Ken Burns The Vietnam War

[VtwinVince]

Burns = stylish revisionism.

[Totenhead]

Really enjoying it so far

[Kyle Harrington]

Excellent

LBJ's words on those 1964/5 tapes say it all the politicians knew it was a disaster in the making yet they placed political considerations before the poor young men who were flung into this mess.McNamara clearly agreed with LBJ 's deep concerns. Also these Vietnamese were tough, they had a cultural history of fighting invaders and could live off the land and merge into it for that matter. When I see 19 year old's from New York, Kentucky, Alabama et al being sent into the Jungle I wince !!

[Totenhead]

I wonder how it compares with the Burma Campaign

[Darrell]

The mission was never about winning to address the Westmoreland comment. The only way to 'win' was to play it like Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. Our guys were there because they were told they had to go, the VC fought without any remorse, without any restraint. One of the failings of the US IMO is that we want to be 'the nice guy' when war is a terrible, dirty and ruthless business.
Just my two cents, fire away.
And I have not watched this series yet, only read dozens of books on the war.
A frustrating war with so many lives lost for nothing.
No wonder we all long for WW2, it was the last time a war actually made sense.
Eric

One important thing everyone in the US Gov't's failed to understand was that blasting them off the face of the earth was NOT going to win anything. Many of the advisors knew that before the US Marines came ashore in 1965, you had to win over the People. Bombing the crap out of their villages and destroying their possessions and killing their families was not going to work. It only alienated the SV people even more.

Aligning yourself with corrupt SV Leaders did not help either. They were dispised more by the VN people than anyone.

The Vietnamese had been throwing off oppressors for 100's of years .. from the Chinese, the French, the Americans ... it was all the same to them. They could live with kill ratios of 10:1 against. They had all the time in the world. The US did not.

[Kelly w]

If you guys remember one statement made I forget by whom, which is "US needs to stop being the good guys around the world", is true in some cases as the cause is not worth the sacrifice and money spent.

Thinking about that statement as I heard the news of 3 troops killed in Niger.

[BrianK]

Burns' PBS Vietnam series seems to be mostly about the noble North Vietnamese.

[Kelly w]

YEs as I had mentioned the North VN side seemed to have more of a voice, either by soldier or Politician, other then that I liked it.

[DALE ELLIS]

LBJ's words on those 1964/5 tapes say it all the politicians knew it was a disaster in the making yet they placed political considerations before the poor young men who were flung into this mess.McNamara clearly agreed with LBJ 's deep concerns. Also these Vietnamese were tough, they had a cultural history of fighting invaders and could live off the land and merge into it for that matter. When I see 19 year old's from New York, Kentucky, Alabama et al being sent into the Jungle I wince !!

I agree with the political part of your statement but not with your assessment of the Vietnamese. Other than not being acclimatized to the heat, some of these boys from New York, Kentucky and Alabama who were raised in the country and grew up hunting and fishing were better suited to jungle fighting than many of the NVA who were raised in the city.

[Totenhead]

Burns' PBS Vietnam series seems to be mostly about the noble North Vietnamese.

Plenty of Marines interviewed this week, loving it actually

[BrianK]

OTOH the end result was the removal of support for SE Asia and a mountain of Cambodian skulls.

[bodes]

LBJ's words on those 1964/5 tapes say it all the politicians knew it was a disaster in the making yet they placed political considerations before the poor young men who were flung into this mess.McNamara clearly agreed with LBJ 's deep concerns. Also these Vietnamese were tough, they had a cultural history of fighting invaders and could live off the land and merge into it for that matter. When I see 19 year old's from New York, Kentucky, Alabama et al being sent into the Jungle I wince !!

For all intents and purposes, the war in Vietnam could not end in a military victory.....The inability of establishing self determination by the South Vietnamese, while Americans trying to leave with some sense of honor, pretty much sealed the south's fate...Although the south fought hard, with waning American aerial support, the task grew impossible against a more determined enemy.....

Roosevelt didn't want to get involved in China.....He didn't think Americans wanted their sons dying over burning huts in Asia....In Vietnam, American soldiers were involved in setting fire to huts.....Ineresting how things changed in thirty years...Bodes

[kammo man]

The day will come when the Vietnam wall will be removed because the hippies will call it a HATE CRIME to humanity.

[BrianK]

The only thing hippies don't hate are the local drug dealers.

[Steve Sherlock]

Thanks for your posts, Kammo man and BrianK -- it's been a few days since I've laughed that much. I can't believe that some people are actually still using the term "hippies" as something that is immediate or current. Hippies in the context of a social force have not been relevant since the early '70s. Umm, that would be, oh say over 40 years. Time to put away your polyester leisure suits and put your John Birch membership pins aside and actually come into the second decade of the 21st century.

Seriously, it doesn't matter how you view the Vietnam film, but to still say after 40 years that "hippies" are going to do all this stuff is truly comical, and even tragic if you actually believe that.

I can just imagine a bunch of 65-70 year old men (probably smoking pot according to you) going to tear down the Vietnam memorial.

Steve