"All wars are the same, it is said, only the scenery changes. And the repercussions are pretty much the same too." Jay Allison

Over the last five years, Adam Piore has gathered the stories of the surviving members of Delta Company, a Vietnam-era paratrooper unit; I joined him for the last two years when it turned from a book into a radio story. We're proud now to feature the finished hour on Transom.

At Fort Campbell before deployment, Delta was a ragtag bunch, the “leftovers” as one of their fellow soldiers put it, but on the night of March 18th, 1968, they became heroes. Their leader earned the Congressional Medal of Honor and two others were awarded the nation’s second highest honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, for their valor that night when the company endured a long and devastating battle—not as long or as devastating, however, as the years that followed, after the men of Delta Company came home separately to live alone with the memories.

Adam Piore became dedicated to this group of guys and to their common story of trauma, guilt, courage, heartbreak, and reunion. This is Adam’s first work for radio and his notes about the transition from print can be found below.

You can hear this complete special on WHRV 89.5 on Monday the 25th at noon.

 

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