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On April 26, 1968, during Operation Delaware, Air Force Radio News reporter Mike D. Shepherd flew aboard a C-130 into the heavily defended A Shau Valley to interview 1st Cav Div (Airmobile) troopers who were there to retake the valley from the North Vietnamese.

This was a big story for the Air Force: These were the first C-130s to land in the valley since the North Vietnamese had seized it in March 1966 after overrunning an isolated Special Forces camp there. Now the Cavalry troopers were on the ground trying to defend themselves from the enemy gun positions in the surrounding hills, and the Air Force was scheduled to begin landing and delivering the hundreds of tons of material that the American soldiers needed to continue the operation.

Shepherd was there to record their thoughts and reactions. Take a listen…

To learn more about this story, read A Valley Soaked in Rain and Blood from our October 2015 issue of Vietnam magazine.

Mike D. Shepherd was a reporter with the Seventh Air Force Combat News Unit in Da Nang. He now writes about his time in Southeast Asia during the War.