Photo credit: Janet Donovan
“We’ve produced a lot of programming for Vietnam,” said executive producer of Brothers in War Scott Reda, “and we always wanted to do something for National Geographic. So, the challenge was: What do you produce that isn’t a total history of the war?
National Geographic wanted something more concise. We had worked with a gentlemen before; his name is Andy Wiest, a professor at the University of Southern Mississippi, and he wrote a book The Boys of ’67 and it was about one of the last groups of guys that were drafted into the 9th Infantry.
Scott Reda
In 1966, the 9th Infantry was reactivated. The guys that we selected to be in our film were all in the 9th Infantry and they were all trained in Fort Riley, Kansas. They all went off to war together, they served together and they came home together. So for us, it was how do you find personal stories in Vietnam. For us, it was a true band of brothers. Again, we didn’t want to tell a story about the whole of Vietnam so this worked.
One on one with Scott Reda:
“When the 160 boys of Charlie Company were drafted by the US Army in May 1966, they came from all corners of America and all walks of life. There were farm boys from the Midwest, surfers from California, city-slickers from Cleveland, and share croppers from the South. When Charlie Company departed Vietnam in December 1967 after one year in the Mekong Delta, there were only 30 men who were not casualties—and their lives had been changed forever.” Book Notes
Andy Wiest
One on one with Andrew Wiest, author of “The Boys of ’67”
“Boys” of Charlie Company – John Sclimenti and Bill Reynolds
“Boys” of Vietnam: William Crowder and Raymond Schaible
BROTHERS IN WAR premieres Wednesday, March 26 at 8pm ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel (NGC).
Slider photo credit: Neshan H. Naltchayan
