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War has always been a terrible thing. It scars those who serve our country and those who watch from afar in unfathomable ways. To go down in history as the school that sent the most young boys to their deaths during the Vietnam War is undoubtedly a disturbing legacy.

When jobs became increasingly difficult to acquire (and the street violence became steadily worse), about 70% of people from Northern Philadelphia left to join the army. They theorized that it would be better to “get shot while in uniform and earning a paycheck than left dead in my street by some gangbanger who capped me for the fun of it.” Hundreds of men from this area of the U.S. gave their lives in the Vietnam war. Sixty-four of them were from Edison High School, making this the school with the highest number of student deaths in a war. 

Edison 64 is a heart-wrenching tale of several boys from this school who suffered tremendous loss and pain, and some who ultimately gave their lives fighting.