The mission changes before the first shot.

The Vietnam War from its very beginning: the decisions, the promises, the sacrifices and the betrayals.

The Vietnam War from its very beginning: the decisions, the promises, the sacrifices and the betrayals.

The Vietnam War from its very beginning: the decisions, the promises, the sacrifices and the betrayals.

The Vietnam War from its very beginning: the decisions, the promises, the sacrifices and the betrayals.

The Vietnam War from its very beginning: the decisions, the promises, the sacrifices and the betrayals.

The Vietnam War from its very beginning: the decisions, the promises, the sacrifices and the betrayals.

The Vietnam War from its very beginning: the decisions, the promises, the sacrifices and the betrayals.

The river is freezing. The medicine is missing.

When the mountain lets go, the clock starts.

A forward air controller is only as good as the grid he is given.

Eight rockets on the wing and a company pinned on the canal bank.

Late spring on the Arizona border. The heat is building, and the desert does most of the killing.

The medic carries everything the platoon has for its wounded, and he has to make it last.

A CH-47 Chinook pilot hauling guns, ammunition and people into the hardest landing zones in Vietnam, one sling load at a time.

AH-1 Cobra gunship crews over the valleys of Vietnam, and a North Vietnamese battalion commander who moves his guns every night.

Watch the road. Count what moves.

The earthquake brought the city down. The men in orange came to make sure it stayed that way.

A Huey crew flying infantry into hot landing zones in Vietnam, and a Viet Cong gunner who learns what they will come back for.

Unarmed helicopters, red crosses on the nose, and wounded waiting at a hot landing zone.

The fog hides everything, including an army.

Low and close over the landing zone, with the slicks counting on them.

They build the airfields the war depends on, under fire and against the tide.

One night. Three counties.

Low enough that leaves slap the skids.

Every lost city has someone who digs it out of the ground.

Across the border, off the map, and officially never there.

Before Ferdinand Magellan crossed an ocean, he had to survive the war for India.

The mission changes before the first shot.

Up the Missouri and into the mountains, where the river is only the first thing trying to kill them.

The tide closes every route behind them.

An AC-119K gunship crew flying night missions over the trail and the border camps, and an enemy officer who studies every circle they fly.

Wooden boats, four feet of draft, and nothing between them and the guns ashore.

F-4 Phantom crews over North Vietnam, from low cloud at the DMZ to the dark skies over Hanoi.

The water is coming, and someone is still missing in the canyon.

When buildings fall and floods rise, a search handler and her dog go where rescuers cannot see.

The river burns. The hunt begins.

Every street in Saigon has three names, and Sergeant Ford knows all of them.

Marine CH-46 Sea Knight crews flying water, ammunition and rifle companies into the hills of northern I Corps, and bringing the wounded out.

When the horn sounds, two Navy gunships have three minutes to get off the deck.

One falcon sees the attack before the radar does.

Every fire starts somewhere. Ember finds where.

Fifty-foot aluminum Swift boats, built to patrol the coast, sent up rivers they were never designed for.

Powerful guns, thin armor and one rule: never fight a tank head-on.

Too much ocean, too few destroyers, and a submarine somewhere underneath.

When someone goes missing in the backcountry, a ranger and his English Shepherd go after them.

The wire is cut and the dog goes first.

A Wild Weasel crew hunting surface-to-air missile sites over North Vietnam, against a commander who turns his radar on only long enough t...