"19 (The Final Story)" - Paul Hardcastle

Dedicated to all who fought and those who died in the Vietnam war.
YOU ARE ALL HEROES.

On March 08, 1965, the first American combat troops arrived in Vietnam. Until this point only military advisor's and pilots had been assisting the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).

But on the 8th of March 1965, two Battalions of US Marines (3,500 Men) landed at Da Nang. Triggering the beginning of America's ground war in Vietnam.

By the end of the year 200,000 US personal were "In Country".

The ordering of troops to Vietnam by President Lyndon B. Johnson and Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara had come as a direct result of an attack on the USS Maddox on August 4th, 1964 by three North Vietnamese Navy gunboats while stationed in Vietnamese waters.

This became known as the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Over the next 10 years 153,303 American military personnel would be wounded in action, 2646 would be missing in action (1636 as of 2015) and 58,303 would lose their lives. Along with...

63 Journalists
500 Australians
39 New Zealanders
171,331 - 313,000 ARVN
200,000 - 300,000 Cambodians
20,000 - 200,000 Laotians
5,099 South Koreans
351 Thais
9 Filipino
25 Taiwanese
1,446 Chinese
16 Russians
444,000 - 1,100,000 North Vietnamese Army & Viet Cong
587,000 - 2 Million Civilians

There is also an undisclosed number of British KIA as many members of the SAS and other branches of Her Majesty's Armed Forces were employed in Jungle warfare training tactics, defense of special forces camps and other covert operations in Vietnam, who temporarily left the British Army to join the Australian & New Zealand military. The United Kingdom was not officially involved in the war.

By March 1973 the last US combat soldiers had left South Vietnam
3 million Americans had served.

April 29, 1975, Two US Marines of the Marine Security Guard Battalion were killed by a North Vietnamese rocket attack. While guarding a compound in Saigon. Charles McMahon was 21 (Killed 11 days before his 22nd Birthday) And Darwin Judge was 19. These were the last two United States servicemen to die in Vietnam.

April 30, 1975, Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese Army. The war was officially over.

In 2003 The former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara admitted that the North Vietnamese Navy did not attack the USS Maddox on August 4th 1964. The Gulf of Tonkin incident never happened!

In 1985 after watching an ABC news documentary entitled 'Vietnam Requiem', British born electronic music producer Paul Hardcastle, was inspired to create a track featuring the narrated vocal samples of Peter Thomas from the original documentary. It was released on the 10th anniversary of the Vietnam war and quickly gained interest, reaching No.1 in the UK charts and across the globe.

Due to its unexpected success, the record label asked the documentary directors to rush a video into production to accompany the track using clips from the documentary and various news network footage.

After it was first aired on MTV, complaints were made by some of the networks who objected to the "bad taste" of using serious clips in a "trivial" electronic music video. So the directors were forced to re cut a new video using public domain footage.

30 years later we at Bio Rhythms attempt to pay our own tribute to the men and women who served in Vietnam and to Paul Hardcastle for being the first electronic music producer to tackle the controversial subject of Vietnam.

Our video was created using photos and footage from many sources

All rights to all photographs and footage used in the video remains with the original copyright holders.

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