Vietnam War

Designer, sculptor, architect Maya Lin. She was a 21 year-old undergraduate student when her design was selected for the Vietnam War Memorial. Her works are known for their ability to elicit powerful emotions. Lin also designed the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, and the "Women's Table" at Yale ( which dealt with the history of female students at Yale, which was mostly all-male for 300 years.) Most recently Lin designed "The Wave Field" in memory of Francois-Xavier Bagnoud, pilot, aeronautical engineer and humanitarian.

McNamara has written a book, In Retrospect, which contains the long awaited admission that he felt U.S. policy in Vietnam was wrong and the war was unwinnable. He details the behind-the-scenes decision-making that escalated the war, and the atmosphere of the times which made policymakers feel they had no choice but to do so.

Wolff has been nominated for the National Book Award for his memoir "In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War." The book is an account of Wolff's tour in Vietnam. Woff is also the author of two short story collections, a novella, and "This Boy's Life," a memoir about his childhood.

Rock historian Ed Ward explores some of the lesser known music from the Vietnam War era.

Novelist Tim O'Brien has been called "one of our most eloquent writers about Vietnam" (Playboy). "In the Lake of the Woods" is his new novel about a man whose involvement in the war is much like O'Brien's. Both were at the My Lai massacre, and they shared a need to be accepted -- which drove them to serve in the war.

Journalist Nguyen Qui Duc. He works for KALW-FM in San Francisco, supplies commentaries to NPR and received the Overseas Press Club's 1989 Award of Excellence for his public radio series about returning to Viet Nam. Nguyen has written a new memoir about his family's struggle during and after the war. NGUYEN's father was an official in the South Vietnamese government who was captured by the Viet Cong and imprisoned for 12 years. In 1975, Nguyen gained passage to the U.S. on a cargo ship, and moved about from relative to relative until he settled in California.

First-time film-maker Tiana (the Americanization of the name Thi Thanh Nga) has made a personal documentary tracing her 1988 journey back to Vietnam, where she was born: "From Hollywood to Hanoi." Her father was the head of press relations for the South Vietnamese government, and she enjoyed a privileged childhood. But her father moved the family to the United States just before the fall of Saigon. Tiana was raised in California from the age of three and became an actress in low-budget exploitation films.

TV critic David Bianculli reviews the latest episode of the television documentary series, CBS Reports. This installment follows the famed Gulf War general as he returns to Vietnam for the first time in decades.

Dillinger is a longtime peace worker, editor and author. He was jailed for civil disobedience a generation before Daniel and Philip Berrigan. He was part of the "Chicago Seven," the group of seven antiwar demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic National Convention which erupted into violence between demonstrators and police. Dellinger has written six books. His latest is an account of his spiritual journey, "Fram Yale to Jail."

Writer and Vietnam veteran Lewis Puller's Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, "Fortunate Son," is now out in paperback. His father, Chesty Puller, was a famous Marine. Lewis also joined the Marines in 1967, and was badly wounded in Vietnam.

Lt. Gen. Harold Moore and U.S. News and World Report Senior Writer Joseph Galloway. On November 14, 1965 they were together in the at the site one of the first and bloodiest major land battle of the Vietnam War, Ia Drang. Moore was in command of the 1st battalion of the 7th Cavalry, and Galloway, then a UPI reporter, accompanied them. They've cowritten a book about their experiences in the Ia Drang valley, called "We Were Soldiers Once...And Young.

Commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews an exhibition that opened last week in Washington, D.C., which displays objects left at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial over the years.

Sheehan won a Pulitzer Prize for his best-selling book, "A Bright Shining Lie," about America's disastrous involvement in Vietnam. He was Vietnam correspondent for the New York Times during the war, and was the man who broke the Pentagon Papers story. His new book, "After the War was Over" is about his trip to Vietnam three years ago, the first time he'd been back since the fall of Saigon in 1975.

Author Robert Olen Butler. Butler's first novel, "The Alleys of Eden," has been called one of the finest books ever written about Americans in Vietnam. Butler has a new collection of stories, called "A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain." (It's published by Henry Holt). (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

Eleanor Coppola filmed a documentary called "Hearts of Darkness." It's a behind-the-scenes view of the making of Apocalypse Now. Coppola is the wife of director Frances Ford Coppola.

Cartoonist and novelist Jeff Danziger. Danziger is the political cartoonist for the Christian Science Monitor, and his cartoons are featured in more than one hundred newspapers around the country. Danziger's just written his first novel. It's called "Rising Like The Tucson," and it's a dark comedy about the Vietnam War. (It's published by Doubleday).

Writer John Balaban. Balaban was one of the very few Vietnam-era conscientious objectors who volunteered to go to Vietnam. Once there, he was overwhelmed with the paradoxes of the war...among other things, he found himself picking up a gun, in order to defend a hospital from attack. His memoir of that time, called "Heaven's Face: A Moral Witness in Vietnam" has just been published by Poseidon Press. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

Vietnamesse-American Pham Thanh and American filmmaker Elizabeth Farnsworth. As a child, Thanh was seriously injured when the Americans bombed his village. He eventually was brought to America and raised by foster parents. Farnsworth has made a documentary about Thanh's life, and the legacy of the Vietnam war on that country's children. It's called "Thanh's War," and it's being shown this week on PBS.

James Fallows, the Washington editor for "The Atlantic Monthly." Fallows will discuss the ways America is still punishing Vietnam through economic means, despite the end of hostilities between the two countries.