Sleeping Dog Productions, Inc., a Wisconsin-based HD TV production house plans to launch a new television series about the Viet Nam War called “Welcome Home” for the spring 2015 season. Creators Jon Tennyson and Scott Guyette hope to release the series near the 40th Anniversary of the fall of Saigon. The city fell to the North Vietnamese on April 30th, 1975, and that date effectively marked the end of South Viet Nam. The last US personnel evacuated the city at that time in a painful, mad scramble of helicopters tracing back and forth from the US Embassy in Saigon to awaiting aircraft carriers.
This new series is an anthology of first-person memoirs of Vietnam veterans, and will be illustrated by the veteran’s personal pictures, films and artifacts. The veterans describe the paths each followed to reach Vietnam, the jobs maintained while they were there, and what happened when they returned home. Through hearing their stories, viewers will gain a first-hand perspective on the human cost of a war that directly involved 2.7 million Americans, and cost an estimated $140 billion. The documentary’s working title comes from a custom developed among Vietnam War veterans when they meet one another in the United States. To this day, their common greeting is “Welcome Home.”
The series creators wish to reach hundreds of thousands of viewers, and so help them gain an understanding of the service rendered by our Vietnam War Veterans. Hopefully through that understanding, some of those veterans will finally realize an all-embracing welcome home and unconditional gratitude they’ve earned and rightly deserve.
The series is 90% finished with 12-15 interviews completed so far. Jon and Scott plan to get at least another 20 hours of supporting footage to coincide with the interviews and add to the stories. They also plan on taking a number of Vietnam Vets back to Vietnam as well as other notable locations, such as aircraft carriers and the Vietnam Wall in Washington D.C.
Jon Tennyson
Jon Tennyson began his film/video career as Director of Publications and Education for Ducks Unlimited, an international wildlife conservation organization. As an independent producer, he has developed programming for channels and clients in fields ranging from outdoor recreation and consumer electronics, to aviation. Tennyson has credits on nearly 200 shows, many of which have featured Academy Award winning and nominated actors, international recording artists, athletes and business leaders. He is also a former Vice President of Television and Corporate Sponsorship for the Experimental Aircraft Association and Chief Development Officer for the EAA Foundation. He has served as an executive producer, producer or director on five cable series and numerous specials for Discovery Wings, ESPN2, ESPN, Speedvision and the Outdoor Channel.
Scott Guyette
Scott Guyette is a multi-award winning director, director of photography, producer and senior editor whose credits include five aviation series (Ultimate Flights, ESPN2; Sport Aviation, Speedvision; From the Ground Up, Discovery Wings; Learning to Fly, Discovery Wings and Wings to Adventure, Outdoor Channel), as well as numerous specials for ESPN, Discovery Wings and others. Guyette is a former Executive Producer of EAA TV, The Experimental Aircraft Association’s in house production entity. In that capacity he oversaw all film and TV access to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, the largest aviation event in North America. A pilot and aircraft owner himself, Guyette is one of the premier aerial videographers in the U.S.
For more information on the series or to see additional work from Sleeping Dog Productions, please click HERE.
Looks like a great and long overdue show, i encourage this tremendous effort, and the focus on the personnel who’s only mistake was to step up and do excactly what their nation had asked them to.
You are doing a good thing I hope I see it so I can have my grand kids watch it. I was in the 483 SPS K-9
WELCOME HOME
by Gary Jacobson © 2002
Welcome Home
I know it’s late…but welcome home
To our nation’s choicest sons
Who fought persevering might of guns
Who answered our country’s clarion call
All giving some, but some giving all!
Sent forth to preserve my liberty
My land sanctified still because of thee
Still brave, still free…
Welcome home!
Welcome home my honored soldier
Gallant savior
Responsible for the very air I breathe
Who once dauntless, a beloved homeland did leave
Sent to battlefields nourished by blood uncouth…
Forsaking forever flowers of fairest youth
Your heart bearing grave spirit’s brave
Sent forth simply, our way-of-life to save…
Welcome home!
Welcome home
He for whom there were no ticker-tape parades
No greeting hurrahs, or accolades…
No church bells peeling for joy
When on silver birds home came our soldier boy
No roses strewing the way
No hearty cheer hurray
No village lads and lassies gay
No laurel wreaths then, or now
Bestowed upon his loyal brow…
Welcome home
Accept now our belated, deserved cheers…
To silence now those protesting jeers
Haunting from dark of killing night
To dawn’s purest light
Riding into the voracious maw of hell
Oh the stories of hell you’ll tell
As demons you still fight within
Hearing in memory still that awful din…
Welcome home!
Welcome home
My modern day knight
Who fought with courageous force of will and might
Sought by justice to restore the right…
Sent forth to the land of the quick and dead
Held aloft his banner by intrepid prowess led
Governed by hallowed precepts evil men dread
Where in sweltering heat, mind and body bled
Because brave men their very life gives…
Freedom lives!
Welcome home oh lionhearted warrior
Noble soldier
Struggling through tears and fears
Lo these many years
My courageous brother-in-arms
Who boldly went forth into a world of harms…
For me…
God bless now your destiny…
Welcome home!
Welcome home
Honorable soldier who rode that bestial carnivore
Called war
That demon whose ravenous spirit viciously tore
At the very fabric of freedom
Rent to tatters in Vietnam
Before your time grown old and tired
Now dejected…disillusioned…respected…much admired…
Welcome home!
Welcome home
Heroes whose valor adorns in victory
Duty crowned with diadem’s royalty
Echoing in hallowed halls of history…
He who by his good right arm mastered the foe
That peace, planted in hope, might surely grow
Stouthearted men who sacrificed all for me
I, at long last, your honored glory see
Oh valiant soul who helped very freedom be…
Welcome home! Welcome home! Welcome home!
http://namtour.com/welcomehome.html
Thanks..How about something related to our 4 legged K-9 Buddies!!!
Thanks again
Wonderful plan. Long overdue. I hope it gets wide publicity. I flew A4s over there 1964-67. Welcome home brothers.
Semper Fi Pete. I fixed A4s 68-69 ChuLai VMA-211.
Thank you, to each and every one who fought in the Vietnam Conflict to protect my freedoms.
I am a Disabled Vietnam Vet: 68-70, Huey door gunner, with the 240th AHC @ BearCat, RVN, 2nd tour. I made a short 17 minute super 8mm movie over there. I also write a Christian based Blog: TOM’S JOURNAL, and try to help other combat Vets find Salvation thru Jesus Christ, and cope with combat issues, just as I still do.
email: tschuckman@aol.com
Many came back without limbs. I have known men who came back, looking whole, but they each were forever changed and were welcomed for thier efforts in a shamefull way.
They had nightmares, post traumetic stress disorder, horrific visions in thier minds they never could forget. This program, done in the manner it was done, is long overdue-for them, and us too.
Welcome home, My Brothers and Sisters.
I flew with the 1st Cav Div (AM) assigned to A Co. 228th Avn. Bn. (ASH) as a Door Gunner on CH-47A ‘Chinook’ stationed at Bear Cat ’68-’69. It took awhile but I finally got smart and joined the Air Force when I got to old to be bounced around inside of Armored Coffins (LOL!) and joined the Air National Guard as a cook. I retired as an E-6 Apr. 1, ’92.
Once again, Brothers and Sisters, Welcome home.
May the Great Spirit watch over you and yours and guide yours and their steps for all eternity.
Welcome Home brothers K en Parrish, CMSG, USA RET, (82nd ABN, TET 68-69) and Terry Parrish, LCPL, USMC 1970 and all other unrelated brothers who we served with and who served In country during the Vietnam era. Myself a Combat medic and 91C20, with1/6 INF 198th INF, BDE, 23rd ID, @ LZ DOTTIE Oct 70- Mar 71, then 14th Combat Aviation Battalion (The “ARABS”), 16th Combat Aviation Group Mar 71-Oct 16, ’71. Chu Lai. MAJ, RET, USARNG.
1965-1968 :1st Lieutenant William Noll, Viet Nam ’67: 2nd Brigade 9th Division, Mobile Riverine Force, (River Raiders), Mekong Delta. The only major Army/ Navy Unit, Task Force 117.TET 1968. Lt.Noll spoke fluent Vietnamese and was an interrogator for the 10th Psychological Operations Battalion, USARV. Wounded 3 times in battle, suffers from Agent Orange diabetes. June 1st he celebrates his 72 birthday. The paperwork for his Purple Heart he earned burned in a fire and he has yet to receive his medal. I am his wife of 42 years and we say “Welcome Home” to the vets who make the “Run for the Wall” every year. If you like to make contact: nivennoll@earthlink,net.
In 1982 with the help of Keith Nolan he traces his service from Basic Training at Fort Ord through his honorable discharge. He has compiled many photos and documents from his time in service.
The trailer looks like all Army. How about the U.S. Marines and the Sailors that served on river boats in the Mekong Delta?
I was an IPW (Interrogator of POW’s) with the 1st Cav and worked out of QUAN LOI near the Fishhook. I went wherever they needed me…..sometimes loaned out to other units in the task force I.e. Cambodia Incursion. I spoke fluent Vietnamese, having spent 47 weeks at Biggs Field, Ft Bliss, Tx. learning the language, and then MI school at Ft Holabird, Md. I went back to Viet Nam in 2000 with my wife. I am 100 % disabled and live in Az. with my wife of 47 years.