Ooorah! We have reached our goal with this campaign! Thank you!!!! But we have so many more miles to go ($20,000 at least) to purchase final music, photography, and news footage rights, and to get Bravo! to film festivals, so the world can see this important work. Please continue to help for the last few days of this campaign. We are so grateful!

Bravo! Team

Help Bravo! See the World

Or more accurately, help the world see Bravo! The mixing of the final sound track of our documentary, Bravo! Common Men, Uncommon Valor, took place in early August at Skywalker Ranch (home of Star Wars) in the hands of the legendary Mark Berger.  Mark has won four Academy Awards and several Stellas (the British equivalent of an Oscar) for his work. Mark signed on with Bravo! after learning about the project from the film's editor, John Nutt. John is a Stella recipient himself and a Vietnam veteran with more than 40 years experience in the film industry as a sound and dialogue editor on films such as Apocalypse Now, The English Patient, and Amadeus.

And what is the result of the interviews and the archival footage and the music and Mark and John contributing their expertise? The power and artistry, the passion and honestyBravo! is going to knock you off your feet. But you have to see it to experience that. The way to get Bravo! to your local theater is to find a distributor who can put it there. And the place to connect with distributors is at film festivals. Bravo!s application to Sundance Film Festival went in last week. In this phase of our fundraising on Indiegogo, your contributions toward our $5,000 goal will help take Bravo! to the people. We cant get this story out without your help. Wont you donate today?

What Is Bravo! About?

Producer Ken Rodgers says: Ten days after my 21st birthday in January 1968, the siege of Khe Sanh began. Except for officers and career NCOs, I was one of the oldest Marines trapped in that wet and isolated battleground. For the next seventy-seven days, my comradesmostly teenagersand I endured one of the longest and most ferocious sieges in the history of American warfare.

Six thousand Marines and supporting personnel were surrounded by elements of three crack North Vietnamese divisions. We could see them working in their trenches. Some days we took over 1200 rounds of incoming rocket and artillery fire, an average of one every 72 seconds. We lived in deep holes, like rats, with the rats. We went outside the wire and engaged in deadly firefights; intimate affairs, with satchel charges and bayonets. And we performed, survived and we triumphed. Though children, we triumphed. 

Now, forty-three years later, my wife, Betty, and I are making a documentary film recording and celebrating that triumph, our survival, and our memories. 

Betty and Ken have been working tirelessly to document the story of those Marines who endured and survived the horrific days at Khe Sanh. Ken is one of those battle-scarred survivors.   

Christopher Beaver on Bravo!

One last word from documentary filmmaker Christopher Beaver who saw a close-to-final cut of the film and was deeply moved. Chris has won the Grand Prize for Documentary at the US (Sundance) Film Festival, an Emmy, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Heres what he says about Bravo!  Bravo! Common Men, Uncommon Valor is an important and deeply affecting film about the sacrifices and the courage of the Americans who fought in Vietnam. The emotional message of the film is as timely today as when the first American troops entered Vietnam.

After watching the film, I sat in a deep personal silence remembering the friends who returned from the war and those who did not. I wanted to express my gratitude to the men in the film for sharing what they went through, to say to each one of them that, after hearing their words and seeing their faces, I better understood what they endured then and what they still endure today, and that I hoped in the future that together we might find a better path to follow than more warfare. "

With Your Help

To quote one of Bravo!s dearest friends and strongest supporters, Please join me in bringing Bravo! through to its final cut. With your help, we can do this! Please take a minute to watch the two videos here on the website and, if you are able, to contribute any amount to the effort as the film moves into the final stages of production.