New Book: Vietnam Bao Chi: Warriors of Word and Film

By Marc Phillip Yablonka, Publish Date November 15, 2018

Bao Chi brings together interviews with 35 combat correspondents who reported on the Vietnam War. They wrote the stories of Vietnam, captured the images and filmed the television coverage of their fellow servicemen on the battlefields from the Mekong Delta in the south to the DMZ in Central Vietnam, from the Tet Offensive in 1968 to the fall of Saigon in 1975.

They were men like Dale Dye, who would go on to play an integral role in the making of Platoon, the first film to realistically portray the Vietnam War; marine Steve Stibbens, the first Stars and Stripes reporter in Vietnam in early 1962; Jim Morris, 1st and 5th Special Forces Group, whose works such as War Story and Fighting Men, recount the soldiering of the Green Berets and their Montagnard counterparts in the Central Highlands of Vietnam; John Del Vecchio, whose classic work of nonfiction, The 13th Valley, mirrors his own existence as a combat correspondent with the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam; and U.S. Navy Frogman Chip Maury, renowned for his free fall and underwater photography in Vietnam.

For years, there has been a well-deserved plethora of work by and about those who covered the war as civilians, with this book dedicating four of its chapters to civilian media. There hasn’t been enough about the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen who did so while wearing an American uniform. Yablonka’s extensive experience as a military journalist brought him into contact with many of these combat correspondents, giving him a unique insight into their professions and lives. This book honors these brave chroniclers in uniform who brought the Vietnam War home to us.

About the author (2018)