Ken Burns: Vietnam

[waltky]

Ken Burns does Vietnam...

Vietnam Redux, Again: Ken Burns & Lynn Novick’s Epic PBS Series
March 20, 2017 “You will kill 10 of us, we will kill one of you. But in the end you will tire first.” — Ho Chi Minh

Whether he knew it or not, Army Gen. William Westmoreland, the U.S. commander in Vietnam, was philosophically and tactically in sync with “Uncle Ho,” except for the tiring part. He told Sen. Ernest “Fritz” Hollings,”We’re killing these people at a ratio of 10 to 1.” Hollings, a Democrat and a decorated World War II veteran from Westmoreland’s home state of South Carolina, responded: “Westy, the American people don’t care about the 10, they care about the one.” So there it is, the whole shebang that was the Vietnam War summed up in two quick takes from both sides of the aisle, but fabled documentarian Ken Burns does not do short and unsweet. He and co-director Lynn Novick tend to the exhaustive, a style they have employed previously to explain the Civil War, World War II and even baseball.

President Johnson visits soldiers at the Cam Ranh Bay base, South Vietnam.​

For Vietnam, they have come up with a whopper that was 10 years in the making. Beginning in September, PBS will roll out a 10-part, 18-hour documentary The Vietnam War that the blurbs say will be a “gripping cinematic journey that promises to be a major cultural event.” The “Ones” and American veterans take center stage in Burns and Novick’s retelling of the last war fought by a U.S. draft military, but the “Tens” and North Vietnamese regulars and Viet Cong survivors also share the spotlight. Their takes on the pluses and minuses of the Americans they fought along the jungle trails and paddy dikes will be jarring to a U.S. audience. According to the promo material, the series “will open up conversations — sometimes painful and long overdue — about the legacy of the war and what we can learn from it today.”

Long Khanh Province, Republic of Vietnam….SP4 R. Richter, 4th Battalion, 503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade, lifts his battle weary eyes to the heavens, as if to ask why? Sergeant Daniel E. Spencer stares down at their fallen comrade. The day’s battle ended, the silently await the helicopter which will evacuate their comrade from the jungle covered hills.​

Well, now. Another conversation on Vietnam would hardly seem necessary after all the books, movies, songs, posturings, laments, “stab in the back” excuses, and barstool rants that have endlessly poured forth on the subject. But based on a screening last week at the Motion Picture Academy of America of a two-hour episode, Burns and Novick appear to have pulled it off. There is new material here in just the one segment — on power struggles in North Vietnam, on China’s involvement, on the divisions on the homefront in the U.S. and also in Vietnam. In Burns and Novick’s telling, Ho Chi Minh was a figurehead who lost out in a power struggle with Le Duan, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (VCP), at a Hanoi party meeting on Nov. 22, 1963 — the same day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

President Richard M. Nixon visited U.S. troops of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division at Di An, 12 miles south of Saigon.​

It was Le Duan (pronounced lay-zwan), a former clerk with the Vietnam Railway Co., who ordered regulars of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) into South Vietnam to bolster the Viet Cong against the U.S. troop buildup that he saw as inevitable. The outmaneuvered Ho would remain the national icon; Le Duan was the power. Burns and Novick have their narrator, actor Peter Coyote, intone: “Le Duan gave the order to escalate.” The first phase of the new strategy was to destroy the Army of the Republic of (South) Vietnam, the much-maligned ARVN. Then would come attacks on the cities, aimed at setting off revolts that would force the Americans out.

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[yiostheoy]

Gen. Vu Nguyen Giap said further that the Americans were not willing or able to throw enough bodies into the war as was he.

He was precisely right.

This is called strategic generalship.

Since MacArthur, Giap is the most brilliant general that has lived.

And Westmoreland was the most inept.

 

[whitehall]

Why do slick old cliches like "Westy, the Americanpeople don't care about the 10, they only care about the 1" only apply to Vietnam? Why didn't it apply to WW2? America was prepared for wholeslale slaughter at Normandy and we were relieved when we only lost about 3,000 Americans in a single day but we lost about 300,000 in the freaking war. Why didn't somebody talk to the "Old Soldier", MacArthur who lost 50,000 Troops in Korea on a freaking ego trip? That's the problem (other than his haircut) with Ken Burns. LBJ's war is all about cliches because the left loves a loser, especially when a republican is in charge.

 

[MaryL]

I hope it exposes how our government created this mess, Kennedy's "boy" genius and architect of that shit show , Robert McNamara realized why and how it was wrong, and how our subsequent government representatives kept kicking the can down the road for ten years. Some countless Vietnamese dead and 56 K dead American servicemen. I Love Burns, I hope he gives a fair telling that war as he did the Civil War.

 

[gipper]

I hope it exposes how our government created this mess, Kennedy's "boy" genius and architect of that shit show , Robert McNamara realized why and how it was wrong, and how our subsequent government representatives kept kicking the can down the road for ten years. Some countless Vietnamese dead and 56 K dead American servicemen. I Love Burns, I hope he gives a fair telling that war as he did the Civil War.

Burns is an asshole and he didn't give a fair telling of Lincoln's War or LBJ's War.

 

[yiostheoy]

Why do slick old cliches like "Westy, the Americanpeople don't care about the 10, they only care about the 1" only apply to Vietnam? Why didn't it apply to WW2? America was prepared for wholeslale slaughter at Normandy and we were relieved when we only lost about 3,000 Americans in a single day but we lost about 300,000 in the freaking war. Why didn't somebody talk to the "Old Soldier", MacArthur who lost 50,000 Troops in Korea on a freaking ego trip? That's the problem (other than his haircut) with Ken Burns. LBJ's war is all about cliches because the left loves a loser, especially when a republican is in charge.

Well Japan was a popular enemy.

North Korea was not.

North Viet Nam was not.

And FDR brainwashed the American People into believing the Germans were very bad people too -- which they turned out to be when the camps were finally found.

But more significantly England was getting their butts kicked by the Germans and so were the French so Americans felt sorry for them.

So WW1 and Atlantic WW2 were for rescue of the English and French, and the Pacific WW2 was for revenge against Japan.

 

[whitehall]

Why do slick old cliches like "Westy, the Americanpeople don't care about the 10, they only care about the 1" only apply to Vietnam? Why didn't it apply to WW2? America was prepared for wholeslale slaughter at Normandy and we were relieved when we only lost about 3,000 Americans in a single day but we lost about 300,000 in the freaking war. Why didn't somebody talk to the "Old Soldier", MacArthur who lost 50,000 Troops in Korea on a freaking ego trip? That's the problem (other than his haircut) with Ken Burns. LBJ's war is all about cliches because the left loves a loser, especially when a republican is in charge.

Well Japan was a popular enemy.

North Korea was not.

North Viet Nam was not.

And FDR brainwashed the American People into believing the Germans were very bad people too -- which they turned out to be when the camps were finally found.

But more significantly England was getting their butts kicked by the Germans and so were the French so Americans felt sorry for them.

So WW1 and Atlantic WW2 were for rescue of the English and French, and the Pacific WW2 was for revenge against Japan.

You have it backwards. It wasn't about a popular enemy, it was about popular politicians and generals who were turned into celebrities by the media. You have to scratch your head when MacArthur, who never spent a single night in Korea, sent ill-equipped Troops into the biggest ambush in history and was relieved of duty, received a tickertape parade after the U.S. lost 50,000 Troops in a three year quagmire that he caused.

 

[bodecea]

Why do slick old cliches like "Westy, the Americanpeople don't care about the 10, they only care about the 1" only apply to Vietnam? Why didn't it apply to WW2? America was prepared for wholeslale slaughter at Normandy and we were relieved when we only lost about 3,000 Americans in a single day but we lost about 300,000 in the freaking war. Why didn't somebody talk to the "Old Soldier", MacArthur who lost 50,000 Troops in Korea on a freaking ego trip? That's the problem (other than his haircut) with Ken Burns. LBJ's war is all about cliches because the left loves a loser, especially when a republican is in charge.

WWII was total war with the entire country in a war footing. We all sacrificed. People rationed, companies retooled, even consumer products like Coke, and cigarettes, and toys promoting winning the war. Vietnam....not so much.

 

[namvet]

the north relied totally on the American MSM and protesters to win it. it worked to perfection

 

[whitehall]

the north relied totally on the American MSM and protesters to win it. it worked to perfection

AfterTet the NVA was out of manpower and pretty much defeated according to general Giap. Walter Cronkite want to Vietnam, donned a helmet and pretended to be under fire for the cameras and called the U.S. Tet victory "a stalemate". Chicken shit president LBJ went on national T.V. and threw in the towel and that's when the radical libs finally grasped defeat from the jaws of victory and the MSM managed to blame Nixon.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

One of many excellent PBS series/documentaries the brain dead wants to put an end to. The R race to the bottom accelerates.


Sent from my iPad using USMessageBoard.com

 

[whitehall]

What's left to say about Vietnam? Will the 40 year old with the haircut that most 8 year old kids outgrew tell us about Jane Fonda and how John Kerry committed treason by meeting with the North Vietnamese while "on vacation in Paris" when he was still in the Navy reserves? Will Burns relate how Kerry lied about alleged atrocities and how he worked with Jane Fonda to unite racial unrest with the anti-war movement with their "Winter Soldiers project" to overthrow the freaking government? Will Burns tell how LBJ created a fake crisis to get Troops into Vietnam and then set the rules so Americans could win every battle and still lose the war? Frankly I doubt it because Burns is a cliche artist. It's about time Vietnam Vets took back their honor from Hollywood scam artists and sleazy docu-dramas created by self serving lefties.

 

[I amso IR]

It has taken many years of "pee-pain and mental anguish" for me to, for me to wash Viet Nam from my mind. There is nothing PBS can offer to change that fact. Younger and older Americans took any sense of accomplishment or honor from me and I will never forgive that fact. There is nothing Americans can do to restore my faith in this rout step country and it's rout step politics. I am outa here on that note!

 

[Hombre Libre]

Basically a whitewash of what was naked aggression against the Vietnamese people. Starts off talking about the 'decent people' who got us into the war, thereby paving the way for more decent people to instigate subsequent wars or proxy wars in Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, El Salvador, and Yemen. Of course none of the criminals who started these wars were ever punished, except for LBJ resigning so we were forced to choose between two bloodthirsty sociopaths in the most recent election. The Vietnamese point of view is minimized as are antiwar voices.

 

[OldLady]

Ken Burns does Vietnam...

Vietnam Redux, Again: Ken Burns & Lynn Novick’s Epic PBS Series
March 20, 2017 “You will kill 10 of us, we will kill one of you. But in the end you will tire first.” — Ho Chi Minh

Whether he knew it or not, Army Gen. William Westmoreland, the U.S. commander in Vietnam, was philosophically and tactically in sync with “Uncle Ho,” except for the tiring part. He told Sen. Ernest “Fritz” Hollings,”We’re killing these people at a ratio of 10 to 1.” Hollings, a Democrat and a decorated World War II veteran from Westmoreland’s home state of South Carolina, responded: “Westy, the American people don’t care about the 10, they care about the one.” So there it is, the whole shebang that was the Vietnam War summed up in two quick takes from both sides of the aisle, but fabled documentarian Ken Burns does not do short and unsweet. He and co-director Lynn Novick tend to the exhaustive, a style they have employed previously to explain the Civil War, World War II and even baseball.

President Johnson visits soldiers at the Cam Ranh Bay base, South Vietnam.​

For Vietnam, they have come up with a whopper that was 10 years in the making. Beginning in September, PBS will roll out a 10-part, 18-hour documentary The Vietnam War that the blurbs say will be a “gripping cinematic journey that promises to be a major cultural event.” The “Ones” and American veterans take center stage in Burns and Novick’s retelling of the last war fought by a U.S. draft military, but the “Tens” and North Vietnamese regulars and Viet Cong survivors also share the spotlight. Their takes on the pluses and minuses of the Americans they fought along the jungle trails and paddy dikes will be jarring to a U.S. audience. According to the promo material, the series “will open up conversations — sometimes painful and long overdue — about the legacy of the war and what we can learn from it today.”

Long Khanh Province, Republic of Vietnam….SP4 R. Richter, 4th Battalion, 503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade, lifts his battle weary eyes to the heavens, as if to ask why? Sergeant Daniel E. Spencer stares down at their fallen comrade. The day’s battle ended, the silently await the helicopter which will evacuate their comrade from the jungle covered hills.​

Well, now. Another conversation on Vietnam would hardly seem necessary after all the books, movies, songs, posturings, laments, “stab in the back” excuses, and barstool rants that have endlessly poured forth on the subject. But based on a screening last week at the Motion Picture Academy of America of a two-hour episode, Burns and Novick appear to have pulled it off. There is new material here in just the one segment — on power struggles in North Vietnam, on China’s involvement, on the divisions on the homefront in the U.S. and also in Vietnam. In Burns and Novick’s telling, Ho Chi Minh was a figurehead who lost out in a power struggle with Le Duan, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (VCP), at a Hanoi party meeting on Nov. 22, 1963 — the same day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

President Richard M. Nixon visited U.S. troops of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division at Di An, 12 miles south of Saigon.​

It was Le Duan (pronounced lay-zwan), a former clerk with the Vietnam Railway Co., who ordered regulars of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) into South Vietnam to bolster the Viet Cong against the U.S. troop buildup that he saw as inevitable. The outmaneuvered Ho would remain the national icon; Le Duan was the power. Burns and Novick have their narrator, actor Peter Coyote, intone: “Le Duan gave the order to escalate.” The first phase of the new strategy was to destroy the Army of the Republic of (South) Vietnam, the much-maligned ARVN. Then would come attacks on the cities, aimed at setting off revolts that would force the Americans out.

MORE

I've been watching it, but it's nowhere close to as interesting as I'd hoped. Doubt I'll watch the whole series.
A droning documentary with calm war participants peppered in with their 60 second clips. It is very informative, though.

 

[namvet]

I was over there when Tet started.in 68, we beat em to a pulp. done finished. we were waiting around for the papers to be signed so we could go home. then Johnson sent over the bombing halt order and a general pull back or retreat. no Einstein needed here, they rearmed and resupplied hello Nam II .

 

[Picaro]

Well, obviously bringing up the big picture about Korea and Nam is a waste of time here, as usual. Burn's docudrama isn't very good as history, and is meant to pander to left wing and right wing fictions.