Ken Burns series "Vietnam" on PBS

[golfnut]

I thought the program did a poor job of explaining why the failure of NVA's Tet offensive surprisingly did not boost US support of the war. The impression I got was the media's coincident portrayal of the war at that point, especially the photographed execution and Cronkite's editorial, was responsible for the decline in support. It was hinted that the public did not believe South Vietnam's success during the Tet offensive because the public realized it had been lied to earlier.

That's it in a nutshell. imo. Also, LBJ did not project confidence in the war with his refusal to run again. Not that he had much of a chance to win given the fact that many backing the war thought he was "soft" and of course, the voters against the war thought he was a hawk.

 

[kgtest]

I've never had a vet open up like that to me, not even my dad.

Saw a few varied caliber puncture wounds. Never forget the the guy who was hit with sniper rounds. Crazy talking to a man who survived the entry and exit of two sniper fire in his chest, but he did. Never had a bullet come my way thankfully.

 

[frayne]

One thing that goes through my mind as I watch this series is IF communications/reporting were as instant as they are now, net, email, facebook, etc, I wonder if the war would have lasted as long as it did.

I would venture to guess if social media had been around in those days the war wouldn't have last long at all. Americans don't have much stomach for seeing American dead and mutulated bodies. Just imagine the instagram and FB posts detailing what was going on back then.

 

[travelover]

One thing that goes through my mind as I watch this series is IF communications/reporting were as instant as they are now, net, email, facebook, etc, I wonder if the war would have lasted as long as it did.

I still find it amazing that a secret war in the neighboring countries (Laos and Cambodia) could be covered up from the American people. Surely the information was out there but was suppressed by a complicit media.

From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped more than two million tons of ordnance on Laos during 580,000 bombing missions—equal to a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24-hours a day, for 9 years – making Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in history.

http://legaciesofwar.org/about-laos/secret-war-laos/

 

[Clone]

I find the series compelling. There are things in my family's past that I now wonder about. My mother wanted to pick up and join the Peace Corps. I now wonder where that idea came from.

The part that really impacts me is how many times individuals or groups of people knew what should be done (get out), but collectively decided to continue to escalate. And how the ruling parties could act in ways that were so disconnected from the good of the citizens. 70% of the decision to escalate the war was to avoid humiliation??

The many failed attempts by the US to back a ruler or ruling party in South Vietnam really begs the question- How do we believe that we have it figured out? Hind-site is always easier, and the way the documentary is put together can certainly reinforce themes that may or may not have been accurate. Perhaps the real question is- How can we trust anybody in power, and how can we determine what reality is? Is there such a thing as a position of authority that is not corrupted by that person being in a position of authority?

Multiple people making decisions collectively are able to make very bad decisions.

 

[Marita40]

I'm curious whether the vantage point of history sees Westmoreland in anything but the negative light he's portrayed in in the series.

 

[dtbach]

I'm curious whether the vantage point of history sees Westmoreland in anything but the negative light he's portrayed in in the series.

In a new book "Hue 1968" written by the same guy who wrote "Black Hawk Down", Westmoreland is demonstrated to be a general fighting the last war, i.e. Korea. Westmoreland kept insisting for weeks that Tet wasn't the big offensive but rather it was going to be against Khe Sahn. He also believed the "body count" myth and used that time and again as "we are winning the war" even though the counts were totally bogus.

 

[NW-Bound]

I would venture to guess if social media had been around in those days the war wouldn't have last long at all. Americans don't have much stomach for seeing American dead and mutulated bodies. Just imagine the instagram and FB posts detailing what was going on back then.

I now recall seeing a commentary along the above lines. It could be from the 1989 documentary series that I mentioned earlier. LOL also mentioned this before I did, but I missed it the first time going through the thread.

It was said that the VN war was the first time ever that the public was bombarded with war news on the TV evening news. It did not happen with WWII, or the Korean War. War is a messy business, and the public got an overdose of war reporting daily, and it did not show the quick victory as promised and expected.

 

[audreyh1]

I thought the public was bombarded with the gruesome visuals nightly in their homes and that this in fact did turn the public against the war.

Most of the reporters worked independently back then. There was no "embedding with the troops" AFAIK.

 

[NW-Bound]

Since I was born in 1954 I remember this time very well. One aspect of all this not already mentioned is how quickly the animosity between our two countries seems to be dissipating and in fact the two countries seem to have (almost) normalized relations.
It is strange how infrequently normalized relations occur. I think of Israel-Arab, China - Japan, Yugoslavia, Turkey-Greece, India-Pakistan - and on and on.

Americans do not hold grudges. This was proven with Japan and Germany after WWII.

And about VN, the North Vietnamese realized having the Chinese breathing down their neck meant they needed contacts with the Western world. Shortly after their victory in South VN in 1975, they were invaded by the Chinese in 1980. Yes, by their ally during the civil war with South VN.

And there have been ongoing disputes in the South China Sea, where the Chinese are taking over islands claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan.

The Vietnamese now are looking towards the US as an ally, somebody to sell them modern arms (they have been buying from the Soviets). Oh boy! This can get messy.

PS. When Obama last visited VN, I recall reading about the US promising to sell some arms to VN.

 

[Birdie Num Nums]

Quote from an earlier post:

From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped more than two million tons of ordnance on Laos during 580,000 bombing missions—equal to a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24-hours a day, for 9 years – making Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in history.

I saw a TV news item the other day about a bike rider who rode the Ho Chi Minh Trail recently. Her father had been a US bomber pilot. She'd gone to Vietnam to help out. The factoid that caught my attention is that of all the bombs dropped, some 30% didn't detonate but went deep into the soil where many still pose a danger of exploding today ("unexploded ordnance"). The Web says there are some 80 million unexploded bombs in Laos alone!

 

[Breedlove]

I was not in Vietnam but my older brother was . he has no interest in the series , no hatred he just does not have an interest .

I did talk to him about Hue and Phu Bai that was where he was , he kind of opened up but no real details . He was in some artillery outfit I think it was 101 . He used to send photos of big 105 and 155 guns. ( I am no expert )


He has always claimed at one time his group were moved into Cambodia , guns and all.

 

[kite_rider]

As someone who was born during the peak of the 'conflict' I don't have much memory of it. My impression of it was heavily influenced by 'Apocalypse Now', 'Full Metal Jacket', and 'Platoon'. This series fills in so many details that were never very clear to me. For example, I never really knew why Bobby Kennedy was significant to people. Also didn't have a good feeling for LBJ's motivation to keep sending people over there nor did I get the reason behind the highly divisive Democratic Convention in Chicago.

As others have already mentioned, Vietnam is almost a taboo topic amongst the folks who lived through it all so I've rarely had any conversations with anybody who fought over there. On the other hand, as an engineering student in California I had plenty of classmates whose families fought on the S side or were from Cambodia and had to leave or get locked up. Got a lot interesting insight from them - but nothing related to US politics of the time.

Finally, had a great mt bike trip from around Lao Cai over to Dien Bien Phu in the norther part of Vietnam. Beautiful country and very warm people. Not once did anyone mention (nor did I ask) about the war. Seems like the people there have moved on long ago.

 

[frayne]

Last night's installment was informative. I never realized that Nixon basically committed treason by striking a side deal with South Viet Nam's president Thuei to sit out the Paris peace talks in order for Nixon to gain political advantage before the 68 election.

 

[golfnut]

Last night's installment was informative. I never realized that Nixon basically committed treason by striking a side deal with South Viet Nam's president Thuei to sit out the Paris peace talks in order for Nixon to gain political advantage before the 68 election.

Tricky Dick

 

[Sunset]

I always find it interesting how our enemies become our allies, or at least not enemies. Japan, Germany, Italy, Canada, Spain, Mexico.

I think this is because there is no hatred of the actual people, by the avg. Joe so to speak.
Really wars seem to be caused by Political leaders wanting to do something, and getting folks all excited by it. Then it becomes something a common person needs to support though action or taxes and really has no say in the matter.

As a young male teenager, I was lucky the VN ended because I was full of hormones and stupidly wanting to go, without knowing what it was really like and the lies that were told to make it seem so important/noble.

 

[GrayHare]

Last night's installment was informative. I never realized that Nixon basically committed treason by striking a side deal with South Viet Nam's president Thuei to sit out the Paris peace talks in order for Nixon to gain political advantage before the 68 election.

I had not known Nixon's '68 campaign has been bugged. Helps explain a certain later bugging.

 

[NW-Bound]

...Really wars seem to be caused by Political leaders wanting to do something, and getting folks all excited by it. Then it becomes something a common person needs to support though action or taxes and really has no say in the matter...

This. Gumby's earlier post made the same point.

Let's use North Korea as an example, as it is a current issue. The people are blocked from outside news sources, and they have been told foreigners just want to invade, kill their children and rape their wives and daughters. What are they to do but to line up behind their Supreme Leader to support him?

Reunification and independence sound really idealistic and moralistic, but does it matter much if a country is poor, and its people starve? As described in an earlier post, I found out that VN now tries to enlist the help of the US to stem the aggression of mainland China. Earlier during the war with the South, they were begging China and Russia for military aid. Any country is never going to be that independent, let alone a poor one. Ho was just mobilizing his people in order for him to stay in power. He did not care about sending millions to their death, the same as Mao or Stalin did not.

One very interesting thing I found out some years ago: a Polish newspaper published a list of rulers who caused the most deaths in history, and Ho made the list along with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc... They later revised it and deleted Ho. I wonder if it was due to pressure from VN.

 

[NW-Bound]

OK, I found a list here, but it is not by a Polish paper. Note that both Chiang Kai Shek and Mao made the list, but Mao took the honor of first place.

Saddam Hussein, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, & More: 13 Deadliest Dictators (Photos)

 

[Scrapr]

Last night's installment was informative. I never realized that Nixon basically committed treason by striking a side deal with South Viet Nam's president Thuei to sit out the Paris peace talks in order for Nixon to gain political advantage before the 68 election.

Yeah, I had never heard that before. Did you hear LBJ's tone on that tape call w/Nixon? Cool would be a representation of his tone. Or frosty

What a year '68 was. MLK shot. RFK shot. Democratic convention riots. And they touched on the race riots but they were ongoing. Long hot summers

i was waiting for My Lai to come up. That was a turning point for me.

 

[braumeister]

What a year '68 was.

The year I graduated from college.

A moment burned into my memory:

Several of us were hanging around the campus one afternoon when a truck drove up. Big white unmarked panel truck the size of a typical UPS truck. It was from a local TV news channel.

It stopped and the two guys got out and opened up the back door. One of them started walking around: "Hey kid, you want to see yourself on TV?"

They started handing out protest signs; the truck was full of them. They just asked people to walk back and forth holding the signs and they would be able to see themselves on the evening news.

When enough signs had been handed out, they brought out the video cameras (big things in those days) and started filming. It was just used as background footage for that evening's newscast "Local college erupts in antiwar protest".

I was so disgusted I have never had much respect for the TV news media since that day. That was in the Spring of 1968.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

One thing that goes through my mind as I watch this series is IF communications/reporting were as instant as they are now, net, email, facebook, etc, I wonder if the war would have lasted as long as it did.

It doesn't seem to have made much difference in Afghanistan and Mesopotamia.

One thing the US government learned from Vietnam was not to give the media too much access to the war zone. News coverage in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan has been seriously limited compared with Vietnam. Even Reagan's invasion of Grenada and GHW Bush's invasion of Panama got little at-the-scene coverage.

 

[calmloki]

...

One thing the US government learned from Vietnam was not to give the media too much access to the war zone. News coverage in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan has been seriously limited compared with Vietnam. ....

Yup.

 

[NW-Bound]

...As a young male teenager, I was lucky the VN ended because I was full of hormones and stupidly wanting to go, without knowing what it was really like and the lies that were told to make it seem so important/noble.

I forgot to comment on this.

My best friend at work, a colleague I worked with for 20 years at two different megacorps, served in VN. He is 70 now, and was there in 66-67 as an evac chopper pilot. We did not talk about VN war often, but I learned the following from him.

He watched the movie "Dr. Zhivago", and it made him want to go kick some Commies' ass. When he failed to stay in college to get deferment, he knew it was a matter of time he got drafted, so volunteered to get a better treatment, hence the pilot training. Once he was in, he saw that it was not what he envisioned, and all he could do was to survive until his term was over. When he got out, he went back to college and did a lot better with his study this time.

As an evac chopper pilot, he did not participate directly in the fighting, but saw plenty. He told me once they flew over a hamlet, they kept getting shot at. So, they went into the village, and told the peasants that if it happened again, they would burn it down. Well, they got shot at again, and so they came back to burn the hamlet down and relocated the villagers.

This incidence shows how the guerrillas fought. They hid among the villagers. The peasants did not want, nor be able to take side. They couldn't. If they denounced the VCs, they would come back to slit their throat at night. When you cannot protect the civilians 24/7, you cannot expect them to be on your side. The VCs knew this, and any action you took against the peasants would be to the VCs' advantage.

When you don't know who's friend or foe, how do you fight? How do you win? It's impossible.

 

[DayDreaming]

OK, I found a list here, but it is not by a Polish paper. Note that both Chiang Kai Shek and Mao made the list, but Mao took the honor of first place.

Saddam Hussein, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, & More: 13 Deadliest Dictators (Photos)

I have to admit I don't know much history about some of the people on this list. But after watching the Ken Burns series, one could say that LBJ bears more responsibility than Ho Chi Mihn for the 1.7 million deaths. History is complicated and it's easy to spin the 'facts'.