Lance Corporal Baronowski's Vietnam
Frances Lass
The Radio Times, August 2003
Dead men don't often tell tales. But Lance Corporal Mike Baronowski does. He left behind an archive of tapes that, when put together with the memories of his younger brother and sister and complemented by the recollections of his comrades, draw a gripping image of the Vietnam war and of the remarkable man who recorded them.
Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Good Morning, Vietnam – all tried to capture the experience of the American fighting the 'yellow man'. But Hollywood never got close to the realities as recorded by Baronowski on tapes he made to send home to his family. Like the DJ in Good Morning, Vietnam, he revelled in inventing characters such as Watered Concrete (Walter Cronkite), and as in Apocalypse Now the whirling blades of the choppers are ever present. But, unlike Hollywood, these sounds are of real marines shooting real bullets at real people. And it's chilling.
Sony Radio Academy Award citation
"A beautifully produced account of an extraordinary man in an extraordinary family at an extraordinary moment in world history."