WEBVTT

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(dramatic orchestral music)

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- [Narrator] Air cavalry, napalm, and smoke.

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These have become some of the most

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iconic images of the Vietnam War.

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^- [Mike] I always say the Marines excel

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^no matter what kind of mission

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they were assigned to.

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I don't give a damn where they at.

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We did beyond the call of duty on all occasions,

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I mean (speaks quickly)

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but some units did pretty damn good, a lot of good.

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^- [Faye] In 1965, we have, who later become the father

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of a commandant, Victor H. Krulak, is in Hawaii,

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and he's spending five months writing a script

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for an exercise to take place on Camp Pendleton,

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and it's to be the largest exercise

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that's taken place since World War II.

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This is since President Roosevelt

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saw it on our Red Beach.

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And this is a landing and an exercise

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that includes (saying foreign word),

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they've got 16 villages built up there,

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(saying foreign word) to emulate what jungle huts might be,

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jungle village, jungle villages might be.

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They end up including 20 thousand sailors,

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25 thousand marines, 60 ships, including

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three of them are carriers,

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and they do a whole exercise called Silver Lance,

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and it's got Navy and Marine Corps all over the place.

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- [Narrator] During this period,

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training at Camp Pendleton was accelerated.

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The Marine recruits were trained in as little

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as 15 days before being deployed to Vietnam.

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^- [David] When you leave school,

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^you're not prepared for war,

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^even with all the training we got in boot camp,

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we weren't, I wasn't prepared to physically

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witness what I witnessed, you know, people dying,

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I had friends die in my arms, being scared 24 hours a day,

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deprivation of sleep, being wounded.

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- [Narrator] What began in 1964 as an advisory mission

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would escalate into a campaign that would last

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until the fall of Saigon in 1975.

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- [Faye] You've got some people over there

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helping as advisors and so on and like that.

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But we're not really occupying.

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Well, mid-exercise, Major General Krulak gets a message,

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"Eh, you gotta send some people to work in Vietnam."

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So all of his people had weapons and ammunition.

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He sent them over with everything they needed.

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They ended up being sent back,

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and they end up being some of the

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first people in Vietnam to fight that war.

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- [David] The most important lesson that I learned

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in Vietnam was to value life.