It’s a dangerous business going out your front door - especially if your front door was in Vietnam in the 1960s and ‘70s. The “Donut Dollies” were a group of women who volunteered with the Red Cross as part of a program called Supplemental Recreation Activities Overseas. The Dollies brought sweets, treats, and their own brand of wholesome entertainment to the soldiers who definitely appreciated this unique taste of hometown America.

These young women made huge sacrifices and made a positive difference in the lives of the servicemen they worked with. It’s their attempts at raising morale that likely kept many of the soldiers going throughout this long war. 

Here's an account, posted to a Facebook group, of an encounter with a large snake like the one in this picture (which was taken in 1971):

We came across a large python--had a head the size of German shepherd, but it had been badly hurt by an airstrike. The CO knowing we had a guy who was deathly afraid of snakes told this person he needed his best man to check out a noise just ahead. The poor guy saw this massive wriggling snake--dropped his gear and ran off. We were pretty deep in Indian country but had to find the guy--so half the company was wandering about calling his name until we found him. He was OK but after that he knew not to trust anyone who said 'we [need] our best guy.'

The first C-141A Starlifter to lift off with POWs aboard was dubbed the "Hanoi Taxi," and it is now kept at the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton Ohio. After leaving Hanoi, the jubilant soldiers were taken to Clark Air Base in the Philippines for medical exams, then to Hawaii, and finally to California, from whence they could scatter to resume their lives. Operation Homecoming returned 591 POWs: 325 Air Force personnel, 77 Army, 138 Navy, 26 Marines and 25 civilians.

Welch was a fervent supporter of American troops fighting in Vietnam. Rather than simply be vocal in her support, she went along with Bob Hope on his 1967 USO trip where she’d do whatever she could to give the men a little taste of home - she even cut a rug with a few soldiers.

During the shows in Saigon Welch performed solo, dancing in a miniskirt and go-go boots, and she even took part in a comedy bit with Bob Hope. She was a performer that the boys definitely looked forward to. 

Ginsberg's idea was to turn peaceful protest into a kind of benign street theater: protesters would present their case not as an angry mob but as friendly -- though determined -- agents of peace. In a 1965 essay "How To Make A March/Spectacle," Ginsberg recommended bringing "masses of flowers" to show a stark contrast between the protest group and the militarized police, or even the thuggish Hells Angels (who tended to support the Vietnam War). Hippies embraced the imagery of the flower; it became the opposite of a gun, or nuclear war. To those in the counterculture, the flower served as a talisman against death, violence, oppression, and the like -- thus, "flower power."

It's also possible that the flower was a more practical and portable symbol of peace than its predecessor, the dove. You can't really hand a dove to a soldier or stick a dove down the barrel of a rifle.

Soldiers personalized their Zippos by hand, and these "field-engraved" artifacts often reflected the conflicted nature of those who served. That's the case with this sentiment, at least, which tells the Vietnam soldier's all-around distaste for the war, the leaders, and the American public's ambivalence.

While "Vietnam Zippos" are a collector's item, the market is flooded with many that are inauthentic.

Of her time working as a Weathergirl Keith said:

The experiences I had because of the show were invaluable. I mean, I wasn’t paid, but it was worth more than a million dollars, because I got to see the men and the country, from the DMZ to the Delta. I think one of the best things I ever did with my girlfriends a few times, was fly in helicopters out of Long Binh or Ton Son Nhut down to the Delta and deliver mail to the guys. That was very heartwarming

Not only was Johnson upset that the country was embroiled in a terrible war, but he was genuinely distraught over the fact that his son in law’s life was on the line. Regardless of your feelings on the conflict, you have to know that you’d feel similarly knowing that your child’s partner was in mortal danger.

Captain Charles Robb returned from the war and served as a US Senator from 1989 to 2001. He now resides in McLean, Virginia. 

She ended up doing three tours with the USO and performed in Vietnam twice and she before her death she recalled veterans telling her how much her service meant to them. She said:

All through the years, whenever I would perform, whatever city, whatever state I was in, I would get these little notes saying, ‘I saw you in Cu Chi or Da Nang.’ … They were these little crumpled up notes and sometimes they would send me a picture of me and them that they took.

The letter began:

Now, as we sit inside the Statue of Liberty, having captured the hopes and imaginations of a war‐weary nation, we have run out of all excuses … Mr. Nixon: You set the date. We'll evacuate.

In June, 1972, she made a two-week trip to North Vietnam, with the intent of speaking out about the U.S. forces bombing dikes and irrigation systems, which are non-military targets. There was evidence that this was happening. On her trip, though, she made the blunder of participating in a photo op with the North Vietnamese Army -- pictures of the smiling, Oscar-winning daughter of Hollywood royalty seated on an anti-aircraft gun used to shoot down American planes was just too much. To this day, Fonda believes she was right to go to Vietnam, but feels "horrible" about the message she sent with that look.

Fonda was dubbed "Hanoi Jane" for the offense that some saw as unforgivable. (A portion of the most vehement anti-Fonda disgust comes from a debunked story that she betrayed American POWs to their captors.)

It's a morbid question, but -- how young was the youngest U.S. soldier who died in Vietnam? As best we know, it was a Marine, Pfc. Dan Bullock, of Brooklyn, NY. Bullock lied about his age and enlisted when he was 14. He used a doctored birth certificate and his ruse was helped by his size -- he stood 5'9" and weighed 160 pounds. Bullock was underwhelming at boot camp on Parris Island, South Carolina. A friend, Franklin McArthur, who didn't know how young Bullock was, looked out for him and helped him through. McArthur told the New York Daily News:

Dan joined the Marine Corps to help his family out. His father was a lumber worker and a sharecropper. He didn't have any skills to get work in New York.

Though ostensibly helping a brother-in-arms to help his family, McArthur also helped to send a youngster to a combat zone. Bullock died after being wounded while supplying his unit with ammunition to hold off an attack, in 1969. McArthur said he was haunted by the fact that he had unknowingly sent a young teen to his death.

He took the secret of his age to the grave with him, and he didn't have to. He could have gone home anytime if he just told how old he was.

This picture was posted to Reddit seven years ago as "My dad in Vietnam holding a jungle centipede," but the poster admitted that the picture was set up with the old-school optical illusion of "forced perspective." The insect was actually about 10 inches long. It was dangled on a thin string in the foreground and the soldier stood a few feet behind it, pretending to "hold" it.

Disappointed? Hey, Scolopendra subspinipes is still a 10-inch-long centipede. And it's venomous. Nothing you want wandering into your tent in the middle of the night.

Sinatra said that she wanted to entertain the troops because everyone she knew had been touched by the way in one way or another. She explained:

All of the people in my generation were involved in one way or another with the Viet Nam war. They were enlisting, drafted, escaping to another country or a marriage and children they didn’t really want. I knew I had to do something so I called the USO and volunteered to go and entertain the troops. When you are in a war zone the people around you become your brothers and sisters. They were then, are now and will always be a huge part of my life.

Many soldiers lived through their letters and photographs as a way to remind themselves that something good was waiting for them back in the states. Hopefully this soldier made it home to get back in the booth with his best gal. 

He worked his way up to the rank of Captain, and after the war he was offered a spot at West Point teaching literature. He turned down the opportunity to pursue a career and songwriting - which you might say worked out pretty well.

After retiring from the military, Kristofferson made his feelings about the war and U.S. government known, saying:

I want you to know I'm an Army brat; I was a captain in the Army and my brother was a jet pilot in the Navy. So I support our troops; I identify with them. But I sure as hell don't identify with the bastards who sent them over there.

Joey Heatherton is easily one of the hottest babes of the 20th century. In the early ‘60s she appeared all over the variety sows of the day, but it was her years on the USO circuit with Bob Hope that seared her into the memories of U.S. military service members. She performed with Hope for over 10 years, and she never missed a chance to wow soldiers with her skimpy costumes and saucy dancing.

The suggestion to "drop acid" is, of course, a sign of the times -- this was three months after Woodstock, after all -- and perhaps a too-clever turn of phrase on the double meaning of "drop." But it highlights the fact that the disagreements over the Vietnam War were not merely political -- they were also cultural and generational. Those involved in the counterculture were not exactly selling their view about the unjustness of the war by tying it to use of hallucinogenic drugs. In polarized times -- whether 1969 or today -- the two sides almost don't even speak the same language.

According to Time Magazine, McCain instead told the North Vietnamese the names of the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers. McCain spent five and a half years in confinement and was finally released in 1973. Due to his injuries, he was unable to lift his arms above shoulder-height for the rest of his life

Without a source of income, Ali had to get creative, and he did so with his mouth, rather than his fists. He became a popular speaker on college campuses, where the anti-war movement was strong. Ali's speaking-tour period is less famous than his feats in the ring, but he delivered some of the mot powerful oratory of the turbulent times. Here's an example from a speech on a college campus:

I ain’t draft dodging.
I ain’t burning no flag.
I ain’t running to Canada.
I’m staying right here. You want to send me to jail? Fine, you go right ahead. I’ve been in jail for 400 years. I could be there for 4 or 5 more, but
I ain’t going no 10,000 miles to help murder and kill other poor people. If I want to die, I’ll die right here, right now, fightin’ you, if I want to die.
You my enemy, not no Chinese, no Vietcong, no Japanese.
You my opposer when I want freedom.
You my opposer when I want justice.
You my opposer when I want equality.
Want me to go somewhere and fight for you?
You won’t even stand up for me right here in America, for my rights and my religious beliefs.
You won’t even stand up for my rights here at home.

Franz said of his time in the military:

I was curious about the military service and went into the Army. [It] was a very traumatic, life-changing experience… I'm not as frivolous as I once was. I experienced death over there, and losing friends. I got as close to being shot as I care to. I could feel and hear bullets whizzing over my head, and that shakes you up quite a bit.

While in Vietnam Davis performed with a barebones backup band and a simple trio of dancers. This wasn't his first time performing for U.S. troops, though -- he'd been drafted into the Army during World War II, after all. As a short, skinny black private, he faced racist abuse that was humiliating and painful; years later, in an interview with Arsenio Hall, Davis recalled the brutal hazing and said that he'd had his nose broken three times. Then, he was reassigned to the Special Services, and given the job of putting on shows for the troops. That assignment suited him much better -- Davis earned the American Campaign Medal and World War II Victory Medal.

In Apocalypse Now, director Francis Ford Coppola inserted a brief scene alluding to the difference between the reality of the war and the media depiction of it. In the middle of a combat zone, we see Coppola himself playing a director with a news film crew. Captain Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen), a seasoned soldier, pauses, unsure what to make of them. Coppola isn't having it, and yells at Willard and others:

Don't look at the cameras! Don't look at the cameras! Just go by like you're fighting! Don't look at the cameras! This is for television! Just go through! Just go through!

It's a funny Easter egg, but it actually makes a profound statement on the way the war was packaged for the folks back home. Americans were forming their views on the war based on television, and the footage on television was edited and perhaps even scripted.

The viewers at home only see the soldier running toward the fight; they don't hear the director telling him to do so.

Of his time as a DJ, Sajak writes:

I always felt a little better when I met guys who came into town from the field and thanked us for bringing them a little bit of home. I always thought it was strange that they should be thanking me, given what so many of them were going through on a daily basis. 

As with many short-lived or struggling garage acts, there isn't a lot of information on The Debutantes. They embarked on a tour overseas in 1969, including dates in Asia, and joined up with the USO to play for American troops. Although the gigs might have signaled a move toward bigger things, it was not to be. Shortly after their 1969 Asian swing, The Debutantes disbanded.

In recent years, The Debutantes's music has been rescued from total obscurity and collected onto a self-titled album, and some are featured on the volumes two and three of the Ace Records Girls With Guitars compilation series.

The bloody battle for Khe Sanh raged for 77 days in 1968, from January to April, that saw 5,000 Marines defend their base against something close to 20,000 North Vietnamese troops. General Westmoreland claimed the end of the battle as a victory, but on July 5, 1968 the base was closed. 

These veterans first met in 1966 when the men were just out of bootcamp and took a break from Camp Pendleton to get some surfing in before heading off to war. These four friends trained together for four months in Oceanside before taking off for the Philippines where they continued to train. After splitting up when they went to Vietnam the men earned Purple Hearts and later met up in Florida to recreate the photo. 

When the Panthers marched on Washington D.C. in 1969 it became one of the largest peaceful protests to ever hit America. Despite the peaceful protest, the FBI considered the Panthers public enemy #1. Ideals of empowerment and resistance have persisted, but enthusiasm for the Black Panther party itself waned. 

People will always find a way to express themselves, and soldiers are no different. It’s likely that you can find helmets from every era that are emblazoned with a similar personal aesthetic. Helmet art was made most famous in the Stanley Kubrick film Full Metal Jacket where the character Private Joker’s helmet reads “born to kill,” and also features a peace sign. Joker explains that the seeming contradiction is his expression of "the duality of man ... the Jungian thing."

Some bases were able to decorate trees, and the luckiest soldiers received packages and letter from loved ones. These fellas in this picture from 1968 are definitely doing their best to keep spirits high. 

The anti-war movement mostly existed on college campuses, but spread to artists and members of the counter culture. Nearly 40,000 men were drafted into Vietnam each month, and many people fled to Canada to avoid being called into military service.

Da Nang was where many soldiers got their first taste of the jungle, as it was a main entry point for the American military. In order to get to the nearby base troops had to land in the coastal city of Da Nang and travel nearly a day on foot. 

And what a sight for sore eyes these women were. During the war these guys weren’t just away from their country, they were away from their wives and girlfriends, which means that they were definitely happy to see these lovely ladies. Thankfully, none of these gals ever had to see a fire fight. 

This performance from 1968 was televised, and included Welch, who sang "Different Drum." The song, written by Mike Nesmith of The Monkees, was made famous by Linda Ronstadt, who took it to #13 with her group The Stone Poneys.

Linda Ronstadt has been hailed as having one of the greatest voices in pop music history. You can find the clip of Welch's version on YouTube, and let's just say that Raquel does not have Linda's voice.

Nonetheless, the soldiers were somehow entertained.

In a few of Schutzer's photos, we see American forces doing the job of fighting, which isn't pretty -- storming beaches, taking prisoners and and carrying fearsome weapons. In other shots, we see young American men who are exhausted by their efforts. Yet in the majority of the pictures, we see GIs helping villagers, particularly children, often smiling and laughing with them. Looking back on this image of the war, it's easy to see why there was so much initial support for it. These photos would be overshadowed by much more shocking imagery in the years to come, making it ever harder for the American public to get to the truth. The stark contrast between photos like this and others you've seen reflects the mystery of the Vietnam War.

Wayne’s trip in 1966 affected him deeply, and many of the men he met began corresponding with him routinely. Just two years later one of the men he met, Sargent Gilbert Mumfort of the Fourth Infantry Division, wrote Wayne requesting a response to raise his squadrons spirits. Wayne responded, “I don’t think the Apache Raiders need any words from me to lift their spirits and moral. But tell them that the letter from you fellows raised mine.”

Lennon later said in the Anthology box set: 

We sent out a card: 'Come to John and Yoko's honeymoon: a bed-in, Amsterdam Hotel.’ You should have seen the faces on the reporters and the cameramen fighting their way through the door! Because whatever it is, is in people's minds - their minds were full of what they thought was going to happen. They fought their way in, and their faces dropped.

While many marches and protests had the air of a riot about to break out, that wasn’t the case with Kovic’s march. Instead, the police blocked off traffic for the veterans and helped coordinate their route. The march started at the beach and ended at the hotel where many of the members of the Republican Party were staying. Kovic delivered a touching speech in light rain as police and bystanders watched on.

The film doesn’t just show the horrific conditions that every soldier faced, it also shows the bonding process that took place for many of the men fighting over seas. Despite their differences Forrest, Bubba, and Lt. Dan are bonded in battle and thus bonded for life.

While a giant python makes for an eye-popping photo op, it was a smaller snake that most often threatened U.S. ground forces. It was a serpent called the many-banded krait, though U.S. soldiers knew the it as "Two-Step Charlie" or "two-step" -- as in, once it bites you, you're dead within two steps. That's an exaggeration, but the krait does attack with a highly toxic venom. The North Vietnamese Army occasionally used kraits in booby traps, which upped the fear factor for GIs exploring tunnels or opening left-behind chests.

As Saigon collapsed US soldiers were airlifted out in droves, and at the time Newsweek reported that “no more than 1,100 Americans remained” in the area by the weekend following the speech. 

By 1970 it was clear that American forces weren’t ready for the intense, on the ground warfare of Vietnam, and the news of napalm bombs became common place, along with the news that entire villages were destroyed in the process. 

While Bob Hope tried to host an apolitical show for the whole family, an anti-war group staged a “smoke-in” where they got stoned in front of every body while a group of Neo-Nazis showed up to offer their thoughts on the subject of America. The entire scene turned into bedlam, and by the end of the day there were anti-war protestors in the reflecting pool. Somehow only about two dozen protestors were arrested. 

Si served in the Army until 1993 when he retired from the service with the rank of Sergeant First Class (E-7). After retiring he went on to work with Duck Commander where he fashioned reeds for their duck calls.

One way soldiers got through the day was to imagine that they were simply one a long road trip that took them all the way around the world. Or perhaps more likely, it was that special gallows humor that Vietnam engendered. Unfortunately many of the men who went to jungles of Vietnam never returned home. 

After retiring from military service Mathers went to the University of California in Berkley where he graduated in 1973 with a degree in philosophy. He ended up splitting his time between real estate investments and a few later acting roles. 

During the war O’Hare-Palmer worked in two field hospitals where she saw the worst of the worst, but managed to make it back home intact. Today she’s chair of the Women Veterans Committee of the Vietnam Veterans of America.

In the film Walken not only manages to convey the feelings of someone destroyed by PTSD, but the nihilism that overtook many vets who weren’t able to free themselves from the mental torture that came with the war. 

Eva Rueber-Staier may have been from Austria, but she was all for entertaining the boys who put their life on the line to defend the people of south Vietnam, and that’s a truly brave thing to do. She'll go down in history as one of the brightest stars of the USO. 

Soldiers and village people alike grew close to their four legged companions, and it’s likely that they were responsible for many of the troops holding onto their sanity while in the grips of an unwinnable battle. 

In this photo from 1966, a U.S. soldier from the 25th Infantry Division and a young Vietnamese child test out a swingset. The swingset is part of a playground for children that soldiers of the 25th built at the base. Who's happier -- the child who has a new swingset. or the soldier who can temporarily forget about the grim reality of war?

Rather than risk escalating a war that was ostensibly over, the North Vietnamese were happy to see the US troops go, and they essentially counted troops to make sure no one was sticking around to continue some kind of shadow war. It was truly a bizarre end to a bizarre war. 

This arrangement of personal effects is also known as the "battlefield cross." Here is its significance, as described in the Army Field Manual:

Most units prepare a visible reminder of the deceased soldier similar to that depicted in Figure C-1. The helmet and identification tags signify the dead soldier. The inverted rifle with bayonet signals a time for prayer, a break in the action to pay tribute to our comrade. The combat boots represent the final march of the last battle. The beret (in the case of soldiers from airborne units) reminds us that the soldier has taken part in his final jump.

Diller's shtick, parodying the American housewife, with its self-deprecating one-liners, was the very essence of American big-laffs comedy. Diller and Hope were the tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich the homesick troops needed.

Diller toured with Bob Hope’s Christmas special from 1966 to January of the next year and traveled to places like Vietnam, Thailand, Guam, Wake Island, and the Philippines. In 1978 Diller was awarded the USO Liberty Bell Award “for demonstrating concern for the welfare and morale of America’s armed forces” from the USO of Philadelphia Inc. 

The director later said of his fervent decision to join up:

I thought war was it; it was the most difficult thing a young man could go through... It was a rite of passage. And I knew it would be the only war of my generation, so I said, 'I've gotta get over there fast, because it's going to be over.' There was also a heavy streak of rebelliousness in the face of my father, and I think I was trying to prove to him that I was a man, not a boy.

After his service Stone was awarded the the Bronze Star and Purple Heart for his service in Vietnam. 

Protests took place on college campuses across the country, and while many of them were non-violent, a few of them -- specifically, the protest at Kent State -- turned into riots that saw the death of multiple students and members of the anti-war movement. 

The protestors scattered in an attempt to escape riot police, and many of them hid in schools and churches. After the protest, President Nixon said:

Now, I understand that there has been, and continues to be, opposition to the war in Vietnam on the campuses and also in the nation. As far as this kind of activity is concerned, we expect it; however, under no circumstances will I be affected whatever by it.

Rosa Parks, a Civil Rights hero for her role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56, but her activism didn't end there. She moved to Detroit in 1957, and continued to be a participant and kind of figurehead for Civil Rights causes and events. In 1965, Parks was leading a protest, in Detroit, for black voters' rights in Alabama, alongside the Sisters of St. Joseph from Madonna School.

A sign at the rally echoed a sentiment that many black activists and GIs espoused: Why were U.S. troops supposedly implementing democracy in Vietnam when our own country was still struggling with some basic democratic principles? "Send Marines to Alabama, Not Vietnam," the sign reads.

Protestors didn’t know why the government was sending young men to fight a war when there was no reason for America to intrude. This movement was one that spanned color, creed, and generations. Even though the movement didn't end the war, they made their voices heard and that's what counts. 

Many dancers were backed up by a paltry band who knew just what kind of beats to play to make sure these exotic dancers would entertain their hosts. It may seem strange, but it’s the little things that make life worth while. 

Today it would be impossible for someone so young to join the military without detection. Computer systems are far too detailed and ingenuous for someone who’s barely a teenager to slip through the cracks. However in the 1960s if you really wanted to fudge some documents and join the war effort, no one was going to stop you.

Such is the case for this young man who managed to alter his birth certificate in order to fool military recruiters so he could enlist and fight in Vietnam with the U.S. Marines. And they say the kids aren’t alright.