Current Project
Rakkasans - 1968
A Return to III Corps Tactical Zone - September 2026
The Longest Climb Foundation (LCF) will be returning to Vietnam in September 2026 to lead another group of U.S. military Veterans on a powerful journey of peace, healing, and reconciliation.
Working in conjunction with the Department of War and the Vietnamese Wartime Accounting Initiative (VWAI), the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, and researchers from Texas Tech University, as well as The Steel Thread Project we will guide former Paratroopers from the U.S. Army’s storied 101st Airborne Division back to Southeast Asia to revisit old battlefields, engage with former Vietnamese adversaries, and reconcile with their service in the Vietnam war.
Soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment saw some of the most intense fighting of the Vietnam War in and around the Saigon region in 1968, a year that proved to be the deadliest of all for U.S. forces in Vietnam. The Rakkasans suffered the loss of 50 men in September 1968 alone, and 59 by early October, as well as an untold number of wounded, before being pulled out of combat.
LCF’s third journey to Vietnam will return the Rakkasans and their family members to many of those battlefield locations where some of the most fierce fighting of the war occurred. We’ve witnessed the life-changing power of these trips in previous journeys with our Veterans and anticipate more of the same.
For more information about the Rakkasans’ experience in Vietnam in 1968, please also visit the Steele Thread Project website here.
Past Projects
Sgt. Rodney M. Davis (USMC)
A Return to the Que Son Valley - September 2024
In September 2024, The Longest Climb Foundation and with the family members returned to the battlefield where Sgt. Rodney Davis made the ultimate sacrifice and would ultimately receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.
“I often reflect on our trip. It was a life-changing experience.” – Nicky Davis, the oldest of two infant daughters of Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. Rodney M. Davis (USMC) at the time of his death on Sept. 6, 1967, after joining The LCF on a September 2024 trip to Vietnam that included remembering and honoring her father at the very spot where he joined the eternal pantheon of American heroes exactly 57 years earlier.
Return to Hamburger Hill
May 2019
The Longest Climb Foundation began with the original return trip, the 50th Anniversary of the Battle of Hamburger Hill in 2019. The first cohort consisted of active-duty Soldiers, Veterans from both the U.S. and Vietnamese sides of the battle along with support staff from the US Embassy in Vietnam as well as family members of each Veteran, guides, and interpreters. Over the course of the week in Vietnam, the U.S. and Vietnamese Veterans bonded and by the time of the climb back up Hill 937 (Hamburger Hill) and culminating events, all were walking hand in hand achieving an unprecedented level of long sought peace and reconciliation and the Longest Climb Foundation was born.
