Their mission? To tell the story of the war in the terms of those who have actually lived it.

FOCUS Winter Soldiers to Testify Against War

Reporting for Truthout, Maya Schenwar writes, "Thirty-seven years ago, in the midst of a bitter-cold Michigan winter, 109 Vietnam veterans gathered at a Howard Johnson Motel auditorium in Detroit to tell their stories. For three days, they told of ransacking undefended villages, attacking civilians, mutilating bodies, torturing Viet Cong suspects, burning houses, destroying Vietnamese property and livestock and killing innocent children."