Pod Insights Personally Resurrection, Episode 6: What Happened in Vietnam About this episode This is the story of what happened in Vietnam.
The creation of this podcast was made possible thanks to the financial support of the Conseildes arts de Montréal, le Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Transcript 6,990 words · 14 speakers
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0:31 Speaker 01 This is a CBC Podcast.
0:34 Speaker 02 Hey, everyone. Before we get into this episode, just a heads up that it's about war. It's intense. We talk about violence, about killing, about PTSD, about a lot. Be aware of that when you listen. Another note: The Vietnam War is extremely complex. There were millions of people of very different identities who are impacted in horrific ways. I'm going to be telling the stories of two veterans of the United States military. Their stories are by no means representative of the whole conflict. To learn about some of the other lives impacted by the war, I'd like to recommend two novels I read while researching for this episode: "The Sympathizer" by Vietnamese-American author Viet Thanh Nguyen, and "Rue" by Vietnamese-born Canadian author Kim Tui. Let's get started.
1:36 Speaker 02 How far are you willing to go to protect something you love? The Vietnam War was a series of escalating events caused by different groups trying to protect their own interests. The Vietnamese people just wanted to protect their independence. The Chinese and the Russians wanted to protect communism. The United States wanted to protect the world from communism. At least, at first. By the end, the United States really just wanted to protect its own ego.
2:04 Speaker 03 I had a great deal of respect for the military.
2:07 Speaker 02 Today, we're going to learn about the destruction of the Vietnam War.
2:20 Speaker 03 My name is David Balding. I am Janet Allen's brother. I am Darrell Allen's brother-in-law through their marriage.
2:32 Speaker 02 This is David. He fought in Vietnam. And because he and Janet grew up in a military family, when David was young, he idolized the forces.
2:40 Speaker 03 We were of the next generation just following World War II. So, you know, these guys had done an impressive job and they, you know, they came home and they built a nation.
2:52 Speaker 02 No matter how critical you might be of military operations, World War II is one of those moments in history when we're all pretty happy that the Allies had big armies ready to fight. World War II presented one of the most clear-cut good versus evil stories in history. It's easy to look back and know who were the heroes and who were the villains. Vietnam would prove to be different.
3:13 Speaker 03 Well, I was a smartass. I thought I knew everything. I didn't listen to my father. I couldn't be defeated. I figured that I could go into the Marine Corps. I could learn whatever specialty they gave me and that I could do anything they threw my way.
3:34 Speaker 02 At 18 years old, 18 years old, in 1969, David enlisted in the Marine Corps.
3:42 Speaker 03 I felt, I felt pretty, pretty prepared. I also, at the time, believed in the Vietnam War. I was raised to believe that the US government was truthful.
3:55 Speaker 02 But by the time David returned home from his 13-month tour in Vietnam, his mind had changed.
4:01 Speaker 03 Well, the night I landed, my parents met me, Janet and Darrell also. They, they met me and drove me home and told me that my best friend from high school had died in Vietnam. And I said, for the first time in front of my mother, I cursed. I said, "I hate that fucking place."
4:26 Speaker 03 And I fell apart, and I think I probably had a couple of drinks.
4:31 Speaker 02 He would have more drinks in the years to come. And the American public didn't want to hear about the experiences of Vietnam War veterans, so a lot of them bottled them up inside. It would take 45 years before David sought help.
4:44 Speaker 03 It was actually through my sister's actions and the sheriff department. They got me to the VA and into a rehab program, which then led to pretty extensive therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder and addressing physical conditions that were caused by my exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam.
5:10 Speaker 02 The trauma that many Vietnam veterans kept silent inside themselves. Daryl Allen had it too. We're going to hear a bit more about Daryl's experiences in Vietnam now.
5:21 Speaker 04 And he had changed.
5:22 Speaker 02 That's Janet, Daryl's ex-wife.
5:25 Speaker 04 When he came back from Vietnam, or Thailand, from that whole war experience, he was even more fragmented, if that's the right word. A little more volatile, a little more moody.
5:44 Speaker 02 Daryl's struggles are in his writing, too. He held a deep, deep darkness inside himself. Many characters from his plays have dark sides. They struggle with trauma. I found a passage from one of his plays that really reflects this. One of Daryl's characters, Gil, had climbed a snowy mountain in Washington. Near the top of the mountain, Gil stands at the edge of an icy cliff, looking down at a river far below. I'll let Gil take it from here.
6:14 Speaker 05 It was treacherous. The sun was bright, the top snow melting. One false move and I'd fly, fly to the river. I must have stood rooted for an hour gazing down. Just move your foot a little. Just move your foot.
6:33 Speaker 05 No one would ever know.
6:36 Speaker 05 It was treacherous.
6:39 Speaker 05 Would have seemed like an accident.
6:42 Speaker 02 Gil's monologue, it was based off Daryl's own experience. He later wrote in a letter to Janet.
6:49 Speaker 05 That day on Mount Anderson, that Gil describes as something hideous and a failure, was really one of the most important good things I've ever achieved for myself.
6:57 Speaker 02 What happened on that icy cliff? That was real.
7:01 Speaker 05 The fact that I did not kill myself and struggled off the mountain to your house was perhaps one of the most important events in my life.
7:11 Speaker 04 And when he did finally come to my house, it was like he had been through something, but he never, he never really talked about it. But he really could have just laid down and died.
7:26 Speaker 02 Vietnam was not the only darkness that Daryl struggled with, but it was a big part of it.
7:35 Speaker 02 What I want to know is what happened in Vietnam. It changed Daryl and it changed his brother-in-law, David. What happened that could drive a military brat into a decades-long struggle with PTSD? And what happened that could give Daryl the drive to write Mustang 01, a play about his time in Vietnam? A play that he spent more than a decade writing? A play that he wrote the final version of in 1991, the year he died? When he knew he was dying, he could have been working on any of his plays, but Mustang 01 is the play he chose. In his dying days, that play, he wanted to tell that part of his story. This episode, this is what happened in Vietnam.
8:29 Speaker 02 The history of the Vietnam War is complicated, so let's do a quick history lesson. We got some history lesson music.
8:39 Speaker 02 Vietnam, a vibrant country at the eastern tip of Southeast Asia. Long coasts, jade-green rice paddies, and thick, dense jungles. The French had a lot to gain when they chose to colonize Vietnam in the 19th century. The Vietnamese people were heavily oppressed by the French for decades. In the 1940s, a faction of the Vietnamese people, led by a revolutionary named Ho Chi Minh, began fighting for independence. But, Ho Chi Minh, he was a communist. In 1954, Ho Chi Minh succeeded in liberating Vietnam from its French oppressors, but the country was in political turmoil, so it was divided in half, with Ho Chi Minh and his
9:21 Speaker 02 communist forces left in control of North Vietnam, while a US-backed leader controlled South Vietnam. The country was supposed to have elections in 1955 to reunite the North and the South, but the elections never happened. As the years went by, communist forces from the North began ratcheting up military operations to take control of the South. And year by year, the United States slowly became more and more involved, out of fear that Vietnam falling to the communists would start a domino effect, causing all of Southeast Asia to become communist.
9:52 Speaker 06 To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe, struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves. For whatever period is required, not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because...
10:20 Speaker 02 For years, the US only had military advisors in Vietnam, guiding the Southern government and training the military. They were never supposed to be involved in active combat. But, the US had vastly underestimated the Vietnamese people, and had to increasingly add more and more military support to keep up.
10:38 Speaker 06 And so, my fellow Americans...
10:40 Speaker 02 Especially as Ho Chi Minh and the communists got their own support from China and the Soviet Union.
10:46 Speaker 06 Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
10:54 Speaker 02 In 1965, the US deployed Marines to South Vietnam to help fight back against attacks by the North Vietnamese Army and the Vietcong, who are communist sympathizers living in the South. These were the first US combat troops in the region. That same year, 1965, the US Air Force launched Operation Rolling Thunder, an air bombing campaign in North Vietnam, designed to destroy North Vietnamese infrastructure and boost morale in the South. In 1967, Darrell Allen would be deployed to assist with the US Air Force's bombing of North Vietnam. In 1970, his brother-in-law, David, would be deployed as a Marine to assist with operations in the South. Here's David.
11:39 Speaker 03 My father was deployed to Vietnam when I was 14.
11:47 Speaker 02 This was in the early days of the conflict.
11:49 Speaker 03 We took him to the train station, you know, the hugs, the kisses and so on. And when we got back, I came down with an extreme migraine headache. And those migraines would hit me about once a week for the entire two years that Daddy was gone. The last headache I had was the day before he came home, and I've not had one since. So, you know, what was that, stress, pressure?
12:21 Speaker 02 Shortly after David's dad deployed, the family met Darrell.
12:25 Speaker 03 Darrell stepped up to become a, kind of like a brother to me. I felt very comfortable with Darrell. I would spend like a night over at his place. He had a cabin on a lake outside of Tacoma, and I would spend the night over with him.
12:48 Speaker 02 Darrell was 12 years older than David, just old enough to be able to give good advice and just young enough to be able to really relate to David on his level.
12:55 Speaker 03 And during that time, we would talk a lot. And if I had, if I had questions that a young 14, 15-year-old...
13:12 Speaker 03 Would have and, you know, didn't feel comfortable talking to my mother about I knew that I could go to Daryl.
13:19 Speaker 02 Once David's father was back from Vietnam, it was Daryl's turn to do his part for the war. He was deployed to Thailand with the Air Force. And David saw these men, these role models in his life, doing their duty, and he wanted to do his part, too.
13:32 Speaker 03 I mean, I went into the Marine Corps two days after I graduated from high school, and I was, I was ready. I believed very strongly that every person should enlist and put their time in, and I was disappointed that, that my country had to, had to use a draft.
13:54 Speaker 02 And while David's dad and Daryl had both been out of frontline combat themselves, David wanted to be right in the action.
14:01 Speaker 07 Can I ask why you wanted to be in a combat rather than a support role?
14:05 Speaker 03 I felt that it would prove me as a, as a man to my father, to my family, to my country. Um, I didn't want to just be, uh, passing the beans and the bullets up to the front. I wanted to be up front.
14:22 Speaker 02 And so, in June of 1969, David Balding joined the Marines.
14:28 Speaker 03 So it starts with boot camp, which gives you basic expectations and, and training, the history of the Marine Corps, uh, basic rifle training, all of that stuff. Uh, from there, I went to, uh, advanced infantry training to, uh, operate, uh, machine guns. November of 1969, I was transferred into what's called the Fleet Marine Force. That's where my training is done. I had been trained as a machine gunner.
15:06 Speaker 02 This was David's specialized training.
15:08 Speaker 07 So you, you trained as a machine gun, gunist, gunner? What was the word? A machine gun user?
15:16 Speaker 03 Machine gunner, yes.
15:18 Speaker 07 Machine gunner.
15:19 Speaker 03 In a squad of...
15:23 Speaker 03 Like 15 people, there is one machine gun assigned. So think of it this way, you got some guys marching along in a line. In the middle, you've got a machine gun, so that if anything, if anybody attacks from any angle, the machine gun can deploy to protect the rest of them.
15:43 Speaker 02 So David got this specialized training in machine guns, and it all seemed pretty cool.
15:49 Speaker 03 Morale in, at that time, was still fairly high for everyone. There was the excitement, I mean, every day you get to, you get to shoot off these weapons and throw these hand grenades and do all of this stuff.
16:06 Speaker 02 And the Marines liked David. They selected him for another type of specialized training for another type of weapon they used in the Vietnam War.
16:13 Speaker 03 They sent me to Lackland Air Force Base to train me as a dog handler.
16:20 Speaker 02 Dogs, which were trained to detect threats in Vietnam. So after his basic training and his advanced training in machine guns and dog handling, David was ready to deploy.
16:31 Speaker 03 From there, I was sent to Vietnam.
16:33 Speaker 07 Before heading to Vietnam, who did you understand the enemy to be?
16:41 Speaker 03 Anybody that had a communist background was the enemy.
16:46 Speaker 02 Before David left for Vietnam, everything was clear. It was black and white.
16:51 Speaker 03 They needed to go away because they were going to take over the world. That was, that was the belief and kind of my attitude.
16:58 Speaker 02 And as they got ready to ship out, everyone was amped.
17:01 Speaker 03 The Marines were all young, for the most part, you know, young guys, first timers. They're headed into excitement, you know, this is a great adventure.
17:11 Speaker 02 David and his fellow Marines fly into Da Nang in South Vietnam.
17:15 Speaker 03 It was green, where they hadn't sprayed the herbicides. It was, it was green, it was lush, there were some rice patties. It was humid. The smell is hard to describe, but it's a combination of... Sweat and fish sauce and just all these different odors that we in the West are not used to, but I was used to it having been in Cambodia.
17:42 Speaker 02 David's family spent time in Cambodia when he and his sister Janet were teenagers.
17:46 Speaker 03 So when we get off the plane, all these guys are reacting to the smell and I'm going, "Ah, it's normal. I don't smell anything weird." But everybody else did.
17:57 Speaker 02 These kids had been training for nearly a year, and now they finally got to start their adventure.
18:02 Speaker 03 We arrive just after sunset into Da Nang.
18:08 Speaker 02 David and his buddies were amped up. They were in a new place, a new country, a new exotic landscape. But they were about to learn that Vietnam wasn't the adventure they expected.
18:18 Speaker 03 Probably the most shocking thing for me, it wasn't the odor, it wasn't the humidity.
18:28 Speaker 02 Everything they'd been told about Vietnam, it was all a lie, and the shock hit immediately.
18:33 Speaker 03 Within half an hour of going from the plane into some temporary barracks where they were going to keep us overnight until we deployed out to our units, we started getting rocket attacks. It pissed a living B Jesus out of me.
18:52 Speaker 07 So in that event, like what happens when you start taking fire?
18:59 Speaker 03 Sirens go off, flares start being dropped from aircraft and shot up from artillery. You get into bunkers, you drop, you hug the ground, you just get down. And for the 19 and 20-year-olds that had just come into country, we just kind of looked at each other like, "Oh, God, what did we do?"
19:22 Speaker 02 What did we do? A question that would haunt so many from Vietnam. We're going to hear David's answer when we come back, right after this break.
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20:09 Speaker 08 Season one of Sold a Story hit a nerve. It was about teaching kids to read. We have gotten this wrong in New York and all across the nation. Now we're back with a new season. This time, we go beyond reading.
20:22 Speaker 00 I've literally been told by my district that I should not be teaching math. I should be facilitating math.
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20:35 Speaker 03 For the 19- and 20-year-olds that had just come in the country, we just kind of looked at each other like, oh, God, what'd we do?
20:43 Speaker 02 What did we do? It's the same question the United States would ask for years to come. Vietnam was not the adventure David thought it would be. He very quickly learned that all the specialized training he had, which seemed pretty cool at the time, it was a lot different on the ground.
21:01 Speaker 03 I did three different things. When I worked as a sentry dog handler, I walked around American bases and guarded perimeters, get barbed wire and all this stuff. And the dogs are trying to sense people outside the wire, you know, bad guys.
21:19 Speaker 02 David's second job took him away from the base.
21:22 Speaker 03 I also did patrols with American and South Vietnamese combined infantry units.
21:30 Speaker 02 The Americans and the South Vietnamese Army worked closely together. These patrols would take David out into the countryside, working with his dog.
21:37 Speaker 03 Our dog teams were used as threat detection. We were looking for mines, booby traps, tripwires, people, anything out of the ordinary.
21:48 Speaker 02 And David had one other job.
21:51 Speaker 03 And then the third job that I did, we were actually with the civilians in their villages.
21:58 Speaker 03 We would go into villages with Navy corpsmen and Navy engineers. The idea being the corpsmen would administer shots, teach kids how to brush their teeth, teach Mama Sun how to use soap, all of that stuff. The engineers would help, you know, maybe help them, advise them on building better rice paddy dikes or buildings or whatever. And then there would be a security unit protecting them.
22:29 Speaker 02 This was a major part of the strategy in Vietnam. Eighty percent of the population of South Vietnam lived in villages. Only 20% was in the cities. The war would be won or lost depending on who these villagers supported. How, how did the civilians feel about you guys?
22:48 Speaker 03 If we were within, oh, I don't know, five, six miles of Da Nang, they were open to our help.
22:57 Speaker 02 Da Nang was one of the major cities in the south, an area that was pretty supportive of the Americans.
23:02 Speaker 03 But the further we got out, the less cooperative they were.
23:08 Speaker 02 Further away from the cities, there was less support of the American troops. Many of the villagers were Viet Cong.
23:14 Speaker 03 The Viet Cong were North Vietnamese sympathizers. They, they were like militia.
23:24 Speaker 02 And adding to the confusion, Vietnamese troops from the north, called the NVA, were also infiltrating the south.
23:32 Speaker 03 By the time I got there, the NVA had come back down the Ho Chi Minh Trail and was all over Vietnam. Oftentimes not in uniform, but they were still regular army.
23:45 Speaker 02 NVA stands for the North Vietnamese Army. When NVA soldiers were in plain clothes, it was nearly impossible to tell the difference between them and the villagers who weren't a threat.
23:54 Speaker 03 So you had this mix, and you couldn't really tell.
24:00 Speaker 03 Um, who was a good guy and who was a bad guy?
24:03 Speaker 02 I'm not sure there was a clear-cut good guy and bad guy in Vietnam. I can understand it from David's perspective, but with the lens of history, I find it hard to call a northern fighter "bad" for fighting in what his government, what his leaders, told him to believe in. After all, David was doing exactly the same thing. Does one become good and one bad just by virtue of where they were born?
24:27 Speaker 07 And it also sounded like your, the role that you had as a dog handler would have also put you in a position where you were, it seems like you would have been the first contact in a lot of these situations. Is that, am I understanding that correctly?
24:43 Speaker 03 Yes, you are. Because when I was on patrol, I would walk point. And behind me would be what I called my shotgun, who would be a, an individual that would protect me so I could concentrate on reading the dog.
25:01 Speaker 02 David's role was threat detection. If the enemy was around, there was a good chance David would be the first encounter. That terrifies me. Searching for someone who wants to kill you. And so, David got the combat experience that he wanted, and it changed him.
25:18 Speaker 07 You had mentioned before that one of the things that started shifting your perspective on the war was your first combat experience?
25:30 Speaker 03 It, it was my first kill.
25:35 Speaker 03 And, um,
25:39 Speaker 03 just seeing him lay there and realizing what I had done. Um, all of a sudden, you begin to question the value of what you had just done.
25:56 Speaker 03 And all of a sudden, the world politics became less important.
26:06 Speaker 03 And it really came to a head when I began to realize, within a couple of months, that all the farmer wanted to do was grow his rice and feed his family. He didn't give a damn who was in charge.
26:27 Speaker 03 And when you look at that, and you look at a bombed-out village,
26:38 Speaker 03 you look at
26:41 Speaker 03 a person laying there,
26:44 Speaker 03 messed up, who just the day before you were drinking a beer with,
26:50 Speaker 03 things change.
26:53 Speaker 03 It doesn't make any sense anymore.
27:00 Speaker 07 Did you, I don't know, what kind of relationship do you have with a, with a dog when you're a dog handler?
27:05 Speaker 03 Um, I had a total of five dogs when I was in country. Three of them were wounded or killed. And one of them went, uh, went gun-shy and had to be, uh, destroyed. So I left, when I left country, I, I, I left with my, uh, uh, I left my last dog behind, but I, I had to have four or five replacements due to either action or the dog becoming ineffective.
27:36 Speaker 07 Was that something that was difficult for you?
27:42 Speaker 03 Yeah, oh yeah.
27:44 Speaker 03 Um, I had to destroy two dogs myself because they were so badly wounded.
27:51 Speaker 07 And I'm guessing destroying means that you had to kill them yourself, is that right?
27:57 Speaker 03 Yeah, I had, I had to.
28:00 Speaker 03 So when a dog would get injured, we would get in touch with our rear veterinary unit, and they would give us direction on either first aid or whatever, and, and on two occasions, I called them and they said to put the dog down, which meant I had to shoot them. And, and these are the things that, that people probably don't understand.
28:25 Speaker 03 And Daryl, Daryl went through the same thing. We will never understand what he went through and you'll never understand what I went through and so on, but it's, it's, it's very frustrating at times to talk about and to feel an appreciation for what others go through. I gotta say this, this is kind of a non sequitur, but I almost envy Daryl because his pain is over.
28:58 Speaker 03 I'm sorry, I got off on a tangent.
29:02 Speaker 02 But Daryl's pain ran deep, too. The first time I read Daryl's play about his experience in the war, Mustang Zero One, I asked Dan Wiley about why Daryl wrote it. Dan is Daryl's ex-boyfriend. He's the man who gave me Daryl's script in the first place.
29:19 Speaker 01 That was his way of combating PTSD. He would wake up screaming at night sometimes. To really know what goes on inside somebody's head while they're in it, I mean, it's, it's difficult to comprehend. And for me, that was one way of him putting down on paper his emotions of what he felt about the whole experience.
29:59 Speaker 01 Because it was definitely something that's, that's, that marked him for life.
30:06 Speaker 02 In the first episode of this podcast, I told you that I couldn't share Mustang Zero One with you at that point. That's because Mustang Zero One, it is what drew me to this project, but it is not Daryl's best play. In fact, of all Daryl's scripts that I've read, Mustang Zero One is probably the hardest script to follow. The opening scene takes place in the operations room at the radar site of the Air Force base where Daryl worked during the war in Udon, Thailand. And from the very beginning, the action is almost impossible to follow. Every time I read the opening scene, every time I come back to Mustang Zero One, I just can't follow what's happening and why Daryl would write something so hard to understand. So I asked Janet.
30:51 Speaker 04 He would, you know, he would talk about it in terms of it was just something that he had to, he had to do. He had to write this play. He never said, "This is a processing of my time there." But all I had to do was read a first draft of it. And even then, you know, you've been in therapy, I've been in therapy. A lot of times, it's initially, it's that kind of just getting everything out on the table sort of thing.
31:18 Speaker 02 And this opening scene, it feels like Daryl getting everything out on the table.
31:23 Speaker 04 I think it has to do with the experience of that control room. The experience of that job in that place was out of control. If you've had an experience that was imbalancing and you want an audience to be able to experience that imbalance, then you're going to write it in the way you experienced it.
31:49 Speaker 02 It feels like Daryl was processing his trauma through Mustang 01. That's what the opening scene feels like to me.
31:56 Speaker 04 As we've discussed, the feelings were too raw to make it an effective piece of theater right out of the box.
32:03 Speaker 02 I agree with Janet. It's not Daryl's best play, but I do think it might be the best play to examine in order to learn about Daryl, especially to learn how the war impacted him.
32:15 Speaker 04 He wrote it in the way that he lived in that, you know, and particularly that, like that opening scene where everything is just going, going off in all directions. He lived that every day.
32:28 Speaker 02 But Janet thinks the opening scene could be salvaged.
32:32 Speaker 04 Smooth out some of the technical language, smooth out some of the informational pieces so that people are not so lost that they walk out the door.
32:43 Speaker 02 And that, my dear podcast audience, is exactly what we're going to try to do. We're going to dive into Mustang Zero One, but I'm not going to throw you off the deep end. I'm going to guide you through it, give you the context and the information you need to learn from it. It's been a long time coming, but this is our first foray into Mustang Zero One: Excerpts from Daryl Allen's Play, adapted for radio by me, with editorial support from Janet Allen and Dan Wiley. Mustang Zero One is set in the operations room at a radar site. I asked David, Daryl's brother-in-law, the former Marine, to explain what that means. Operations room sounds a little scary, but David used a term you might be more familiar with.
33:22 Speaker 09 I'll call it an air traffic control center.
33:25 Speaker 02 Just like you'd envision at a regular airport.
33:27 Speaker 09 They have rows of consoles that contain the various radar equipment.
33:34 Speaker 02 The guys would sit and watch the radar scopes, track the planes, make sure everything was flowing correctly.
33:39 Speaker 09 The main purpose of these sites was to make sense out of complete chaos. When you have 150 aircraft in the very same airspace, think of the most crowded freeway you've ever seen, and then have those cars moving at 400 miles an hour. And you've got to get them all into the same area, taking the same exits, and you've got to do it in a controlled fashion, because if you don't, they're all going to run into each other.
34:21 Speaker 02 And this is what we're looking at in the first scene of Mustang Zero One. Mustang Zero One. The operations room of the radar site at Udon Air Force Base, Thailand, takes up the center portion of the stage. The operations board looms up menacingly center front, so most of the audience has to look through the board into the darkroom. The main board shows the outlined maps of northern Thailand, Laos, and part of North Vietnam. The men seated at the scopes reflect a hint of green from their faces. The darkroom overpowers the set and has an ominous feel about it. It's like a gigantic, dark womb.
35:00 Speaker 02 While the audience is being seated, two board techs are running the first part of a mission.
35:05 Speaker 02 The two techs are part of the Brigham Bravo Crew. And it's Bravo Crew's shift, their turn to work the operations room. They depict on the mapboard the fighters and other flights taking off as they continue north and go into orbit over Laos. About 10 minutes before the performance starts, the fighters are shown entering north Vietnam, with the listings stopping at the edge of the mapboard. Act One, Scene One.
35:27 Speaker 10 God, Sarge. I hate it when they're in there.
35:30 Speaker 02 This is Captain Robert McCarthy, the senior director of the Brigham Bravo Crew. It's the shit, sir. And that's Master Sergeant Clark, aka Sarge. He's the crew chief. There are supposed to be 18 more crew members onstage in this scene: board technicians, radar scope controllers, weapons directors, and more. But I've decided to simplify it a little. So today, you'll be hearing from... Captain Bob Fields, back row coordinator, Brigham Bravo Crew.
35:53 Speaker 11 Captain Art Walker, weapons director, Brigham Bravo Crew.
35:56 Speaker 12 And Captain Russ Burns, weapons controller, Brigham Bravo Crew.
35:59 Speaker 02 And these members of the Brigham Bravo Crew will be watching the radar scopes and communicating with the aircraft to help bring them in safely. You're gonna hear the crew members talking to the aircraft over the radio, like this. Understand, Crown has boxcar? And then relaying the information to Robert, the senior director, like this. Sir, Crown has boxcars.
36:17 Speaker 10 We're in for it. Keep the fuel states current.
36:19 Speaker 02 Roger.
36:20 Speaker 10 Fuck. Boxcars!
36:22 Speaker 02 Christ!
36:23 Speaker 10 Listen up. Boxcars, the SAMs are flying. We're in for it. Keep those states up. Get them now.
36:30 Speaker 02 SAMs are surface-to-air missiles the North Vietnamese Army used to shoot down American aircraft. These are guided missiles that could lock onto a moving aircraft and blast it straight out of the sky.
36:41 Speaker 11 Roger, Crown. Crown is moving further north.
36:44 Speaker 10 First word on extra tankers get it to me, no matter what.
36:47 Speaker 02 Yes, sir. Tankers are a type of aircraft that could refuel other aircraft mid-air.
36:53 Speaker 10 Sarge, there won't be any hell left after a whole year of waiting while they're up north.
36:58 Speaker 02 Each time gets worse.
37:00 Speaker 10 Brigham Senior Director? Yes, sir. Yellow 2-1, port to zero nine or zero.
37:06 Speaker 02 Here's where we get into the military jargon. Yellow 2-1 is referring to an aircraft. All the aircraft were assigned names like this. A word, like a type of car or a color, plus two numbers. So, names like Yellow 2-1, Wolf 02, and Mustang 01. Okay, back to the action.
37:25 Speaker 10 Yellow 2-1, port to zero nine or zero.
37:28 Speaker 11 Is everybody happy?
37:32 Speaker 10 Yellow 2-1, port to zero nine or zero.
37:36 Speaker 02 Zero nine or zero is military speak for ninety. It's direction, like on a compass.
37:41 Speaker 10 Yellow 2-1, sell port to zero nine or zero. Roger, Colonel. I have trouble. Have to go. What's the matter, Russ? Goddammit, Robert, they won't turn. I keep telling them they won't follow. Calm down and order them to turn once more. Give me your headset. Yellow 2-1, turn port to zero nine or zero now. Goddamn son of a bitches. Key for me. Yellow 2-1, this is Brigham 2-6 Senior Director. I order you port to zero nine or zero now.
38:10 Speaker 10 Roger, understand. Turning port to zero nine or zero. Yellow 2-1, you will immediately follow all orders given by my Director at all times, or I'll get you on the ground.
38:20 Speaker 05 God, Robert, thanks.
38:22 Speaker 10 Let me know if there's any more trouble.
38:23 Speaker 05 You bet.
38:24 Speaker 10 Mayday, someone's hit bad. Who? Don't know, can't read. Here it comes. Let all your tankers know.
38:31 Speaker 02 Here it comes. This is when the action really gets going. And the scene becomes absolute chaos.
38:41 Speaker 02 As the fighter planes return from North Vietnam, the crew at Udon works to make sure they can all make it back safe. And it reveals one of the hardest parts of Daryl's job in Thailand: Figuring out what to do with damaged aircraft who are trying to fly back to safety. Through the chaos of the next scene, four aircraft radio in with reports of damage. The first fighter is Pontiac 03.
39:01 Speaker 01 Understand, Pontiac 03 coming into Udon.
39:04 Speaker 10 Pontiac 03, Mayday, coming into here. Contact blue chip and approach. Did you hear Art? Pontiac 03?
39:11 Speaker 11 Yes, sir.
39:12 Speaker 10 Stand by, baby. You'll probably wind up with him.
39:15 Speaker 02 Next, a radio call from Mustang 01.
39:17 Speaker 11 Mustang 01, understand, Mayday, coming into Udon. Mustang 01, hit by anti-aircraft fire.
39:23 Speaker 10 How bad?
39:24 Speaker 11 Routine, coming into here.
39:26 Speaker 02 Third up, another Mayday, from a badly damaged aircraft.
39:29 Speaker 10 It's Wolf 03, he's in bad shape, wounded, screaming most of the time, coming into here. Wolf 03, you're mine, baby. You stay with me.
39:38 Speaker 02 Finally, Ford 02, another badly damaged fighter, and the pilot is in rough shape.
39:43 Speaker 11 Ford 02, calm down, calm down. We have Ford 02, sounds bad. He's the backseat pilot. The frontseat pilot's probably dead.
39:56 Speaker 02 This is the hard part of Daryl's job in Thailand, deciding who gets to land first. If you land one of the damaged aircraft first, but the craft ends up crashing or exploding and blocking the runway, you can't land your other fighters. You're putting everyone at risk. But if you hold off on landing the damaged aircraft, you might be condemning that pilot to death. In that moment, it was the senior director's job, Daryl's job, to decide who lived and who died.
40:20 Speaker 10 Mustang 01 in first, then Pontiac, then Wolf. Ford will be last.
40:27 Speaker 11 Ford's really scared.
40:28 Speaker 10 Last. Turn him and snake him in last.
40:31 Speaker 11 Roger.
40:33 Speaker 11 Ford 02, starboard to 240 degrees, then back port to 190. You'll hold Udon 12 o'clock at 80 miles. We have three other emergencies in ahead of you.
40:44 Speaker 10 That's Mustang 01. That's Pontiac 03, you're in after them. That's Ford 02-
40:49 Speaker 11 Robert, Ford's gone bonkers, he won't turn.
40:52 Speaker 10 Russ, snake Wolf 03 back. You'll bring him in last instead. Goddammit, Wolf will fall out of the fucking sky! Turn him! Jesus Christ, are you trying to kill him? Ford 02 is a new backseat. Frontseat's dead, you understand? Ford is cracking worse. He can't be! Turn Wolf, now!
41:08 Speaker 12 Yes, sir.
41:10 Speaker 10 Wolf 03, make a port turn to 100, then back to 190 heading. We'll have Udon 190 at 80 miles.
41:19 Speaker 10 I know Wolf, 402 is worse than you. Turn port now. I know, Wolf, but make a port turn now.
41:27 Speaker 12 Get those son of a bitches in here!
41:28 Speaker 11 I'm trying, goddammit, I'm trying.
41:31 Speaker 02 But, hard as they try, decisions have consequences.
41:36 Speaker 10 Wolf 03, this is Brigham.
41:39 Speaker 10 Wolf 03, this is Brigham. Do you read?
41:43 Speaker 10 Wolf 03, this is Brigham, come in!
41:46 Speaker 12 Captain, lost contact with Wolf 03.
41:48 Speaker 10 Where?
41:49 Speaker 12 025 degrees and 75 miles from here. Wolf 03, this is Brigham, come in!
41:55 Speaker 10 Sergeant Clark to blue chip and invert, Wolf 03, lost contact, probably down. 025 degrees from you, Dorn, 75 miles. Bob, Crown. Yes, sir, I've told him already. Heads up, everyone, there's bound to be a rest cap. Christ, he's running the middle of Laos. Are you okay, Russ?
42:13 Speaker 12 He was hurt and screaming. He would've made it in. You made me turn him.
42:17 Speaker 10 I know, Russ.
42:18 Speaker 12 If he's dead, you've killed him as much as the guys who shot him. You couldn't let him head straight in? I could've brought him in, goddammit!
42:26 Speaker 10 Russ, sit down. Take your tankers and flights back from Mart.
42:29 Speaker 12 Go to hell.
42:30 Speaker 10 We have a rest cap to run. You want to leave him on the fucking ground with the path at Laos all around him?
42:35 Speaker 12 Fuck you!
42:36 Speaker 10 Russ, sit down and take your flights back.
42:40 Speaker 10 Sit down!
42:43 Speaker 10 Captain, that's an order.
42:46 Speaker 10 Send Russ back his flights, 316.5.
42:48 Speaker 11 Sure, Robert.
42:49 Speaker 10 Are we making it?
42:50 Speaker 11 We're getting there.
42:53 Speaker 10 What a fucking shitty day.
42:56 Speaker 13 Just another quiet day at Brigham, sir.
43:04 Speaker 02 We're gonna stop there for now. We can't ever truly understand what Daryl went through in Vietnam, but I see Daryl in this scene. I see a man who did everything he could to help the people around him stay safe, to guide them home. He wanted to protect them. I've often wondered where Daryl's protective instincts came from, the protection he had in every major relationship in his life. I gave Janet a call to ask her about this.
43:30 Speaker 07 It's making me think like, you know, about sort of the Daryl that I first encountered in the letters with Dan and then kind of in talking with you, this man who's like very protective and like he sort of brought people into his orbit and under, under his wing. And it kind of makes sense, like the word that comes to mind is compensation, but I don't like he was kind of compensating for the things that he'd been through and trying to protect people.
44:02 Speaker 04 Yeah. Yeah. If you notice, the important, the important mates in his life were all significantly younger than he. He wanted to empower us to go as far as we wanted to go.
44:18 Speaker 02 In the operations room, oftentimes, Daryl couldn't always be in control. He couldn't always protect the Russes from the pain of having a pilot go down in the Laotian jungle. But back in the United States after the war, Daryl could protect people. He could protect Janet and Dan and Jonathan. For Daryl, love was about protection. And I wonder how much of that was born of his experience in Thailand. I think the operations room was a part of that, but there's another side to Daryl's trauma from the Vietnam War. In the first scene of the play, you heard about the four damaged aircraft that Robert tried to land safely and how Wolf Zero Three didn't make it back. But this play isn't about Wolf Zero Three.
45:01 Speaker 02 It's about one of the damaged aircraft that did manage to land safely. Mustang Zero One. In the next episode, we meet the pilot of that aircraft.
45:13 Speaker 13 Dance with me. Paul, don't get that look.
45:18 Speaker 13 Chris has duty tonight until two. Come on. My God, Paul. Shh, come on.
45:29 Speaker 05 I've never danced with a man before.
45:32 Speaker 07 Neither have I.
45:34 Speaker 02 Next time on Resurrection. Mustang Zero One: The Love Story.
45:53 Speaker 02 Matthew Rogers is our sound editor and wrote all the original music you heard, except for the acoustic guitar and drumline, which was written by Ethan Soil. The sound design and mixing for the radio play of Mustang Zero One was by Corey Marie Green of Transducer Audio. Corey is incredible, and you should check them out at transducer-audio.com. The cast of Mustang Zero One is Davide Kietzeze as Robert McCarthy, Adam Capriolo as Paul, Rebecca Gibbian as Julie, Matt Lecat as Sergeant Clarke, David Udon as Russ Burns, Vlad Alexis as Bob Fields, and Rene Hodgens as Art Walker. Davide Kietzeze is also the voice of Daryl's letters and scripts.
46:36 Speaker 02 Hannah Sung is our executive producer. Our outro track is called "Easy to Love," written for us by Clara Jones. Matthew Carrietzamary is the platonic love of my life and my co-producer. Resurrection is researched, written, and hosted by me, Dane Stewart. The creation of this podcast was made possible thanks to the financial support of the Conseil des Arts de Montréal, the Conseil des Arts d'Électe Québec, and the Canada Council for the Arts. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
Previous Resurrection, Episode 5: Janet Next Resurrection, Episode 7: Mustang Zero-One Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated