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the point of view of the uh South Vietnamese uh government uh you know rather uh than from the uh point of view of the United States government. You know, again, that's a hard thing to do, but as an advisor I think you ought to uh, you know, use the point of view of how do the people, . Well, here we are and you're, despite your looking at this from a, trying to look at it from a South Vietnamese point of view. Nevertheless, you're an American and you come from one kind of culture, they're Vietnamese and they come from another kind of culture. As you approach the problem, let's try to be specific, and went into a hamlet or a number of hamlets, what kinds of problems did you encounter as two cultures try to work side by side? Well, you know, it's very difficult uh you know to put yourself in uh as an America into the South

Nguyen TinhSpeed. Rolling. Uh, Slate 87. Clapstick. Uh, my father used to be a soldier in the National Army before 197—54, that mean before we had a big exodus from the North to the South. When we got to the South, I, uh, went to school and after graduated from the College of Science, I was a high school teacher, that before 1974. And after 1974, when the Communists took over South, uh, Vietnam, I uh, didn't go to teach anymore because I can see that they had a lot of discrimination policy, so, uh, um, I uh, stay home and tried to plan with my family to escape because the situation in Viet, in South Vietnam is worse and worse. We had, uh, very difficult in moving around, very difficult in economic life, and especially about cultural life. It, uh, terrible. Uh

. Specifically, what were you doing? What was your life like? I was the... I was drafted in 1968 as a officer of the South Vietnam government and I was training through the Officer Academy, . I was drafted in 1968 and became officer of the South Vietnam government and 1970 I was graduated and became a pilot. What did you do thereafter? What kinds of planes did, to you after the end of April, 1975? Right after April, 1975 I was called and report to the Communist post and they send me to the reeducation camp

organizations were actually slow in getting to what was a terrible, terrible situation. What were some of the kinds of things that refugees were beginning to report by the end of 1975, that there would be a bloodbath in South Vietnam if the North Vietnamese won the war. There were not similar predictions, so far as I know, made about Cambodia. How do you account for the fact that the result was almost the opposite of the expectation, , extreme... Out of film Also, maybe we ought to try to be quiet. End of Sound Roll 24

. Let's talk about just before the end there, when you were still in Da Nang, what was happening, and what did you do about it? Uh, at that time, I um, I flew a helicopter at Da Nang Airbase in the First Air Division and when, um, when Da, , nothing happened to them. After that, about four or five days, they call all of the South Vietnamese officer, the rank from major to general, um, came to Sai—concentrate to study for one month. And when, you know, uh when all of the, uh, all of the high rank officer, you know, came, Saigon, uh, and a lot of the, um, former South Vietnamese officer, you know, they came here like me. Then, at midnight, uh, they push us in, in the convoy, that um, and bring us, uh, into the education camp

through in fighting our war is, to me, unconscionable. When you do remember that the average age of a combat soldier in Vietnam war was nineteen, for nineteen year olds of today to be asking me questions as basic as what side did we fight on in Vietnam, the North or the South, when, the MIA issue. I think that it is an outrage how the war dead in Vietnam are being used again and exploited for what at this point I can only conclude is political propaganda purposes. In no time in our history, have we gone more than a decade past the end of a war and still be focusing this extraordinary, , at this date, any American soldiers. If it was ever found out that an American was held captive in Vietnam, they know, and I think everybody knows that that would be it. Any chances for any future normalization or any aid assistance or any ending of that war mentality that seems to continue between Vietnam

...? That's right. The group I was in considered seven different Vietnamese studies, which concerned themselves with one or more of these kinds of reproductive outcomes. Really two types of studies were done. There were studies that were carried out in the south of Vietnam. And in the south women, um, had, , may have been posted to the south where they were of course at risk of exposure. So these studies could compare the reproductive histories of couples, veterans always, where the father either did or did not serve in the south, ? More quiet tone. This is after five so there are no people. It's only after five...Tone, tone, tone end tone. End of sound roll 27.

mention the subject of the MIA's and then answer the question. Ok, uh, I am... in my opinion I feel that no Americans are still being held captive in South Vietnam or in Laos being held by the North Vietnamese or even by the Laotians. I, groups would go over there. They should have given them all to us. When, all the ones they had in 1973 when the Americans came out of there. But I will have to say that I'm sure they are collecting some remains around the country and in South Vietnam and also in Laos and they will continue to gather, the war in Vietnam. When I was there, the, I went over there eight times during the war, and I could see in Saigon that we'd taken over that city. We were picking up the garbage. We were handling the police traffic. We were doing it all and the Vietnamese, the South Vietnamese just

with the problem of forest recovery since that time. So immediately there was tremendous devastation of productive force in the south. For instance the mangrove forests were forty percent totally destroyed, which supplied the charcoal production that the City of Ho Chi Minh used, aerial photography to have been this type of degraded grassland immediately after the end of defoliation still remain this type of grassland. And apparently what’s happened in this relatively seasonal tropical forest environment is that this grassland became established, and subsequent to that time has, . And with the great meat shortage that exists in the south it is very profitable to, for a lot of people to make a living or to supplement their income by hunting in these grassland areas. Cut. Thank you. Are you picking up that camera sound