Missing from Ken Burns’ ‘Vietnam’: The patriotism and pride of those who fought

NY Post ^ | 19 September 2017 | Bing West

[oh8eleven]

Most of the interviewees talk in the lugubrious tones of the defeated. We all know the story ends badly. But when it’s over, we aren’t told why we lost. The music is more memorable than the pictures, and the pictures are more compelling than the narration. We are deluged by sights and sounds but not enlightened as to cause and effect.

The film casts the antiwar movement in a moderately favorable light. Are the protesters the real heroes here? What about the valiant US soldiers, 75 percent of whom were volunteers?

[oh8eleven]

Good assessment, well worth reading.

My own take (so far) is that the VC/NVA and the Hanoi brain-trust are presented as heroes ... cunning, intelligent, so much smarter than the Americans.
While America and especially the troops are stupid, evil and just not able to keep up with the - oh so superior - North Vietnamese.
And as to the scumbag, cowardly protestors ... they can go eff themselves. They're the real reason we lost the war.

[hal ogen]

Isn’t burns a LIB loser?

[NorthMountain]

The film casts the antiwar movement in a moderately favorable light. Are the protesters the real heroes here?

The communists in Viet Nam, USSR, and the demonicRAT Party certainly think so.

[oh8eleven]

I don’t really know his politics, but I think there’s a reason why all his works are on PBS.

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[Army Air Corps]

Ping.

[Bringbackthedraft]

The media sold out the military. The force disturbance of Liberal BS is strong. Why now? Could NK be the real reason? The Liberal media prepping the ground for a repeat performance?

[Gay State Conservative]

I served during the Vietnam era...but not in SE Asia.I knew as soon as I heard "Vietnam","Burns" and "PBS" that it would be an absolute travesty.

And it sounds like I wasn't wrong.

[Regulator]

Did we expect any different from Kenny “buttboy” Burns?

He probably carried pictures of Uncle Ho through the streets of Boston in ‘68.

Now that the memory of Pol Pot, the mass executions and the re-education camps of Vo Nguyen Giap in South Vietnam, he can come out with a POS rant like this.

Let him explain all of those things away.

[P.O.E.]

He did the same thing with WWII.

[Vermont Lt]

I watched last night. Over and over again the vets interviewed said they went into the Marines to serve our country.

They were pretty balanced on the Pro war protests—which we not as large or loud as their opposite parties.

I think no one is going to a good job describing what went on for those years. Hindsight is twenty twenty.

In the end, we need to be careful to maintain support of those serving, while speaking out about being a guy walking around with a hammer, hitting everything. And then trying to rebuild it in our image.

I love the vets and I respect our military very deeply.

I despise the government that sends them to do our dirty work.

[Army Air Corps]

The media sold out the military.

Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap applauded their efforts.

[Chainmail]

Nothing at all new about this series: same old, same old. All they show is the Left's version of history - the South Vietnamese government was inept and corrupt, the enemy were motivated to "reunify" Vietnam (which had never been a single country), and all they show are the battles where we came out poorly.

They'll never show us winning - like Operation Hastings in '66 where we annihilated the NVA 308B Division - and they'll never interview veterans like me who knew exactly why were there, what we had to do, and was willing to suffer what I needed to, to get the job done. They will never show the refugees coming to us rather than the enemy and they'll definitely never discuss the communist pro-enemy connections of the leadership of the "antiwar" movement.

[oh8eleven]

that it would be an absolute travesty
Yeah, I expected that too, but so far not quite that bad ... yet. There's still a few more episodes to go.

[ilovesarah2012]

My husband was in the Air Force and stationed in Taiwan. According to him, everybody was using a lot if drugs. Could that have anything to do with the outcome?

[Beowulf9]

Burns claims he’s a ‘yellow dog Democrat’

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/pj-gladnick/2014/09/13/self-proclaimed-yellow-dog-democrat-ken-burns-denies-political-bias-his

[lacrew]

Burns did a series on the Dust Bowl. He was interviewed about it, and he is convinced that the only possible solution to the dust bowl was a large federal government, which set up a bunch of alphabet agencies in response. He’s a big government guy.

[VietVet876]

The fighting in Taiwan was never as ferocious as it was in Viet Nam and there was lots of downtime so that’s when the drug use mainly occurs.

[Sans-Culotte]

I don’t really know his politics, but I think there’s a reason why all his works are on PBS.

He's definitely part of the looney left. During the election, he and another PBS stalwart - travel guru Rick Steves - were both firmly in the "Trump is Hitler" camp.

[scbison]

One thing that stood to me was when Joint Chiefs told LBJ to mine the North Vietnam Harbors and attack HO Chi Min trail in Cambodia and Loas in 1966. LBJ said no. Nixon listened to them when he became President and North Vietnam came to the bargaining table.