Anyone who watched the Ken Burns Vietnam series; what were your thoughts?

[Va Lefty]

Really found the first episode interesting. I was not aware of the back history before Dien Bien Phu. Also, I was 8 when the shooting at Kent State happened. I can remember it and my parents reaction to it. They were sickened. I remember my Dad saying "What kind of Country does this?" I was surprised so many people were still supportive of Nixon and the war even after Kent State. I think they said 55-60% still supported the war then.

[LakeVermilion]

1. We are a nation of hubris!

The proof is that we elected Donald Trump, a know-nothing to be our leader. Its the logical extension of our Viet Nam experience.

We still have lots of people who believe we could win. Even if we won, what would we do with it?

[hlthe2b]

2. Saddened that we've not learned a damned thing from that war....

I did enjoy the evolving thoughts of those interviewed, especially the guy from Fairmount, MO (John Musgrave). He is so reminiscent of the guys I remember from the Midwest as a very young child. He was very amusing when he admitted he didn't even know how to pronounce "hippie", having only heard of them through Stars and Stripes and then having still tender feelings toward Jane Fonda, despite her trip to North Vietnam, given all the guys had had her as their dream girl...

The soundtrack is good too. I'd been developing a "Vietnam" era playlist and there were quite a few tracks I'd not thought of. It needed some Jim Morrison though...

[Submariner]

3. The LBJ National Historical Park should be renamed

the Vietnam Dead and Crippled for Life by LBJ National Historical Park, and he should be dug up and buried in a landfill.

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. Superb - one of the best things we've watched.

Shocking how our leaders lie to us.
Shocking how little we learn from history.

Incredible contributions from all of the interviewees - Musgrove and O'Brien in particular (we got The Things They Carried from the library - it is a MUST read).

The series stuck with us for weeks....it sticks still. It is still hard to fully describe the impact it had - and continues to have - on us.

Just brilliant, essential work.

[cilla4progress]

9. Reading The Things They Carried right now,

husband had it here in his library and has read it. Wonderful writing; again, very hard to stomach.

Have you also read When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, by a Vietnamese woman, about that period? It was made into a film. Heartwrenching.

[NRaleighLiberal]

10. I read it to my wife sitting on our back deck, chapter by chapter.

That's a custom we started a few years ago - I love to read out loud, she loves to listen as she knits.

The Things They Carried was one of the most impactful things I've read. And I am so glad I did - one of those books that to me is essential in helping us to understand things.

(my favorite book I read to her is the Raj Quartet. It took a long time - but, wow - superb - it is what the PBS show Jewel and the Crown is based upon)

[cilla4progress]

11. Cool!

I don't think my husband could sit still for my reading out loud to him.

Although we did do a whole family reading with our daughter of Sherman Alexie's wonderful "Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian," which was a hit.

[NRaleighLiberal]

12. Very cool!

[cilla4progress]

5. It was fascinating to learn the history

going back even to the 19th century - IIRC- when Japan colonized Vietnam Nam. And to learn that it was bascially an indigenous movement led by an idealistic leader, Ho Chi Minh. Painted in US as a bad guy. The brainwashing is endemic.

I struggled with the brutality and couldn't watch many of the battle scenes. I got the gist, though: American political leadership has a through line of violence, hegemony, genocide, and lies, that last through today.

[bobbieinok]

8. The Republican Senators' White Paper on Vietnam, 1968

From it, I learned that Ho Chi Minh appealed to the US to help the Vietnamese fight France's attempt to take back its colony after WWII. No Western nation helped, so they turned to the Soviets.

Can anyone help find this document?

Nixon wanted US to help France at Dien ben Phu, but Ike said 'no American boy was ever again going to die in Asia.' (Ike ran in 52 on promise to 'get us out of Korea.')

A note: In Germany in the summer of 62, I met a US soldier stationed in Germany. He said everyone was applying for transfer to Vietnam, because that's where the action and promotion possibilities were. At the time, I had never heard of Vietnam.

[geardaddy]

13. It was France who colonized Vietnam in the 19th century

The Japanese occupied Vietnam during WWII

[cilla4progress]

14. Thanks

wasn't certain what order it occurred in..

[geardaddy]

15. No problem!

France colonized all of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos under one colony called French Indochina.

[cilla4progress]

16. I was interested to learn from the documentary

that while US couched it as a proxy war v. communism - Soviet Union and China - it was really a war of independence, from colonialism.

Very sad.

[bobbieinok]

6. I was in grad school during the war

I've always felt the reason we finally got out was because US corporations felt they'd made all the money they could out of the war. Brown and Root in TX made multi millions out of the war! (Became part of Halliburton and continued to rake in money over the bodies of US soldiers!)

I remember thinking the turning point had come when a major NY businessman (Dreyfuss fund head?) publically denounced the war.

Some have claimed the reason was the public's seeing the nightly carnage on tv. No way! The only thing that affected was the Pentagon's determination to never again allow media near the fighting. Or even near caskets coming in to Dover (see W's policy).

[Va Lefty]

7. Yeah unfortunately that's the only "lesson" we learned

control the press, control the message

[malthaussen]

17. I think it was the shift in foreign policy...

... from containment to playing off China against the USSR. Containment was the rationale for intervening. There was still money to be made in Vietnam, I'd imagine the big corporations could continue to milk the war for dollars, just as they have our much-longer war in Afghanistan.

I do agree that protests and media coverage did not make as much a difference as some would like to believe, although they probably had a lot to do with LBJ deciding not to run for a second term.

-- Mal