SPI's Veterans' Stories: Vietnam

An Army platoon leader and a combat medic share their Vietnam experience.  

Surviving Operation Crazy Horse

Platoon leader Michael Heaney’s story, titled Surviving Operation Crazy Horse, is - across all disciplines - the single most listened-to recording in SPI’s collection. It is regularly accessed by students and teachers in grades 7-12+ as part of their US History study. It is also listened to by adults of all ages and from all countries. Interestingly, there has been a recent uptick in those accessing it from Vietnam, which, in an editorial aside, I find fascinating. Michael’s story is tremendously moving, and he tells it from a place deep in his heart and soul.

It was near 60 years ago that Michael witnessed the men under his command gunned down in an ambush by North Vietnamese soldiers. It was a firefight so fierce that it has been chronicled in military history books.

As he tells it (excerpted from his SPI recording):

“Then came a very fateful day: May 16, 1966. We had just gotten another new company commander. He wanted to take the company out on sort of a shakedown cruise—an operation that wasn’t regarded as too dangerous, too dicey, where he could learn all of our names, something about each platoon, each platoon leader. So the operation we drew was to go out to a nearby hillside—it was about ten miles from the division base camp, above a valley that had been getting some mortar fire every night on this little village. Our intelligence said, well, there’s probably a VC insurgent unit with a mortar, setting up every night and just lobbing mortars down on this village. We want you, Captain Coleman, and your company to march up—land below the ridge, we’ll helicopter you in to a landing zone—and you can march up to the top of the ridge and scare them away. So he said fine. And that’s all the intelligence we got.

What intelligence missed, and we had no idea of, [was that] there were several regiments of North Vietnamese regular-army soldiers on their own form of kind of R&R, up in this mountainous region—remote, uninhabited, steep-sided hills.”

To listen to Michael’s story, go to 4-12 Learning Lab, Humanities, US History, or click here.

Photo: Trish Crapo

Combat medic and celebrated poet Doug Anderson

Doug’s Vietnam story captivates audiences as it imparts painful truths. Likewise, Doug’s writing reflects the horrors, tragedies, and unlikely friendships of that time.

Doug started writing poetry after Vietnam when he moved to Northampton, Massachusetts, and worked with the poet Jack Gilbert. He has written about his experiences in the Vietnam War in both poetry and nonfiction and is the author of the poetry collections The Moon Reflected Fire (1994), the winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and Blues for Unemployed Secret Police (2000). In 2009 he published his memoir, Keep Your Head Down: Vietnam, the Sixties, and a Journey of Self-Discovery. His most recent book is Horse Medicine (Barrow Street Press, 2015).

His awards include a grant from the Eric Mathieu King Fund of the Academy of American Poets, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Pushcart Prize. Anderson has taught at the University of Connecticut, Eastern Connecticut State University, and the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Its Social Consequences at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. *Source: The Poetry Foundation.

To listen to Doug’s story, go to 4-12 Learning Lab, Humanities, US History, or click here.

A US History teacher recently polled his students at the end of a unit on Vietnam. Having shared readings, textbook and historical content, he was curious. “What,” he asked, “of all that we read, talked about, and listened to, had the greatest impact on you?” The answer was unanimous - the SPI recording, in this particular case, of Doug.

These stories are, in a word, unforgettable.

About SPI

SPI’s Mission: Story Preservation Initiative believes in the transformative power of story to connect people around our common humanity and create a better future.

Our Work: We are a leading producer and online distributor of original, content-rich audio-based narratives for K-12 students. SPI stories are the raw materials of history, roadmaps to scientific discovery, and windows to the minds of artists and skilled tradesmen and women.

What We Achieve: SPI brings listeners into personal contact with extraordinary people whose stories engage their hearts and minds, imparting content knowledge and fostering curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking as they open doors to possible career paths in professions associated with the arts, sciences, humanities, and skilled trades.

We are fully and proudly open-source. When educating the minds of our youth, we must not forget to educate their hearts.

SPI was founded in 2010 by Mary Kuechenmeister who has served as the organization’s sole staff member since that time. With the exception of two recordings in the collection (both in the poetry collection), every story you hear is the work of one person. Ditto everything you see and read. SPI is a small but mighty nonprofit, but the truth of the matter is we could use your help. If you like what you see and hear, please consider making a tax-free donation to SPI, so we can keep the stories coming. www.storypreservation.org