Dan T. Posted September 18, 2017 Share Posted September 18, 2017 The first part of the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick saga on the history of the Vietnam War aired last night on PBS. Episode Two airs tonight. To me, it looks like he's done for the Vietnam War what he did for the Civil War... it promises to be that good. Anybody else watching? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadySkinsFan Posted September 18, 2017 Share Posted September 18, 2017 No, but I want to. I will have to record it. Thanks for the heads up. Since I was alive during the war. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan T. Posted September 18, 2017 Author Share Posted September 18, 2017 9 minutes ago, LadySkinsFan said: No, but I want to. I will have to record it. Thanks for the heads up. Since I was alive during the war. Part one last night set the stage for U.S. involvement. It started way back with French colonization of Indochina in the late 1800's, which was the beginning of the whole cluster****. I learned more about Ho Chi Mihn, who, in the aftermath of WWII tried to gain U.S. support through diplomacy in preventing re-colonization of the country after Japan's surrender. Roosevelt seemed amenable but, of course, he died, and Truman, as the Soviet Union grew in power and China fell to Mao, was under pressure to show resolve against communism. The filmmakers flash forward and back to shows parallels throughout the sad history of the country. And the soundtrack is going to be awesome. Last night, Dylan's "A Hard Rain Is Gonna Fall" played a prominent role in the film at the beginning and the end of the episode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadySkinsFan Posted September 18, 2017 Share Posted September 18, 2017 I have it set to record, including the first show. Will watch in order. As a Vietnam War protester starting in 1968 when I was a junior in HS, I am excited to see this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renegade7 Posted September 19, 2017 Share Posted September 19, 2017 I'm curious, and need to make time for it. I watched like 90% of his piece on the civil war, and it sounds like I'll need to take it in doses, but will learn a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadySkinsFan Posted September 19, 2017 Share Posted September 19, 2017 Love Ken Burns documentaries. A guy I went to HS with, Al Petteway, had some of his guitar works in the National Parks one. Al was in the HS band with my brother, and I worked with him once in a music store. He sold instruments and I sold sheet music and other accessories. Look him up, he has a bunch of albums, Celtic and instrumental guitar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadySkinsFan Posted September 20, 2017 Share Posted September 20, 2017 Really great series. Watching the third episode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TradeTheBeal! Posted September 20, 2017 Share Posted September 20, 2017 Finally caught an episode (part 3) last night. So heart-wrenching and frustrating I had to turn it off after an hour. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGoodBits Posted September 20, 2017 Share Posted September 20, 2017 Yep. Very compelling and informative series. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoony Posted November 15, 2017 Share Posted November 15, 2017 Finally started watching Made it thru the first two episodes. Incredibly well done! Some things to say Im embarrassed i didnt know, like the difference between the vietcong and the nva. I always thought they were the same. Hindsight is always 20 20 but what has really stuck out to me is the path to war, and how there were never any bad or reckless decisions. Eisenhower, JFK, etc. all led us down a rather prudent path that ended up in war. I really dont see an instance where any of us would have acted differently, though its easy to claim you would. The communist threat was real.. the world was falling to tyranny and we had just learned a tough lesson about how appeasement doesnt work in Germany I think the real problem was not the effort to keep vietnam free, but the execution. South Vietnamese leadership was tyrannical and ineffective. Military tactics were not only ineffective but counter productive. In hindsight I think we could have accomplished our goals with economic investment rather than military. Looking forward to watching more. All that said, I still will always maintain that it was about oil more than anything. Look at the south china sea today and the battle over resources... the more things change... Quickk anecdote, my father was a midshipmen in Hong Kong at the time of Gulf of Tonkin. He did 2 tours in Vietnam and 28 years in the Navy. He will tell anyone in person that they all knew about the Tonkin incident the day before, when they were sent home stateside because `something was about to go down`. `need you off the ship and on a plane right now, we cant tell you anymore...` Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoony Posted November 15, 2017 Share Posted November 15, 2017 Two incredibly compelling quotes that have stuck with me, paraphrased "Who ended up winning or losing only matters to those who never fought. Because if you fought, you knew there were only losers" -former NVA soldier "We were the last generation of Americans to really believe that our government would never lie to us" -former US Army Soldier Two very hard hitting quotes IMO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCSaints_fan Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 A great series. There was alot of things I didn't know, like how China actually stationed troops in Hanoi. I always wondered why the US never went on the offensive and invaded North Vietnam instead of merely bombing them. If they had done that, they would have started a war with a nuclear-armed China. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadySkinsFan Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 I finished watching over the weekend. So much that I remembered about those times. If I was a male, my draft number was 68. I would have gone over there for sure. Now think of the four or five deferments that Trump received for bone spurs that apparently weren't bad enough to stop him from playing tennis and golf. And we could see the war on the nightly news and read about it every day, much different from the Gulf wars, Afghanistan, and Iraq that are still going on. If we had a draft now, we wouldn't be fighting now either. The money spent since 2001 is outrageous. After you watch the episode about the peace marches and campus protests, the CSNY song OHIO takes on a whole new meaning. This is the time I was in HS, so I remember all this like yesterday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pjfootballer Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 I really need to do a DVR search for all the episodes and watch this. I just haven't had the time. Maybe over the holidays when there isn't much on as far as new programs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadySkinsFan Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 They are long episodes but so worth it to watch. I admit that I cried at times. It's gritty, dirty, bloody war footage. It's why so many people protested against the war. We saw it every day, not like today where you never see anything about our wars, nor the people coming home wounded and dead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Wiggles Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 3 hours ago, pjfootballer said: I really need to do a DVR search for all the episodes and watch this. I just haven't had the time. Maybe over the holidays when there isn't much on as far as new programs. http://www.pbs.org/show/vietnam-war-not-edited/ I caught half of one of the early episodes on TV one night. Then watched the rest online. Ken Burns stuff is always amazing. This is one of his best imo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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