Eight weeks, american artifacts takes viewers into Historic Sites around the country. The vietnam war started on january 30th, 1968 with we had kong and north Vietnamese Forces attacking without 100 cities, towns and outposts across a broad swath of south vietnam. We visited the news ian in washington d. C. To tour an exhibit on the ted offensive and the battle of weighed, where some of the most intense fighting took place. We speak with john austin about the photos and the experiences in the battle. In 1967, i arrived in vietnam as a u. S. Army draft men. Scientists are coming to vietnam i was a highly motivated photojournalist. In fact, a combat photographer. I ended up with one of the best jobs that one could have in vietnam. I was only the target for their assigned to the newspaper stars and stripes, and they gave me total freedom to do what i wanted to do. I spent a year there photographing combats throughout the country. And january of 1968, the tet offensive broke out. If you are a combat photographer, you cannot fake it and you need to be in the middle of things. The more dangerous, the better. Shortly after tet broke, i learned that the fighting was vicious i went to vietnam as a 19yearold drafty. What i went to a, i was 20 years old. During my time, i made a series of photographs of 18, 19, 23yearold marines and the midst of combat. They had never seen this before. They were jungle marines, but the photographs i made stood out and were published and stars and stripes and life magazine. And they published and life magazine to launch my career. It gave me access to people and places that most people would have never had four. My story in vietnam was a success story. I wanted a way as a drafty, and shortly after i was hired as the youngest photographer ever hired for life magazine. Like many vets, in spite of my success, i came back spent decades not talking about vietnam. As the 50th anniversary of tet approached, i began to wonder when the veterans that i had photographed. By chance, i learned of one veteran and reached out to him. One led to another, which led to another and i began to capture audio interviews with him in which i asked him to explain to me, tell me about it, and tell me about how it affected their life following. As we approached the 50th anniversary, i reached out to Senior Management at the newseum and i told them i thought there was an opportunity for a historic exhibition. Once they realized what we had seize the opportunity, they put together an exhibit and less than three months. Normally, it would be a year to 18 months for an exhibit, but they put this exhibit together in less than three months. And i was very fortunate that in this process. I had been a stars and stripes photographer, and when i conceived of, this i reached out to the newspaper. We met and had a wonderful discussion, and came away from the museum saying we had to partner on. This stars and stripes was very much at the beginning of the process, and in addition to stars and stripes, we had two great sponsors. The National Federation of the blind, and knock on. That is unusual partnership. A Blind Organization sponsoring a photo exhibit, and then a camera company. But through some technology that my company developed, blind people can now see photographs, which they can see here. But the premiere partner in this was the new zealand, because they sought as an opportunity to do something that seldom can be accomplished. You look back 50 years, identify the people in the photographs, talk to them today and asked them how did the effects of 50 years ago affect your life in the years and have preceded. This is my most iconic photograph. I have little memory of when i shot this or how i shot it. I remember mortars coming in, i remember having shot this with different lenses, with this is a single image from that that stands out. It shows a number of wounded marines. In 1988, People Magazine published this photograph and asked the ridership to help identify them. The reporter there told me that there were over 1000 responses from 1000 different people identifying the man. They were uncles and aunts and grandfathers and veterans, saying i know who that is. Since this exhibit opened, i have had at least four emails identifying people in this tank. So that process still goes on. I think in many ways it is a form of closure for families. I remember them lifting me off of the floor and putting me on a door that they used for a stretcher. I remember putting me on a tank and i could smell the diesel. It was the roughest right i ever had in my life. When we got back to the triage, somebody said this room is not dead yet. And i remember thinking, that poor person must be hit bad. I dont know they were talking about me. So, this is a photograph of dr. Amir katz, a u. S. Army captain. He was assigned to the marines and stationed somewhere around ten miles from there, so when the battle broke out, he was the first line of care. He tells the story of operating on many many marines. One of which is the marine by the name of a b grant them. Doctor katz says journal that he kept during his year and vietnamese here on display, and there is an entry that says he had a gunshot wound to the chest. Its just a short injury, so i said it was not significant. So his wound is not that significant. He was not wounded that badly . No, he came to his death. We just brought him back. That struck me as to the power and importance of the decisions hes people. Had theres a story of operating on a marine. His guts were exposed because they brought him in. They put him on the operating table and he went into cardiac arrest. He had a partner, a surgeon partner. And they opened his chest and they took turns. One would massage his heart, and the other will try to stop the bleeding. They massaged his heart for 44 minutes without success. And mayors said to his partner that they had to call it and his partner said to give it one more minute. His heart started and they brought him back to life. This is bob tom. This was taken on the moment of february 16th, 1968 at the base of the tower. It was a pile of rubble. It had been destroyed over the proceeding days by artillery attacks and attack by tanks and other weapons. It had been taken on february 15th by Staff Sergeant toms and six men. In the course of taking it, they took a lot of casualties. Once they had taken it and were on the top of the tower, they were ordered to hold it through the night. Now they, were nearly out of ammunition. One marine volunteered to bring ammunition, and he was killed within the first ten meters of trying to move up the tower. Staff sergeant toms radioed not to send any more make any more attempts. He did not want anymore marines to lose their lives. They told, me hold the towers at all crossed. It was a Suicide Mission to send anyone up that tower. There were seven us up up there. 4 00, 4 30 in the morning, i started to see movement. And these guys are getting ready for an attack. Theyre getting ready to assault the tower. And i thought, wow, we are in trouble. The north vietnamese is trying to recall his rifle at us. They lifted me up in the air, and a ball of flames. I am turning head over heels and a ball of flames and island ten, 15 feet down the hill i realize that my shirt is on fire. We literally were blown off of the tower. Im getting myself together, and captain herring tint told me, ill give you some more truth. I need to go up and take the tower again. And i said, are you sure . You want me to do that . I said, dont you have somebody else you can send up their. They said, no, you know how to get up there. I said. Okay. Let me just catch my breath. If theres anything close to hell, it had to be waiting. When you look at the photograph, you can see a number of interesting aspects. You can see his helmet is scorched. You can see he is appearing to be a short sleeved shirt. In the marine corps never issues short sleeve combat shirts. His shirt had been burned off of him. Once he was back at the base of the tower, he went over to a dead north vietnamese, turkish shirts off, cut the sleeves off and put them on. Many people have asked me throughout the year, you must be incredibly brave to do what you do. Bob thompson said to me you should be brave. Hes a tough guy, and i to explain to him that i am not brave at all. To be brave, you need to have fear and need to overcome the fear. I just never had fear. In the midst of that i was doing what i had to do, making photograph and and never had any fear. Once this he directed f two machine guns, a squad was ordered up the tower. There were 12 men in front of me, i made a photograph and this was a meaningful photograph to me. Its not a great photograph, but it has a lot of meaning. I was the 13th man. I was tempted to go earlier in the group. Something said i should hold back. But this is a moment at which five families lives were changed forever. The first five men off of the tower were either killed or seriously wounded. This is a photograph of one of the first man up the tower who was critically wounded in the assault. He was being aided by another marine to his right, named richard prince. And a navy core meant to his left who has yet to be identified. And we would love to see spans we were to help us identify these men we cannot identify. And far more and this exhibit, to identify people we have yet to identify. In this photograph on the leftd, they called him yes man. When he had been knocked off of the tower and was then reorder to take the towel, he asked the company commander, can i get some grenades and he said, yes, you can have whatever you want. He told that you need all of the so he would pull a pin, top the spoon and would throw it. The first grenade i threw was a fragmentation, and said it was fabulous. The next grenade was a smoke grenade, and the next was a tear gas grenade, and i threw it. I really wanted him to bring all fragmentation, and got and of all that he got his hand off. We just moved on up. The fight was two hours and those two hours, a lot were wounded. A number of dead. And a lot of noise. When the marines had taken the tower, and there was a muffled sound that they heard. At 4 am when they had been blown off, of the seven marines that were on the tower, one was buried alive. A marine by the name of thoms had been buried under the rubble for eight hours. And his muffled voice was heard by a marine, and they proceeded to save his life. One of the things about being a combat photographer, when things were very bad, you are very busy. Im there for the moment. It came to me naturally. If you ask me a few years ago, is there such a thing as missing time . I wouldve said i dont believe in it. When i committed to myself to produce this exhibit, and i needed to do the research to get the stats done. I came across an article written by the Associated Press and published february 21st, 1968. It was published in stars and stripes, the newspaper i worked for. I read it quickly. And the hair stood up on my neck. It chronicled the situations i had photographed during my time to 80. But what the reporter had written was far more horrific than anything i had ever seen. Then, i went back and i read a second time very slowly. And the reporter credited one eye witness to all of the horror. And that was me. And i had blocked it all. So much of what i did, i have the photographs to prove it, but my mind will not take me there too many of the situations that i wasnt. During the battle, there were many wounded, and some critically. The marine was shot to both legs. The person said, do you remember me . He said, yes, i remember. How are you . I said, not good. I said i just came from the va and have terminal cancer. Three months to live, go home. Bob tom said what can we do to help . We dont talk to each other, you let me through the battle and i want to go to heaven. Half for the course of many weeks, bob came together, a number of men from delta, they sent a bible, they arranged for hospice and there was no longer any communication. They reached out to hospice and said he had just passed. They donated, they arranged for a plot, they arranged for a ceremony and the hospice person reached out and said the funeral was very beautiful. I have a set the only person there. Its stars and stripes. And we are making very powerful images. Some of them are published and others are not. What do you think about offering them to other media . And taking the credit, photograph i stars and stripes. They thought it was a great idea. So when i would come out, i would photograph both black and white and in color. In this case, the battle of way, it was covered by me by black and light and color and the color in life magazine. I carried for cameras, primarily nightgowns that are shown here in the exhibit because shortly after the battle. On display are three different combat that i photograph. The event behind me is what i referred to as the courtyard. A series of photographs made in the courtyard and then in a house on the way. It opens with an image of a badly wounded marine adjacent to a marine killed by a rocket. His blood is spattered on the courtyard wall. His radio is seen adjacent to what is left in his body. When i read an Associated Press article describing this event, it talks about how we were under heavy rocket attack. The marine carving from the inside of the house, moving on three sides of the house. One of the wounded is brought into the house by extending the butt of an him 16, crawls through because he shot through the legs and is pulled inside. It shows another marine giving comfort to a badly wounded marine. The marine goes into shock and he transitioned to death. And that process, hes there were citing the lords prayer. One of the marines went inside, cut the radio off, the debt radio operator, brought it inside. We were low on ammunition. We had the enemy on at least three sides, so we needed help. The radio would receive but not transfer. They fire a round into the radio. The enemy cannot make use of it. He said he was going for help and went through the back, and returned with a fire team. It saved us. With the fire team was a priest, and the priest gave left rights to any of us, thats how bad he was. The priest within a matter of hours, a day was captured and executed with a single bullet to the head. Throughout my career, photography took me anywhere. It gave me access to people and places that i never would have had added not been for this series of photographs i made in 1968. For decades i went everywhere and i had access to a life that few people even had. Late in my career, i realized how critical images have been to that life of mine. I began to wonder what is it like for those who can see images, who cannot see art . And i set out to develop a means by which blind people could experience art and photography. My company developed a process that converts any two dimensional image to a three dimensional image that the Blind Community can experience. When you look at the steps, how one person goes, and what we learned, 75 of which we acquire through site, the Blind Community has a critical component to the learning that is missing. So there is a solution to that. It has developed this means by which to share information with them. Each tactile image has a control panel with one or more buttons. The lower left button describes the image and gives the viewers an overview of what to expect. Additional buttons provide personal stories to those shown in the photograph. Theres broil throughout and when if you are needs more information as they experienced the tactile, there are sensors throughout. It will give you the detail about what exists in that coordinate. When i roll my finger across this image, it gives me detailed information. The wounded marine, identified as private first class can be seen lying in aid or that is used as a stretcher to transport him to the tank. I find that in this exhibit is a significant opportunity to come to the museum and see a 19 and 20 years old and to hear how this just combat has affected the rest of their lives, to a man they are affected by. It would be easy to say theyre damaged, and undoubtedly some are. But in my case, vietnam has made me who i am. The worst day in business since vietnam. Its a walk in the park, its hard to have a bad day. Theres a marine and had a bad day since 68. This gives the public an opportunity to look at these men and to hear an interpretation on their part of how the battle changed their lives for perpetuity. On september 2nd, 1945. Government military officials from the empire of japan signed surrender documents and a sarah borger board the uss missouri in tokyo bay. Formally bringing the pacific war and the hostilities of world war ii to a close. Japanese empire hirohito had announced the Unconditional Surrender 1945. To mark the 75th anniversary, friends posted an online commemorative program, including mark milley and former nbc news anchor. Watch wednesday, beginning at eight eastern. Enjoy this weekend every weekend on cspan three. Now, the conversation about National Guard troops shooting and killing four students at Kent State University in ohio during an anti vietnam war protest. Howard ruffner was a student and photographer for the College Newspaper at the time, and he talks about the photographs from the day in may of 1970. Thank you for coming out tonight. We are hosting the photographer howard ruffner, who during his colleges at candidate university was a photographer for the yearbook as well as a newspaper. His book tonight, moments of truth, is a collection of more than 150 of his photos and in