Covering battlefields, to bringing the stories of american troops fighting in faraway places into our living rooms, into the front page of our newspapers. If nothing else, that era was such a turn in journalism that i probably dont have to explain to anybody in this room. And i thought that if were not all totally familiar with these womens backgrounds, we would just start by going down the line and have all of you briefly tell us how you came to be in vietnam. Its a far away place a long time ago. Lets just go down the line for a few minutes here. How did you get there . I got there it seems hard to believe, but someone in our day, like barbara, would be a pentagon correspondent. We reported on things like parties and gardening and cooking. We never really made the news because womens lives were so confined that we had our section, but the stories of women werent even news because their lives were tiny and circumscribed, so i got very bored at my job. I was reading papers all the time, so i decided i wanted to go to vietnam. I was the lowest person in that womens section covering the parties the Party Reporter didnt want to cover. I went in and said i want to go to vietnam and be a war reporter. They just about fell out of their chairs laughing. You can see it there, but this is you. Yes. If youre not getting it, were going to show you these women as they practiced their journalism in the middle of a war zone. So what year was this . This was 66. The editor of the morning paper approached me and asked me if i would like to be a reporter, but they didnt pay my way. I mhad to pay my own way to get there. He promised me 35 per story. At the time, i was making 80. If i wrote three stories, that would be a raise. After i got there, six months later i was hired as a fulltime reporter. Tell us a little bit about how you got there. Well, i was working at look magazine as a researcher just reading day in and day out coverage of vietnam and there was nothing else going on. It was the biggest story and it was my generation covering it. I knew i wanted to be a journalist. I asked look magazine to send me, and they said absolutely not. Inexperienced and female. Same thing. I quit look magazine, bought my oneway ticket to saigon, and showed up as a freelancer. I got my press pass and i was ready to go. Edith . I had a very different kind of experience because i was working for the Associated Press in san francisco, and i was covering the Antiwar Movement among many other things, which was, of course, a very hot topic. Every year, the ap would give you a form that asked basically what do you want to do when you grow up, and i would say that i wanted to be a Foreign Correspondent. But in the ap, that was really an impossibility because the ap had a Foreign Editor who refused to have a woman on the foreign desk, and that was the prerequisite for going overseas. So in 1971, i had been to europe. I had never been to asia. And with one my girlfriends, we got one of those incredible panam around the world tickets where in those days, eat your hearts out, you could stop every single place that panam stopped for the same price. Do you remember what you paid for the ticket . Do you remember what you paid . I think it was it was about it was under 1,000. It was like 195. I remember. I had one. I traveled the world in 99 days. It was quite incredible, and one of the places thats why panam is out of business. One of the places they stopped was saigon, so my girlfriend Nancy Goldner and i decided we were going to see this war witch i had been writing about, which she had been involved in also. She was a teacher. So we went to saigon for four days as war tourists, and the ap staff adopted us. What was fabulous was they took us to the 5 00 follies, which was the daily military briefing. We got to go on a helicopter ride over the mikong delta. And then we got on a plane and went to bangkok. You can imagine my surprise the following summer where, again, i had put on my, what do you want to do when you grow up form that i wanted to be a Foreign Correspondent to get a phone call from the president of the ap asking me if i wanted to go to vietnam for six months. And the first thing i said to him was, does that mean i have to go work on the foreign desk . He said, no, no, no, no. Youre just going to go to vietnam. Because we still had the same Foreign Editor and he still refused to have a woman on the foreign desk. Edith, tell me quickly what year did you join the Associated Press. 1966 in new york city. And still getting the scoops and still beating some people on this podium. Laura, tell us how you came to vietnam. I hitchhiked to vietnam. Vietnam was the last place i ever expected to go, unlike my wonderful colleagues. I had started college in 1968. I had been to every major protest movement, probably some that edith covered. I was deeply opposed to americas involvement in vietnam, and while i was taking my science requirement in california, i had gone to visit a friend in oregon and was hitchhiking back to the bay area with my teenage sister. We were told by the Highway Patrol we would be arrested if we didnt leave the interstate. I said to my sister, the next car has got to be it because we had no other way to get back there, and it was 100 degrees and she was in a bad mood. And i was thinking, what have i gotten us into. So i see a car coming down the highway. I see fishing poles. Its a green chevy. Its a hippy car. Theyll star. The driver of the car turned out to be a pediatrician, and that was who i went to vietnam with two months after graduating. My plan for my life was to go to law school and get black panthers out of jail. I was deeply committed to social justice issues, and the doctor and i were going he had finished his training and the plan was that he would take a job abroad, and we would do that for a few months. I was at home working as a cocktail waitress earning some extra money. I got a call from him saying ive been offered a job in vietnam. Do you want to go . I said yes without missing a beat. I had to work in vietnam and the only jobs that paid anything were working for the embassy, which was not on my list of things i could do, and then working for the media, so i made the rounds to all the news organizations. All i could answer was no. Do you have any experience in journalism . No. Do you think anything about the military . No. Do you speak vietnamese . No. How long have you been in country . Two months. Did you major in journalism . No, i majored in political science. So abc was looking for a radio stringer and it was 1972 and there were five people who applied. Denby was actually qualified for the job. She had a significant track record as a reporter, but she was married to an nbc correspondent and in that era that was not possible, so i was hired and i was hired by new york. And i was hired because it was 1972 and the New York Times was in the midst of a sex Discrimination Suit and the word was out that we need women in prominent places, so on my very first day at abc the bureau chief was sitting where eddie is. He looked at me and said, first words, i just want you to know of all the applicants, you were the least qualified. That was the beginning. And there we are. You know what strikes me by the way, very shortly, were going to get to questions. We have microphone stands on either side of the room, so get your questions lined up in a few minutes. What strikes me, you know, john very nicely talking about in my era we imbedded, and im sure many of you in the audience have seen when you turn your tv on in the years with iraq and afghanistan, you would see reporters standing there on a military base going out with military. It has come to be really the only way during the years of massive u. S. Military involvement that youre allowed to cover them because no longer do they allow what was so common and so interesting in your era, which is show up and get on a helicopter. Show up and go out in the field. Denby, i was reading that, in fact, in one instance in vietnam, you actually went not to just accompany them on patrol, but you walked point and you called in fires. Tell us tell us about i mean, today, no way. Id like to tell you about that, but i think the important thing to bring up, too, is we didnt just go there and then get out and cover combat. Once you got there, then the problem became vietnam was very free. Almost anybody could get accredited. There was no censership. To actually go out with a unit, you needed the unit commanders permission, and that was the roadblock for us. There were hardly any women there. Maybe five, maybe three. Then they would say, no. For me, they said to me, i was 24 then, i would never let you come out because you remind me of my daughter. You think, holy cow, they would never say that to a man. You remind me of my son. You might get killed. For me, that was the greatest difficulty in vietnam to convince people because there was so much prejudice in our era of women not being able to do anything, that they werent capable, and a woman could never report a war. For me, the miraculous thing that happened when i had almost given up is the u. S. Marines let me go out with them. I was surprised at the time, but someone reminded me later the marines love publicity. We all know the u. S. Marine and theyre the smallest branch of the service, so they need money, they need funding, they need to be important. The things that you describe calling in fire, that would be a violation of journalist ethics, but that was the first marines i went out with, the first people that allowed me to go out to a place when i arrived they were taking out bodies. I was like holy cow. I didnt think i would be in this hot of a place, but that evening, the marines we were being shelled. To combat the north vietnamese that were shelling our position, they were calling air strikes, so they asked me to call in the air strike. They wrote it out on paper. The pilots are navy pilots, so they cant see whats down below. I called in the air strike. This female voice saying in all technical language and its wrong for a reporter to do that. I wanted to pay them back for helping me get started. The navy pilot when he heard that said we were called girls. Hey, they have a girl down there. Howd you get a girl there . I suppose whsomewhat years later looking back it does Say Something about the lack of resources in that war that people were just beginning to understand. Very, very tough battlefield for so many Young American troops. Oh, yes. And i think all of you probably experienced that. Urate, i was reading edith and laura, the same thing. Its funny. Across the decades, across the years, what resonated with me when i looked at their histories and their stories, is youve all talked about remembering the faces, the kaleidoscope. I know, laura, you talked about vietnam, saigon being your hometown. Edith, you talked about the kaleidoscope. Urate, you talked about the faces. I just want to say that resonates with me so much about covering vietnam. Its interesting my era is a little different, but that resonates because in afghanistan, in iraq, i feel as though i know the faces of all the troops ive met. I dont know their names. I may not remember what units, but i see those faces and they all come back and the places come back. And im wondering if even all these years later, is it still something that resonates with you, seeing it in front of your eyes . Laura, do you feel that vietnam is still saigon is still so much of where your life was . When i said saigon is my hometown, i meant thats really where i feel like im from. Thats where i did work that i loved for the first time. Its where i met friends that i loved. Its where i felt for the first time that i mattered in life and where my life really began, so yes. I do feel that saigon is my hometown in some ways. New york city in others, but that was a very tender and precious part of my life. Do the images still come back to you . Oh, of course. People say vietnam is behind us. Well, why should it be behind us . Its in us. Its something we experienced. It was a Pivotal Moment of our lives. Its something i want to remember, to learn from, to grow from. I wrote a book called shrapnel in the heart. I think, for me, when the faces really clobbered me was when i went to see platoon and the opening montage in the film where kids just jumping out of choppers and i just sat there and wept. They were not only the boys i knew in vietnam. They were the ones i had written about in the book. I think that was one of the times i really cried for vietnam. I think what strikes me about the faces now when i see the kids that were sending to iraq and afghanistan is the faces stay the same. They still have that innocence. They still have that youth. They still have that fear. They still have when they come home that 1,000 yard stare, so i think thats what strikes me about the faces. They remain unchanged. They often talk about war sort of being the business of the young, isnt it . I think id like to say what was so unique about vietnam and different from current wars is this was a war of draftees. Now, they are military. Theyre professional. You know, they tow the line. Its a volunteer force. This was 18yearolds, 19yearolds. I was 24 and i was an old woman sometimes. Oh, i thought they were sending a girl. Not this and they were green. Some had never been out of their hometowns in small southern cities. They were afraid. They didnt understand the war. They were getting, you know, letters from back home writing about all the protests. So when you talk about faces, i mean, i saw fear, confusion, loneliness, and thats really, i think, what everybody knew someone who was in vietnam or had died in vietnam. These wars are very different, arent they . We are delighted theres so many young people with us this evening. If we still had a draft in this country, it would be a very different, a very different prospect, i suppose. Urate, can you tell us a little bit about being wounded . Well, you know, cason was a very big story, and i broke my rule since i was a freelancer, it was very hard to get things into newspapers. Never go where all the press goes. If everybody was up there, i was down in the delta, but this was such a big story. Marines were under siege since middle of january. I got the assignment from wr radio to interview new yorkers who were in caison. I hitched a ride on a helicopter. There was very limited press accessibility, and i saw, like we always did in vietnam, empty helicopter blades whirring. Being a girl, i had that advantage. I looked over and i said, where you going to caison by chance . Sure. Hope on. Public Information Officer was furious, because he had his roster of washington post, New York Times, upi, whatever. We made the fatal mistake of not throwing ourselves on the ground but running for the fox hole. When artillery shell hits the ground, it explodes this way. I got shrapnel in my legs, my face, and my back and whatever. And the pio officer later on said, well, she got what she was looking for. And that was not quite what i was liking for. Hardly. Well, thankfully, were past some of that attitude, but i just want to impress upon everyone here what you already know otherwise i dont think you would be here this evening. The women who are journalists today in war zones have so much to be thankful for for those who came before us. Were talking about being women, being women journalists, and being journalists. You were there when some of the pows came out. I think there are very few american journalists that can tell that story today. We all see the news clips, the old newsreel footage things, but you saw them. So i did. I was lucky enough to be in vietnam before, during, and after the pullout of the last american combat troops. I think a lot of people dont realize that the last american combat troops left at the end of march in 1973 and then the vietnam war went on for another two years fought by the South Vietnamese military with diminishing military and Financial Support from the United States until saigon fell on april 30th, 1975. But after the last american combat troops left, i was sent to cover the release of the First Americans who had been held in the south, in South Vietnam, by the viet kong. It was like this whole circle of helicopters that came in and landed at the airport. And these totally bedraggled american soldiers got off. Some limping. Many emaciated. Some seeming not to know where they were. But at the bottom of the helicopters, when they got off, there was a general standing there, and he saluted every one of them. And what was fascinating was i think at that moment, for some of them anyway, they realized they were free because they saw he was an American General, and almost every single one of them saluted back. It was an incredibly moving experience, and you always have to wonder when youre talking about faces and people that you remember how it impacted the lives of those young men. I guess, among many other things, ive always wondered were they able to rebuild their lives and to have good families and decent jobs and to really have a decent life. I want to interrupt then and tell an anecdote. Im going to take one second here. I was inside the pentagon working on the morning of 9 11, and as we came to understand the people who perished inside the pentagon, there was a man, older man, civilian, worked for the department of the army. His name was max bilky. You know who max was. Max bilky died in the pentagon on 9 11. Max as a young army draftee is listed in American History as the last combat american soldier out of vietnam, and he came home and he had a good life. Thats good. By all accounts. And he died that morning. So vietnam, its just its just fascinating because it is so woven in the fabric of this country and the journalists who covered it are so woven into the fabric of our profession. You know, let me be the one to ask the trite question. As you look back now laura, want to start with you and lets go down the line. Through the prism of history, where did it matter what you were a woman, a female journalist in terms of being denied the options that otherwise had . Lets talk about that. And as you look back seeing these americans come off helicopters, who on earth cares whether it is a man or woman covering that story as long as it is getting covered . It i