Retired Lt. Col. Bob Baird, co-pilot and mission logistics coordinator, who served 20 years in the Army with two tours in Vietnam. Bill McDonald, mission chaplain, a former crew chief for the 128th Assault Helicopter Company. Gary Roush, mission historian, a former helicopter pilot with the 242nd Assault Support Helicopter Company. Mike Venable, mission co-pilot, who flew with the 129th and 134th Helicopter Assault Companies.

The Fries conducted many interviews with veterans, logging more than 200 hours of taped interviews, reunions, and ceremonies.

"One of our philosophical principles was that we wanted to stay as close as possible to the history of the veterans at every opportunity," Cheryl Fries said. "So we involved veterans at every level. We always had a Vietnam veteran in the left seat of the aircraft and we had veterans planning the LZs and doing a lot of the crew work. Accuracy was non-negotiable. There was a great deal of respect about this being sacred ground for the people telling the stories. We were committed to being respectful of the veterans and families we were interviewing. In the years of pre-production, we interviewed hundreds of veterans. That's how we formed the philosophical base for the film."

Patrick Fries believed that had they not been faithful to the experience of the veterans, many of the stories would not have been told.

"If you're not accurate, people don't want to talk to you," he said. "They don't want to open up their stories and their photo albums and their pain and suffering only to have it not told accurately."

Accompanied by three support vehicles and an aerial cinematography helicopter, the Fries estimate they flew 10,000 miles, a figure arrived at by Logistics Coordinator Bob Baird, who logged the miles on his SUV between Ft. Rucker, Alabama, and the flight's final LZ, the Angel Fire National Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the mountains of northern New Mexico.

They scheduled 25 Landing Zones and guess at a final tally of 42, a number they are unable to nail down with any precision because many LZs popped up at the last minute, and all followed Patrick Fries' rule: Don't land on concrete unless absolutely necessary.

So they put down in front yards and back yards and farm yards and pastures and open fields. Their Web page provides an LZ road map: 3 farmyards, 4 backyards, 1 elementary school, 1 church, 1 town square, 1 hospital, 1 VFW hall, 2 high schools, 4 museums, 3 military bases, 5 parks, 5 universities, and the Ft. Gordon POW/MIA Memorial.

They found a daughter who lost her father and a Vietnamese baby saved by Americans. They visited pilots and crew members, triage nurses, Red Cross "Donut Dollies," and USO entertainers. They met family members who told heartbreaking stories of loss. In some cases, people had carried the terrible burden of imagining loved ones dying alone until they met the men who had held their loved ones when they died.

"I had no idea that a mother or sister's darkest fear was that their son or brother had died alone," Patrick Fries said. "You think that when someone is killed, the biggest loss is the loss of life. You can't celebrate birthdays and Christmases together. But to hear them say the worst part of the whole thing is they were told their loved one died alone somewhere in a jungle thousands of miles from home was very difficult. I had no idea what they grieved for. People die and many, many years later, the war is as present in their children's hearts as the day they died. From the family members to the hardcore veteran who hadn't shed a tear in 34 years, it was way more than we ever bargained for."

Cheryl Fries remembers a Gold Star Mother who came to a Huey LZ.

"She talked about her son," she said. "This was a woman who heard the Huey was coming to her town and came out to see it. We'd never met her before. She was clutching a photograph of him. She pointed to her Gold Star and said, ' This is all I have left. ' That family lives with that loss every day."

Fries spoke of a Georgia veteran who held a dying comrade in his arms as the man asked the veteran to tell his wife that he loved her. Thirty-four years later, through the hard detective work of Gary Roush and what Cheryl Fries called a "series of miracles," the filmmakers were able to locate the man's widow and put her in touch with the soldier who held her dying husband in his arms. Each said the experience helped to heal wounds that had been painful through all the years.

The film ends in Angel Fire, N.M., with the Huey settling in for a landing in a cloud of swirling snow behind the chapel at the Angel Fire Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The memorial was built by the late Victor Westphall to honor his son, David, a Marine officer killed in Vietnam, and all other Vietnam veterans. Westphall peeked out from over the top of the instrument panel as the helicopter landed. The hands of veterans he loved reached into the helicopter to pull him out gently and get him into his wheelchair.

"Angel Fire became the perfect ending spot," Cheryl said. "Here you had so many incredible elements, the father on the mountaintop, the first memorial to honor fallen Vietnam veterans, the kinds of things people do in the face of unimaginable grief, and then this full-circle return to Native America, with a Native American veteran blessing the helicopter. It was all there in one place. In a way, Shadow became a story in itself. It became a story of reconciliation, of coming to terms.''

The Fries are entering the film in film festivals, a course of action taken by all independent film producers. They've been notified that Shadow will receive an award at a Houston Film Festival. They are considering an offer from a cable TV company to air the film on Veterans Day. In Albuquerque last February, it had its first theater showing at the Madstone Theaters, a fundraising event for the Angel Fire Memorial. The production company offers the film to Vietnam veteran groups for reunions and meetings.

Major funding for the film came from Arrowhead Film & Video, DynCorp, and US Helicopter. Major in-kind support was provided by Southwest Airlines and Bell Helicopter. A complete list of contributors may be found at the Shadow Web page.

"It was very surprising to see how healing it was for the veterans to tell their stories," Cheryl Fries said. "I hope one of the lessons of In the Shadow of the Blade is that when you open up and reach out, you might find the peaceful link you need. We were just the conduit. It was a life-changing experience for us to be able to do this for people."