Welcome to OnQ magazine.

I'm Stacey Smith.

Tonight On Q, Chris Moore and a television crew are in Vietnam working on a documentary that will premiere on WQED this summer.

We're going to hear from Chris live in just a few moments.

But first On Q, managing editor Michael Bartle talk with Chris before he left to find out why his return to Vietnam is so important.

Yes, this is specialist fifth Class Chris Moore, some 35 years ag serving his country in Vietnam.

Moore served in an engineering unit building major roads in the mid portion of wha was then called South Vietnam.

We were improving their infrastructure, building the roads an the same roads we traveled on.

By day.

They moved their goods whether it was logging or weapons, they moved them by night.

So we were, oddly enough, making it a little bit more efficient for them to fight us by improving their infrastructure and building the roads.

Did you see resistance?

Feel resistance?

No, because we were doing, the country a favor.

We really didn't have to worry about being ambushed.

We improved the infrastructure the roads, the drainage system, along the roads.

We did worry about landmines when we got off pavement.

Chris is best friends in that engineering unit.

Were two young men in this picture.

Andrew Boone on the far left from Chicago.

And next to him Leroy Perry from North Carolina.

This is Leroy Perry.

This man brought me through.

I was young and dumb.

I was 20 years old when I got to Vietnam.

He was a real leader of men.

Moore's tour ended in 1971.

He hasn't returned to Vietnam until now.

Why are you going back?

That's a good question, Michael.

I have to reflect on that.

It's been 35 years since I was in Vietnam, and it was one growing experience for me.

Those men, Andrew Boone, Leroy Perry helped make me a man.

I grew up a lot.

I was very immature when I went to Vietnam.

A lot of the pictures that you have of me, you see me clown, and I'm still a clown to a certain degree.

But I gained a new respect for life, for human rights.

Vietnam is a beautiful country.

I want to see it.

Not at war.

We scarred that country terribly, and I just want to see it.

Not at war, at peace.

And what they call the American war, what we call the Vietnam War.

And I hope it will make some peace in my heart to tell you the truth.

Do you have Chri traveled to Vietnam last Friday with the WQED TV documentary crew.

The night before he left, his lifelong buddies came to Pittsburgh to join him here.

Andrew Boone on the left and Leroy Perry on the right.

Yes, as Chris says, they're older and wiser these days compared to those younger days in Vietnam.

And Boone and Perry.

Yes, they made the trip with Chris from Pittsburgh to Vietnam It's a journey of reconciliation for you personally.

Professionally.

You've got a lot of work to do.

What's the show about?

All this show's about so much.

It's part of my personal journey.

And my friends Leroy Perry and Andrew Boone's personal journey back to Vietnam after 35 years.

It's part, a physician, a local veteran who worked with third Medical Battalion and worked saving lives of many Marines who were injured in battle and having to cut off their legs to save their lives.

Watching some of them die, who now throug that journey of reconciliation, goes back and consults with doctors of kids who have medical problems and kids who are still stepping o ordnance that we left over there since the end of the war.

To this day, to this day, still losing leg to stepping on active landmines.

They're 35, 40 years old.

And there's another young lady going with us, Norine, who was eight months ol when her father was killed along with 11 other guys in an ambush and as she goes to that spot near where he was killed.

I hope it's a journe of reconciliation for her, too.

So, I would imagine there'd be some emotional moments.

Chri and the crew will also show us how a local group called the Friends of Danang is doing more than reconciling with Vietnam at this hospital and other facilities there.

The Friends of Da Nang provide services and hope for the impoverished of Vietnam.

Friends of Da Nang has really established and this is something about Western Pennsylvania.

Friends of Da Nang have established throug spaghetti dinners, car washes.

They've raised $50,000.

And as you might imagine, it goes a lot farther in Vietnam than it does here.

And they've built a school.

They went back on their journey of reconciliation, and they said, what can we do?

And through all these loca efforts, these vets in western Pennsylvania have built a school for these young kids there.

And I think that's a great thing.

And they work with some o the local hospitals to provide through World Vision, prosthetic devices for these kids who are still stepping on that ordnanc or have other medical problems.

And so I see a lot of hope for us as a human race.

If we could just learn t get along and stop all the wars, we could just get through some of the the mess that's out there that messes up so many of of our young men who voluntee to serve this country faithfully with great patriotic fervor.

And going overseas to kill people over what?

Over what?

And then we become friends with them 30 years later.

Do you have conflicting feelings?

What has changed, I guess, is not so much my feelings, but my attitude about war.

I've become a big advocate for veterans.

I've done a lot of programs about veterans and veterans issues on the radio and on TV.

And I feel blessed to be a veteran, to have had that experience and now speak up for veterans rights everywhere they let Our young men into war.

It doesn't matter if they're Democrats or Republicans and the young men come hom having paid the price physically and mentally for it.

Some strong personal opinions from Chris Moore.

He'll be back next week.

But guess what?

We have Chris on the phone live from Vietnam.

Good morning Chris.

Good morning Vietnam.

Chris.

It is what about 7:30 in the morning there then?

I was 12 hours ahead of you.

It's 7:37.

Something like that in the morning?

Yes.

Tell us about your first impressions.

What does Vietnam look like compared to 35 years ago?

Well, thank the Lord.

It is a completely different country.

I am standing now at a five and a five star resort with white sandy beaches.

The waves, not crashing, but gently lulling against the shore.

We went back the long been, the military base.

Largest military base, I believe, in Vietnam.

Not a bunker is standing.

It is an industrial park.

That looks like I was standing in one of the rib seas in Pittsburgh somewhere.

So it looks a lot different.

It feels a lot different.

And the people in particular are very, very friendly.

Well, Chris, that's just what I was going to ask you.

What has been the reception for for you guys there?

Overwhelming.

To tell you the truth, Stacy.

It's it's it just tugs at your heartstrings, particularly with the work that the friends of Da Nang are doing here.

Working with World Vision on, children's problems who have, difficulty with movement.

We have been here with Doctor Ed Kelly of Pittsburgh, surgeon who brought some medical instruments.

And the Vietnamese doctors looked and were in the hall.

It was like Christmas morning as they opened this box, full of retractors and other medical instruments that can help them in surgeries with childhood diseases.

Be it club feed or what they think are the effects of Agent Orange.

That, Doctor Kelly says would normally be operated on and cured as a kid.

And these children are still dealing with this.

This.

The situation is primitive, medically.

As he described it it went into an operating room and and there's no air conditioning and flies buzzing about the roo as they operated on some.

Wow.

But they're like, these veterans are making a difference by considering that time, the energy medical equipment, money, building schools and so much more.

Amazing help from Pittsburgh.

Chris.

We want to get through some of the pictures that you've already sent back, these still pictures.

This is a picture of you and your army buddies that we mentioned earlier here at the Pittsburgh airport.

It had to be a long trip.

Oh, really?

The longest leg was from L.A.

We flew to, Seattle and landed there and then on to, Taiwan.

And, that was the longest leg, and it was pretty rough, but at least the flight was smoot and the service was good on it.

All right.

We see a shot of, you arriving, I believe, at the, Ho Chi Minh airport here.

Well, it's in Ho Chi Minh City, but there's still call Tan Son Nhat airport.

And, Ton Armando tells me who's been here a couple of times before.

It looked very good to me.

And he says there's been some serious upgrades.

And everywhere you look, including at the airport, there they have some construction.

It looks like they'll have something that rivals Pittsburgh International.

By the next time we come.

Chris, we have, less than a minute, but we want to get.

This is the moped picture of Vietnam currently.

And now we have, we're going t go to this next picture of you, Boone and Perry, and you're at the War Remnants Museum.

Yeah, we left a lot of ordnance and equipment here, and, they have collected it into several museums.

That's in Saigon.

And we were looking, at, bombs and and one 75 millimeter cabins and and all sorts of stuff.

But the mopeds, I don't think anybody in Vietnam has a driver's like I couldn't.

It is madness.

Our camera man, Martin O'Neill, and I stood in a police traffic circle and they just entered a circle.

That's it.

I don't know how they do it without colliding, but there is a motorcycle in Vietnam, and everybody's riding one.

All right, Chris, thank you so much.

Well, unfortunately, we are out of time, though.

We are looking forward to your return and looking forward to your, documentary, your reports on going back to Vietnam.

Thank you.

I appreciate it, fellows.

You guys take care.

You too, Chris Moore.

Thank you Michael.

Thank you also.

Indeed.

Still to come, dancers at the Pittsburgh Ballet, swinging it to the sounds of Frank Sinatra and Cole Porter.

And then after that, we are headed to a North Country brew pub to stay connected.

You're watching on Q magazin because these foundations care enough about local programing to help pay for it.

The Howard Heinz Endowment, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, the McCune Foundation, the Pittsburgh Foundation, the Hillman Foundation, the Grable Foundation, the Eden Hall Foundation.

These corporations also support On Q. Kids who are ready for school are ready for life.

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More information is available at any branch or online.

It was so Hard for Angela when her mom died.

You know sometimes dad is the last person a teenager wants to talk to him.

He's the caring place that made a big difference.

Angela is doing better in school.

I know we talk a lot more.

Some days are still hard, but she's come a long way.

Sometimes it takes more than health care to ensure her family's health a helping hand in the places we call home.

Highmark And we couldn't do it without you, the members of WQED.

So when is the last time that you went to a show at the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater?

If it has been a while, then you might be surprised to find out that the ballet has changed its tune.

On Q, contributor Carol Lee, Esby reports Strangers in the night.

His smooth, sophisticated style turns songs like strangers in the night and My Way.

I did it into multi-million dollar hits.

Now the music of Blue-Eyed crooner Frank Sinatra, All the People Say, and the timeless classics of another great American musician, composer and lyricist, Cole Porter.

are being showcased in a new ballet by the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater.

It's called Swingin it.

and some of the most for you.

I love doing nines octave songs.

Terry Orr is the PBT artistic director I've always wanted to bring in a work by Twyla Tharp.

It's very innovative, wonderful work and the great songs of Frank Sinatra.

I mean, you know, the softl and it's something stupid and, you know, it's changes in the night and that's life.

Just wonderful, wonderful songs.

You also are incorporating Cole Porter.

Well, Col Porter came into my mind about, a little over two years ago.

I was talking with, Derek Deane.

We were in Europe and, talking about doing some projects, and one of the things he wanted to do was Cole Porter.

I think Dere is just an a genius piece here.

Oh, here we go.

It should just be like that.

It's very, very different from what Twyla has done.

So why did you choose Cole Porter?

I've always loved Cole Porter's music.

Always.

I think Cole Porter was really ahead of his time.

And I think especially now with the movie that came out, the lovely, I mean, sort of Col Porter has become popular again.

How do you choreograph that to contemporary music, ballet to contemporary?

Well, you can use, but you can use classical ballet technique in many different ways.

I mean, you know, if this is a sort of neo classical ballet, although all the girls are up on point and there's a most of the steps are taken from the ballet technique.

There is a much sort of sassy, cool, funny, romantic things that those, those sort of things you can do with mixing classical ballet steps.

And this is the day view.

Yes.

This is the world premiere of this ballet.

It hasn't it hasn't been done before.

And it's also the latest in a series of contemporary ballets performed by the PBT!

Ballets, which got their start six years ago with the jazzy Indigo in motion.

That was followed in 2002 by Brand New Day, with music by sting from films Obama.

In 2004 it was the rock and roll rhythms of Bruce Springsteen and Bob Seger.

And last year, the songs of Paul Simo became the backdrop for ballet.

And here's to you, Mrs.

Robinson.

What does doing new works do to choreography?

I think it's important to b able to keep up with the times.

Otherwise you're always living as a museum.

In the past, and there's great ballet works that, need to be done, should be done.

And so when you take bran new works, you have to be able to take into the society of what we are in 2006.

Today, this is promoting and defining what they are is also one of the important missions of the ballet's new executive director, Harris Ferris.

What is your plan for the Ballet Theater takes the.

In the short term, we're really we're still in somewhat of a reactive mode t some of the steps that have been taken, that had, unanticipated consequences.

I mean, for example, I mean, saving half $1 million to, to eliminate the live orchestra while it's saved that amount of money, also created other challenges, something, but now with an agreement between the ballet and the musicians union, the orchestra can once agai bring live music to PBT audience So luckily, we were able t restore the music for next year for two seasons.

We still have some fundraisin to do to make that happen, but, Swan Lake will open the 06 07 season and it will be with full orchestra and long term.

We want the the company out there.

So that means not only performing here in the cultural district, but also touring regionally and nationally.

And that is in the long term plans.

It's not the silver bullet solution because we know touring also costs money, but pair that with some of the productions that are being looked at by Terrence or the artistic director that are suitable.

You know, he's already started moving towards a new vision artistically.

Janet Marie Groom helps bring the artistic vision to the stage, and she'll really sparkle on stage.

She's responsible for all costumes, including the ones that will be wor during this week's performances.

Each dress is different and Sinatra for each song and the boys all wear tuxedos.

So what is the look for that then?

The look.

I think it's sort of like seven 60s and 70s.

They all wear opaque host match their dresses and they dance not in pointe shoes for this, but they dance in high heels and they were all dyed to match the dresses as well.

Over here, the Cole Porter designs now these are lighter colors.

These are more pastels.

Yes.

The dancers changed costumes three times in the Cole Porter piece.

They start out dancing t the loverly, and they wear the the dark blue, midnight blue, we call it dress.

And then for the pas de deux they each dance to a different song.

And they were the pastels that ar at the upper level of sketches, and they're right here on the table.

Beautiful.

And it' the beauty, the grace, mastery and skill of dance that the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater hopes will continue to attract.

Old as well as new audiences.

How do you feel about the future for the ballet company?

Well, I feel, extremely different than I did last year at this time.

I always knew that there was light at the end of the tunnel.

Now I feel like I'm halfway through the tunnel and ligh is much larger and, so way down.

And we're told the ballet will continue to present contemporary ballets in the future.

Plans for Peter Pan are now in the works, and for more information you can go to our website wqed.org.

Clic the On Q logo on the first page.

Now if you head north in Butler County, there is a local establishmen that bills itself as a beanery eatery, brewery and community center.

It's official name is the North Country Brewing Company On Qs Dave and Dave has the story.

What is North Country Brewing?

Well it's kind of a mixtur of a beanery brewery definitely.

And then we have really good food and atmosphere to match everything.

It's just a place for people to come and hang out.

Communicate.

How's the coffeehouse feel?

And that's what we wanted to create here is first and foremost, this is a brewery.

It's in the name, right?

Yes.

Tell us about that.

What do you brew?

13 different beers on draft.

Well, this is Stone House, IPA.

I got something new called slippery Rock dew, or a black and tan, pumpkin, base stout, mix of embalmer and Buck Snort And I've got the firehouse red.

So that's a whole grain.

No sugars added, no chemicals, no preservatives.

It's all fresh, brewe right in our system behind us.

Awesome.

And, about 20ft to the taps This building.

Need a lot of renovations.

I mean, we basically redid it that what we came out with was, like, the true character of the place from 1805, the first structures her in 1848, the owner, Peter Uber, went to the gold rush, actually, and he came back in 1849.

And his son Willia was actually the barkeep here.

He had turned it into a cabinet shop.

So in 185 they put this storefront on here and, turned into a cabinet shop, funeral home.

Last funeral was here in 1974.

So who would you say comes here?

Is it just people snicker rock?

Is it students?

You have all age groups, from the college kids to the non-college non-college.

It's local.

We know the everybody, we know the owners, we know the waiters and we know the neighbors.

You walk in, you always see somebody you know, it's given stability to the culture of alcohol and slippery rock.

This is a college town, and it's always been cake parties and frat parties.

And this is something, you know, that really gives you all other level of why people gather.

The owners are so warm and friendly, and they're so busy back there they can't get out.

They're out talking, visiting.

It's really a warm, friendly place.

If you noticed one of the beers, which is my favorite, the firehouse 33.

A percentage of this beer of the profit always goes to the fire station.

You have to be a beer lover to really like this, but I don't think so.

The food is is really good.

And and their sense of of being in the community is it's powerful.

They've just done so much for our town.

The County Morgue.

We thought it was appropriate to put it here.

It's, it was actually the county morgue in the area before hospitals were in the area.

This building actually served as a morgue.

Everything on tap here is fresh and it's all just sort of made right here.

Like you said, no preservatives.

No, it comes in a green bag, and, there are milk and, made on site.

We're standing in 1850 as 1805 behind me in 1805 over here.

So everything had to blend.

A friend of ours, Greg Christopher, did all the fine carpentry.

He an I actually, used all the trees from my brother's property to, craft the bar.

And people started stacking coins in the in the.

I don't know if you noticed that, but let's take a look at here.

They've been sticking coins in the cracks.

So, you know, people add to it.

It's like it's not done.

You know, it's like there's always going to be something he's going to add.

It looks like you have several nooks in throughout the area that makes it fun.

Yeah, it does with separate rooms with a driftwood ceiling from Erie.

Hand-carved the door on of cherries here.

Cherry trees.

That's just the men's room, which was actually the embalming room we were told are some specia handcrafting in the ladies room.

That water can didn't hold water anymore.

And, we tripped over it every time.

So, I finally got sick of it, and Greg found the forearm and card, carved the hand on there, and now we don't trip over the water cannons.

It's actually a hand that a locked the stall door.

It was kind of neat to be local and watch it evolve would come by and there'd be, you know, different things happening.

I mean, look at this table.

I've been here a hundred times.

Details everywhere you look, every time I come here, there's something you see, like little carvings.

Have you been in the girls bathroom?

Yeah, I have actually.

I mean, that's the first place we always stop.

See?

There you go.

That.

That was awesome.

North Country Trail is, blazed just two miles the southeast of us.

And, we actually ferry a lot of hikers that want to hike from the stone house down to, So, like McConnell's Mills or marine, it's a really nice area of hiking.

I love this ceiling detail an coming out of my boots in here.

I mean, there's a lot o different character each room, but everything's hand hand-carved.

Even the backs.

We basically molded, two by six back there and put the paneling, the Wayne's coat on there.

Yeah.

And all this wood It actually was in the back garage.

And we recycle i from one of the furniture store.

We have, black walnut cherry inlays and curly maple.

This, was all filled here as wel Used to slip down into the building, but, we ended up reusing the sidewalk that was outside, like, like a bar are where you can set a drink down.

And so people come listen to music.

They enjoy each other's company.

It's really about community.

And this has been one of the best things culturally to happen to this town.

Probably the most unique people I've ever seen.

Just the woodwork alone keeps you busy.

I get a sense that this i kind of like a community place.

More and more people are coming from Pittsburgh.

So I sit down with this on TV because we want we want to be able to get a seat when we come.

And to this Friday, by the way, you can look for Dave and Dave live and in person at the Home and Garden show at the convention center.

You will find them at the Girl Scouts Build a Dream booth at 7:30.

Thank you for watching.

We'll be back live at 7:30 tomorrow night.

We'll see you then.

Sta connected and have a good night.