[solemn music] - Cletus Hardy: The way I actually got in there was a judge by the name of Orthaus in Lancaster, Wisconsin telling me that I better pray I pass my physical.

He had decided that the military was probably a better place for me than the streets around Fennimore, Wisconsin at that time.

So that's basically how I got in.

Yeah, I think he called me "Mr. Hardy" at that time when he said that.

But I was pretty sure he was serious.

- Roger Harrison: March of '69, when I got to Cam Ranh Bay, they gave me my orders for 101st Airborne Division, and I went to the first sergeant and I says, "You can't put me in the 101st Airborne Division."

I said, "I've never jumped out of an airplane or jump qualified."

He said, "I don't give a ####.

That's where you're going."

[laughs] They don't care.

I was only with my company a month when they sent us into the A Shau Valley.

- The A Shau Valley, when Hamburger Hill came around, the battalion commander, Honeycutt, he got it in his head that he was gonna take that mountain come hell or high water.

Terrifically mountainous terrain.

They, the Vietnamese, who had a hell of a base camp coming into the backside of that, they're actually driving trucks and tanks into that base camp up there, and he decides he's gonna come up the front side and take it away from 'em.

- On May 10, they sent us up on Hamburger Hill.

Dropped off on the west end of the hill, one of the ridge lines going into Hamburger Hill.

We fought every day, sometimes two and three times a day.

They'd pull back; you know, we might make a hundred yards or so and make contact again.

And one day, our point man got killed.

I don't even think he made it ten yards.

We stayed there for two days and never moved.

- You got a sister battalion in trouble, you go into high alert.

Well, as luck would have it, all of the people that could've gone back up there, he only needed one more company to "take this mountain," as he was saying it.

That company happened to be A company of the 2nd battalion of the 506th infantry.

And our claim to fame, we were the Band of Brothers.

They flew us back up there and we were there for four assaults on the mountain.

And I never, never, never did understand it.

- I was just coming outta the thick stuff.

And I was the first guy to move up, and all of a sudden, seeing white shrapnel.

And never heard the explosion.

And when I hit the dirt, the ground, then all hell broke loose.

And they were coming close.

I could feel the dirt hitting my helmet and my back.

And I couldn't get a shot off.

I was pinned down.

The rest of my guys had to come up, lay down evasive fire so I could get up, and took about two steps and dove, and just started doing the low crawl.

And got back into the middle of the company, grabbed an M60 machine gun, grabbed as much ammunition as I could carry 'cause all of a sudden, I heard my guys hollering for the medic.

And I went up there and helped them guys out.

And we lost everybody in my squad but two guys and me.

- And I don't think anybody'll ever know how many died up there.

It was hang onto tree roots and pull yourself as you went up that damn thing.

It was so slick and so, you know, it rained.

And if it weren't raining, it would be hard to go up it.

Plus you've got, I don't know how the hell many Vietnamese up there that are trying to kill you.

And they're dug in.

And when you think it can't get no worse than this, it would get worse than that.

I never had any respect for that man afterwards, Honeycutt.

He, I can remember him coming across the radio, because people were going, "You're gonna get us all killed.

You gotta get us the hell outta here."

And he says, "You're getting paid to fight a war, not make decisions."

He's up there riding around in a helicopter, for Christ's sakes, 2,000, 3,000 feet above it.

- It was either one or two days before we took the hill that we moved off the ridge and we tied into another company.

'Cause we were short of people, we had to tie in with somebody else to get some strength up.

On the 19th, we had some fighting, and the 20th, we just, it was all over with.

- On the top, it happened that we ended up getting up there first.

Well, Honeycutt could see what was going on from the air, and it wasn't his unit.

The 3rd of the 187, I think, was called Rakkasans, and the Rakkasans, he said, had given so much for that hill, that they had to be the ones to take it.

And it's raining, and there's mudslides, and there's dead bodies everywhere.

I gotta think that's what Hell must look like.

And he wanted our company to hold up so he could get a company moved up onto the lift so they could pass us to go up to the top of that mountain.

And I'll never forget that.

I thought, "What the hell kinda game are we playing here with all these lives?"

- In my company, we started out with 115 guys.

And after we took the hill, there was 37 of us left.

- We were up there, but I can't ever say we took it 'cause I don't think we spent ten minutes up there the whole damn time.

We went down and they started airlifting people out, and that was the end of it.

It was for naught.

It's a terrible, terrible thing that happened there.

- A lot of people weren't happy that we had to leave it.

I mean, what, why spend all that time?

Why didn't you pull us off and B-52 it after the first couple days?

You know, why did we have to get all these guys hurt and then leave it, then B-52 it?

- The things that the veterans have been through, the Vietnam vets, we all came home, and depending on what your buddies were doing, smoked pot and drank beer, and self-medicated for a lot of years.

For a lot of guys, the nightmares, the cold sweats, they're still there to this day, and they'll never go away.

I know they'll never go away.

My mother was telling us when we first came home, how scared they were.

They didn't know what the hell was gonna happen tonight.

I'd just tear outta bed at night and go flying outside, and just gone.

Just running in my sleep, gone.

- For, I don't know, maybe eight, ten years, getting up screaming in a cold sweat, just jumping off the bed and hitting the floor, all kinds of different things.

But yeah, you still have 'em.