Airs Wednesday, November 11 at 8 p.m. All wars are the same, it is said; only the scenery changes. And the repercussions are pretty much the same too. Over the course of five years, Adam Piore gathered the stories of the surviving members of Delta Company, a Vietnam-era paratrooper unit; Jay Allison joined him for the last two years when it turned from a book into a radio story.
At Fort Campbell before deployment, Delta was a ragtag bunch, the “leftovers” as one of their fellow soldiers put it, but on the night of March 18th, 1968, they became heroes. Their leader won the Congressional Medal of Honor and two others won the nation’s second highest honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, for their valor that night when the company endured a long and devastating battle—not as long or as devastating, however, as the years that followed, after the men of Delta Company came home separately to live alone with the memories.
Adam Piore became dedicated to this group of guys and to their common story of trauma, guilt, courage, heartbreak, and reunion. This is Adam’s first work for radio and his notes about the transition from print are at Transom. You’re invited to come talk with him about his process or the finished work and to see archival photos.
We've Never Been The Same: A War Story
