Posted on 10/17/2017 6:52:07 PM PDT by Ennis85
Watching the Ken Burns-Lynn Novick PBS series on the Vietnam War put me in mind of a memorable essay that Jim Webb—Vietnam war hero, novelist, secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, and most recently Democratic senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia—penned for the American Enterprise Institute seventeen years ago. In this remarkable piece, he called into question the popular idea of a “Vietnam generation.”
Webb noted that those who came of age during that war are more properly regarded not as a generation but as an age group, permanently divided by different reactions to a whole range of counter-cultural agendas, most importantly the personal ramifications of the war itself.
"The sizable portion of the Vietnam age group who declined to support the counter-cultural agenda, and especially the men and women who opted to serve in the military during the Vietnam War, are quite different from their peers who for decades have claimed to speak for them. In fact, they are much like the World War II generation itself. For them, Woodstock was a side show, college protestors were spoiled brats who would have benefited from having to work a few jobs in order to pay their tuition, and Vietnam represented not an intellectual exercise in draft avoidance or protest marches but a battlefield that was just as brutal as those their fathers faced in World War II and Korea."
I believe Webb’s essay explains why Burns’ stated hope that his documentary will “help end divisions over the war and facilitate national healing” fails.
The divisions over Vietnam are deep and people on both sides of the divide have become invested in their respective positions. As someone who is proud of his service during the Vietnam War, I saw the series—touted as an even-handed portrayal of the war—as just another
(Excerpt) Read more at providencemag.com ...
There isn’t anything that Burns does that’s truthful, accurate or unbiased towards liberalism.
Watch some of it with the sound turned down and concentrate on the images. Some images are poetic, even heroic. Which people are portrayed this way? This is all done with forethought.
I watched it, all 10 episodes yikes, and it was definitely slanted anti-war. It was revisionist for Libtards, by Libtards to create more Libtard voters. Our publik money hard and at work.
Vietnam has changed (a lot) since the war.
Two entire generations have grown up since the last GI was there.
I think America and Vietnam have a very good future together, possibly.
Sure there are people on both sides of the ocean, who have other ideas, but really I think we could greatly improve relations between our two countries.
Just my opinion.
My wife is watching but I only watched one episode. It was about 1963 and had only a couple of photographs of US protests.
However it gave my wife chills as she relived the events portrayed in Vietnam.
I recommend that all should take in that episode as it showed parts of Vietnam and our involvement that are rarely shown.
I’m watching it now. Brings back memories, I was drafted Nov. 22, 1965. After Signal School, had orders for Ft. Benning. While waiting to board the train, fifty of us were told to stand in a different formation. We were going to Germany.
I often wondered what would have happened if I had gone to Vietnam. Ft. Benning, was the prelude to Vietnam.
Watched it off and on over three episodes. The bias was so clear I gave up on it. I was a young man in my early teens during most of the Vietnam War. Watched what the networks put on the air every night. I did not need this documentary to inform me about the conflict.
There are some new photographs and film but not enough for 10 episodes.
But you should see the whole thing to see how Burns is trying to put his spin on history that will eventually wind up in school books.
They should have followed General Curtis Lemay’s, tactic. Bomb the dikes, flood North Vietnam. The war would have ended.
“Kill ‘em all, let God sort them out”.
I watched the whole thing and it was exactly the same as every other liberal alternate history of our war. No mention of the enemy connections to the “antiwar” movement, no veterans that fought well - only the poor dweebs that came back and joined the protesters. And every battle they showed was one that enemy did better than usual.
I hate Leftists, particularly when they’re pretending to be unbiased.
Non sequitur.
I had no idea that the VC could operate at will in all parts of the South. I did learn that. I had thought that the VC would stay near the trail for support. I didn’t know they roamed at will everywhere. All the way to the coast.
Burns work is not worth my time and attention.
I was pleasantly surprised that he showed footage of Hanoi Jane saying things I never knew she said - such as that the captured pilots could probably be executed.
Yes, they could operate everywhere in South Vietnam because that is where they lived (unlike North Vietnamese troops, who had to infiltrate the country).
I thought it was very anti-war, but considering the public statements by the architects in the years since, I don’t know that this in and of itself is “bias”. Politicians and generals knew in advance that it would be practically impossible to win the war, some clamored for it anyway, and just about all of them agreed afterwards it couldn’t be won.
I turned 18 long after the draft ended; I couldn’t imagine being called up for something like that. I’d also find it hard to stomach afterwards when some people who committed us to this knowing it was practically impossible weren’t jailed for it afterwards.
Bump....
As a Vietnam veteran I am sickened that forty five years after our last full year there (1972), that the Left still owns the narrative of our record. Disgusting.
The North Vietnamese army were savage mass murderers. Look up siege of An Loc for proof. Or siege of Hue 1968.
Plug alert: Dale Andrade’s “Trial By Fire” (1995) is maybe the only factual account of that final year. I was there FWIW.
Ken Burns can go GFY.
That was my first thought when I heard about this series.
Someone asked me what I thought, and I said I wouldn’t watch it, because they would almost certainly concentrate on My Lai and ignore the savage executions at Hue, and likely would make a big deal about the famous photo of the VC who was executed in the street.
If they even mentioned Hue.
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