Posted on 02/23/2015 5:48:12 AM PST by rktman
In the 1960s, negative television coverage helped turn American public opinion against the war, the veterans and even the Vietnamese who fought to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam.
Actress Jane Fonda, who called U.S. troops murderers, was famously shown sitting on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gunner used to shoot at American planes.
By 1971, John Kerry, a Vietnam veteran and now secretary of state, declared on national TV, “We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service.”
But is what Americans saw on television and in the movies an accurate portrayal of those warriors and their mission to halt the spread of communism?
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
We won every real fight; and it was not just the politicians, you have to include the media and a large number of prog/lib citizens in there.
It has taken me 50 years to even want to go back and review that time, I am not sure if I want to dig any deeper.
you do have some good points.
the sad thing is I see the same thing happening today with the “war on terror”. The elite do not want us to win.
No one in the MSM would have carried the anti-war campaign as far or as hysterically as they did, if the political will was there to support the military and get it done.
Politicians made sure that the political will was completely misrepresented and corrupted IF it was expressed at all....it WASN'T!
Yes the MSM was GREATLY to blame as well.
It was an excellent episode. I watched it awhile back on Netflix. Not many were willing to portray Viet Nam honestly.
In that regard, and in many others, Magnum was, and remains, a terrific show.
We were killing VC and that was not OK, but it WAS ok for the VC to move south and kill Vietnamese, once we were gone.... Oh sure... not of peep out of the anti-war types THEN.
Also, the Vietnamese sat still for the most pervasive and destructive bombing the world had ever seen... BECAUSE they knew in the end they'd be free.
Once we left... they were SO afraid and ran south in the tens of thousands to FLEE the Communists. They went out into the China Sea in dangerous, unseaworthy boats that were death rather than stay in their homes waiting for the VC.
THAT they would NOT sit still for! Tell you anything?
“Deals?” I only saw one new movie mentioned, “Ride the Thunder.” Is there another?
For a decent Viet Nam movie try
Siege of Firebase Gloria
***We would/could have won, if not for him.***
We did win, but Cronkite’s broadcast snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Even the autobiography of General Giap admitted it was Conkrite’s speech that gave them the impetus to try again to try again even though Giap said they were ready to sue for peace.
Don’t think so. Is one movie enough to do the job?
CNN’s coverage of Operation Tailwind, in which American troops were alleged to have murdered deserters, was designed by Peter Arnett & Co as a way to exonerate Jane Fonda.
They forgot though that there were Vietnam veterans who saw their service as honorable, and they ended up shooting down CNN instead.
The South is a great place to vacation in, and the people there today absolutely love Americans. The further up north one goes of the old DMZ, they’re less interested...but for their vendors.
It was outstanding and not typical “Hollywood”.
The ease with which they could go from serious action-adventure to comedic episodes (and even black-and-white film noirs when Magnum would write those detective stories that Higgins hated) really hasn’t been seen before or since. Someone once wrote that Magnum began and ended with the Reagan era, and I think that’s a great observation. It had the patriotism, the optimism and the breezy spirit we associate with Reagan.
All of that’s true and I liked that it didn’t gloss over the faults of the military but did honor service.
Just the penitence we have to pay for Harry dropping the nukes.
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