Summary
Being an African-American fighting in the jungles of Vietnam meant always getting the most dangerous missions, and sometimes having to save the lives of the very people who hated you.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Bob Carlson, and this is Unfictional. |
| 0:06.0 | Unfictional is KCRW's program of stories and original documentaries. |
| 0:15.0 | It's a part of KCRW's Independent Producer Project, a laboratory for independent radio producers, |
| 0:21.1 | writers, and performers. |
| 0:23.5 | I think of Vietnam almost every day. |
| 0:25.6 | I don't know exactly what it is that triggers it, but it may be something that I may see |
| 0:29.5 | walking down the street, a feeling, a smell or a sight at that time being a 19 year old kid |
| 0:38.3 | Vietnam was really the most the biggest event that ever happened to my life. |
| 0:43.0 | Those are the words of a Vietnam veteran, |
| 0:51.0 | about a war he fought decades ago, as it will be for those who fought an of Black Veterans. They were collected by the late journalist Wallace Terry in his book |
| 1:05.1 | Bloods, Black Veterans of the Vietnam War, which was published in 1984 and |
| 1:10.7 | shortly after the book producer Katie Davis produced this audio documentary featuring the voices of some of the soldiers from that book. |
| 1:19.0 | And adding a personal note, I first heard this documentary many, many years ago when I was a student in the |
| 1:24.5 | Mass Communication Department of Emerson College in Boston and not only was it the first |
| 1:29.3 | audio documentary that I ever heard it was the first public radio program of any kind I ever heard, |
| 1:35.0 | and it had a big impact on me, obviously. |
| 1:38.0 | And even though this piece is almost 30 years old, |
| 1:41.0 | it hasn't lost any of its emotion and power. But a warning that these |
| 1:46.0 | stories contain frank recollections of combat and several of them include vivid and |
| 1:51.0 | disturbing scenes that are not appropriate for children. |
| 1:54.0 | I'm Bob Carlson and from KCRW.com it's unfictional with Bloods. |
| 2:01.0 | I'm a Leake Edwards from Phoenix, Louisiana. I served in Vietnam as of PFC with the |
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