And fought in the same Army Infantry unit. In our year of war, Daniel Bolger recounts their journeys from Middle America to vietnam at the right of the war and home again. As we observe the 50th anniversary of the war, we are privileged to hear from these two eyewitnesses. The author, daniel p. Bolger, served in the u. S. Army for 35 years, retiring as a lieutenant general. He commanded troops in afghanistan and iraq. Earning five bronze star medals. One for valor and the combat action badge. He is a contributing editor for Army Magazine and the author of eight other books. He currently teaches history at North Carolina state university. Chuck hagle has long served our country. He was the secretary of defense from 2013 to 2015, and before that a u. S. Senator from his home state nebraska. During the the vietnam war he served in combat and earned two purple hearts, the combat infantryman badge and the vietnamese cross of gallantry. After graduating from the university of nebraska at omaha he worked as a Congressional Staff assistant, cofounded vanguard cellular and begin the became the president and chief executive officer of the uso. He is the author of america, our next chapter. Tom hagel was born and raised in nebraska as well. In combat he earned three purple hearts, the bronze star with a v for va lor and the combat infantryman branch badge. He graduated from the university of nebraskao ma and and the university of Nebraska School of law. After working as a public defender in nebraska, he taught law at Temple University and then joined the university of dayton, retiring as a full professor. In addition, he serves as an acting judge for the Municipal Court in dayton, ohio. He is the author of two books and numerous articles on legal subjects. Please welcome Daniel Bolger, chuck hagel and tom hagel. Thanks very much for that kind introduction, and thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for coming out on this rainy election day to spend some time talking with the hagel brothers. To my right, chuck hagel and to his right, brother tom. I would like to the ask both of these gentlemen, 50 years ago, november 7, 1967, where were you . 1967 . Right, 1967. I cant remember that far back. We were in california at fort ord. There you go. And i was getting ready to leave to go to fort dixon, new jersey because i had orders to go to germany, and you were finishing. Right. We were in advanced infantry training and i followed chuck all the way through. I was about, what, four weeks, six weeks behind you in the training cycle, both in basic training and infantry training. Where did you do basic training . In el paso, both of us. Hot. Like the desert. Fort bliss, there is a reason everyone calls it bliss. Everyone is happy. So by november, 67, as you mentioned, you finished yours and you had orders to germany and the cold war was going on, ladies and gentlemen. So what there was a substantial force in germany, but the vietnam war was also going on. Did you ever go to germany . No. I got to fort dix, new jersey in late november and as the bus was getting ready to pick up 10 of us to take us to germany and we were the first class of the red eye missile gun, which was the first shoulder fired heatseeking missile in our arsenal. It was designed to bring down low flying jets coming in, migs, from the soviet union and through the pass in germany. I decided if i was going to be in the army and i was going to serve my country at a time we were at war, then i wanted to go to vietnam. I went down and tom will tell his story, but he did the same thing and i said, i am private hagel, here are my orders to germany. I volunteered to go to vietnam. I recall vividly in the orderly room there was a stunned silence and they put me in the back of the room and said, son, come back here. They brought a chaplain in, and they brought, i think, a Security Officer in, because immediately they thought something was very suspicious. I was running away from a crime or something was wrong. Eventually i stayed there for two weeks, and got new orders to go to vietnam. Went back home for a few days, and then went to california and processed out to vietnam. And then about four weeks later, i ended up in fort dix, new jersey. I remember writing from the airport riding from the airport in a 2. 5 ton army truck. It was freezing, deep snow, and i remember driving by the px. I saw this poor guy, and this was about midnight poor guy walking, had a little trail around the px, keep in mind this is new jersey, United States, not exactly a lot of enemy around, with a rifle, which im sure was empty, Walking Around the px, in his little trail, and i remember an outdoor light glaring on him. I was thinking, my god, i cannot do that i was supposed to go to germany as well and i have a thing about cold weather to begin with, but i could not do that. Our group were told we were going to spend about six months living out in the black forest running maneuvers in the snow in germany, and then go to vietnam. Which turned out i ran into a couple of my friends who did go over and i ran into them in vietnam. They were just getting over there. So i went and volunteered to go too. They did not call any security people or chaplains for me. They were happy to do that. Keep in mind, i am, what, 18 years old, Something Like that. I got it in my head, i remember seeing a movie about brothers, if you have two brothers or more than two brothers in a combat zone, you can only have one there and the rest go to a noncombat unit. So i thought well, you know, ill go over and chuck can come back. They said, yeah, no problem. Just get ahold of the red cross when you get there. Keep in mind, i am 18 and do not know anything. So i went over there, i landed and i went to the Assignment Center where they divvy up the troops to the different units and i said, where is the red cross . They pointed to some tent somewhere, and i walked in, after all, my name is tom hagel and you probably know all about this. Who are you . Obviously, it did not work so we both ended up there. To follow on that, both the hagel brothers were draftees, but in each of your case, it wasnt it wasnt the standard draft where you just get the note and you report in. When you both were contacted by the draft board, what action did you take . I was called home. I had been to three colleges, not an academic career to me emulated at that point. And so the director of selective service, and had been the director during the world war ii, so shed been there a long time. The draft board in platte county, nebraska said we will give you six months to go back to school and then we will have to take you because the levy was coming down, it was the big build up. We had over half a million troops in vietnam when i got there, and they built it even bigger. I said, i think it is a waste of time. Certainly for any respectable education institution, for me to go back. I am not going back. Im not going to get anything out of it. How soon can i leave . I will volunteer for the draft, but i want to go right now. They looked at each other and they said, well, there is actually a business leaving in two weeks. I said, put me on it. I signed up there and that was it. You were still in high school, right . Yeah. I took my physical and got my draft notice while i was in high school, and i got my same letter, and they said well, well send you, i think it was in september, and i was not going to sit around all summer with that hanging on my hips. I said, i will go now, and i was in the army five days after high school. I mention that just because, you often hear people say, well, the army in vietnam was a draft army, which is true, and the army today is a volunteer army, also true. But here you have two volunteers. There was one other opportunity you both got. If you want to comment what happened when your potential was recognized and you were recommended for officer candidate school. Both hagels have that opportunity. Well, i will give you my take on it. Tom had the same thing. You will hear his story. I was not particularly interested in it, because it meant another year, and i was not sure that i wanted to take another year. That would be three years. The other thing that kept going through my mind was the fact that our dad was in world war ii, and the south pacific, tailgunner, b25 bomber and spent quite a bit of time there, and he was enlisted and came out a technical sergeant. I dont know if maybe there was some romanticism about our dad or his service or being a sergeant, but i think that subconsciously affected me, too. But i think the main thing for me was i didnt want to commit to that third year, i did not know how that was all going to work. So i said, no. When i was offered it keep in mind, once again i am 18 years old, not too bright, and i am sitting there, thinking i learned very quickly that officers had a lot better life to lead than being an enlisted man, especially the low private e1 that i was at the time. They explained to me it is a 52week program. So i was think, okay by the way, both of us had to go through advanced infantry training to be able to go to and then go into officers candidate school. So no matter how it shook down, we would both be trained as infran trimen, which is fine. So i was thinking, basic training lasts so long, advanced infantry training lasts so long, and it is a year in officer candidate school. And i had it figured out, well, if i do that, by the time i get out of officer candidate school, i will only have six months left, i said, this is not a bad deal. So i went along with it until i finished infantry training, and they got the group together to take off for, i think it was, fort benning, and they said we want to go over this one more time, keep in mind, the 52 weeks does not count for the two years youre already in for. So i said, forget it. I refused to go. It was probably in everybodys best interests. So two brothers who both volunteered for the army, kol untiervolunteered again for infantry. Tom, at one point, they did not want to put you in the infantry. Chuck mentioned a red eye gunner, which was a specialty after that time, but tom, i thought, after the initial screening they actually recommended you for another specialty . I cant remember that. I have seen your records, i believe it was cook. Yes. No, what that was i had had a ton of jobs. I spent more of my life as a teenager working than i did in high school. If you saw my record, you would understand why. But one of the jobs i had was pizza maker, cook, things like that. And when i refused to go to officer candidate school, they did not know what to do with me. Because my orders were already cut. So they sent me back to the Training Unit and made me a cook for about a month, and then cut me new orders for germany. The rest is history. As they say. Culinary arts. Culinary arts. I can still keep about 20 eggs going at one time without burning any of them. There you go. Impressive. Your comment about working. One thing you should note, the hagel brothers were raised in nebraska, which is almost the exact Geographical Center of the continental United States, and raised out in the sand hills, which is a very rural area, and you both of you guys worked from a very young age. Chuck was 9 and i was 7 when we got our first job at a Grocery Store sacking potatoes, onions, all of this is manual, of course, a 10point bag, 2 cents a pound, and that was big money back then. I think i mentioned this to tom, you know how the Social Security system works, for most you get an annual review of how much you paid in and when you started paying in, and i was looking at mine the other day, and i started paying into Social Security when i was 8 years old. When i was 8 years old. And i remember the job. It was at a drivein next to the Grocery Store in nebraska as a car hop. I had to take a little box, because i was not tall enough to get to the window, and i had to stand on the box to take the orders. I always look back on that as to why would they take Social Security out, because i think i probably only made enough money to buy a hot dog, and that was it. But anyway, that is when i started paying. So we worked all that is when i started paying, but as tom said, we worked all of our lives. It would have helped you, certainly. Both of these gentlemen arrived in vietnam. Chuck got there in december. Tom got there, as mentioned, in january. Initially, you were both in the same division. The ninth infantry division. That is a big organization, ladies and gentlemen, 20,000 troops. But not the same unit, not the same battalion or company. Right. Initially. Yeah. And thats a tom and i still dont understand all of that, how that happened, because, as you say, he was north within colonel pattons cav, and i was with 2nd 42nd. And we tried to put in for transfer to see if we could get together. We talked at least a couple of times on the phone, but one day, tom appeared in our unit, which is still kind of a mysterious they were going to send me somewhere south to be somewhere around. And of course one of the intervening events was kind of important. That was not within a few days after tom arrived in country, the largest enemy offensive of the war broke out on january 31, 1968, the tet offensive. Both of you gentlemen were involved in that, right . Yes, i got there, i landed december 4, 1967, and he was, what, january 30 . That, as you said, was a defining time for that war, for the optics of it, for the casualties. Those who have had an opportunity to look at ken burns magnificent documentary and get some historical reflection of what really happened on that, its still being debated and so on. But that really did define, i think, our service in vietnam, tom, and it defined everything. Absolutely. And it defined the war. The turning point in america in every way. The rest of your time, particularly in public service, you kept a picture from that. What was that picture . Tom knows about this. Tom was not with me at the time that this happened. When i was in the senate, and i think you met him, tom, i got a letter one day from a retired army colonel in wisconsin, who i remembered the name, and i couldnt put it all together. But it was a very nice letter, and it said, senator, i do not know if you remember this or remember me, but i was a lieutenant in the same company not the same platoon and we were a mechanized unit, armored personnel carriers, we were the first in the headquarters that morning in the village. He said, i took a picture with my little brownie insta mattic camera, behind your truck of the ammo dump in long binh, which was the largest in the world, blowing up. I would like to come by sometime and show it to you. We had a long conversation, and he gave me an 8x10 picture. This little brownie camera picture. It looked like an atomic bomb going off, it was astounding, and he autographed it for me, and i kept it on the wall the rest of the time in the senate. I had it in my office at gallup as well. Its a reminder, which tom and i have discussed many times about again the significance of tet. And the scale of destruction. All of this, ladies and gentlemen, for chuck hagels unit at the time, they were in and around the city of saigon, the largest city in south vietnam, and the capital. Sometimes they call it ho chi minh city. Thats its post war name, but the People Living there still call it saigon, from what i can gather. How about you . I was in long binh in a replacement unit, and they came in and said how many of you have infantry sos, and collected us and put us on the perimeter, so we worked involved in trying to keep them out of it was a huge base. After a couple dais, thats when i got orders to go up to the dmz, and up there was just as crazy. Most people, if you watched the ken burns special or are family with vietnam, served, or know someone who did, the north would be right next to the socalled demilitarized zone. All of the regular troops, the best troops, filtered down through that area. The marines had a lot of forces up in that area as well. We worked with the marines. It was a tank unit. So major fighting at that time was occurring where tom hagels unit was, in places youve probably heard about. The full area was all under attack during that period. So you mentioned you both put in a request to serve together. Whatever happened with the red cross idea that if you can get in country, theyd send chuck home . Believe me, they never got back to me. [laughter] shockingly enough. This is one thing that can help when you are an author and decades later you can dig up the actual paperwork. Here is what i found there is not only a regulation in the department of defense that said secretary of defense hagel would know about, but it is also a United States law passed after world war ii. Some of you all have seen the movie the fighting sullivans, or heard of the five Sullivan Brothers from iowa. In world war ii they all enlisted in the navy and served together on the uss juneau, and the uss juneau was torpedoed by the japanese during a night out. Many of the crew were lost, and all five of the Sullivan Brothers. It was so devastating for the Sullivan Family and by the way, the navy named a destroyer, the sullivans. There is a destroyer today called the sullivan. They have been memorialize ed throughout the history. There was a movie called the sullivans. But Lawmakers Said hey, we so they passed a law, locally known as the sullivans rule, and it says that two close family members cannot serve together in a combat zone involuntarily. That last part is the key part. Because both hagel brothers had asked to serve with each other. Guess what the sergeants and officers said . Does the sullivan rule apply . Nope. Set that aside. I didnt know that. Yes, because you volunteered to do it. I might add, ladies and gentlemen, what was really unusual about chuck and tom, they didnt just serve with each other in the outfit, they were in the same rifle platoon with about 30 to 40 soldiers all together at the same time. So they really served closely. Next to each other. When your brother showed up, what did you think . Well, i was concerned when we were out on a search and destroy mission for about four days and they pulled me back into the base camp. And when i asked whats going on, and my first thought was something had happened to tom. I remember explicitly the captain saying, son, if we wanted you to know, we would tell you. And that was kind of the order of the day. I mean, thats the way it was. I said, okay. So i waited in my tent, and a few hours went by, and the next thing i know, i looked up, and tom walks in with his duffel bag. And the rest is history. Exactly right. And the First Sergeant had told you if the brother ever got assigned, he was going to put him right in your platoon, right . Yes. So there they were. What did you write and tell your mother about that arrangement . You were the one who did all the writing. I she was not surprised. I always did toms forging. [laughter] but tom did his share in the communications part. I think mom felt that if we were going to be over there in that war, that probably if both of us wanted it this way, it was better to be there together, taking care of each other and that kind of thing, dont you think . Yeah. And, you know, the outfit of the brothers ended up with, chuck already mentioned, it was a mechanized unit, which means to say they had small vehicles that would look to you or i like a little tank, and it had a gun on top. And the soldiers were in the back being carried around. They had machine guns on top. That unit was basically a response unit, a fire brigade. Today we call it a Quick Reaction force. Anything that was really a hot situation, your outfit rolled on it and had to go very quickly. They even had a siren in the motor pull that played when it was time for everyone to mount up and go. But many of the operations, all the roads around saigon were of course mined, boobytrapped, ambushed, and their job was to clear the area around them and the villages around them. So it was a very fateful day for you to gentleman, the march of 1968, you were both on a mission what about midday, something happened. What happened . Well, we were on a search and destroy mission in the jungle, and tom and i had, like we often did, walked point just a second here. Ladies and gentlemen, when he says walk ed point, there is a column of men, and the first two guys were the hagel brothers. Mom did not know about that . She had other issues. Tom and i felt, and i think our platoon leaders and Company Commanders felt we could do a pretty good job on that, and i think we felt we could do it better than anybody else. Tom was the best i truly ever saw in sensing things. He saved me, he saved the company many times on spotting things. I could read a map pretty well. And use a compass. And a compass. Today, when you ask someone about a compass, it is computerized gps. The phone. You talk about shooting an asmith, people are saying, are you talking dirty or what do you mean . No, what you did, is you shoot it in the direction for the compass, and you relied on the compass. It is not that way anymore. I could do that pretty good, so we made a pretty good team. On this particular day, we had been up on point most of the day. If you are on point, too, you are chopping a lot, especially the point guy, which would be normally tom, and i would be right behind him with the compass and the map. But you are usually chopping because you are off the road a lot of the time. The Company Commander rotated us out of the lead of point position to give us a break and put another few guys out in front of us. And we were crossing a stream, and we tried to always stay off the road or any path for obvious reasons, because boobytraps were everywhere. The point guys, which tom and i had just been those guys, hit a tripwire in the water, and there were claymore mines in the trees, and claymore mines are essentially mines that are filled with pellets, like bbs, but high explosives, and they do some pretty rough damage, and hit all of those front guys, and they hit tom and they hit me. That is what happened on that day. And i always look for his name, as tom does, too, on the wall, robert summers, the point guy who was killed. Then they had to get the severelywounded out and summers out in a basket, because the helicopters had to come and drop a basket down into the jungle. And the jungle is very dense and you dont know if the snipers would open up. You dont know if that could be a trap, bringing the helicopters in and so on. We eventually got the severely wounded out and summers out, and then we had to get out. You were both wounded now, this is something important to point out here. So it was getting to be nighttime. And as the old say ing goes, the night belongs to charlie, the viet cong. You didnt ever want to be in the jungle at night without some protection and so on. So we had to get out of there. The Company Commander asked tom and i to go back on point and to get us out. So we started to move again after this was the wounded taken out, the one kia taken out, so on and so on. We got a few steps into it, tom was walking again point, and he caught, saw a grenade hanging in a tree. I didnt see it. He saw it. And we were able to neutralize it and get around, and we finally got out, but it was dark. Even in the middle of the afternoon its dark because of the canny of the right. Triple canopy. So very tricky. So both brothers earned a purple heart the only way you can earn it the hard way that day. To this day, when you go through the tsa at the airport, they find things, right . Well, ive got i dont know if tom still has a little shrapnel in him. I have a couple of pieces left because we were in the Field Hospital, and they dug stuff out. It was significant but not that significant. They got the stuff out of me with more surface. But i still have a couple of pellets still in my chest, so it is more when i take an xray or mri or Something Like that, you have got to tell them because those things show up. But it has never given me any trouble. Mine got out, too, it just took a while. It worked its way out. 50 years later. Amazing. Now, even though wounded, both of these soldiers went back to their unit. The thing i might also mention is chuck and tom are young men at this time. They are not experience with 10 years or anything like that, but the role they described, that point role is normally in todays army, that would be done by a relatively experienced pair of sargents. They became sergeants, but they became sergeants in combat, by doing a mission, having to take charge of other young men who were with them because they were young men and have the skills or they went back to their unit, and then about a month later, what happened when you went in a village on the tracks, on the aa armored personnel . I think they got intelligence that the v. C. Had entered, if i remember right, so we werent sent out to sleep to find out if there were any v. C. There, came back, the tracks, the apcs, the only person out there, so since we were the first track out, we were always the last track in. Of course, since theyre track vehicles you can do a 360 turn. So again, we were the first ones out. Everybody, when we came back to the tracks, loaded back up, and then they did the 180 degree turn to come back in, and all the other tracks were in front of us, got past it. But since were the last track, we ran over a mine. The tracker, beside me, was most seriously injured. I was injured. Tom was injured. I thought tom was dead, actually. He was the Radio Operator with a 50 caliber machine gun, when that concussion hit, it obviously disabled the track, fires broke out because the tracks were full of ammunition, and they would blow. I was on the side, so my face was burnt bad and so on. I started looking at everybody else on the track, some guys have blown off, and tom was slumped over the 50 caliber. He had blood coming out of his ears and nose, and he was unconscious. So we got him off the track, because snipers were everywhere, and like tom said, the other tracks were way ahead of us, we were all alone. Fires started to break out. I didnt know if he was dead or what had happened to him, but we got him off the track. Thats when they took us out by hospital, medevac to a Field Hospital. Chucks face looked like it was bubbled on the side of the skin. It was pretty gross. So again, second set of purple hearts for both brothers. Second time wounded. And you went back to your unit. As a matter of fact, when you went back, you were all wrapped up. Yes, i looked like a mummy. My face was all bandaged, and i had to put salve tom had to help me. I often thought about this, if it hadnt been my brother, how many other infran trimen would have taken care of me . But tom did take care of me, and he had to rebandaged me every day infections i got infections in my face, too. The jungle is hot, humid. But they had to put salve all over my face, and he was pretty hurt. We were in a Field Hospital for a couple of days. I dont remember it happening. I just remember being in the Field Hospital and being checked out. The north vietnamese and the viet cong launched a second attack. The call when out again to the second 47, their outfit, company b, their company, to intervene, but the city, both of you rolled on that mission as well. Right. Tom had the bulk of that, because where i was, at the nco academy. It was. It was certainly different from anything else i had experienced. We were always out in the fields in the rice pad dys and things like that. This was inside the city of saigon and street to street fighting, it was just chaos. You had people shooting at you from every different direction. You cant see where most of it is coming from. If you ever have the opportunity to go to saigon, you ought to take it because, believe it or not, it is an incredibly beautiful city. So much of the architecture is from the French Colonial period, so you had multistory buildings with balconies and what have you, and they would have machine guns and that set up on it. It was absolute chaos. But it worked out. It did. I might add, he is being very humble here. Yes, he is. Hes cutting a few parts out. Yeah. He was awarded the bronze star with v for valor, and he was wounded a third time. The mission that he had, that they gave him, was our Battalion Commander got shut down. Who happened to be the brotherinlaw of general westmoreland, colonel frederick vandozin, who had just come on, and he was killed, and they were trying to rescue him, so tom had a pretty big role. Right. Absolutely. I think that is one key thing to remember is that westmoreland, he was a human, too. They think these generals, president s, they dont have anybody. Our country was involved, and westmorelands brotherinlaw if you remember, tom, he had just gone back to chief of staff of the army and abrams came over. And he, westmoreland came back to lead the search himself, and we could not find his body. They did eventually recover it. And tom was involved in that particular fighting around that episode. Yes, they found his body with about three other people still in the helicopter in the bottom of the river. One other thing before we do questions, id like to get your perspective on. Things back home affected the soldiers who were deployed over there. 1968 was a divisive year in the United States. One of the tragic events on april 4, 1968, in memphis, tennessee when an assassin killed dr. Martin luther king jr. , that reverberated over to vietnam. What was the effect of that killing in your unit . First of all, there was a certain amount of segregation in the army then, even though it was apparently against the law. It was more of selfsegregation. I know in your unit we never had any problems. We had people from every ethnic group serving together, everybody got along, and part of it is because of the nature of the unit, you had to rely on each other. So theres no place for prejudice, racism and that. But after the news came that dr. King was killed, there was a separate, almost automatic, immediate separation of races into different sides literally different sides of the camp. There was a lot of tension and a lot of anger floating around. Of course, what that does to a unit, you dont know if you can trust the same buddy you had before. We were lucky enough to have an officer, an africanamerican officer who addressed it. Do you want to talk about that . Tom framed it exactly right. The racial tension was palpable. And because we had officers rotating in and out a lot, partly sometimes mainly because they had been killed or seriously injured, we got a new Company Commander, as tom said, a young, i think he was 21 or 22 years old, africanamerican lieutenant from chicago, by the name of jerome johnson. He grabbed a hold of the racial issue straight up. Straight up. And said, no more. We will integrate the tents again. No more black tents and white tents. We will be a unit. Were going to fight together, take care of each other. He truly exhibited leadership that i have rarely seen in a very difficult situation. He was threatened by both sides of the equation and he faced them down. To this day, tom and i have found him over the last few years and reestablished our friendship, and i think tom and i both feel hes an individual that weve had such immense respect for over the years and often thought of him. It was a tough time, as some said. It was difficult. A lot of units didnt have the good fortune we did to have him. There was stories of people shooting each other and fraging, throwing grenades. This was at a time, too, when america was becoming more divided. Bobby kennedy was killed outside of the democratic convention. It was really coming apart. That was reflected in these 19, 20yearold kids having to fight this war that they did and understand that america wasnt supporting. This is one of the reasons ive always thought the vietnam generation, these kids asked to go over there and fight, when you back up and look at it all, acquitted themselves pretty well and handled it in a magnificent way with all the other problems they had to deal with besides the fact that they were in the middle of a war. I often think to contrast that time with what weve been going through the last 15 years with these idiotic wars over in iraq and afghanistan that were still involved in. One good thing that was a massive mistake to ever get involved in those two wars but one good thing that came out of it, i think, is that now American Society can look at the people who are sent to fight a war separately from the war. You can be against the war, but still support your troops. Think about it in our situation. Here you have young guys in fact, when i got out of vietnam and this was even after i extended my tour there. Even after i got out, i had to wait a year before i could legally buy a drink, i was that young. Didnt mean i didnt get to it. You couldnt vote then. Thats right, couldnt vote. Imagine you are involved in a war, especially if you have a combat role, and everything you hear through the we didnt have a lot of access to media and that, but everything you hear from the United States is how the war is evil and youre baby killers and all that kind of stuff. You are sitting there thinking, what am i doing with my life . Any day now, i could get killed. What am i doing it for . All the people back home you hope would support your efforts, and respect you for it, but it was totally dirchfferent from t. Nowadays, theres a lot of support as that i see, theres a lot of support for troops coming home, as there should be. That was one thing we got right because of your sacrifices and those who fought alongside ladies and gentlemen, we have some time for questions. If you have a question for the hagel brothers or myself, just please line up at the mic. Yes, sir. I was curious, as best as you can recall, any political aspects that you recall . What i mean by that is in a troop or patrol, you have people that are very young, they are experiencing life from the best they can, you have people above them telling them to do things that are life and death, who are very young, trying to do the best that they can, and you have an aspect of like today, everybody has needs and wants and desires. What were the dynamics of being in a group like that, trying to protect yourself and protect them and protect each other, but also from a political aspect from a combat per spechtive, anything you can recall or recollect on that . I dont recall really having any indepth political discussions. One of the reasons, i think, keep in mind how old we were. I was basically an ignorant 18yearold kid. I barely graduated from high school. I didnt know anything about international politics, diplomacy afair to say, economics, things like that. I dont recall getting into any serious political discussions, liberal versus conservative i probably couldnt even have told you what i meant. If i get on the sarges good site, i get more for dinner. Oh, internal politics. Or if i do this, i get in a war that maybe gets me out. Anything like that . First of all, the idea of if i do this i will get an award, that never crosses your mind. People dont really compete for the purple heart. No. No. Theres not a lot of people standing in line for that. [laughter] it just means you got in the way. I think tom is right. I saw some things and tom did, too, where there were some people fabricating valorous actions which didnt occur to get awards. Im not sure that was unique to vietnam. No. I think it happens in every war. And they were usually higher ups. The guy on the bottom is just just trying to survive, quite frankly. So i think tom is right on that. But i think i would just add this. When you are in those situations, as tom said, you are young. Many of the young people we served with didnt even have high school degrees. I mean, they could hardly read. Its all about sur vvival and taking care of each other. Thats where you are, where your head is, everything. Youre not too interested in anything beyond that. You just want to get in and do your job and get out. Your world view is so narrow and confined just to your life situation. Keep in mind how close you are when youre in a unit like that. We slept together, ate together, did all personal functions together. There was no privacy whatsoever. I mean, youre probably closer on a daytoday basis than you have ever been with your family. When you go to the restroom at home, you close the door. There werent any doors. There werent any restrooms. You did everything together, so you got to know each other in and out. Thats good on one hand, but on the other hand, when something happens yeah. Any other questions . First i want to just thank you both for your service to our country. [applause] we appreciate you. This is for secretary hagel. Did your time in vietnam and your service there lead you into your political career . Did that have a bearing on it . Or do you think you would have gone in any way and gone down that path . I dont think my service in vietnam directly let me into a political career. It affected my thinking, surely, because of whats politics about and whats elected Representative Government about, accountable, responsible leadership. I think everybody now knows we didnt have that from top to bottom in the vietnam war, and it cost thousands and thousands of innocent lives. So, sure, i was affected by that experience. I dont think it directly led me into that. I was fortunate that i had a pretty good career before i got to the senate and all the other things i had done, but i always had an interest in politics and always felt and tom knows this if things would be aligned, family, business, opportunities, maybe in the right way that i would be very interested in doing something in politics. But i could have finished my life without any of that, too. Im glad i did all of it. Its been tremendously awarding, its been a tremendous privilege. It helped me, the vietnam war and that experience, like tom said about experiences, because it defined a lot of my thinking, especially when i got to be secretary of defense. I always came at everything from the bottom up, not the top down. It didnt mean im right or wrong, doesnt mean im smarter than anybody else, but that was my experience. I tried to see it that way. I did the same thing in the senate. It affected me, but it didnt direct me into politics. I hope it helped me. I hope it made me a better leader. Yes, sir. Theres been some polling recently that talks about the divisions in the country being similar to the vietnam era. Im curious about how you see that, if you agree with that and what you think the reasons may be. What are the things that are dividing us now and how do they compare with what was going on in that time . Tom, do you want to start . Yes. You look at the history of our country and theres always been dissent and specifically when it comes to issues of war and peace, theres always been protest movements. You can go back to the civil war and the draft rights, world war i, the isolationists, all of this. But americas always seemed to come back to equilibrium. But it was different, i think, with the vietnam generation and the vietnam war in particular. First of all, it came at a time when we had the civil rights movement. Which was no small thing, for sure. One thing for sure that defines that, that was the first time from my reading of history, and i could be wrong on this, that a massive number of citizens lost faith in the institutions of government and the leaders in government because they were lied to for so long that they didnt trust anybody. And i think that is a hang over. I think the last election is a good example. People who are our age are the people who vote demographically. Rightfully so. Weve been lied to for so long. I think the institutions are all right. Its the people who run them. Regardless of what you think of president trump, i think a lot of a vote for him was a vote representing that. Were angry and we just want to smash it. I think chickens have come home to roost because our current politicians, too often, i dont trust them either. I think they continue to lie to us. Weve allowed ourselves to be lied to and reelect them all the time. They forgot they work for us. Were citizens. We run the show. Its our responsibility as citizens. They work for us. For some reason as a society we have lost that. We just let it go on. I think a lot of distrust of the government institutions and the political system and both parties can be tracked back to as a beginning point to the vietnam war. It was so clear that society and the troops were lied to about the vietnam war, the causes of it, the attempts to stop it. So many people lost faith and still have not regained it. I think tom put his finger on the breakdown and the political environment we have today, the deep division, the wide divisions. I would add one additional point to that. That is on a broader scale, i think we are seeing a new world order being defined today and built. A world order thats different from ten years after world war ii that america led with our allies in building. Its a world order of the last 70 years thats been pretty good for most people. More people are free, more economic opportunity, more diffusion around the world. The problems that world order didnt face cant do everything, is the trouble spots in the world today. Its confusing. Everybody in this room, i suspect and most people watching television was born, they were born during world war ii or after world war ii. That world is shifting now and changing. Its presenting a lot of new dimensions and challenges that weve not had before. You add that reality and doesnt mean its bad or good. Its how you respond to it and how you adjust to it. You add the fundamental of what toms talking about. When you break down the trust and confidence of your governing institutions in a society, youre in trouble. Its not just government. Its not just politics. Anywhere near above the 50 line. I think this year was 76 . The only other one over 50 was Small Business because everybody likes Small Business because its the man and woman in your home totown you can trust them. Everybody else, big business, lawyers, politicians, pharmaceutica pharmaceuticals, media, organized education, organized religion are all down in the 20s and 30s. Politicians in washington are down in the single digits. You have a real problem. You have a real, real problem. Whether its trade issue, economic issues, terrorism issues, alliance issues, whatever. Youre going to have this tremendous outburst and reaction out there in the populist that things are really bad and going wrong. It breaks down a structure which is not good. I dont think a blind optimist, i think im realist too. We do balance out. America does selfcorrect. We always have. Doesnt mean we always have but we have. We have a people that make up our society thats so much better than what they are seeing today and i think the leaders who represent our institutions are showing. On that note with great conclusion, i think both to both the hagel brothers and thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. [ applause ] this cspan bus tour continues its 50 capital tour with stops in raleigh, atlanta and montgomery. Well speak with state officials during our live washington journal program. Follow the tour and join us on january 16th at 9 30 a. M. Eastern for our stop in rilye r, North Carolina. Our guest is North Carolina attorney general josh stein. American history tv is on cspan 3 every weekend featuring museum tours and programs on the presidency. The civil war and more. Heres a clip from a recent program. 1999 a. D. More than a generation away and yet dreams travel faster than light. This is one of the many 21st century devices that are part of the every day life of the sure family. This with its electronic screen enables michael to call up a section from which he began his experiment three years ago. At that time he stored the two photographic images in central home computer which is secretary, librarialibrarian, b teacher, medical technician, bridge partner and all around servant in this house of tomorrow. All pertinent information about this family. Its records, its taste and record material are stored in memory banks available instantly to every member of the family. Karen, 43. Wife, mother, parttime homemaker. Hey, mom. Im hungry. Yeah, me too. How about lunch. How about two minutes. Okay. Two minutes and counting. 119. Mike. How about chick en salad . Eww. Cheese omelet. Cheese burger. French fries and a nice cold bottle of beer. Ill see. Be right there. You can watch this and other American History programs on our website where all our video is archived. The United States entered world war i a century ago. On april 16th, 1917 when congress voted to declare war on germany. The conflict was already in its third year. More than four million american men and women would serve in uniform. The influx of manpower changed the tide of the war bringing it to a close in 18 months. Next, we travel