Return to Dak To
Join the Sewickley Valley Historical Society for this gripping Vietnam War documentary.
April 24 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
The Sewickley Valley Historical Society is commemorating 50 years since the Vietnam War ended with a documentary about a lesser-known chapter of that conflict.
Return to Dak To looks back at director, writer and producer Christopher Upham’s 14-month tour of duty in Vietnam. It specifically focuses on the siege of Dak To, a grueling 1969 battle that lasted for 61 days and still haunts Upham—and, probably, many other surviving members of the 299th Engineer Battalion.
The Lindsay will be showing Return to Dak To on Thursday, April 24, at 7 p.m. Upham will Zoom in after the screening for a virtual Q&A. Tickets for this event can be purchased for $11 each.
This is the final film in The Lindsay and Sewickley Valley Historical Society’s Lights, Camera, History! series. Previous films in this series included the 1965 Jimmy Stewart Western Shenandoah and the 1992 baseball classic A League of Their Own.
About half of the 600 American soldiers involved in the siege of Dak To were either killed or wounded. Upham’s directorial debut follows five 299th battalion survivors as they visit Dak To in an effort to more fully understand what they were doing in Vietnam and the profound effects of that war on the rest of their lives.
“Return to Dak To represents a culmination of my life’s work so far,” says Upham. “It is for every citizen’s understanding of soldiers and their families that I have dedicated whatever is needed to make this film—not for us, but for the American audience still unconsciously seeking closure for what the Vietnamese call The American War.”
