Ken Burns' Vietnam

Update: The whole series started again today (10 August) on BBC4 this time from 22:30. Two episodes.

Burns' 10 part documentary is being shown in the UK again on PBS America (available on Freeview). It's being shown in two and half hour long chunks starting well after 10PM so it's too late for this wage slave to see it all.

I caught a few episodes when it was shown last year, and I'm quite content to watch the same episodes all over again. As with Burns' ACW series, this is IMHO a super documentary. The testimony from the veterans from both sides is very moving, and the makers seem to have found some very articulate men to talk to.

Three stand out excerpts from tonight (1968-69), and I write as it's still showing so there could be more:

(1) Tricky Dickie's presidential campaign people encouraging the South Vietnamese president not to attend peace talks in Paris, with the promise that he could get better terms if elected in the upcoming US Presidential election. So there's nothing new under the Sun in terms of what some people are prepared to say to crawl their way to the top.

(2) One US vet saying that 19 year old boys are prepared to do a lot, and ask no questions. "That's what makes them excellent warriors".  "They even have to be told to put raincoats on when it's raining", struck a chord with this father of a young man.

(3) Another US vet saying how he switched on the TV whilst in Australia on R&R, at the time of the Democratic National Congress in Chicago, saw police beating protestors and assumed it was the Soviets in Czechoslovakia. "I became politicised". Not shocking, knowing a bit of the history of my own country too, but it's interesting hearing about transformational moments in people's lives.

I'm sure this will not be news to many of the, ahem, greying wargaming fraternity. It's not totally new to me, though I was 6 at the time and have hazy recollections of the TV news from those days. And I'm not totally naive either. But I found this powerful viewing.

If, you've not seen the programme yet, it's well worth spending the time. Maybe you have some stand out moments of your own.


(2) Karl Marlantes
(3) Ron Ferrizzi