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A soldier poses for a photo.
Hurley Haywood in 1971.

Episode 2781 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about Vietnam Vet Hurley Haywood and the two points he verifies about the War. The featured story appeared on the DOD website and was titled: Sports Heroes Who Served: Famous Race Car Driver Also Served in Vietnam. It was submitted by Dave Vergun & T. Anthony Bell, writers for the DOD.

 In the story it was reported that: Harris “Hurley” Haywood is a world-class race car driver and a Vietnam veteran. Haywood, born in 1948, said he got his ambition for automobiles when he was young. The Chicago native spent summers working on his grandparents’ farm west of the city, sometimes driving a pickup truck to help out. He was later given a car that he drove on the property.

Hurley said “I started driving a full-sized car around the farms when I was 12 years old. So by the time I got to be 16, I was pretty well-versed on how to handle an automobile.”

It was further reported in the story: he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1977 (Porsche 936), 1983 (Porsche 956) and 1994 (Dauer 962 Le Mans) and is tied as the most successful driver at the 24 Hours of Daytona with 5 wins (1973, 1975, 1977, 1979, and 1991).

He won the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1973 and 1981. He also drove in the 1980 Indianapolis 500 finishing 18th. He represented the International Motor Sports Association four times in the International Race of Champions (1986, 1989, 1992, 1995).

Haywood said this: “People say to me, ‘What trait does a racing driver need to have?’ I say it’s the ability to adapt to change because the environment was constantly changing in a race car, and if you don’t adapt to those changes, you’re going to go to the back of the pack.”

Listen to episode 2781 and discover more about Vietnam Vet Hurley Haywood and the two points he verifies about the War.

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Airmen from the 60th Air Mobility Wing Honor Guard conduct a funeral for U.S. Air Force Col. Ernest L. De Soto at Golden Gate National Cemetery, San Bruno, Calif., June 30, 2023. De Soto was accounted for by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency on March 23, 2023, and returned to his family for burial with full military honors. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Alexander Merchak)

Episode 2780 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about U.S. Air Force pilot Col. Ernest Leo De Soto and his remains that were returned home after a 55 year delay. The featured story appeared on the U.S, Air Force website and was titled: Vietnam War pilot returns home. It was submitted by the Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs.

 In the story it was reported that: after 54 years, the remains of U.S. Air Force pilot Col. Ernest Leo De Soto, who went missing during the Vietnam War, have finally come home.

De Soto’s remains arrived at the San Francisco International Airport June 29 from Pearl Harbor, where his family was escorted by military personnel to the tarmac in a solemn procession. A memorial service was held June 30 at Our Lady of Angels Church in Burlingame, California, followed by full military honors at the Golden Gate National Cemetery.

When asked about how it feels for Ernest to finally be home, his wife Joyce said it was a miracle.

He is one of more than 1,060 service members who have been identified through Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency efforts to recover the remains of service members lost in the Vietnam War.

On April 12, 1969, De Soto was piloting an F-4D Phantom II assigned to the 390th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 336th Tactical Fighter Wing, alongside his navigator, Capt. Frederick M. Hall and another aircraft on a combat mission. As they returned from a cancelled strike mission near Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, both aircraft ascended into heavy cloud cover. The lead aircraft noticed De Soto and Hall’s plane wasn’t in sight and immediately began an aerial search.

Listen to episode 2780 and discover more about U.S. Air Force pilot Col. Ernest Leo De Soto and his remains that were returned home after a 55 year delay.

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C-130 delivering supplies to the Marines at Khe Sanh

Episode 2779 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about the Battle of Khe Sanh as told by Marine Ronald Echols who was there. The featured story comes from The U.S. Marine website and was titled: Veteran Remembers Battle of Khe Sanh. It was submitted by 1st Lt. Isaac Lamberth and MC1 Pedro Rodriguez.

In the featured story it was reported that this year the U.S. Marine Corps commemorates 55 years since the Battle of Khe Sanh, which lasted from January 21 to March 31, 1968.

In early 1968, Khe Sanh Combat Base gained world-wide attention as the roughly 6,000 Marines defending the base were encircled and besieged by three North Vietnamese Army regiments of about 20,000 troops. For 77 days, the Marines and their South Vietnamese counterparts, with support from an element of U.S. Army soldiers and U.S. Air Force bombers, would endure one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War.

Among the Marines defending the base was U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Ronald Echols, who was serving with Company M, 3rd Battalion, 26th Marines, 3rd Marine Division on Hill 881 South.

After the battle, Echols said this. “You get a bond with your fellow Marines that’s indescribable. I’ve got two brothers, but I’ve never had with them the bond I had with the guys I was in combat with. They were my brothers.”

Echols received a battlefield commission and a Bronze Star for his actions during the Battle of Khe Sanh. According to his Bronze Star Medal citation, “on numerous occasions, Staff Sgt. Echols served as a platoon commander, a billet normally assigned to a commissioned officer, and repeatedly disregarded his own safety to maneuver his unit against the enemy.

Listen to episode 2779 and discover more about the Battle of Khe Sanh through the eyes of Marine Ronald Echols who was there.

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Two U.S. military policemen aid a wounded fellow MP during fighting in the U.S. Embassy compound in Saigon, Jan 31, 1968, at the beginning of the Tet Offensive. A Vietnam Cong suicide squad seized control of part of the compound and held it for six hours before they were killed or captured. (AP Photo) [the Respository.]

Episode 2778 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about the Tet Offensive from an eyewitness Vietnam Vet. The featured story comes from The U.S. Department of Defense website and was titled: Highlighting History: How “Tet” Began the End of Vietnam. It was submitted by Katie Lange, a writer for the DOD.

Lang, in her story, reported that Some may know the Tet Offensive had something to do with Vietnam, but that’s about it. Jan. 30 marks the anniversary of the start of that campaign, so what better time than now to learn a little about it, right?

 She further reported that The Tet Offensive was a big deal because it marked the peak of U.S. involvement in the war. Before then, U.S. forces had been on the ground for more than three years, fighting with South Vietnam’s democratic government to try to expel the communist north. After Tet, however, U.S. troops’ numbers — and public support — started to erode.

Although the U.S. had better trained troops, more air power and more artillery than the North Vietnamese government, both sides were at a stalemate in early 1968. So, the leader of the north, Ho Chi Minh, set about a plan to break that.

On Jan. 30, 1968, in a wave of coordinated surprise attacks, Ho Chi Minh sent 70,000 of his troops and members of the Viet Cong — guerilla allies from the south — to overrun military bases, towns and cities in South Vietnam, including the capital, Saigon.

The two primary goals set by the North Vietnamese leadership for the Tet Offensive were:

1. To cause South Vietnamese troops to collapse and its communities to turn against Saigon’s leaders.
2. To drive a wedge between U.S. and South Vietnamese troops.

Listen to episode 2778 and discover more about the Tet Offensive from an eyewitness Vietnam Vet.

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Army Sgt. Robert M. Patterson, Medal of Honor recipient.

Episode 2777 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about Army Command Sgt. Maj. Robert M. Patterson and his Congressional Medal of Honor award. The featured story comes from The U.S. Department of Defense website and was titled: Medal of Honor Monday: Army Command Sgt. Maj. Robert M. Patterson. It was submitted by Katie Lange, a writer for the DOD.

Lang, in her story, reported that for a lot of military heroes, actions taken in battle are carried out without thinking, and they’re sometimes hazy afterward due to the fog of war. For Army Command Sgt. Maj. Robert Martin Patterson, the actions that earned him the Medal of Honor during a firefight in Vietnam had to be reiterated to him because he couldn’t remember most of it.

She further reported that Patterson was born in Carpenter, North Carolina, and raised in nearby Fayetteville, near Fort Bragg. He had four sisters and an older brother. The family was poor, so at an early age, Patterson helped as best he could by working on the family’s tobacco farm, where he said he plowed fields using a mule because they didn’t have tractors.

During his last year of high school in 1966, Patterson dropped out to join the Army. He was initially placed with the 82nd Airborne Division before being transferred to the 101st Airborne Division’s 17th Cavalry Regiment in August 1967 in preparation for a tour in Vietnam. The unit deployed that December.

“The platoon sergeant being shot is the last thing I remember. Everything else is just a blank blur,” Patterson said in his 2003 Library of Congress interview. “The next thing I knew, it was 5 o’clock that afternoon, and I was in a 500-pound-bomb crater.”

Listen to episode 2777 and discover more about Army Command Sgt. Maj. Robert M. Patterson and his Congressional Medal of Honor award honors.

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The Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall in travel mode

The Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall on display in Fort Myers, Florida

Episode 2776 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about the appearance of the Vietnam Traveling Wall in Fort Myers, Florida. . The featured story appeared in Fort Myers News Press and was titled: Never forget: Vietnam Traveling Wall in Fort Myers through Sunday. It was submitted by   Stacey Henson, a writer for the Fort Myers News-Press.

In her story, Hensen reported that the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall and Cost of Freedom display are open for viewing at the Lakes Regional Park in Fort Myers, Florida located at 7330 Gladiolus Drive. The exhibit will be open from Wednesday, May 1 through Sunday May 5, 2024.

The Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall® is part of the Vietnam and All Veterans of Brevard (V V B) located in Brevard County Florida. The V V B is a 501(c)(3) organization that was formed and incorporated in December of 1985. The VVB is a grass roots, community based organization.

We strive to be an active member of the community by having a color guard and a rifle team to participate in local events. We also support a transitional housing facility which helps veterans in getting back up on their own.

We plan on taking this same dedication and putting it into the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall®; not only here in Brevard County, but other Florida counties and all of the United States as well.

Bob Sheehan, director of outreach operations for Hope Hospice, helped spearhead the effort to bring the wall to Fort Myers. He is a Vietnam War-era veteran and he’s visited the original in Washington, D.C., many times.

“I’m proud of our country; proud of our military,” Sheehan said, thinking of those who he knew and whose names are on the wall. “All the men and women, the sacrifice. They are the true heroes. Never forget, never forget those who didn’t come home.”

Listen to episode 2776 and discover more about the appearance of the Vietnam Traveling Wall in Fort Myers, Florida.

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Oregon Powerball lottery winner Cheng “Charlie” Saephan

Episode 2775 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about Cheng “Charlie” Saephan, the Laotian refugee who won the Oregon Powerball lottery.  The featured story appeared in Washington Post and was titled: A massive Powerball win draws attention to a little-known immigrant culture in the US. It was submitted by Claire Rush and Gene Johnson of the AP.

In their story, Rush and Johnson reported that Cheng “Charlie” Saephan wore a broad smile and a bright blue sash emblazoned with the words “Iu-Mien USA” as he hoisted an oversized check for $1.3 billion above his head.

The 46-year-old immigrant’s luck in winning an enormous Powerball jackpot in Oregon earlier this month — a lump sum payment of $422 million after taxes, which he and his wife will split with a friend — has changed his life. It also raised awareness about Iu Mien people, a southeast Asian ethnic group with origins in China, many of whose members fled from Laos to Thailand and then settled in the U.S. following the Vietnam War.

During the Vietnam War, the CIA and U.S. military recruited Iu Mien in neighboring Laos, many of them subsistence farmers, to engage in guerrilla warfare and to provide intelligence and surveillance to disrupt the Ho Chi Minh Trail that the North Vietnamese used to send troops and weapons through Laos and Cambodia into South Vietnam.

After the conflict as well as the Laotian civil war, when the U.S.-backed government of Laos fell in 1975, they fled by the thousands to avoid reprisals from the new Communist government, escaping by foot through the jungle and then across the Mekong River into Thailand, according to a history posted on the website of Iu Mien Community Services in Sacramento, California. More than 70% of the Iu Mien population in Laos left and many wound up in refugee camps in Thailand.

Listen to episode 2775 and discover more about Army Vietnam Vet Robert Harrison and his daughter’s service to our country in the Army.

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Robert Harrison and Jane Hoelscher

Episode 2774 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about Army Vietnam Vet Robert Harrison and his daughter’s service to our country in the Army. The featured story appeared on The U.S. Department of Defense website and was titled: Vietnam Veteran’s Daughter Follows in His Footsteps. It was submitted by Skip Vaughn, an editor with the Redstone Rocket.

In his story, Vaughn reported that Jane Hoelscher remembers her fifth-grade teacher in Michigan calling her dad a “baby killer” for being a soldier in Vietnam in 1965-66. She remembers the protesters at the airport spitting in her dad’s face when he returned home.

She remembers two soldiers mistakenly coming to her house in 1968 to tell them that her dad had been killed in Vietnam even though he was at work at his steel mill job. But none of that stopped Hoelscher from joining the Army in 1975.

Her father, Robert Harrison, first served from 1952-54, before marrying her mother. He joined again in 1956 and served until 1966. He left active duty as a staff sergeant when he returned home in 1966, and he retired from the Army Reserve in 1981 as a first sergeant. Harrison, a heavy smoker, died in 1983 from a massive heart attack. He was 53.

Jane Hoelscher stated this “I believe that the military gave me integrity, dignity, respect – respect for myself and respect for others – and a firm work ethic.”

She shared her thoughts on this nation’s commemoration of 50 years since the Vietnam War.

“We have to learn from our mistakes,” she said. “And we have to face the challenges of the next century. We have to use technology to make our lives better, but technology doesn’t need to rule our lives.”

Listen to episode 2774 and discover more about Army Vietnam Vet Robert Harrison and his daughter’s service to our country in the Army.

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Van Nguyen-Marshall

Episode 2773 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about modern Vietnam historian, Van Nguyen-Marshall and her new book “Between war and the state: civil society in South Vietnam, 1954-1975”.

Andy Pham, a good friend of this podcast, joins this episode with his guests Van Nguyen-Marshall and Cody Billock. They will be discussing Van Nguyen-Marshall’s new book. Billock will be asking the author about her book.

Van Nguyen-Marshall is an Associate Professor at Trent University in Ontario, Canada. She has published on both colonial and post-colonial Vietnam, exploring discourses and practices relating to charity, volunteerism, civic work, political activism, and wartime experiences of civilians. Her forthcoming book, Between War and the State: Civil Society in South Vietnam (Cornell), examines the dynamic associational life of South Vietnam’s residents as they coped with warfare, national division, government repression, and foreign intervention.

Cory Billock

In her book In Between War and the State, Van Nguyen-Marshall examines an array of voluntary activities, including mutual-help, professional, charitable, community development, student, women’s, and rights organizations active in South Vietnam from 1954 to 1975. By bringing focus to the public lives of South Vietnamese people, Between War and the State challenges persistent stereotypes of South Vietnam as a place without society or agency. Such robust associational life underscores how an active civil society survived despite difficulties imposed by the war, government restrictions, economic hardship, and external political forces. These competing political forces, which included the United States, Western aid agencies, and Vietnamese communist agents, created a highly competitive arena wherein the South Vietnamese state did not have a monopoly on persuasive or coercive power.

The book can be purchased at Cornell Press or by calling 800-848-6224.

Use the code 09exp40 and receive a 40% discount on your purchase.

Listen to episode 2773 and discover more about modern Vietnam historian, Van Nguyen-Marshall and her new book “Between war and the state: civil society in South Vietnam, 1954-1975”.

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Episode 2772 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about Army Vietnam Vet Homer Hickam and how he served his country in and out of uniform. The featured story appeared on The U.S. Department of Defense website and was titled: Vietnam War Was Learning Experience for Renowned Author. It was submitted by Skip Vaughn, an editor with the Redstone Rocket.

In his story, Vaughn reported that Homer Hickam joined the Army in January 1966 under a college option program which promised to send him to Officer Candidate School if he successfully completed basic training and advanced individual training.

The Virginia Tech product went to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, for eight weeks of basic training and eight more weeks of advanced individual training in infantry and engineering. Next came 23 weeks of Officer Candidate School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Stone enlisted in April 1967. He requested combat duty and that’s exactly what he got. He arrived in South Vietnam Sept. 16, 1967, assigned as an infantryman to the, 25th Infantry Division (The Tropic Lightning), stationed near the Cambodian border.

Hickam said “Vietnam was a learning experience. It was a learning experience on how people react under extreme pressure. I actually learned how good people can be under that kind of pressure. I just saw men under extreme pressure. They never broke. I learned a renewed pride in America.”

“I would hope that the American people would show gratitude to the men and women who served over there,” Hickam said. “In many cases, they gave their lives. People went because they thought it was the right thing to do. Honor the men and women willing to do that at a time when so many were not willing to.”

Listen to episode 2772 and discover more about Army Vietnam Vet Homer Hickam and how he served his country in and out of uniform.