Vietnam

James Wright wrote (“The Capture of Hamburger Hill,” June 2019) that “Nixon promised that he had a secret plan to end the war.” That is one of the myths of the war. It was started by one reporter misinterpreting a Nixon campaign speech. Nixon never s

An area that was once hotly contested during the war became an area of cooperation as Vietnamese and Americans cleaned up a different kind of “hot spot,” one created by the toxic chemical dioxin, a component of herbicide Agent Orange. Vietnam and the

During the Vietnam War, U.S. troops in Vietnam weren’t the only Americans exposed to Agent Orange. So were civilians working at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle, according to a podcast from Northern California Public Media. The herbicide

After years of fighting efforts to extend Agent Orange benefits to more Vietnam War Navy veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs has given up. The VA will not ask the U.S. Justice Department to appeal a federal court ruling that said sailors in

Navy Lt. Richard C. “Tito” Lannom, missing for more than 50 years after his plane went down during a mission over North Vietnam in March 1968, was buried in his hometown, Union City, Tennessee, on March 2. Lannom, 27, served as a bombardier-navigator

Howard V. Lee, a Marine captain whose leadership under heavy fire saved a surrounded platoon in 1966 and resulted in a Medal of Honor, died March 23 in Virginia Beach, Virginia, at age 85. Lee joined the Marines in 1955 after graduating from Pace Col

During a marathon torture session something extraordinary happened to Air Force 1st Lt. John L. Borling, a prisoner of war at the “Zoo,” a prison outside Hanoi. The pilot of an F-4 Phantom II fighterbomber was “trussed up” with shackles, ropes and ha

Folk-rock singers Denny Zager and Rick Evans begin six weeks atop the pop charts with “In the Year 2525”—the single’s opening words, followed by “if man is still alive, if woman can survive” the new machines and other technology that could destroy hu

On Panel 33E, Row 2 of “the Wall,” the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, is the name Richard Godbout. He was a 19-year-old from Goffstown, New Hampshire, who liked nothing better than riding motorcycles and working on cars. Following in the fo

U.S. Army Capt. Larry Thorne had just arrived at the Chau Lang Special Forces camp in South Vietnam’s Mekong River Delta in early 1964. The Green Beret, a member of the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), reported for duty, stowed his gear and grab

On Feb. 22, 1967, the U.S. Army’s 2nd Battalion, 94th Field Artillery Regiment, fired its M107 175 mm guns across the Demilitarized Zone and into North Vietnam’s antiaircraft artillery sites. The shelling, in response to an attack on a U.S. Air Force

In spring 1968, the North Vietnamese Army had set its sights on Dong Ha, a Marine Corps base about 12 miles from the Demilitarized Zone dividing North and South Vietnam. On April 30, the NVA struck near the hamlet of Dai Do, about a mile from Dong Ha

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Navy Fighter Weapons School, an advanced training program better known as Topgun, which dramatically increased the shootdowns by Navy aviators during the Vietnam War. U.S. pilots flying missions over North

The humiliating April 29, 1975, image of U.S. helicopters evacuating Americans and Vietnamese from Saigon rooftops as North Vietnamese troops overran South Vietnam to win the Vietnam War was a political-military disaster damaging America’s global pre

David Haskell Hackworth was a soldier who began his Army service as a private in 1946 and retired as a colonel in 1971. During two tours in Vietnam, he amassed a collection of combat decorations that few veterans of the war equaled, much less exceede