U.S. Army 2nd Battalion (Airborne), 503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade (Sep) on an operation in South Vietnam. Paratroopers advance through rice paddy fields and thick forest area. Officer speaks over radio phone on field. Next, soldiers are seen standing where they have popped a yellow smoke grenade to mark a landing zone.. More views of the troops making their way to the landing zone. Scene shifts to a group of Bell UH-1 Iroquois (Huey) helicopters approaching and landing in trail formation. The soldiers are dispatched in groups to board the choppers. After all are aboard, the helicopters take off in formation and depart. View from one of the helicopters as it is leaving. Soldiers are seen on the ground below. Glimpse of a helicopter pilot inside a cockpit. View of another helicopter flying above. View of helicopters flying in formation. Closeup of one flying nearby with door open.
1st Marine Division troops advance uphill at Peleliu Island, Palau. Marines walk uphill through thick forest area. Wounded marines being carried on litter. Motor crew operates 60 mm motor. Marines fire 30 caliber light machine gun on half track and 37 mm guns at Japanese cave entrance. View of Japanese slogan written on board. (World War II period).
Marines of 7th Regiment, 1st Marine Division, advance uphill at Peleliu Island, Palau. Dead Maine on rock. Smoke rises from forest area. Slate notes that Marines made contact with elements of the U.S. Army 321st Regimental Combat Team and discontinued filming as they came under fire from Japanese forces. (World War II period).
Depicts industry and modernization coming into rural Appalachia in the early 1900s. A steam locomotive pulling a long line of train cars moves along the mountain side, leaving a trail of smoke in the Appalachian Mountain, near Smyth County Virginia. Man, woman and children wave at the coming train. Cow grazes in field. A steam shovel excavating a site. Vehicles drive past on a dirt road newly carved into a mountain side. Two men sawing a tree with a two-person saw. The tree falls. Horse carries wooden logs from the forest area. Logs being milled into lumber pieces at a saw mill. Giant saw blade spinning and cutting the wood. Factories with smoke spewing from chimneys. Rural coal mine buildings, some up high on stilts. A man operating an electrically powered, belt-driven lathe to turn lumber into round handles for tools. A rural preacher with a bible at an outdoor site, preaching in front of a corn field. Slates indicate that he is preaching against worldly education, and in favor of biblical learning only. reaches to people. A stone on a building with the words, "Marion Junior College. 1873." The preacher waving the bible in his hand. A teenage boy seated in a rocking chair on a porch reading a book.
U.S. soldiers crawling through underbrush during Bougainville campaign in World War 2 against the Japanese. American soldiers carry injured soldiers. Wounded US soldier or Marine lying on litter, using helmet for pillow. Soldiers squatting in forest. Loading wounded on litters into ambulance backed up to a plane. Soldier walks towards jeep with "Operations Officer - Acorn l3". Ambulance on field. Ambulance backed up to open door of C-47 loading wounded on plane. Two soldiers rest in the shade of a C-47 wing. Wounded soldiers lie inside medical evacuation aircraft.
George Stone and Dr Philip Hauser at the presentation of U.S. census. Map of U.S. with an area marked on it appears. Figures of population of 1970 appear on the marked area. On its side 6 questions required for census are seen. A slide with Census 1900 appears on the screen. An official with a gun is seen riding a horse in a forest. He meets a Native American Indian and writes his family details for the census.