Has anyone seen this yet? I just recorded all 10 episodes on the DVR (it just came out this year), and have watched the first three, and I am simply amazed at the genesis of this war. If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend that you do. Anything that Ken Burns produces is a “Must See”. It’s on the PBS station here in northern South Carolina.
Gary
I’ve heard about it. But I have read that it concentrates too much on some things and completely overlooks other things.
Heck, you know how it is, stik…ya can’t please everybody. I don’t read movie reviews for that very reason - if I believed them all, I would never watch a movie! And I’ve seen some darned good ones that were panned by the critics.
Anyways, give it a watch. You’ll know if you like it or not after the first episode.
Gary
I saw the full 13 part original Vietnam: A Television History on our local PBS affiliate October 4 - December 20, 1983 one episode with a former Army medic, said it - the episode - was so much B.S., plenty talkative otherwise about what he’d witnessed.
Far as I’m concerned this TV series remains definiative given it was produced & aired less than 10 years after the fall of South Vietnam. The World At War (TWAW) series aired over a decade earlier also remains definative, infinately more so given so many first-hand participants were interviewed during its production. Unfortunately TWAW was produced before RAF Group Captain Frederick William Winterbotham’s The Ultra Secret was published in 1974, if it had just a few years earlier TWAW’s narrative would had been a lot different.
I don’t watch much TV anymore. We cut the cable last year and just have some streaming and broadcast. Add that with my evening work hours, with daytime TV being 98% manure and you get the picture.
If I happen to get a chance to see it, I’ll have a look. But i have more than enough to do in my spare time nowadays…
I have not seen it.
Crit is going to be tough as it is kind of a “broad” subject.
I got 1 A and lottery number 86 but is was 1974 and the draft ended in 1972.
Definitely did not want to be sucked into that action, however would have enlisted USN if it came to that. Did get reclassified as 1AO. Draft Board guy says “I’ll put you at the front of your patrol with a big red cross on your forehead”.
In a bigger sense if you include the very legitimate stateside resistance to the war, the backlash on that, and the fallout, I understand the series falls way short.
Maybe a separated history one day.
One critique of the show that I read says that it gave short shrift to the Air Force And Navy actions in 1972. Which historically speaking were critical to getting us OUT of the war.
During my time in service I served under two NCO’s (among the many Vietnam vets that I served under or with) who were both SF before the commitment of regular ground forces. Their tales were interesting. Unfortunately it’s been so long, that I’ve forgotten more than I remember of their war stories.
I have not seen it, but it’s on my binge list for when I have time.
When I was in college in the 80s, I took a Vietnam War history course based on the 1983 PBS 13 episode documentary, Vietnam: A Television History and the 1985 rebuttal produced by Accuracy in Media called Television’s Vietnam: The Real Story narrated by Charlston Heston.
It’s been over thirty years since I took that class. Communism was bad, but we backed some pretty brutal regimes.
That series mainly looked at the political aspect of the world’s first televised war. It did not look into many of the historic battles beyond those that had a political effect on the war.
Completely agree; need to see Television’s Vietnam: The Real Story.
There also is Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War, it aired on Canadian TV 1980-82 before Vietnam: A Television History (WGBH-TV Boston) should see entire thing also but Richard Basehart’s voice is off-putting never mind the irritating background music, the former is comparatively succinct.
Vietnam along with anti-war protests were making history when I was in college, remember Kent State all too well.
I just finished it and it is worth watching. My whole insight on the war is based on my father did one tour and left the Army because he didn’t want to go back. I read a few books that were vague on the whole war or were focused on one battle, Hue, Khe San, etc. Any recommendations for books to read? I was quite naive on many aspects of the war…
I can definitely see doing one tour, surviving and then getting out.
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien.
A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo.
Tried watching it a couple times and each time I ended up falling asleep during it. I guess it was a real snooze fest for me. I was really disappointed in it.
I hear ya. I only watch stuff that I record, and that’s usually documentaries, NASCAR, and “Only In America With Larry The Cable Guy” - that is a funny show (well, it is to me, anyways…). My wife , on the other hand, loves the Hallmark Channel, Lifetime, A&E, etc. As long as she’s happy. Happy wife, more time at the bench!
And you know, it’s amazing how much I don’t want everything anymore because I can fast-forward through the commercials. My financial situation has greatly improved over the past 11 years since being saved and not being tempted by all of that comeercialism. But, that’s for another conversation on another day.
I’ve only watched the first three episodes, and, so far, those three have concentrated mainly on how it all got started. So, regardless of all the critics’ opinions, I have definitely learned a lot that I didn’t know about Vietnam. They have interviewed quite a few veterans who were there, including a few of the original “advisors” who gave a remarkable account of what they really experinced over there, and how they thought way too much was hushed up, and ignored. I’m sure that not everything will be covered over the entire series, but, I guess that can be said about any documentary. I just try to look at it as something I can learn.
Yeah, that’s talked about quite a bit in the first episodes (the bad regimes, that is). The first “democratically-elected” president of Vietnam was one bad dude (I can’t remember, nor know how to spell, his name). It was insinuated that he rigged the election (where have I heard that term recently? [^o)] ), and pretty much took over the entire country, but, we decided to back him because, supposedly, ANYTHING else was better than communism. Turned out we was wrong. That was one thing I learned. Another thing I learned was that Ho Chi Minh tried to get the US to help him get the Japanese out of Vietnam at the end of, and just after, WWII, but he eventually fell on deaf ears. The OSS was very instrumental in helping him, but couldn’t convince the people that needed convincing.
And the French pretty much got the whole mess started back in the 1860s, and then couldn’t handle what they started. But now I’m giving away the whole plot!
My dad got out of the USAF in 1964 (after 8 years in) because the US role in Vietnam was starting to flare up then, and he didn’t want to come home to his kids not knowing who he was (from being gone so much), or, worse yet, not coming home at all.
I think your dad made the right decision. Does he have any regrets about getting out?
[dto:]
in fact because the French were flattened and could not afford to rule their colonies, the occupying British forces in Indochina, who were similarly strapped, kept the Japanese army armed as a police force well into 1946.
i watched this serie last month on french tv .
Excellent .
You’re right i’ve got the Ken Burns civil war DVD box set … a must .