The Vietnam War: A Film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick (vanity)

PBS ^ | 2017 | Ken Burns&Lyn Novick

[Lumper20]

LMAO

[ThanhPhero]

What you saw there is why I encourage old soldiers (and their sons) to go back to Việt Nam for a month. I tell them to take a tour or two for a week then get out of Sài Gòn and visit the smaller places and/or Đà Nắng, put up in a local mom-n-pop hotel and go to the cafés- Coffees now- and talk to people. There will be people who speak some English and others who want to talk to the American who will find someone who speaks English.

The old VC soldiers that I know are every bit as pro American as are the old ARVNs and their children.

Sinh Café or one of the copycats is an excellent way to travel if you want to see the country. I see you did as I observed years ago. Go to Việt Nam and spend some time away from the Tourist hotels and you will go home and be like a Việt Kiều- sending money to or raising money for folks in Việt Nam.

[kearnyirish2]

I’m surprised he admitted it to you; you have to wonder what those people felt when images of those people fleeing splashed across the screen - were they all capitalist oppressors (including the women and children)?

[kearnyirish2]

I believe that; the hard left has hijacked “the stupid” and have them marching in the streets without a clue - but it makes them “good”...

[kearnyirish2]

Sounds good - though I’d try to avoid the DC area (Fairfax County?). Too far south is too hot; too far north is too cold. Like Goldilocks, I’d like it just right...

[Chainmail]

I hope that I can take my children to visit Vietnam someday soon. I'll take your advice and look for a small hotel in Da Nang or Hue or Dong Ha. I'd love to have them see how beautiful that country and its people are.

When I went back in 2000, I tried to find one particular VC: on my last day in Vietnam, he was scouting for a VC company early in the morning and when we spotted him, I shot him in the hand.

He was older - maybe 35 or 40 - and when we got up to him, we disarmed him and I felt bad that he was in so much pain and that he was scared. I took a bandage from my medical kit and wrapped up his hand and then lit a cigarette and gave it to him to show him that we weren't going to kill him.

I kept him with me as we approached where we believed that a VC company was ahead of us. We caught up with them and the firefight started as soon as they saw us.

I was shot while I was carrying another Marine who had been wounded and my VC prisoner helped me with a tourniquet and when the medevac helicopter landed, he helped carry me to it. I remember him waving to me, with his bandaged hand, as we lifted off.

Always hoped I'd find him again, see how he was doing, buy him dinner - but nobody around those villages knew who he was.

[Lumper20]

Tell me how you treated the Montagnards? We never should have allowed one sad, sorry, Viet into America. You plus the regular unit GI’s and Marines have no idea of the road runner or other all Viet teams I and other SOG FOB’s inserted.

[ThanhPhero]

How I treated the Montagnards? I never met one. I was 8000 feet above or in Chợ Lơn when I wasn't flying. And how did our forebears treat the Indians? The analogy is pretty close, actually.

[Lumper20]

A Cholon Cowboy. Wow. A dear friend went there to hire an all Nung recon team under him and an SF NCO. He is MIA. MAJ(then 1LT) Harold Kroske. How did a pilot come from Cholon or did you fly commercially?

[Lumper20]

1,000 meters is way out there for an old Vietnam type. I went to the range at Fort Campbell with a retired SF MSG. He had one of those Quigley down under rifles. That Shiloh Sharps in 45-110 was surprising to me as was his sniper training. I mention his sniper training as SF did not have that in 67-75. He explained all the updates in training to me. He was firing past 1,000 meters. I could not see very well as my glasses were not up to date. 400 meters was further then I ever shot in war. 100-200 was max.

[ThanhPhero]

I was a radio intercept op and flew in the back end of C-47s. I had a higher clearance than my commander and he resented that. He did not care where the hell I went or what I did so long as I showed up to fly three or occasionally four times a week. I moved off base. I thought Chợ Lơn was a peaceful place and never saw soldiers except occasionally when a column of ARVN tanks would roll through on the big streets. I was naive and discovered after I had separated that it was because Chợ Lơn was a Communist stronghold. I should have been a high value target just because I made no secret that I spoke some Vietnamese but was never bothered. Some of the streets (1 meter wide ones) had signs over their entries with skull and crossbones on them and "Dangerous Area" but the signs looked old and I thought they were from the French war. I have since noticed that signs and walls look a hundred years old in that climate in two years.

[Chainmail]

1,000 meters is sort of past my current capabilities too - I had a French PGM sniper rifle with Zeiss optics that was capable of phenomenal precision but my vision went south and I sold it.

Where I was in Vietnam we seemed to have two engagement ranges: 5 meters and 500 meters! (lots of dense treelines and open rice paddies) I took a shot at a sniper at 600m (M-14) and missed him by just a couple of feet and scared him off. I did take on another at 1,500 meters with a .50 caliber machine gun firing single shot from a tripod and locked into a T&E while a Staff Sergeant spotted for me. Got him on my fifth shot. He made the mistake of hiding behind a concrete gravestone.

[otness_e]

““The North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong were not the national liberators that Ken Burns want us to believe.”

Nor that George Lucas wants us to believe, that Luke Skywalker’s Rebels are the VC and Darth and the Empire are the evil USA.”

No kidding about that last bit. Lucas’ basis for the Rebel and Empire is also the reason why I’m rooting for the latter right now (and I’m not too happy with this, since I normally make it a rule of mine to NEVER root for villains, with Lucas essentially forcing me to break that rule. Will never forgive Lucas for his trickery, which ruined Star Wars for me in such a manner that not even the Prequel Trilogy or his edited Original Trilogy could compare. He’s even WORSE than Ken Burns in that regard).

And honestly, I have zero plans on watching the documentary, especially after having read up on various stuff that make clear he’s spewing the same old leftist propaganda. America never lost the war, our victory, heck, our South Vietnamese allies’ victory for that matter, was stolen from us. That said, I would like to see AIM’s documentary about the war that was made in response to Burns’ documentary.