Perry Deane Young died on New Year’s Day at 77 years old. The North Carolina-based writer and reporter landed in Vietnam on the first day of the Tet Offensive in 1968. He befriended a group of journalists determined to go beyond the official U.S. government story to tell a more nuanced version of the unfolding war.
Among those friends were Sean Flynn, Dana Stone and Tim Page, who became the basis for a character in the 1979 movie “Apocalypse Now.” Young went on to document his experiences in Vietnam and his reflections on the addiction to battlefield-adrenaline in his book “Two of the Missing” (Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan/1975).
Host Frank Stasio speaks about Young’s life and work with WUNC military reporter Jay Price, who was a long-time friend of Young.