Echoes of the Vietnam War

On the night of January 30th, 1968, the Tet Offensive reached the city of Hue. AFVN deejay John Bagwell was one of nine men who spent the next five days in a house, waiting for a rescue that never came. When they were finally overrun by the NVA, three of them didn't survive it. Five spent the next five years as prisoners of war. John Bagwell got out alone, shot through the foot. The Army had reported him dead but “the Scrawny thing” from Oklahoma was crawling through rice paddies determined to make it back.

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

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

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

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

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

The United States Coast Guard is the service that has to go out but doesn't have to come back. By July of 1965, the first 82-foot patrol boats were arriving at Da Nang. Most people don't even know the Coast Guard was in Vietnam, and the people who do know tend to picture them somewhere in the background, keeping the shipping lanes clear. During his one-year tour, Woody Barley was definitely not in the background.

Diane Carlson Evans passed away last week at the age of 79, following a battle with cancer. An Army nurse who served 18 months in Vietnam, she became a tireless advocate for the women who served there, ensuring their courage, sacrifice and service were recognized alongside their fellow Vietnam veterans. As we continue to reflect on the meaning of Memorial Day, we’re honored to bring you her story.

On January 14, 1969, Army Specialist Gary Guggenberger was ambushed, shot four times, and captured. He spent the next four years in chains, being moved from one prison camp to another -- all in South Vietnam. In this episode, Brad Dunham of the Brady Oberg Legacy Podcast shares Part 1 of his interview with Gary.

From the rivers of the Mekong Delta to Jewish Theological Seminary to the rubble of the Beirut barracks bombing, Arnold Resnicoff has carried with him one teaching more than any other: "where there is no humanity, you be humanity."

Veterans of the Vietnam War came home carrying something they had no words for, and in many cases they never found any. And yet — decade after decade, one act of preservation at a time — people have refused to let their experiences disappear. And that refusal is its own kind of service.

Within the Army, there was a small unit called DASPO — the Department of the Army Special Photographic Office — whose sole mission was to go into combat and document the war from the inside. Its men were trained as soldiers and they were trained as photographers. But preparing to do both at the same time? That was OJT (On-the-Job Training). We sit down with Robert "Bob" Lafoon who was a DASPO photographer during the Vietnam War. You can see some of Bob's photos and other DASPO photographers on our website at https://www.vvmf.org/echoes/EP112/Cover photo of SFC Howard Breedlove

A retired Marine who served three tours in Vietnam. An investigative journalist racing against time. Seventy-six recording sessions and counting. In this episode, we bring you the story behind one granddaughter’s loving determination to capture an aging warrior's memories.

In November 2025, Dave Mann flew to Vietnam, a country he'd felt hostile toward his entire life. He met sons and daughters of the enemy’s fallen, and he stood on the same ground where his father died in 1969. When he came home, Dave’s hostility had transformed into something different.

In May 1969, a 20-year-old farm boy from Illinois was killed at Dak To, just six weeks into his tour. He left behind a pregnant wife who would give birth to their son three months later. That son grew up angry, and he carried that weight a long time — 47 years — until he finally found a community to share it with.

In Vietnam, keeping our military force fed was a massive logistical undertaking. For infantry units operating in the field for weeks at a time, mess cooks had to set up kitchens in jungle clearings and find creative ways to refuel men exhausted by intense heat and constant danger. Dan Gooch was one of those cooks.

Helicopter pilots made up about 1.5% of the total service members in the Vietnam War, yet they represent about 4% of the total killed in action. In this episode, an Army aviator pays tribute to the generation of helicopter pilots who trained and inspired him.

Ross Meador was just a 19-year-old kid with $500 and a one-way ticket to Vietnam, thinking he'd play with some kids for a few weeks before continuing his trip around the world. Instead, he found himself at the center of one of the most dramatic humanitarian evacuations in American history.

Robert McNamara is one of the most polarizing figures in the history of the Vietnam War. A revealing new biography draws upon previously unseen personal papers, letters, and diaries to shed new light on one of the most consequential and tormented figures of his era.

In Part 1 of this two-part series we explored how families navigate the system designed to find America's missing warriors. This episode examines the hopes and the frustrations flowing from that continuing effort, questions about closure, what Vietnam MIA families should expect, and what they can do in the meantime.

September 19 is National POW/MIA Recognition Day in the United States. In this two-part series, we'll explore what it means to be part of that ongoing story — the families who wait, the system created to find answers, and the private researchers who work to complement the government's efforts.

What happens when the stories we tell about war take on a life of their own? In this episode, a Vietnam veteran-turned-historian explores how memory, myth, and personal testimony have shaped America’s understanding of the Vietnam War and why resilience and truth matter as much as remembrance.

Nurses like Sarah Blum spent their tours in Vietnam doing the unimaginable, accumulating and internalizing trauma that would surface over the decades that followed. In this episode, Sarah shares what it takes to do this work... and what it takes to heal.

We all have heard the proverb, "Like Father, Like Son." Patrick Naughton is a military historian and a combat veteran of the Global War on Terror. His father is a combat veteran of the Vietnam War. Patrick recently published his first book, in which he compares his father’s experience in Vietnam to his own experience in Iraq.

Sometimes the most important thing isn't fixing someone's pain — it's simply being willing to sit with them while they endure it. As we draw near the end of National PTSD Awareness Month, we’ll find out how a tragic death became a bridge between father and son, and how the work of healing trauma never really ends.

In this final episode of our series about the Vietnamese-American experience over the past 50 years, we’ll explore how that community has evolved from refugees to contributors, from survivors to leaders, and how their success stands as perhaps the most enduring testament to what American service members fought to preserve.

Fifty years ago, thousands of Vietnamese refugees arrived in America with little more than the clothes on their backs and memories of a homeland left behind. In the second of this three-episode series, we explore how they transformed themselves from displaced people into one of America's most vibrant communities.

In the first installment of a three-part series, we explore the chaotic final days of April 1975, when thousands of South Vietnamese citizens desperately sought escape as North Vietnamese forces closed in on Saigon. You'll hear firsthand accounts from both sides of this massive evacuation, and from those who were part of the waves of exodus that followed.

What do you do when you’re willing to serve, but unwilling to kill? How do you reconcile two fundamental beliefs that stand in opposition to each other? Like many conscientious objectors who served in Vietnam, Gary Kulik tried to save lives.

In this episode, we’ll introduce you to someone whose gratitude toward Vietnam veterans is a matter of regular, intentional practice. She has turned “thank you for your service” into a lifestyle. Because if it hadn’t been for Vietnam veterans, she says, she might never have known freedom.

Kimberly Mitchell grew up in northern Wisconsin and became a highly accomplished military officer, but that hardly scratches the surface who she is — not to mention why. For those of you who reflect on the Vietnam War and ask yourselves what it was all for, Kim’s story just might provide a pinpoint of light to shine on the answer.

In this stirring epilogue to Episode 77, a former Navy SEAL finds a surprising and powerful way to pay tribute to his fallen friend. It’s a heartwarming story full of tenacity and tenderness, reverence and providence… and most of all, teamwork.

Doyle Glass is not a Vietnam veteran. In fact, he never served in the military. But he has dedicated a significant chunk of his professional life to collecting and preserving the first-hand accounts of people who did. “You get inspired to do good things,” he says, “and to toughen up.”

In the final installment of this series, we take a closer look at the legacy of MACV-SOG, including the immediate aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia, coming home, controversy, vindication, and SOG's lasting impact.

In this installment of our three-part series on MACV-SOG, team members share personal stories of combat, injury, and loss as they conducted the eight-year "secret war" in Laos and Cambodia.

In this three-part series, we bring you stories of MACV-SOG, a highly classified special-operations unit that conducted covert, unconventional warfare missions in places where U.S. troops weren’t supposed to go.

At department stores, tree lightings, parades, and office parties all over the world, Santa makes personal appearances around this time every year. You might be surprised to learn how many Vietnam veterans are... well, uh... let's say "involved" in those efforts. Among them is Fred Honerkamp, who was wounded in combat while serving in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969.

When he was drafted in 1965, twenty-year-old Will Bowe went from his family's Wisconsin farm to the 1st Cavalry Division (AIRMOBILE) in Vietnam. Dropping onto the battlefield from helicopters, he and his fellow "Sky Troopers" quickly learned the profound meaning of “search and destroy,” and the brutal reality of the first helicopter war.

Early in his aviation career, Neil Hansen flew for the Teamsters during Jimmy Hoffa’s final days. During the Vietnam War he flew for Air America, a civilian airline owned and operated by the CIA. For ten years in Southeast Asia, Neil flew in and out of places that nature never intended for aircraft — often under hostile fire.

Air America, a civilian airline owned and operated by the CIA, transported supplies and refugees, flew reconnaissance missions, inserted and extracted US personnel, and rescued downed American pilots throughout southeast Asia. Neil Graham Hansen flew those missions for more than ten years, including the last flight out of Cambodia in April 1975.

More than 50 years after he came home from Vietnam, Al Coke started unearthing his long-buried memories and sharing them with his young Canadian friend, Allan Danroth. They recorded more than ten hours of audio together, some of which we featured in EP74: The Hero In Your Midst. In this episode, we bring you more of their conversation.

In our third and final episode of this series, we take a broader look at the legacy of Vietnam Dustoff, including their lasting impact on modern aeromedical crews and operations.

Dustoff crews in the Vietnam War had a very clear sense of mission: to get the wounded to higher-level medical care within an hour. In this episode we’ll learn more about the crew members, their training and teamwork, and the dangers they faced as they raced around the battlefields of Vietnam, risking their lives to save others.

The Army’s aeromedical crews flew nearly 500,000 missions in Vietnam, saving the lives of nearly a million people on both sides of the conflict. In this three-part series, we’ll take a close look at Dustoff in Vietnam — the missions, the crew members, the dangers, and the enduring legacy.

Roger L. Tolbert, Sr. received a Silver Star and two Bronze Stars for his service in Vietnam. He died in 2021 from causes connected to Agent Orange exposure. His granddaughter, Dakota, inherited his sense of duty and his drive to serve. She may have inherited more than that.

We conclude an Honor Flight for Navy SEALs who served in Vietnam by exploring more of the connections between these special warfare operators and the people whose lives they’ve impacted, including each other’s.

On an Honor Flight full of Navy SEALs who served during the Vietnam War, we learn about the origins and training of the earliest SEAL teams and hear first-hand accounts of some of their triumphs and tragedies in Southeast Asia.

June is National PTSD Awareness Month and June 16th is Father’s Day. In this episode we bring you an interview with a father and son who have traveled together on the long road from trauma to healing.

Bruce Springsteen’s song “The Wall” was inspired, in large part, by a musician he idolized in his youth. Walter Cichon was the front man for a band called the Motifs, who were taking the New Jersey shore by storm in mid-to-late 1960’s. Walter’s voice was forever silenced in Vietnam when he was just 21 years old, but his indomitable spirit lives on through those who knew him — including, to a surprising degree, The Boss himself. For more information: https://www.vvmf.org/echoes/EP75/

Alfred Coke served 730 days in Vietnam and he estimates that he received enemy fire on 400 of them. He was wounded multiple times, and he has both the scars and the decorations to prove it. He never gave much thought to his own trauma until he formed an unlikely friendship with Allan Danroth, a Canadian engineer nearly three decades his junior. In this episode, we bring you an inspiring story of friendship... and the healing power of being interested.