Blood Road Page #3

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"in the back seat of the F-4E

Phantom fighter jet.

"What we're really called is

a GIB, for 'guy in the back.'

"Aside from being responsible

for navigation,

"we do just about everything

the pilot does.

"We can carry just about

any type of weapon made,

"but a normal load would be

"about three tons

of bombs or napalm.

"We generally

release that at speeds

"ranging from

about 400 to 600 knots.

"The ground really comes up

at you pretty fast.

"I usually fly

about twice a day,

"which is quite exhausting.

"There is no such thing

as a day off.

"We work seven days

a week all year.

"It does make the time

go faster, however.

Be good. Steve."

Stephen was a heck of a guy.

I can't call him Stephen.

He was Steve.

Steve was a heck of a guy.

He went to Vietnam.

He didn't want to go to Vietnam.

Nobody wants to go to war,

but it was his duty,

and he was gonna do it

to the best of his ability.

In Rebecca,

I see a lot of her dad.

I see a lot of Steve

in a lot of different ways.

She loves animals,

she loves pets,

and her dad did too,

just adored them.

She definitely has a wanderlust

the way her dad did.

She definitely wants to do

things outside, not inside.

I see those things,

and I see the seriousness.

Steve was a serious guy,

he wasn't a goof-off.

And Rebecca's got

a very serious mode,

and her dad was

very much the same way.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

RUSCH:
One big climb

and then here a river.

Here maybe we buy

some food and water.

We need to really

get this secured down better.

In fact,

I think I'm gonna pop this dude.

RUSCH:
Meeting up

with the support team

is taking more time

than I thought.

We have a hard cutoff

to get to the end of

the riding and get on a boat.

Given the schedule

and the goal

that I've set for us,

we're gonna have to figure out

a better rhythm

in order to make it

to the crash site

on the anniversary.

If we don't make this cutoff,

that's gonna put us behind

the next day

and the next day

and the next day.

Time's ticking!

(MUSIC PLAYING)

It finally feels like this

is truly the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

There's a simplicity to it.

The terrain is different.

This is where I wanted to be.

(THE BLACK ANGELS'

"TRUE BELIEVERS" PLAYING)

RUSCH:
Whoo-hoo!

RUSCH:
Nope. Yeah. This way.

I just have to move the map.

In the month of August

Mary loves Sally the most

RUSCH:
Oh, my God, it's a lake.

Maybe Buddha is the true

Son of God's kiss

Maybe you'll never know

Whoo-hoo they sang

As they crossed the river

Whoo-hoo

(WHOOPS)

As they prayed to Jesus

Whoo-hoo

The walls fell on Jericho

Well, who knows

Yeah, who knows

which birds will be left

(RUSCH AND NGUYEN

WHOOPING AND HOLLERING)

Yeah, who knows which birds

Will be left

(CRASH INTO BRUSH,

RUSCH GRUNTS)

RUSCH:
Sh*t.

I just got a vine on my neck.

It stopped my bike.

Holy sh*t.

The authentic jungle

took a bite out of me.

I was... Heh. Rode through,

basically a lasso. Err!

I tried to strangle myself

on the trail.

But yeah, it really did a number

on my neck and my face, so...

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(CHICKS CHIRPING)

DUVALL:
The girls used a boat

to go across

the Nam Theun II Reservoir,

which is an area of the flooded

Ho Chi Minh Trail.

RUSCH:
That way?

Here is an aluminum boat.

This aluminum came

from the war days.

This was fuel tanks

that were dropped

by the jet fighters

over the Ho Chi Minh Trail

while they were dropping

their ordnance.

All this war metal was used,

even the bombs.

Anything was used

by the villagers

for whatever

they could fabricate.

RUSCH:
Historically, the

trail went through there,

so the choice was either

to ride all the way around,

or enlist help to actually

take a boat ride with our bikes

across the reservoir

to the other side.

It was the first part

of the trail

where there was

a physical representation

right in front of me

of pieces of the war.

And that specific boat

was actually an F-4,

which is the plane

that my father flew.

People in the war

were very wonderful people.

Always when a solider

catches a soldier from U.S.A.,

only they question.

RUSCH:
Yeah.

NGUYEN:
They question them.

Vietnamese people are very kind.

RUSCH:
It's been really interesting

to talk about the war.

We call it the Vietnam War.

They call it the American war.

And she has what

I'm sure her history books say

versus what

American history books say,

and I'm sure it's skewed,

and who knows what the truth is?

Somewhere in the middle,

probably.

One of my biggest fears

in not knowing

what happened to my father

was that

he was a prisoner of war.

I had nightmares about it.

There are accounts on both sides

of terrible treatment of

American and Vietnamese POWs,

and I can't

even imagine how hard

it must have been

for those soldiers.

But across it all,

she and I both feel

the same way,

in that, at this point,

there is no animosity

against the cultures.

People are welcoming.

They're amazing here.

And she feels

the same about Americans.

There's none of that.

NGUYEN:
(IN VIETNAMESE)

I think to all Americans,

whether they joined

the war or not,

the war has gone

and so has the past.

If possible,

I will do what I can

to ease the pain of war.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

NARRATOR:
As the war escalated,

North Vietnam continued

to improve

the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Soon it was able to accommodate

large convoys of cargo trucks

loaded down

with provisions and weapons,

much of it provided by

the Russian and Chinese

governments.

Well aware

of the North's secret route,

U.S. forces attempted

to halt the flow of supplies

by creating strategic

choke points.

But the North simply detoured

the trail

around U.S. positions,

moving it across the border

into Laos and Cambodia.

The U.S. knew the trail

was being rerouted

into neighboring countries,

but were hesitant

to send ground troops

into Laos and Cambodia

because they worried that

China and the Soviet Union

might respond by escalating

their own involvement

in the war.

So the American forces resorted

to bombing

the trail from the air.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Although the North Vietnamese

utilized thousands

of anti-aircraft guns

to defend the trail,

those early bombing raids

caused major damage.

The North trail engineers

were forced

to be resilient and resourceful.

Whenever the Ho Chi Minh Trail

was damaged,

they worked tirelessly

to repair it,

and when necessary,

rerouted it elsewhere

through the dense jungles.

RUSCH:
You okay, Huyen?

RUSCH:
Okay.

RUSCH:
Woo... Stickered vines.

We're gonna be

scratched up tonight.

If you see the trail,

let me know, Huyen.

NGUYEN:
Yes.

That's a big mushroom.

(LAUGHS)

Very nice.

If we get stuck here all night,

we can eat it for dinner.

We have to stay generally south,

so it's just gonna just...

We'll just kind of stay south

and hope for the best.

RUSCH:
Oh, wait, yeah, we

have to go around here.

(THUNDER RUMBLING)

(RAIN PATTERING)

RUSCH:
The physical beatdown

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