Anyone else watching this? While I do think that PBS is overall a liberal cesspool I can’t help but enjoy Ken Burns’ documentaries, and this one is no exception.
Me. It is sooooooo preachy but still interesting.
One dude from West Point was talking about Ranger school in the 60s and named dropped Charles Beckwith as his senior instructor like he was just some dude. Like that one teacher in school who always busted your hump.
Like [i]The[/i] Charles Beckwith.
Still, they aren’t wrong for calling BS.
I’m watching.
My Father did 2 tours and came back with (if I’m not leaving out anything…) these:
Bronze Star Medal (5th Award)
Purple Heart (2nd Award)
Meritorious Service Medal
Air Medal (2nd Award)
Vietnam Service Medal
Republic of Vietnam gallantry Cross (w/Bronze Palm)
Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal (w/Silver Date Bar)
He retired as an Army CSM and lived many happy “granddad years”. I can remember as a kid sitting in the living room and we’d all say something into the cassette recorder to send to him.
It was many years before he’d start to tell us “the stories”.
Nevermind, for some reason it’s getting hard to see the keyboard.
I was getting ready to DVR it (DirectTV) and realized I don’t have PBS on the package I have! Damn!
It is on Amazon, all 10 parts, for around $70. I am seriously considering getting it. I am going to see what some of you guys think about it first, as PBS obviously has a reputation for a leftward slant to things.
Is there a good deal of unseen footage?
I’m watching and considering who financed this production nothing has surprised me so far.
It is in my Netflix Q, but no release date yet.
You can watch it free and at your own pace on the PBS website, which is how I’m watching it.
Personally, it seems to be pretty even handed so far - I just finished episode 3. Yes, there’s a lot of footage I’ve never seen before. The music is good too.
Been watching it all week.
Probably the best thing I’ve ever seen on the Vietnam war. I knew the french dragged us into that mess but I didn’t realize DeGaulle actually threatened to move France into the communist sphere of influence if we didn’t support them in their attempt to regain their colony.
I have to wonder if Kennedy had not been assassinated if he’s have eventually stopped supporting the South. I also didn’t realize the full extent of what a continuous train wreck the South Vietnamese government was. If only we had supported freedom for Indochina when Ho Chi Mihn first approached the US prior to turning to Russia and China.
Could have been a different world.
I dont think Kennedy would have played it much differently.
Two different paradigms but a lot of people got sold a lot of bull about Vietnam and Iraq. People were initially supportive but there was a lot of incompetence and skullduggery afoot for people to save face or look more effective than they were.
You can have the best army in the world and the best soldiers but without people knowing their ass from a hole in the ground you aren’t going to accomplish much.
That one West Point dude echoed something I was told “Everyone thought they were just a buncha guys in sandals and pajamas”, until he met his match. Guys with boots, fatigues, steel helmets, web gear, modern (for that region) weapons, and well trained.
My opinions (such as they are) have changed dramatically. Domino Theory was kind of stupid. Communism, as it was, had become a self eating snake and the only modetately successful communist country today is Red China.
Everybody else broke up, lives in the same squalor they already were, or are facing revolution everyday.
It proves, as mentiomed, that NATO gets us into more BS than it gets us out.
That’s true even today. We are dumb, hillbilly 'Mericans who have to count on our toes until something happens then we gotta send Gunships, A-10s, Marines, amd Rangers because NAAAAATOOOO.
Granted, this is all from a 2017 perspective but we really let ourselves get roped into some BS over the decades. And what did we get out of it?
58,000 graves and loved ones with shortened life spans.
I have learned what I wish I had learned years ago…
Ifs and Buts mean you got nothing.
Mission Creep is stalling for admitting failure from a planner’s level
Nation Building is retarded and not our responsibility.
Lessay…total victory was achieved. Republic of Vietnam goes democratic. North Vietnam surrenders. China accepts it. Soviets shrug and go “Oh well, have fun”.
There would have been insurgent uprisings that may have mellowed into normal “we hate America” protests. More taxpayer dollars for bases, more this, more that.
At least Korea gives us Smartphones.
I just dont see Vietnam doing anything different but textiles and they do that anyway.
Got 5.11 gear? Made in Vietnam.
Got Blackhawk! gear? Made in Vietnam.
And thats with us not achieving victory.
SSDD.
The soldiers who served shall always have a soft spot from me but it really was a waste. France can handle France’s shit because I just…you know…WWII is a touchy subject and I have ZERO tolerance for Nazis and all but having been through Europe…yes.
Yes.
Yes…
Yes. I see it. I can see why it is so tempting to march through France in the most spit shined jackboots and start buttstroking people. I feel bad for regular guys just getting by but ooooh the French.
But you know what…I live here. It is 2017. We should love and revere those who remain. And the people of the 60s couldnt just text each other about the BS or go to bulletin boards and forums and say “Lookit this buuuuullsheeyit. oooweeee”
There was no memery. Just “Trust us, we’re the government. You’ll get 40 acres and a mule…”
So…
Stay Woke
I might add that despite the collapse of European communism 25+ years ago, Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos are among the last five (China and NK being the other two) commie countries on Earth today. The Domino Theory was partially correct, Thailand being the exception.
I’ve done some reading on the subject and the supposed overtures by Uncle Ho are a bit misleading. He was a avowed Marxist since the 1920’s and had no intention of NOT being a commie. He just wanted our help to rid them of France. He was never going to “come over to our side of the fence” politically. That is why we rejected his overtures.
It’s a solid documentary, but so far does not adding anything some of the other excellent documentaries on that war have given us and will not set the standard. “Problem” for Burns is, everything he does will always be compared to his documentary on the the Civil War, which was a masterpiece and sets the standard by which others will be judged.
And a lot of people were fairly ignorant of the Civil War and he presented the limited media in a new way, luckily named the “Ken Burns Effect”. There is no shortage or ignorance of the media about the Vietnam War- it was at the dawn of modern media about the most self absorbed generation.
I was a senior in high school when “The Civil War” aired for the first time. My father was a history teacher so it was no surprise that our family watched it, but all of my friends and their families were watching it too. Probably the only documentary to garner that kind of attention and praise.
He first approached the US after WWI. And true he had little interest of joining anyone, he just wanted independence for Indochina. And while he formed a marxist government, he didn’t seek assistance from Russia or China until after WWII and after he approached us a second time. The big problem is unlike Stalin, he had nothing to offer in return.
As did Castro, but that’s another story. Not saying we should or should not have welcomed Castro but it should be noted he was given a heroes welcome in the US by the public and did attempt get the US to work with him and was told to go shit in his hat. Hence, we were given right of first refusal.
That’s what Burns said, why he was hesitant to do a series on Vietnam. He said there’s already a ton of good stuff out there, including the people who were there on both sides.
I think it’s fairly objective; Burns is pretty apolitical.
I was a young Airman Basic (E-1) in 1978 and most (if not all) of the NCO’s I worked with were Vietnam vets. I remember one of them saying to us younger troops “you guys missed a damn good war”. From a USAF perspective maybe he was right.
Yeah, we had such a long history of installing governments that we really thought we could never fail. We’ve screwed the pooch and created our own enemies a few times now. Hard to reconcile our “line in the sand” regarding communist Vietnam with our current policies regarding China and ironically enough Vietnam.
So many opportunities to deescalate the cold war just pissed away. Of course the most appalling thing is strong evidence that we had live American POWs still in captivity in the early 80s. I cannot even begin to imagine what that must have been like to be abandoned by the US. Given the economic crisis of Vietnam at the time, I don’t imagine they were living very well.
Unless of course you got shot down. But had to be a certain amount of job satisfaction running CAS for guys on the ground who were in a shitstorm.