Ken Burns' The Vietnam War

[airdvr 210]

I've probably watched every Vietnam documentary ever produced. I think this one makes the others pale in comparison.

https://youtu.be/3j-3Xi5BcKs

My motivation for exploring the war comes from my father who died a year ago. I was a boy during most of the war. My opinions about it were those of my WWII vet father. We lived 30 minutes from Kent State. My older sister was forbidden to attend Kent.

I first questioned the war when I saw The Deer Hunter for the first time. I never had the conversation with my father because I knew the outcome would be an argument, but it also helped me to see that my father was just a man, and he was capable of being wrong.

I'm only through Episode 4. There are parts that brought tears to my eyes. I imagine my son being caught in that mess. I challenge you to not tear up as well.

Anyways...excellent doc as seen through the eyes of all the players.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[normiss 801]

That is a very well done documentary.
I also agree it is emotional and painful to watch at times.

[ryoder 1,590]

I just started watching this a couple days ago and finished episode 3 last night.
Huge thumbs up!

I knew a little about Ho Chi Minh's past, but they went into a lot more detail.
I also had no idea how little power he really had.

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[airdvr 210]

Definitely! I had no idea that Le Duan was really the driving force. I also knew very little of the history prior to the late 50's.

Can you imagine a POTUS today attempting to conceal military ops the way LBJ did?

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

Well, Ken Burns has a reputation for excellence.

There's a reason for that.

I've heard it said that this may be Burns best work so far.

I haven't been able to watch it all, but what I've seen is absolutely compelling.

The interesting thing is the comprehensiveness of it all.

There are only a few things that are completely new to me, primarily the perspective of the North Vietnamese, but to see it all in one package ties it together in a way that is amazing.

For example, I knew a good bit about the South Vietnamese political situation. And about the Johnson admin's failure to grasp reality. And the futility of the strategy used to wage the war.
But to see them all put together at the same time puts a new light on it.

Add in the perspective from the soldiers and Marines who were there, their families at home (and the families of those who didn't come home) and that of those who were against the war and it all adds up to a piece of work that tells the story in a way that was never done before.

This will win earn a lot of awards.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[RonD1120 62]

I have viewed episodes 1-3. I cried during the first two as it was the period when I was directly involved. The third episode started to bring up anger and hatred toward LBJ and his administration.

The Tonkin Gulf Incident was greatly downplayed by Burns and Novick. I have first hand information that the USS Maddox was not attacked. There was an explosion in the engine compartment that was misreported and it became accepted as enemy aggression up the chain of command to LBJ.

So far I am pleased with the documentary but will hold my final opinion till the end. I am particularly interested in how they dealt with Tet '68.

Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

[JerryBaumchen 1,365]

Hi Ron,

Quote

I have first hand information that the USS Maddox was not attacked.

'First hand' would mean that you were there. Were you?

However, I do agree that it was a completely bogus setup to get us to increase our support of South Viet Nam.

Jerry Baumchen

PS) Wayne Morse, US Senator from Oregon was one of only two votes against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

[DJL 235]

I'm looking forward to watching this and have heard such great things that I'm waiting until work cools down so I'm not so distracted in the evening. My father was a Naval Gunnery officer on several Fletcher class destroyers, best known as the Tin Can escorts from the WWII Battle of Samar upset. My Uncles and best friends fathers were all Vietnam vets so between all of them I grew up with the first hand stories of what they went through along with my own fascination with History books and documentaries. Knowing Ken Burns, I have to imagine this is going to be the ultimate documentary on the subject for a very long time.

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[jakee 1,497]

Quote

I have first hand information that the USS Maddox was not attacked. There was an explosion in the engine compartment that was misreported and it became accepted as enemy aggression up the chain of command to LBJ.

What do you mean by first hand information?

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[normiss 801]

My guess is it's some author that writes really boring books that he loves.
Dad only made it about halfway through the Nam book and described it as horse shit.

[Niki1 1]

I had a very good skydiving buddy in the late '80s who went to "the boat school". The Naval Academy. We had lunch almost every day at the airport bar in DeLand. He told me that he was his summer cruise when the second incident "took place". He was sent to a carrier for some exercise so he wasn't on the ship when it supposedly was attacked at the time, but when he got back no one he talked to knew of any attack.

The program showed how "labels" started the sequence of events that led to the shit sandwich that was the war. If Truman had given Ho Chi Minh some help in '47 things would have been very different. But because Ho called himself a communist Truman ignored him. Ho was a nationalist in the strongest since. He wanted Viet Nam for the Vietnamese. We would have had a friend in the area and in spite of the communist label he would have kept China out as he did in the late '70s.

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done.
Louis D Brandeis

Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

[RonD1120 62]

I think the documentary does a decent job validating your point regarding Ho.

Some time back I watched documentary. I don't remember when or the network but it depicted how the erroneous message regarding the second attack started and how it escalated to the point that higher ranking officials were apprehensive of sharing any doubt about it to LBJ.

I have now watched through episode 5 which ends at the beginning of 1968. I am reliving my days at USF. I did not talk much about my veteran status on campus. On the weekends with the Tampa Skydivers at Z'hills I was very military. Most of our jumpers were either vets, reservists or active duty.

That year Jim Hooper joined us. Like many of us the concept of war became a way of life. Hoop became an unarmed warrior travelling and writing about the African conflicts from north to south. I just ordered his latest book Koevoet. He is an excellent story teller.

The Vietnam documentary is now starting to trigger old feelings of anger. So far it has been a full range emotional ride. I started losing friends in 1967 and I started becoming aware of some friends coming back with the "thousand yard stare."

I remember a Marine MSGT at Bay Pines explaining to me after I spent some time with a true tac trained killer. He said, "There are two kinds of PTSD. One is where you repress the memory and the other is where it is vivid and you miss not still being in the fight."

The next episode takes us into Tet '68. Many of my SF friends began extended tours around then. I know many that stayed 3 to 5 years. I heard of one who was in-country 7 years. His time started in the mid '60s.

I hope the younger jumpers here view the documentary and try to get some understanding of who we are and why we are the way we are.

Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

[normiss 801]

Full series available for viewing now

[airdvr 210]

Just finished watching Episode 10. No spoilers, just wow! Well done.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

airdvr

Just finished watching Episode 10. No spoilers, just wow! Well done.

What's to spoil?

We cut a peace deal with the North that everyone knew they'd never keep. They knew there was no way we were coming back.

We promised to continue to support South Vietnam with military hardware. That promise was reneged on fairly quickly after Nixon resigned.

Saigon fell on 30 April, 1975 and the war was over.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[airdvr 210]

wolfriverjoe

***Just finished watching Episode 10. No spoilers, just wow! Well done.

What's to spoil?

We cut a peace deal with the North that everyone knew they'd never keep. They knew there was no way we were coming back.

We promised to continue to support South Vietnam with military hardware. That promise was reneged on fairly quickly after Nixon resigned.

Saigon fell on 30 April, 1975 and the war was over.

True...but the doc doesn't end on 4/30/75.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

airdvr

******Just finished watching Episode 10. No spoilers, just wow! Well done.

What's to spoil?

We cut a peace deal with the North that everyone knew they'd never keep. They knew there was no way we were coming back.

We promised to continue to support South Vietnam with military hardware. That promise was reneged on fairly quickly after Nixon resigned.

Saigon fell on 30 April, 1975 and the war was over.

True...but the doc doesn't end on 4/30/75.

Well, I guess I'm not too surprised at that.

While combat ended, the aftermath went on for some time.

Attitude towards vets, the military in general, attitudes within the military, attitudes towards war, protesters, politicians, and a whole lot of things all underwent some pretty dramatic upheavals.

I guess I will have to watch it.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[wmw999 2,452]

I just watched episode 6. Nixon was just elected, in part by negotiating with S Vietnam ahead of the election to make Johnson's peace talks look bad. Fuck me Alice. Not that Johnson, Humphrey, or any of the others were real prizes.

I was 13 when Nixon was elected. My father was a university professor who considered himself to be a reluctant hawk, a view I think he later regretted.

I am just as much an American as anyone else. And so are all those Americans who I think are full of crap. But throwing the election process under the bus (watergate was the second time) is pretty egregious.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[airdvr 210]

The whole Nixon presidency was the first time I became aware of just how crooked some pols are. All the while keeping my feelings to my self. My dad was a Nixon fan. His words of wisdom to me..."only thing he did wrong was get caught".

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[pchapman 279]

wmw999

I just watched episode 6. Nixon was just elected, in part by negotiating with S Vietnam ahead of the election to make Johnson's peace talks look bad.

I remember reading about that but only in recent years. A secret deal by a presidential candidate to screw the president and help get Nixon elected.

Makes the discussions about the Logan Act this year seem pretty tame.

(I have no idea whether the Paris Peace talks could actually have achieved anything in '68 instead of 5 years later in '73. The North might not have been ready for that.)

[Phil1111 1,149]

pchapman

***I just watched episode 6. Nixon was just elected, in part by negotiating with S Vietnam ahead of the election to make Johnson's peace talks look bad.

I remember reading about that but only in recent years. A secret deal by a presidential candidate to screw the president and help get Nixon elected.

Makes the discussions about the Logan Act this year seem pretty tame.

(I have no idea whether the Paris Peace talks could actually have achieved anything in '68 instead of 5 years later in '73. The North might not have been ready for that.)

Well I substantially don't disagree with the substance of and representations of the series. A person has to be VERY careful about accepting a narrative in a movie or a book as fact. Movies have a very persuasive presentation of a version of fact or history. That makes it easy to draw the conscious into acceptance. That whats presented is the way it happened.

It failed to present enough of the hard line that Le Duan and Ho felt. A line that believed that persistence would pay off. That given Chinese and Russian weapons. Together with the children of the revolution. America would capitulate sooner or later. The S. Vietnamese puppets would fold thereafter. Just as the French had done before that.

For The North, the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu forever ingrained the idea in the minds of northern leadership. That one big or a couple big defeats. Would drive any imperialist western power, home.

Yes I saw the series. Yes I know the N. Vietnamese leadership wavered from time to time. But every time they needed supplies. They were resupplied. Never was there a substantial pause in sending well equipped formations to the southern battlefield.

Even as the North was mined, pounded and the population suffered. Food, SAM's, AAA, poured down from the Chinese border and by sea. To resupply them. Many, many, in the North were like the North Vietnamese mother in the series. I forget which episode. Which gave, I think it was 8-10 of her children to die for the "revolution". Yet as she stated truthfully. She was happy to do so.

As a little side-note. I have a small 2 square foot piece of a camo parachute used by the 173rd Airborne brigade in the Junction City jump. It was given to me by a member of the 173rd. But I don't know if he made the jump himself.

[JerryBaumchen 1,365]

Hi Peter,

Quote

I have no idea whether the Paris Peace talks could actually have achieved anything in '68 instead of 5 years later in '73.

The only thing I truly hold against Nixon is that everything that the north wanted in '68, he gave to them in '72 so he could use the 'Peace is at hand' for his re-election.

IMO that was his 'Secret Plan.'

He let a lot of people die so he could get re-elected.

Jerry Baumchen