Ken Burns' "Vietnam War" series on PBS

92tide

TideFans Legend
May 9, 2000
58,146
44,863
287
54
East Point, Ga, USA
i'm at home this week recovering from outpatient surgery and am finally able to watch this. i am on episode 5 now and it is really well done, but hard to watch at times.
 

rolltide_21

Hall of Fame
Dec 9, 2007
11,447
7,489
187
NW AL
i'm at home this week recovering from outpatient surgery and am finally able to watch this. i am on episode 5 now and it is really well done, but hard to watch at times.
I just finished it last week. My wife, who hates documentaries/docuseries, even found it interesting. You're right some of the scenes are hard to watch. Learned quite a bit. I didnt know of the French doing basically the same thing the decade before. Also, a bit of irony given that we helped Ho Chi Minh throw off the French yoke and encouraged them to leave Vietnam. Then we invaded. After watching it I also told my wife that if the draft was ever instituted again I would do whatever it took to get our sons disqualified.

We made the decision to go to war there with "Cold War" thinking instead recognizing what was really happening- the end of colonization/imperialism by the West in SE Asia.
 

Its On A Slab

All-SEC
Apr 18, 2018
1,290
1,721
182
Pyongyang, Democratic Republic of Korea
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/01/2...-start-50-years-ago-sunday.html?cmpid=prn_msn

Hard to believe it has been 50 years. Lost a high school classmate with the USMC at Khe-Sanh. Rest in Peace, Johnny.
I was at the Hinds Co.(MS) courthouse a couple of weeks ago. There is a monument to local servicemen KIA in Vietnam. I was wondering if they included those wounded, and who eventually succumbed. I spent 2 or 3 Summers in the early 70s, clearing brush for a guy who lost his leg in 'Nam, and suffered greatly from injuries incurred over there. He eventually passed away several years later. I wonder if these monuments should include these soldiers as well?
 

GrayTide

Hall of Fame
Nov 15, 2005
18,810
6,245
187
Greenbow, Alabama
I just finished it last week. My wife, who hates documentaries/docuseries, even found it interesting. You're right some of the scenes are hard to watch. Learned quite a bit. I didnt know of the French doing basically the same thing the decade before. Also, a bit of irony given that we helped Ho Chi Minh throw off the French yoke and encouraged them to leave Vietnam. Then we invaded. After watching it I also told my wife that if the draft was ever instituted again I would do whatever it took to get our sons disqualified.

We made the decision to go to war there with "Cold War" thinking instead recognizing what was really happening- the end of colonization/imperialism by the West in SE Asia.
What is even worse is that we have done the same damn thing in Afghanistan. The Russsians waged war for 13 years against the Afghans before finally quitting and leaving and we have been there 15+ years. Nobody ever learns.
 

MOAN

All-American
Aug 30, 2010
2,420
226
87
Swearengin, Alabama, United States
Haven't read all the comments, but I watched the documentary series about a month ago. Watched his Civil War and WW2 documentary series as well before.

I clearly remember watching the CBS 6 o'clock evening news with my dad as a kid and seeing the casualty counts posted each night and thinking. "We sure whooping their butts!" ;)

My uncle by marriage was drafted towards the end of the war but was a conscientious objector, a Jehovah's Witness, and he was seriously thinking of taking off to Canada. Fortunately for him the war ended before he had to do that, or before they caught up with him! ;) Had an older first cousin that was a machine gunner on a helicopter there that came home with problems and wouldn't talk about it much.

I still recall seeing the evacuation of Americans from Saigon on the news as well but didn't understand fully what was going on much until watching the documentary. Then of course Watergate was all the news and never heard or thought about the Vietnam war much afterwards.

Another uncle of mine by marriage worked for the Navy as a Naval engineer at the Pentagon at the time and we, my family, would visit them in Arlington every other year during the '70's starting when Gerald Ford was president after replacing Nixon. But he nor my parents ever talked about the Vietnam war, nor anyone else that I recall.

My uncle, Milon Essoglou, still works part time for the Navy as far as I know and has worked for them for over a half century I think. This is a link regarding his distinguished career from 2014 if any of you are interested. http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=81956

They came down here for Thanksgiving a couple years ago, the last time I seen my aunt and him. He graduated from M.I.T. with a bachelors in Civil Engineering and still laughs at how his career led him to designing ships and stuff for the Navy. :)
 
Last edited:

Tidewater

Hall of Fame
Mar 15, 2003
22,401
13,177
287
Hooterville, Vir.
The blame for the war tends to focus on the U.S. for supporting the Saigon bunch, who were not really good guys.

I've often wondered how much blame H Chi Minh deserves for not grabbing the nearest OSS guy in the late 1940s and telling him, "Look, I'm a Vietnamese nationalist. I'm also a socialist. But I am not a Communist."
I wonder how many Vietnamese died as a result of Ho not doing that?
Maybe Ho breathed too deeply of the Marxism he was fed in France.
 

GrayTide

Hall of Fame
Nov 15, 2005
18,810
6,245
187
Greenbow, Alabama
I recall having a freshman Political Science course in Ten Hoor taught by a professor who was from South Korea. He made the point numerous times that the US, despite what the govnment said, was not fighting communism in Vietnam, but rather fighting nationalism and would never win. Guess he knew what he was talking about after all.
 

Its On A Slab

All-SEC
Apr 18, 2018
1,290
1,721
182
Pyongyang, Democratic Republic of Korea
The blame for the war tends to focus on the U.S. for supporting the Saigon bunch, who were not really good guys.

I've often wondered how much blame H Chi Minh deserves for not grabbing the nearest OSS guy in the late 1940s and telling him, "Look, I'm a Vietnamese nationalist. I'm also a socialist. But I am not a Communist."
I wonder how many Vietnamese died as a result of Ho not doing that?
Maybe Ho breathed too deeply of the Marxism he was fed in France.
I think they probably saw Ho as an independent entity, and someone who wouldn't cooperate with US goals in the region.

The US has a long history of installing puppet regimes or coddling dictators in Asia and Latin America.
 

seebell

Hall of Fame
Mar 12, 2012
11,919
5,105
187
Gurley, Al
The blame for the war tends to focus on the U.S. for supporting the Saigon bunch, who were not really good guys.

I've often wondered how much blame H Chi Minh deserves for not grabbing the nearest OSS guy in the late 1940s and telling him, "Look, I'm a Vietnamese nationalist. I'm also a socialist. But I am not a Communist."
I wonder how many Vietnamese died as a result of Ho not doing that?
Maybe Ho breathed too deeply of the Marxism he was fed in France.
The answer would have been "Sorry Ho, we're giving you back to the French because we need them to be a bulwark against the Russians in Europe. The elections that were promised? Sorry bout that."
 

Tidewater

Hall of Fame
Mar 15, 2003
22,401
13,177
287
Hooterville, Vir.
The answer would have been "Sorry Ho, we're giving you back to the French because we need them to be a bulwark against the Russians in Europe. The elections that were promised? Sorry bout that."
When that hypothetical conversation happened would matter. In 1945, the U.S. pushed the Brits to occupy French Indochina because the French were just not up to it yet.
In 1945, the Soviets ("Uncle Joe," FDR called him) were our friends. It was over the later 1940s that the U.S. watched as the Soviets redrew eastern European boundaries, stole everything that was not nailed down, and gradually imposed communist dictatorships that the U.S. came to view the Soviets as a threat.
By 1948, the Democrats had "lost" eastern Europe, and "lost" China. I do not think any Democrat was going to stand by and let another Communist domino fall. Ho could have avoided that by refusing the label "Communist."

Vietnam War Casualties
1st Indochina War: 500,000 KIA (estimated)
2nd Indochina War: North Vietnam & VC: 1.1 million KIA
ARVN: 220,000 KIA
Total 1.82 million KIA

Given relations today (the USSR is gone, the ChiComs are not so welcome in Hanoi and the U.S. has established diplomatic relations with Vietnam, 1.82 million deaths looks like a steep price to pay just for the privilege of adhering for 20 years to an evil ideology that collapsed anyway due to its own corruption and imbecility.
Not a thing a great statesman would do.
 

New Posts

Latest threads

TideFans.shop : 2024 Madness!

TideFans.shop - Get YOUR Bama Gear HERE!”></a>
<br />

<!--/ END TideFans.shop & item link \-->
<p style= Purchases made through our TideFans.shop and Amazon.com links may result in a commission being paid to TideFans.