The original proposed project to make "Return To Vietnam" was as a 16mm documentary about the "Vets With a Mission" 10th anniversary trip in 1999 which planned to return to build a rural health clinic near the site of the first U.S. military landing into Vietnam. When the communist Republic of Vietnamese government's Ministry of Information would only approve such a film project if the footage were processed in Vietnam and censored prior to the footage being allowed to leave the country, filmmaker Charles Domokos and the founder of "Vets with a Mission" William Kimball (author: "Vietnam, the Other Side of Glory" and "Pointman" (written with Roger Helle)) agreed to make the film using consumer video and super 8 film cameras. Even so, there was surveillance during the filming in Vietnam, and some footage, specifically footage shot by the filmmaker in the Chu Chi tunnels, west of Ho Chi Minh city, where the Viet Cong communist guerrillas had built underground facilities including field hospitals and from which hide-out they would ambush advancing American troops, disappeared.
The film received a "Silver Telly" award at the 2007 Telly Awards in the "Feature Documentary" category.
Vietnamese filmmaker 'Duc Doan', who had been a filmmaker for the South Vietnamese Ministry of Information, after receiving a film-studies scholarship to the London, England in the 1960's, was the Consultant for the film to ensure accuracy.
The filmmaker, during the period of filming was an Adjunct Assistant Professor teaching film and production in the U.S.C. School of Cinema-TV, whose co-operation is gratefully acknowledged in the making of this film.
Archival footage was added from the U.C.L.A. Film Archives from the "Hearts" newsreels, and from the Hoover Institution Film Archives at Stanford University. Some of the footage from the Hoover Institution (the retrieval of the 10,000 corpses of civilians massacred during the Battle of Tet) were filmed by the South Vietnamese Film Information Ministry prior to the collapse of the government in 1975 after the fall of Saigon.