Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire the vietnam war, begins sunday nite on PBS

Can't figure why he would say that as he had already given Laos to the communist.

on PBS.org, it looks like you can watch the first 4 episodes.

Yes, I've already watched the first four and plan to watch episodes 5-7 tonight. Don't want to give away any spoilers, but the sh*t gets deeper...

There have been more bad decisions made because of re-election considerations than we can ever imagine. Here's an idea: make the decision that is best for the country, do your best to explain it to the voters, then live with the consequences. Professional politicians suck.

Wonder if this will come up in this PBS special:

I'm almost done with episode 1. I find Ken pretty apolitical at least with his Baseball and Jazz documentaries - not sure I've seen any others. So far it looks very interesting - I'm always (and never) surprised at the arrogance of the West. France spends 50 years trying to occupy that territory and we follow the same playbook - assuming our "technology, air power, and firepower" will win and that we can "win their hearts and minds" with medicine and schools for the Vietnamese.

I agree some comments made about Ho - had he not leaned commie and the US not been so terrified of communism after WWII, he would have been an amazing ally in that part of the world.

And EVERY politician involved in that war should be tarred and feathered. But I agree - I always blame JFK first and Johnson second.

Burns is already rubbing me the wrong way with the interviewees he's selecting. I guess I'll have to watch through to the end and see how he treats the aftermath of the final surrender.

There is one Viet Cong they keep interviewing that I want to reach out and tear his throat out, he keeps smirking about how they killed the opposition. I suppose that makes the documentary better in many respects. I still don't like that dude though.

You and me both. He has had that smirk on both episodes I've watched.

Me too. I told my wife a couple weeks ago in reference to this documentary that I'm sure they'll interview NVA and VC which will no doubt make me angry.

I enjoy all of Ken Burns' work and this one is no different.

I was noticing that guy last night. And I watched his interview a couple times. I'm no so sure that's an intentional smirk but more of the way his mouth and deplorable teeth are. But I could be wrong.

That smirk is real. First he relishes about several of them hacking up a dude. Then he reinterates, "go to funeral same thing happen to you! ".

Yeah it's real.

I’ve been watching it on streaming TV and finished through episode 6, the Tet offensive. So far it seems fairly balanced, just telling the story as it happened. They tell the viewpoint from soldiers/Marines on the ground, background about the political situation in Washington and Hanoi, the rise of the anti-war movement set against the broader societal changes going on in America in the 60’s, plus interviews with former VC and NVA. They cover all sides which IMO is what a good documentary should do.

One take away is that Le Duan in Hanoi - whom I had never heard of until now - was their Robert McNamara. His hubris was about as big as many American politicians. He thought that during the Tet offensive ARVN units would defect en masse and the people of SVN would “rise up” when they were shown how easily their government could be defeated. None of that happened, and despite many American troops' disdain of Marvin the ARVN they generally fought hard and well during those battles - given the corruption and political hacks rife in their officer corps.

Tet, and 1968 in general, was indeed a watershed year for our country. The VC and NVA were slaughtered, they shot their load and were defeated like the Wehrmacht after the Bulge, but our intelligence didn't know that and the public, listening to TV reporters, thought it was shall we say less than a victory. It was a huge military defeat for North Vietnam and a stunning propaganda victory - abetted by CBS News. It was the final end of any confidence in our ability to win, although the aftermath was the exact time we could have won militarily if such as thing was possible at all.

I’m giving the film as a whole a thumbs up. I lived through the era as a teenager in high school and remember seeing on the nightly news some of the exact same clips they show in the documentary, but this is providing a lot more background and filling in details I never knew or that weren’t revealed back then.


Overall, the story being shown is that nothing has changed as far as the morass that was Vietnam - different views on both sides, many well founded on both sides. It was the loss of innocence for this country, that's for sure.

which makes me just a few years older than you as i was out of school in 65, but the program brings back many old memories.

in the autumn of 66 and again in 67, we were signing Affirmation Vietnam petitions at our baptist college. by the spring of 70, the sand was shifting under our feet. between 67 and 70, the earth shifted poles. public opinion was so different than what was being officially sold to us.

I turned 16 in 1968 and of course we were all so very adult and serious in our discussions of the war, when we didn't know shinola about what was really going on. I do remember thinking it was two years before I turned 18 and was eligible for the draft, but there was nothing to worry about since it had been going on for 3-4 years already and our wars never took longer than five years to win...

Turmoil and confusion is what I remember. The media, Johnson/Nixon, protesters...who to believe?

Kent State, Ali refusing the draft. Hell no, we won't go. Draft card burning. And flower power BS. Tough time to be 18yo like I was in 68. And 2 years later on a boat in the Gulf of Tonkin. Best part of Vietnam was my shipmates with whom I still get together with, buried one of them this past July. Still hurts

Hey, out of the eleventy thousand swabbies there, did you know...?

A friend of mine - met him many years after the war - was a Machinist's Mate on the Enterprise off of Vietnam, not sure of the year. He said his Vietnam memories were mostly being somewhere in the deep interior of the ship.

HaHa. Deep in the ship's interior was a good place to skate.

We were with the Kittyhawk..

Edited to add I don't plan on watching the series.

Name of Folsom, maybe ?