Out of Chaos - Support Material

This is a multi-part series on the Vietnam conflict, covering the history of Indochina, the French wars, and United States involvement, using actual film footage from news and government archives.

This is the story of the men who came home from the Vietnam War and tried to forget. The men who represent a second silent generation. Covered is the time period from the initial massive troop build-up in 1965 to the fall of Saigon in 1975. Contains never-before-seen color footage transferred to high definition as well as a soundtrack filled with hits from the era.

Complete history of the Vietnam War, as chronicled by CBS News correspondents, from its genesis in the days after World War II to its conclusion with the fall of Saigon.

"April 1975. During the chaotic final days of the Vietnam War, as the North Vietnamese Army closed in on Saigon, the South Vietnamese resistance crumbled. The United States had only a skeleton crew of diplomats and military operatives still in the country. With the lives of thousands of South Vietnamese hanging in the balance, those in control faced an impossible choice -- who would go and who would be left behind to face brutality, imprisonment or even death. At the risk of their careers and possible court-martials, a handful of individuals took matters into their own hands. Engaging in unsanctioned and often makeshift operations, they waged a desperate effort to evacuate as many South Vietnamese as possible"--Container.

Since World War I, American Indians have served in the United States armed forces. During the Vietnam War, close to 90% of the 86,000 American Indians who enlisted were volunteers, giving Native Americans the highest record of service per capita of any ethnic group. Over half served in combat. Why were so many Native Americans willing to go and fight in America's most controversial war? What is their view of Vietnam twenty years later? In this program, you will hear Native American veterans discuss their personal experiences in Vietnam and the difficulties they still face today.

Examines the critical events that took place in the fall of 1967, from the ambush of an American battalion by the Viet Cong that led to skepticism of whether the Vietnamese conflict was winnable, to the first violent anti-war demonstration on a campus in Wisconsin.

A documentary that unflinchingly confronted the United States' involvement in Vietnam at the height of the foment that surrounded it. Using a wealth of sources, from interviews to newsreels to footage of the conflict and the upheaval it occasioned on the home front, Davis constructs a powerfully affecting picture of the disastrous effects of war. Includes interviews with General William Westmoreland; former Secretary of Defense, Clark Clifford; Senator William Fulbright; Walt Rostow; and Daniel Ellsberg.

In this film made over ten years, filmmaker Barbara Sonneborn took a pilgrimage to the Vietnamese countryside where her husband died. She and translator (and fellow war widow) Xuân Ngoc Nguyẽn explore the meaning of war and loss on a human level. The film weaves interviews with Vietnamese and American widows into a vivid testament to the legacy of war.

Vietnam veterans speak about atrocities committed upon Vietnamese soldiers and civilians during their time in the U.S. armed forces in Vietnam. Through testimony given at the Winter Soldier Investigation held by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1971, press conferences, and interviews with individual participants, the film graphically portrays the effect of U.S. government policy and practice, which turned soldiers into animals bent on destruction and Vietnamese into "gooks"--Non-human "targets" for murder, rape, and mutilation. The veterans struggle to come to terms with the devastation they caused so that others will not make the same mistake again.