want
anything touched.
Anything.
- Let's go.
- Give us a hand here, Harrison!
- Come on, we need some help.
(men mumbling)
- Okay, down slow.
Okay.
(Prince wails)
No, no.
- [Doc] Watch his leg.
Take it easy, real slow, okay?
One, two, three.
- Watch your step.
- Slow man, don't jerk.
(helicopter whirring)
- It was a waste.
A damn, stupid waste.
Which if I had to dwell on it'd
get me absolutely teed off.
- [Courty] Does it make
you feel foolish
that you were a part of that?
- No, why should it?
It wasn't like someone said
we're having this little war
and anybody who wants
to can come and join in.
It was you're in the army
man, shape up and ship out.
Hey look, I don't wanna get
hung up on all this again.
I gotta go.
- Can I talk to you tomorrow?
- I don't know.
(engine revving)
(birds chirping)
(Peg laughing)
- [Peg] Ah!
You feel thinner.
- You must be hugging my wallet.
Gene, look who's here.
- Gene.
- [Gene] How's the family?
- Everybody's just fine.
- It's been almost nine
months, I can't believe it.
- [Gene] You staying to dinner?
- [Courty] Uh-huh.
- And tomorrow?
You know, tomorrow's two
years since Michael came home.
- I know that.
- We got a special
treat for you.
- [Courty] What's that?
- Pork tenderloins,
about the best cuts
you can get from a hog.
One of our own.
- [Courty] That was terrific.
I hope at least it was
that character
that kept busting
through the fence.
(Gene chuckles)
- It's them or us.
Feed and fertilizer
just went up 8%.
- Gene's on a two month
layoff from the factory.
- People around here must
be feeling it.
- They are.
They're startin' to realize
what this war has cost 'em.
- But you know somethin' Courty?
Things are changing.
We went to a funeral last week,
a neighbor of ours,
Burton Lynch.
Everybody loved old Burt
and it was a big turnout.
- People who would
turn their heads
when they saw me on the street
were walking right up
to us and saying hello
and I returned the cordiality.
And they wanted to stand
there and talk to us.
Even about the war. (chuckling)
Didn't they Peg?
- Michael loved Burt.
Even on his last day,
when he had all the work
to do around the farm here
and he just didn't
have enough time,
Michael made the time to go
over and visit with Burt.
(Peg sighs)
Why does this always happen
when I'm around you Courty?
I don't know, I don't
cry very much anymore.
- Well sir.
- Look, I don't know if it's
the proper time or not but
I spent the last few months
talking to some of the men.
Bannock, the Prince, Barrows.
Colonel Schindler.
As much as anyone can know
another person's death
I think I know about Michael's.
And I can give you all the
information I've learned.
- I don't know if
that'll be necessary.
- Of course it's up to you.
- We know.
He was hit between the
shoulder blades wasn't he?
- Yes, a piece of
shrapnel entered his back
and pierced his heart.
He died right away in his sleep.
But what I mean is I can
give you the background
on the operation, what
the mission was.
- I tell ya, Courty.
There's somethin' that
always bugged me.
Why did they cover it up?
- I don't think it was a
conspiracy, Gene.
- It was never in the news.
Two boys were killed,
seven were wounded.
Why wouldn't they ever send
us the investigation report?
- Because it was classified
for official use only
which kept it from being
released to civilians.
Even parents.
- Who told you that, Schindler?
- [Courty] Yes.
- I thought so.
Did any of these people
you talked to
tell you why the guns
were fired so late
and not at eight o'clock?
- [Courty] Yes Gene, he
explained that.
All artillery firing
is done on priorities.
In this case, Charlie
Company's firing time
was preempted so
they had to wait
'til time was available.
- 2:30 in the morning?
- [Courty] At any time.
- What about the
drinking at the guns?
Schindler told us about
that himself.
- Yes there was drinking
but it didn't matter
because the error
wasn't on the guns.
- Well then where was it?
- It was at the fire direction
center 10 miles away.
Evidently someone
failed to compute
the correct height of the trees.
So the round hit a tree
and was deflected.
- Hit a tree?
- The man responsible was
given an official reprimand.
It wasn't deliberate negligence,
Peg.
Just a stupid, senseless
accident of war
that happens occasionally.
- Occasionally?
Would you call thousands
of deaths occasional?
Misadventures, that's what
they call them.
And they don't even list
them in the casualty counts.
- 'Cause they don't
want you to know
how many are killed that way
by the army's own mistakes.
That's why they threatened
the boys with court martial
when they tried to write
us about that.
Now did you ask your Colonel
Schindler about that?
- Yes.
He says it's a matter of policy.
- Whose policy?
- It was a directive from
the top, Gene.
They want to be sure that no
conflicting details are given,
no inconsistent facts.
- [Gene] We didn't
get any facts.
Except for the ones they
wanted us to get.
- [Courty] What they
were trying to do
was to spare you the anguish
that varying stories might give.
- Spare us anguish?
- Colonel Schindler gives
you these nice, neat answers.
Now the man has had
time to think,
to get his story straight.
- [Courty] Gene I don't
think that Colonel--
- When I saw him at
the Walter Reed
I was looking at an officer
of the United States Army
with guilt complex.
- He didn't kill Michael,
you know that.
Why should he feel guilty?
- Because he was hungry.
It's actioned on the
morning report, body counts.
- Gene, we're just
going around in circles.
Now I didn't come here
to defend the military,
the government or the system.
That's not what I
came back to do.
- What did you come back for?
- I thought that if I could
find out the facts for you,
if I could learn what happened
to Michael, how he died,
I might be helping you.
(scoffing)
I guess I don't know
what you want from me.
- What we want from you?
You came out here.
I thought you wanted
something from us.
- What do you mean?
What do you think I
wanted from you?
- You wanted a story.
You wanted a book.
- Well yes, but I
wanted the truth.
- Whose truth?
Their truth or ours?
- The truth is not
yours or theirs.
The truth is just the truth.
- You think the truth is theirs?
- Peg.
Gene, I don't want to
have to choose sides.
I think you should know
that Colonel Schindler and
Captain Bannock
were good officers and good men!
- I don't buy Schindler and
I don't buy the military.
Now if that is a slanted
bias on my part
there's just nothing that's
ever gonna change that.
(tense music)
- I thought you understood,
but you don't.
Maybe you can't.
When you lose your son
there's only one side.
(rain pattering)
(dramatic music)
(telephone ringing)
- Hello?
- [Carl] Courty, where
have you been?
- I went for a walk in the rain.
- Well I've been trying
to get you for hours.
How are the Mullens?
Are they pleased?
Do they like what you're
doing with the book?
- I don't know if
I've got a book.
- What do you mean?
- They think I'm using them.
- Well you are.
You want to tell a story,
they want a story told.
You're using each other.
- Carl, I'll call you
when I get back to the
city tomorrow night, okay?
- All right.
And Courty, stop bleeding.
(rain pattering)
- [Prince] 'Cause
ignorance is bliss, right?
- [Courty] Well then how
do you let them know?
- [Prince] You can't.
That's what I've been
trying to tell you.
You can write a million
books like this
and you still won't get through.
'Cause people will read it and
go ah, ah, gee, is that so?
- [Courty] Sometimes
you get through.
- [Prince] Yeah.
But how's that gonna help me?
'Cause even if the whole
world reads this story,
still not gonna--
- [Courty] Bring your leg back?
- It's not gonna change
anybody's mind.
It's not that close to 'em.
- You won't let people
get close to you.
How do you feel?
What did you lose your leg for?
- Look, I don't want to get
into these deep thoughts.
- Do you have deep
thoughts like that?
- Yeah.
- [Courty] Do you share
them with anybody?
- Sometimes.
Some people.
- [Courty] What kind of people?
- Vietnam vets.
- Doesn't that make you
some kind of a snob?
He can't possibly
understand what happened
'cause he wasn't there.
Look, I came down here because
I really wanna know you.
- You came down here
'cause you're a writer.
We're not just sittin'
around and BS-ing.
- I'm always a writer.
- That's what I'm talkin' about.
You don't want to know me.
You want me to fit into
some kind of character--
- I don't want you to fit
into anything.
I want you to be
whoever you are.
- [Prince] Then turn
off the tape.
(machine clicking)
(thoughtful music)
- Well there's a lawyer
who specializes in
military cases.
The thing is, don't worry.
Everything's going to
be all right.
Yes.
It's a widow with six children.
Her son's a helicopter
gunner in Vietnam,
God knows how he survived.
He's gone AWOL three times
this year to come home
because she's sick.
Now they're holding him
at Fort Hood.
I can stand anything but
when they start to cry
how can I help her?
- You did.
You were there with names,
phone numbers.
- Well if she doesn't
get anywhere
I'll call Senator Hughes
myself, or maybe that major--
(Gene sobs)
No Gene, now don't.
Not today.
- Are we crazy?
Are we?
How long can we go
on doing this?
- That lady who came to see
us whose son got killed,
what was it, 15 years ago.
I listened to her talking
about him and I said
my God am I going to be doing
this the rest of my life?
How can you live a
lifetime of being angry?
But we have to.
We have to so that
Michael's death,
all their deaths,
will have some meaning.
(engine rumbling)
(dog barking)
- I'd like to come with you.
(dramatic orchestral music)