“Hot Mics & TV Lights” The AFVN

“Hot Mics and TV Lights: The Armed Forces Vietnam Network” is the latest work from Marc Yablonka. The book provides the first person perspective of thirty seven individuals who served with the Armed Forces Vietnam Network (AFVN).The AFVN was the military broadcast network that served American service personnel during the Vietnam War.

Navy Chief Petty Officer Bryan Arbuckle is considered the “father” of AFVN. He put it together in 1962 over a matter of weeks employing used equipment and borrowed record albums.

Marc says that without collaborator Rick Frederickson it would have been a completely different work. Frederickson was a newsman at AFVN Saigon.  He conducted many of the 37 interviews featured in Hot Mics, including Adrian Cronauer whose story inspired the movie “Good Morning Vietnam”.  The film was the brainchild of Ben Moses, who worked with Cronauer. Ben said the movie was “Half Adrian, half me, and half made up.” When he first began pitching the idea he had trouble finding purchase.  One TV executive even told him “How dare you proposed doing something funny about Vietnam.”

Not all the stories are humorous. During the Tet offensive, nine members of the Hue AFVN station found themselves holding off attackers for five days. Three were killed, five were taken prisoner and one escaped. Another DJ was broadcasting when a rocket attack struck the studios. He may be the only DJ to be awarded a Purple Heart while on the air.

Project Jenny entailed putting TV/Radio broadcasting “stations” into three Lockheed Constellation aircraft. They would fly over the country providing TV broadcasts and psyops. In one incident they were running the wrong soundtrack for a TV program causing South Vietnamese officials to think the plane had been commandeered by the enemy. They sent up jet fighters to shoot them down. Thankfully, the broadcasters were able to straighten things out before that occurred.

TAKEAWAY: “Thinking of them as only in the rear with the gear does not apply to what the AFVN staff members really went through in Vietnam.”