Henry "Rocky" Colavita — Vietnam War Oral History Interview (NMAW.org)
An oral history interview with Henry "Rocky" Colavita, recorded 18 Jan 2016 by the Americans in Wartime Experience museum's "Voices of Freedom" oral history project (Vimeo channel: NMAW.org — the museum's former name, National Museum of Americans in Wartime). Title: "Henry 'Rocky' Colavita - Vietnam War - U.S. Army - 011816." Runtime: 45:19.
Michael has hand-transcribed most of this interview (roughly 38 of 45 minutes as of this update), surfacing significant new detail not available in any secondary source: the exact date and circumstances of Colavita's 1966 wounding, his stateside recovery and War College posting, his initial S4 assignment and the October 1968 start of his D Company command (succeeding CPT Rodney Grannemann), the sequence of firebases D Company operated from, his ambush tactics and command philosophy, and — most significantly — a detailed firsthand account of the January 28, 1969 bunker-complex fight that is very likely the same action in which SP4 Carl Pipher and CPL Warren Eskridge were killed. See colavita-henry.md's timeline and service record, and the colavita-henry-verbal-account-jan28-1969 document for the full transcript of that account.
Roughly 7 minutes of the interview remain untranscribed as of this update — further detail may still surface.
