Don C. Hall

 

Don C. Hall grew up in a Catholic orphanage in southwest Virginia and enlisted in the U.S. Army in February 1965, shortly after his 17th birthday. He served in Vietnam in 1967-68 as a team leader in Company F, 51st Long Range Patrol (Airborne) Infantry. After leaving the service in 1970, he served as a police officer and then later worked as a private investigator. Together, Don and his wife Annette wrote I Served. In addition, they recently finished producing an award-winning documentary about Don's unit, titled "Silent Victory: the Story of Co. F, 51st Long Range Patrol (Airborne) Infantry," which is available on home video (see www.i-served.com). Don and Annette have known each other since the eighth grade and have been married since July 1968. They have one daughter.

 

"I SERVED is Oliver Twist, Romeo and Juliet, Catch-22, and All Quiet On The Western Front, all rolled into one. An extraordinary literary achievement." - Jim Morris, author of War Story

 

"Honest, gritty, passionate--I SERVED greatly adds to the personal narrative history of LRRPs in America's longest war." - Lt. Col. Michael Lee Lanning (U.S. Army, retired), author of Inside the LRRPs: Rangers in Vietnam

 

Pageonelit.com: Where did you grow up and was reading and writing a part of your life?

Don C. Hall: I was born in 1948 in Germany. My father was an American G.I. and met my mother while he was stationed there. They were married a few months after I was born. We came to the U.S. when I was about 18 months old. My father was a heavy drinker and eventually his alcoholism led to the complete breakup of our family when I was about six years old. I have two brothers and a sister. Despite the fact that we had living parents, we all ended up in orphanages in Virginia. My mother was sent back to Germany without her children. I didn't see her again until I was 18 years old.

One of the first places we were sent to after the family broke up was a farm in Richmond, Virginia. The woman who owned the farm took in dozens of children like us. She was paid by the state to look after us, but, apparently, she felt it was her privilege to maximize our presence on her property by using all of us as unpaid laborers in her fields. She would assign us work according to our age and physical abilities. I lived there for about three years. She was stern and strict about the fieldwork, making sure she got the most out of our labor. I love the outdoors and spent most of my time outside while I lived there, so that helped compensate for the institutional nature of living there.

When I was nine, the four of us were taken from the farm, split up into pairs, and sent to separate Catholic orphanages. I and my next oldest brother were sent to St. Vincent's Home for Boys in Roanoke, Virginia; my youngest brother and sister were sent to St. Joseph's Villa in Richmond. My schooling up to that point had been pretty neglected. Reading and writing were not high on the farm's list of important things for us kids to do. I was a year behind the kids of my age when I started school at St. Vincent's Boys Home. I had a hard time catching up and was relegated to the "dumb" side of the classroom. When I was in the 7th grade, I started keeping a secret notebook. I would write about what was happening to me and around me. I recorded the events and activities of my daily life, eventually filling up six or seven notebooks. Unfortunately, I don't have them anymore. One of the nuns at the orphanage discovered my hidden stash and destroyed every page. Among other things, she was enraged over what I had written about her and beat me for writing it. By that time I was big enough to withstand her beatings, so I stood my ground and declared that I was going to write about her someday. I kept that promise.

 

Pageonelit.com: Why did you write "I Served"? What did you want to say?

Don C. Hall: In 1984, I started writing "I Served" simply because I had always wanted to be a writer, even though I was dyslexic and, at the time, had no writer role models. What I knew best was what I had lived, so it made sense for my first book to be about my own life. I wouldn't want other children to go through what I went through, but it certainly gave me plenty of fodder for writing an interesting story. Another reason for writing "I Served" was because I wanted to help counteract the misconceptions, falsehoods, distortions, and outrageous lies that had been foisted upon the world about the American fighting man who served in Vietnam. Those of us who served in Vietnam were, and are, different from those who did not. The myth that most of the people who served in Vietnam were drafted has long been dispelled. The majority of us who were there had volunteered to serve our country. We had grown up on War World II movies, love of country, and good, old-fashioned patriotism. Contrary to the anti-establishment, "Hell no, we won't go" majority of baby boomers, we actually believed in our country, believed in the value of personal sacrifice for a greater good, and demonstrated our patriotism by volunteering to go fight in a foreign country to help free another people. I wanted to write about my experiences serving with men who were not afraid to put their lives on the line for the greater good.

 

Pageonelit.com:Tell us about this book.

Don C. Hall: "I Served" is a wild romp of a journey through one decade in my life, a decade that made me who I am today. Above all, it is a story of great love and friendships. During this ten-year period, I was, at one time or another, a prisoner, a traveler, a naïve child, an altar boy turned warrior. As Mark Twain wrote, "I have found that there ain't no surer way to find out weather you like people or hate them than to travel with them." "I Served" is about fighting for survival and refusing to give up. I have no regrets whatsoever, even about the hard times, because I can look back with fond memories about the love I found and the friendships I developed that will last a lifetime.

 

Pageonelit.com: I Served was co-authored by Don and Annette Hall - Explain your writing relationship. What was difficult? What was easy?

Don C. Hall: I am dyslexic and have relatively poor spelling and grammar skills. When I write, I tend to go off on tangents and ramble. I'm good at constructing the skeleton of a good story, but I can't put a story into polished, publishable form. I am fortunate to have a wife who has the complementary skills necessary to help me write a great story. She makes what I write actually say what I mean. Somehow, she reads my mind. We met in the 8th grade and we've been married since 1968, so I think she actually DOES read my mind (thank goodness!). She helped me write the story in a way that made it something people other than hard-core military aficionados would want to read. I am blessed to have found a soul-mate who has the complementary skills required to make my writing publishable.

Was it easy to work together to write "I Served"? Definitely not! It was very difficult because when I finished my bare-bones rough draft, I wanted no more to do with it. That was the hardest part for Annette. She quickly realized that she wouldn't merely be doing an editing job. She was going to have to help me write it. She's an artist and had never considered being a writer, but my project compelled her to become one. She understood that writing about Vietnam was troubling for me, but if I wanted my story to be good enough to be published, I had to answer all her questions and continue to participate in its construction as she worked hard to make the story compelling and readable. At times, I was quite obstinate when she grilled me on details about my experiences in Vietnam. She wouldn't let me off the hook. She said she couldn't do her job if she didn't know everything there was to know about the details of my experiences in the orphanage and in Vietnam. I possessed the memories. In order to flesh out the story, she had to extract them out of me in such detail that it made me relive everything over and over again. Luckily, she knew a lot about the orphanage and the Catholic school because she was in my class. She witnessed the nuns and how they exerted their dictorial control over all the kids, not just the boys from the orphanage. The writing of "I Served" was tough on both of us, but she wouldn't give up even when I was thoroughly obnoxious in my attempts to avoid answering her questions. She helped me accomplish my goal of making this story focus on the characters in the story rather than on battle, battle, battle. The Vietnam war was just the environment. The characters are the most important aspect of the book. Working with her on the book, and doing extensive reading about writing well, I learned more about writing than I did in all those years in Catholic school. We had been married for 18 years before we started writing "I Served". Up to that point, neither of us realized that we possessed the complementary skills necessary to do this project.

 

Pageonelit.com: From all of your experiences in "I Served" - Did you rely on memory for these events or notes?"

Don C. Hall: I relied on the notes I started compiling in 1970, my diary I had kept when I was in Vietnam (which Annette gave to me the day I left for Vietnam), audio tapes we sent back and forth to one another while I was in Vietnam, letters that we kept, and countless long-distance phone calls with many of the men with whom I had served. I sent the men chapters in which they appeared so they could review them and correct any inaccuracies I had written about them. They then signed off on the corrected versions. I corroborated my military facts by obtaining the thousands of pages of U.S. National Archives documentation that existed about my unit and about the units we operated for. It was my former commanding officer, Col. William C. Maus (now deceased) who told me in 1997 where to find that documentation. He had read the first edition we published in 1994 (a 500-copy limited hardbound collector's edition) and said it was very good, but that I had been far too modest about what I had done over there. He said I needed to read the documentation so that I could get the bigger picture about the unit and about my own contribution. After I acquired the huge pile of documents, I was stunned to learn how accurate my memory had been. Except for a few minor discrepancies, my first edition was an accurate telling of the events I had portrayed. It was eerie to see in these archive records my signature on mission reports from 1967 and 1968. I had forgotten how detailed these reports were. They even contained actual radio communications of what we had said over the radio all those years ago. It was a mind-bending experience to go through all of those records. It was almost as if I were there again. Few Vietnam memoir authors have gone to the extent that I have in documenting their stories, but I was determined to make "I Served" as accurate as possible. I am currently working on another book about F/51st LRP and the units we operated for that is more extensive, and which is more of a historical treatise than "I Served" is. I took Col. Maus's advice to heart, so this book will show the bigger picture and will include a lot more of the combat than what appears in "I Served".

 

Pageonelit.com: What does "I Served" say/contribute in reflection to Sept. 11, 2001? Is war, war, no matter the circumstances?

Don C. Hall: The attack on 9/11, which we as Americans certainly did not invite or deserve, was far worse than the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 because it was directed at a civilian target. Wars of aggression are the worst plague effecting mankind, but we Americans will ultimately face the complete loss of our freedoms, and, perhaps annihilation, if we are not willing to fight the good fight to stop these lunatics. We can't just sit back and hope we can sweet-talk fanatics who hate us into laying down their arms and becoming our brothers. Sending their children to commit mass murder by suicide is prima facie evidence of their insanity. War is something a freedom-loving people have to be willing to endure if they are going to protect their hard-won freedoms. If our brave soldiers of today are willing to lay down their lives to fight for our country, the very least those of us back home can do is support them all the way to victory. It won't be easy, especially when the media starts plastering pictures of dead young American soldiers all over the TV if the casualties start to mount. Unlike in Vietnam, which is thousands of miles away from America, this time the threat of tyranny is on our own doorstep. Appeasement of tyrants and fanatics has never ever protected peoples from oppression in the entire history of mankind. I hope that "I Served" demonstrates that if you're willing to fight and absolutely refuse to give up, you can prevail against people who are trying to harm you or subjugate you.

 

 

Pageonelit.com: In "I Served", you talk about a banner, 'There should be a big banner… And it should read, 'Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.' Please explain…"

Don C. Hall: This quote from Nietzche occurred at the end of the book in a scene where I had returned from Vietnam and had just come out of Mass at the church on "The Hill." I had gone just to see if any of my old friends and acquaintances from school might show up. The nun from my 8th grade class happened to be there, and gave me that familiar look of stern disapproval, so I couldn't resist pointing out to her a character trait some of the nuns in the orphanage and school seemed to have: a strong impulse to punish. I think, now, that the reason they were so quick to punish was because they hated their lives. They were trapped by a commitment they had made while very young and didn't know a way out. Obviously, that changed later. Many nuns left the convent (and priests left the priesthood) starting in the late 1960s. The nun who was the most vicious at the orphanage had apparently gone into the convent in order to escape an abusive home where her brothers beat her unmercifully. She had scars on her lips and face from being punched. What kind of sense did it make for the Church to assign her to work in a boys' home? It doesn't take much imagination to realize that putting her in a position of authority over a large group of young boys was a recipe for disaster, for both them and her. For her, the impulse to punish was overwhelming. I've always wondered what happened to her after she was sent away from St. Vincent's.

 

Pageonelit.com: What has been your feedback from readers and book reviews? What do they say to you about their interpretations of "I Served"? What do they like about the book?

Don C. Hall: The reviews from most people have been extremely positive. The majority of the men with whom I served in Vietnam love the book. The comment I receive the most is that it's unlike any other Vietnam memoir because the characters are so interesting, and it's not just a war story. It reads more like a novel. Some of the women who have read it said that ordinarily they wouldn't read a Vietnam memoir, but this one is different. It's more mainstream because it's about the people. Even in Vietnam, my unit was the subject of many rumors. No one not serving in F/51st LRP could get inside of our unit unless they had written permission from Generals Westmoreland or Weyand. We were in an isolated location in the far end of the huge Bien Hoa military complex. This immediately started a mystique that quickly spread to other units. We had high-ranking officers from the Special Forces and other LRP units trying their best to get into our company compound to talk to us and to find out why we had the highest count of enemy dead, why and how were we doing all these things that they wanted to do, but had not been able to accomplish as well. We were on the leading edge of every battle in War Zone D. We were such an effective unit because we had two great leaders in charge of us, who led by example: General Fred C. Weyand and Major (and then LTC) William C. Maus. Unfortunately, a number of vets who have read "I Served," but who didn't serve in our unit, and who don't have any conception at all what our unit did and how it operated, have chosen to denigrate the book, saying what I wrote about couldn't possibly be true. I have talked to other authors whom I respect and they have told me some of the practices and techniques our unit used that I described in "I Served" were not being done in the Army. I got a polite, but stern, letter from a retired lieutenant colonel telling me that it was impossible to be only ten feet behind a claymore mine and survive the back-blast. Technically, he's right, because that's exactly what they taught in line units, but when you are lying down fifteen feet from a trail with NVA troops moving by, you had to be close. The trick to surviving the back-blast was to be lying down flat when the claymore blew, so that it would blow right over you. Some of our men were slightly hurt as a result of this practice, suffering some temporary hearing damage or getting hit with small fragments of shrapnel, but working this way gave us something very crucial: the element of surprise. After the claymores blew, we would be on top of the enemy before they could react. Timing is everything in a well-planned ambush. The LTC who wrote me that letter, and others who had said what I wrote was unbelievable, are ignorant of all the facts. Just because they didn't experience what I did in F/51st LRP, it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Fortunately, no one has to take just my word that what I wrote is true. The facts are plainly evident in our unit's extensive documentation, which resides in the National Archives. Our web site, www.i-served.com, displays some of those records. The men who were in my unit, and even the people who I went to school with who have read the book, say I really had the characters down to a "t." We have heard over and over again from readers that it is the best Vietnam memoir they have ever read.

Pageonelit.com: Tell me about your publishing experience.

Don C. Hall: The first edition of "I Served," published as a 500-copy hardbound limited collector's edition in 1994, was our first foray into book publishing. We had not set out to be publishers, but went that route after backing out of a contract with Random House. In 1992, we had submitted our manuscript to an editor at Random House, to whom we had been referred by another author. The editor told me that our manuscript was the best Vietnam memoir he had ever read. He had even given it to his wife to read, and she had loved it, too. We negotiated a contract, received our advance and felt like we were in author heaven. We took pictures of one another signing the contract and went out to dinner to celebrate our good fortune. We were so excited. Then, after a few months, we began to feel we had made a mistake. We didn't like the level of creative control that Random House had over our story and its publication. Also, the editor reneged on some of the verbal promises he made to me (yes, I know, verbal promises usually aren't worth the paper they're written on). There were a few other things that happened, which I won't go into here, but the end result was that the editor said if I didn't like how things were going and could get a better arrangement elsewhere, go ahead. Annette and I talked it over and we decided to do what most people would have thought was unthinkable. We sent him a letter saying we were taking him up on his offer and wanted out of our contract. He had actually been bluffing when he made that statement, and was astonished when we followed through and sent the letter rescinding our agreement. I don't think that had ever happened to him before.

Everyone we knew thought we were crazy for backing out of the contract, but we have never been sorry for our decision to self-publish. Most non-authors don't know that book publishers seldom do any real marketing for authors unless they are big names. Book publishers do take on the heavy responsibility of producing, manufacturing, and selling your book, but, other than that, the only real advantage to our being published by Random House would have been that our book would have appeared on bookshelves in the Vietnam/Military History sections in book stores. Unless a prospective buyer already knew about our book, or was likely to look at every title in the Vietnam/Military History section and come across ours, no one would even know about our book. We would have had to foot the cost for doing the same sort of PR and marketing we're doing right now in order to get word of mouth going on "I Served." The royalty income we would have gotten from this effort would have been mere pennies per book.

One of the main reasons we were able to consider self-publishing our book is that Annette is a graphic designer and had the skills and experience to produce a professional quality book. Our first edition was a beautifully done hardbound book. It was also very expensive to produce. We broke even on that edition of "I Served." The main drawback to self-publishing is having to pay for and stock a large inventory of books, and then fulfill orders. This is why more authors don't forego book publishing contracts and take the self-publishing route instead. It's a lot of work. Book publishers take care of all that work for you, that's why your royalty percentage is so small. The second edition of "I Served" came about because of the new printing-on-demand technology. We could produce a softbound edition without incurring the high cost of producing a large inventory of books. In addition, our POD publisher would fulfill book orders. This was the best of all worlds, and because Annette could produce the electronic files our POD publisher needed to print the books, we didn't have to hire a graphic designer to do this for us. This saved us a lot of money. We are very pleased at the job Trafford Publishing is doing for us. You can go to www.trafford.com/robots/00-0154.html to see our book's page on their web site. We link to it on our web site.

 

Pageonelit.com: What next?

Don C. Hall: I am working on a screenplay based on "I Served." I think young people want to know what really happened in Vietnam, and deserve to hear more of the true story, not just the liberals' version. The soldier in the arena is the last person on the earth who wants a war. He fights because his country has called upon him to do so. The soldier's true story deserves to be told, not the revisionist version. Hollywood has done a movie about Rangers for every conflict in which our nation has been involved, except for the Vietnam War. The excellent movie, BLACK HAWK DOWN, is the most recent example of a movie about Rangers. The Vietnam War was skipped over because the liberals in Hollywood have, so far, deemed it unworthy.

As a result of the work done by F/51st Long Range Patrol, the Army realized that Rangers could be the most lethal shock troops against any enemy in the world. The lessons learned from our unit have been taught for three decades to the U.S. Army special operations units. What so many liberals just don't realize (or choose to ignore) is that millions of mainstream Americans don't view the Vietnam War the same way they do. They want to see well-done and believable stories that portray the historical truth about the real heroes of that era: those who served.

In addition to the hair-raising, action-packed, dramatic nature of what we did to accomplish our mission against the enemy in Vietnam, the character development, the overall story, and the unique nature of F/51st LRP will set the movie version of "I Served" apart from most Vietnam War stories. All of these elements make for a successful movie.

 

Pageonelit.com: What do you like to read?

Don C. Hall: I like to read magazines like Writer's Digest, Script, Stuff, Maxim, Popular Mechanics, Psychology Today, and magazines about the film industry. I thoroughly enjoy books like THE GOOD EARTH by Pearl S. Buck. My favorite all time best books are DOCTOR RAT by William Kotzwinkle and SLAUGHTER HOUSE FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut. CATCH-22 is another favorite. WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE…AND YOUNG by Hal Moore and Joe Gallaway is another outstanding book. So is BAND OF BROTHERS by Stephen Ambrose. Speaking of Stephen Ambrose, the media has done its best to try to brand him a plagiarist because of a simple typographical mistake whereby one of his research assistants inadvertently omitted a footnote from a manuscript. Anyone who has worked on projects of the scope Stephen Ambrose has knows how easy it would be for an assistant accidently to leave out a footnote indicator when typing up a manuscript. The media has blown up a simple oversight into a scandal, claiming that Mr. Ambrose deliberately took work from another author and tried to make it seem like his own. This is downright ludicrous. I think what they've done to Stephen Ambrose is criminal. Some people in the mainstream media are so bereft of ethics that they think nothing of attacking a man like Stephen Ambrose without first getting all the facts. They do everything they can to destroy people and then when they're proved wrong, they publish a retraction in the back pages of their newspapers, or, in the case of TV, they don't even bother to do any retraction at all. They just move on to the next story.

 

Pageonelit.com: Do you have any hobbies? What are they? How do they enhance your writing?

Don C. Hall: My hobbies are limited because I am disabled by a very bad back. I've had two back surgeries, but nerve damage that occurred prior to the surgeries is permanent. I cannot do most of the things I used to do. I used to be very active physically, participating in all kinds of recreational sports and other activities, but now that has all changed. Writing is what I do now for creative and intellectual stimulation. I enhance that by reading others' stories that have absolutely nothing to do with what I am working on. Every surface in my bedroom is stacked with books and magazines.

 

Pageonelit.com: You and your brother (Mike) were sent to a Catholic orphanage by your father when you were young boys - Do you resent your father for doing that? Did that experience turn you off of religion? Would you want your children to grow up in a Catholic orphanage? Why or why not?"

Don C. Hall: Yes, I did resent my father for his failings as a man and as a father. He chose alcohol over his family and abused us and our mother, and then he left us. He was actually a very intelligent man. It's a tragedy that he allowed alcohol to ruin him.

My experiences in the orphanage did not turn me off to faith in God. It did turn me off to hierarchical religion. If He were walking the earth today, I wonder what Jesus Christ would think about all the hierarchical religious organizations that have arisen in His name since 33 A.D. If someone like Mother Theresa ever becomes Pope, I'll consider rejoining the Catholic Church.

Would I want my children to grow up in a Catholic orphanage? Obviously, I would have to say no, not unless it was run by someone like my former classmate who became principal of Roanoke Catholic School 15 years ago and who transformed it into a haven of safety and learning for the children who are lucky enough to go there. She retired at the end of this past school year and will be sorely missed.

 

Pageonelit.com: There's a theme that runs through "I Served" regarding 'What's it like to be a man?' - After writing this book and living this life - What does it take to be a man? What did your father think it took to be a man?"

Don C. Hall: To be a man is simple: lead by example and do what's right even when it seems that everyone and everything is working against you. My father thought being a man was being able to drink and fight and beat up his wife and children. He thought that fighting in War World II and Korea gave him the right to be abusive when he came home. That is NOT being a man. That is being a coward. Fortunately, I had two excellent role models at a critical period in my life: Col. William C. Maus, my first C.O. in F/51st LRP, and my platoon leader, Lt. John H. Lattin, before he was killed in action on December 15, 1967. Lt. Lattin, a graduate of Virginia Military Institute, led by example and died fighting for his men. To so many of us in F/51st LRP, Col. William C. Maus, Jr., a graduate of West Point, was the father we never had. A great number of us were from completely broken-up, or single-parent families, and many of us had joined the Army to find shelter and food and to have a chance for a decent life. I was exceedingly fortunate to have had Col. William C. Maus as my C.O. in Vietnam. He cared about us as if we were his own children. General Fred C. Weyand was another magnificent leader. He had faith in Col. Maus and gave him command of an experimental unit that was charged with a daunting task: annihilate the VC and NVA in War Zone D. Without his leadership, our mission would have failed. Recently my wife and I met General Weyand. I had had the honor of meeting him several times while I was in Vietnam in F/51st LRP. He saw the documentary and invited my wife and me to have lunch with him and his wife. He's 85 years old and still in great shape. He's the same wonderful, dignified, and impressive man he was in Vietnam. He listens well. We had a wonderful time with him and his wife. It is truly a blessing to have the support of General Weyand and General Schwarzkopf, two outstanding leaders who have had a major and positive impact on our country. General Schwarzkopf, on the recommendation of his friend, Col. Maus, allowed us to interview him for our documentary, "Silent Victory: The Story of Company F, 51st Long Range Patrol (Airborne) Infantry." Col. Maus, Lt. Lattin, General Weyand, General Schwarzkopf: these individuals are some of the best examples of manhood that I've had the privilege of meeting in person.

 

Pageonelit.com: "I Served" is filled with action and accounts of your military experiences - You say that you acquired thousands of documentation from the National Archives. Did you have any approval from the military to record any of these events in your book?

Don C. Hall: Bill Maus, after reading the first edition of "I Served," told me where to find the records about our unit, and gave me the contact information to obtain them. He said that he and General Schzwarkopf, after each of their tours in Vietnam, set out to study the archive records of F Co., 51st LRP (Abn.) Infantry to assist the Army in forming up the current-day 75th Ranger Regiment. That certainly made me proud of what we had done. Anyone can order declassified military records from the U.S. National Archives. You have to find out where they are stored and make the proper request in writing, and pay the fees to have them pulled and copied. That last part can get pretty expensive. The military does not regulate or give approval to use these records. Declassified records are available to the public. It is a crime, though, to falsify and/or edit these records to make them say something other than what they say. As long as you tell the truth, you can use them as a resource for any writing that you do.

Pageonelit.com: Tell us about your documentary SILENT VICTORY: the story of F Co., 51st Long Range Patrol (Airborne) Infantry…

Don C. Hall: I told my personal story in "I Served." I also wanted to tell the story of the unit itself, and I thought the best way to do that would be in documentary form, so after a lot of years of negative experiences with Hollywood-type documentary producers, my wife and I decided to fund and produce it ourselves. That was the only way we'd retain creative control and be able to tell the story our way. Long story short, we found some wonderful people with the right kind of professional experience to help us accomplish that goal. The result is an award-winning documentary unlike any other of its kind. The synopsis we have in our press kit materials describes the documentary best, so I'll repeat that here:

"Silent Victory" is the story of Company F, 51st Long Range Patrol (Airborne) Infantry, the most successful unit of its kind in the Vietnam War, and of the men who served within this unit. It is a story about what made these men and the unit so special, what made them function so well, and what made them successful in accomplishing their mission. F/51st LRP was a prototype unit. Most people today are not aware of the crucial impact the men of F/51st had on the Vietnam war and on how the U.S. military operates today. Because of the early warning from F/51st LRP, American troops were able to thwart the attempted invasion of Saigon during the 1968 Tet Offensive. It was F/51st LRP that detected and battled a large enemy horde that was swarming from the east toward Saigon in the earliest hours of this massive and well-coordinated enemy offensive. F/51st LRP then helped to direct the counterattack that resulted in the near annihilation of the Viet Cong. It took four more years for the enemy to rebuild its decimated forces and launch another large offensive.

The typical war story is full of testosterone: action, fighting, macho posturing, and acts of heroism. While the men of F/51st certainly experienced all of the above, the documentary, "Silent Victory,", encompasses so much more of who these men were and who they are. It tells of young patriots, perhaps idealistic or naïve, who volunteered to serve in an elite, top-secret intelligence-gathering unit in the U.S. Army. It tells of bravery, courage and survival…and of camaraderie, respect, and good (and bad) leadership. But more, it probes the humanity of these men. These were soldiers, good soldiers, even heroes, who did not love war, but who believed in the ideals of freedom and democracy, and who believed it was their duty to serve their country when called to do so.

In their own words, these men, mature now, reflect on their experiences, from harrowing to humorous. They talk about the significance of what they did, about what they learned, and about how their experiences in this unit have influenced who they have become. They discuss their pride in their unit, their closeness with each other, and the difficulties they had to overcome both in combat and back home. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf provides significant background and insight. No narrator is used.

Personal photographs, rare archival action film footage, and captured enemy action film footage are used throughout.