Posted on 09/16/2017 7:45:13 PM PDT by Ennis85
Many Americans’ moral vanity is expressed nowadays in their rage to disparage. They are incapable of measured judgments about past politics — about flawed historical figures who were forced by cascading circumstances to make difficult decisions on the basis of imperfect information. So, the nation now needs an example of how to calmly assess episodes fraught with passion and sorrow. An example arrives Sunday night. For ten nights on PBS, Ken Burns’s and Lynn Novick’s The Vietnam War, ten years in the making and 18 hours in length, tells the story of a war “begun in good faith by decent people, out of fateful misunderstandings,” and “prolonged because it seemed easier to muddle through than admit that it had been caused by tragic decisions” during five presidencies. The combat films are extraordinary; the recollections and reflections of combatants and others on both sides are even more so, featuring photos of them then and interviews with many of them now.
A 1951 photo shows a congressman named John Kennedy dining in Saigon. There is an interview with Le Quan Cong, who became a guerilla fighter in 1951, at age twelve. Viewers will meet Madame Le Minh Khue, who was 16 when she joined the “Youth Shock Brigade for National Salvation”: “I love Hemingway. I learned from For Whom the Bell Tolls. Like the resourcefulness of the man who destroys the bridge. I saw how he coped with war, and I learned from that character.” As did another combatant who loves that novel, John McCain. Eleven years after his Saigon dinner, President Kennedy said, “We have not sent combat troops in the generally understood sense of the word.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
That song tears me up every time I hear it.
Uncle was helicopter gunner. Dad’s cousin is still MIA.
While you and I were living it, Ken Burns was attending an “alternative”
college (one without letter grades) in Amherst and “earning”
a degree in “film studies and design.”
There are people with whom I will happily converse on
the subject of that war and the military in general.
Ken Burns aint one of them.
Not seeing anything like that anywhere on this thread...
Funny comments...
No.
U.S. Air Force ‘70, Myself.
Many friends went thru that meatgrinder.
No one left unscared.
I work with many of the “Boat people”
That left After the U.S. pullout.
Laotian and suchlike.
Some still hold to the Old Ways.
Yes the Vietnam war is in my daily
Routine..still.
No funny here.
Amen to that, brother-
WTF, OVER
Thank you for doing your duty.
And, Welcome Home.
This is a Great Thread.
/s
I think Professor Turgeson put it best....
“Is she right?........”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3cb09hVH_g
Alas, when I went back to school, the history professors were more like that vapid female student than Prof. Turgeson.
No personal experience with the subject; only repeating what they had read, or been told. And not interested in considering other points of view.
Yep, no way Professor Turgeson would be hired by any university today.
Had a young girl at Church about 10 ask me recently how come your Husband does not come anymore. I said because He passed away. Was he a Veteran, I replied Yes He was, she asked what war was He in, I said Viet Nam her reply was like a Kick in the Stomach “Oh that was the won we lost huh” I said who told you that “My Teacher”. I set the young girl down and we had a serious talk. So it is CRAP like that they feed the kids everyday.
If you are interested in the truth about the Vietnam war, written by those who were there, please go to:
www.vvfh.org/Burns4.htm. It will lead you to 3 other subsections on the war and on the Burns film.
www.vvhf.org/Burns1.htm and /Burns2.htm are 10-12 minutes segments by Vietnam vets (one a Special Forces officer and historian). They are actually the two parts of this series that are introduced by www.vvhf.org/Burns4.htm, a “teaser” introduction to Vietnam Veterans for Factual History, a pro-American group of military, diplomatic, and civilian veterans of Vietnam and Cambodia (I was a MACV-accredited journalist in both countries during a factfinding missing in 1970).
www.vvfh.org/Burns3.htm is being reserved for “COMMENTS” about Parts 4, 1 and 2.
The theme of this group’s project is “EVERYTHING” you learned about the Vietnam War was Wrong”. And will present a major argument for that supposition.
Thanks for your interest. Comments welcomed both here at FR and at the VVFH.org sites.
Billy Joel. I’m a fan. One of the best albums.
God bless you,Doc! There’s many a grunt still above ground because of men like you. (Myself included.)
Self reminder to watch these later - thank you!
The truth is, that we were good young men and we had good people to protect and a vicious enemy to fight.
The truth is, we were good an effective combatants and we did not commit atrocities but often gave our lives to protect the villagers.
The truth is, that the Communist North Vietnamese, fully supported by the Soviets and the Chinese sponsored the terrorist Vietcong and sent regular units of the North Vietnamese Army into South Vietnam to overwhelm its pro-west government that was an American ally and a member of the SEATO. That fact that Vietnam sits astride the Straits of Malacca which control the sea lanes supplying our other allies in the area was also a contributing factor.
The truth is that it was a difficult war to prosecute: it was 10,000 air miles away at a time when most transportation was ships and piston-engine aircraft. No one has ever fought a war with such lengthy interior lines of communication.
The truth is that the war had to be fought carefully and over the long. bloody haul because our mission was to preserve and protect the South Vietnamese. A war of annihilation similar to the war we conducted WW II wasn't appropriate.
The truth is, that the "antiwar" movement was really a pro-enemy movement sponsored and controlled and manipulated by the Left at home and overseas.
The truth is, that those young men who fought in Vietnam are some of the finest people our country has ever produced yet we were treated as garbage when we got home and many or most of us are still suffering from the ugly chemistry that were exposed to over there (all of us who were in my company, without exception, who survived combat in Vietnam have aggressive prostate cancer).
I'm proud of us and our war.
“I’m proud of us and our war. “
We are also.
The Viet Nam War installed in me a deep hatred for the Ruling Class(aka “The Best And The Brightest”) who sent American boys off to fight and die in a war the Ruling Class had no intention of ever winning.
And with the recent collapse of “conservatism” in America I have come to the conclusion that we are on our own in a sea of corruption, perfidy, and rising Deep State despotism - all at the hands of the Ruling Class.
And it will be a cold day in Hell before I watch Ken Burn’s Leftist take on the war in Viet Nam.
Can't imagine any 4-Star General - putting on, or keeping on - his stars without far too many yes answers along the way to the top.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.