Ken Burns The Vietnam War

[kammo man]

You are missing my point.
There are new Hippys........with new Social accepted names.

If Talking about a 4o year old war its necessary to use 40 year old terms.

Unless you know better.

[DALE ELLIS]

I call them retro hippies; they are the sons, daughters and grandkids of the original hippies and war protesters of the sixties. The left wing media has idolized the anti-war movement so much that instead of seeing them as cowards and traitors the youth of today look at them as heroes and want to follow in their footsteps.

[bodes]

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.

Very good points Darrell, WW2 should have taught us that strategic bombing alone would not win wars.....The British and Germans could attest to that...

The corruption in South Vietnam was indeed quite rampant....Officers listed names of civilians in military rosters, than sat back and collected their paychecks....

I guess the one good thing that came out of Vietnam, was learning how to get your adversary bogged down in a win less war, than support their enemy....Worked well enough in Afghanistan to help bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union....Bodes

[Tim O'Keefe]

Very good points Darrell, WW2 should have taught us that strategic bombing alone would not win wars.....The British and Germans could attest to that...

The corruption in South Vietnam was indeed quite rampant....Officers listed names of civilians in military rosters, than sat back and collected their paychecks....

I guess the one good thing that came out of Vietnam, was learning how to get your adversary bogged down in a win less war, than support their enemy....Worked well enough in Afghanistan to help bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union....Bodes

Would be nice but don't really think the USA learned anything about that. Been wasting lives in the 'Stan for 17 years now, much longer than Russians who seem to be doing fine these days in the Crimea and Syria...

It did work in the years following the 'Nam as the USA only fought proxy wars for a couple decades before jumping back into full scale action in Kuwait.

[BrianK]

You know what the viewpoint of anything PBS concocts will be. No use watching it. USA is bad. Everyone else is good. Case closed.

[cjam219]

You know what the viewpoint of anything PBS concocts will be. No use watching it. USA is bad. Everyone else is good. Case closed.

Your entitled to your opinion. My father USMC 1st Marines Vietnam 69-70 passed away at the age of 45 since then I have been very interested in this conflict, I find it helpful to see and hear the other side and try to rationalize as to why a healthy 19 yr
old returned from Vietnam and self-destructed at such a young age. I myself have spent 20 years active Army (OIF 04-05) and my son just finished 5 years in the USMC with no real issues so this conflict is important to me and I think Ken Burns assembled a lot of outstanding information whatever you want to do with it is up to you.

[Tom B]

I watched some of it. It brought back to many bad memories of my 2 tours in Nam. I won't watch any more. Tom ( Sgt. USMC, 1965/1972).

[Kyle Harrington]

Tom B.

Tom B. was there, that is what I call important.He saw, felt, tasted death we are amateur's trying to comprehend a conflict we only read about.I remember it was the first televised conflict clearly in the mid /late sixties. Check out the politicians who favoured the Iraq war and who conveniently forgot about their draft avoidance for the Nam.I makes my blood boil, we never fought but let us send other peoples kids to fight, two recent Presidents spring to mind !

[bodes]

Would be nice but don't really think the USA learned anything about that. Been wasting lives in the 'Stan for 17 years now, much longer than Russians who seem to be doing fine these days in the Crimea and Syria...

It did work in the years following the 'Nam as the USA only fought proxy wars for a couple decades before jumping back into full scale action in Kuwait.

Different situation really....We're not in Afghanistan as occupiers.....Fighting al qaeda and isis, it was deemed necessary to follow these groups into countries who were harboring terrorists.....

And to further add to my last post, the US scrapped the notion of supporting a large full time military...And instead opting for national guardsmen and reservist to augment a much smaller army.....The Soviet Union spending a large part of their GNP to build an army of conquest, ran out of "wars of liberation", bankrupting the country in the process.....Again, I think we learned something, even if only minutely.....Bodes

[Tim O'Keefe]

There were very few al qaeda in (isis began in Iraq later) the Stan to begin with and nowadays very few at all. Most were/are in Saud & Pakistan in safe havens.We have been fighting the Talaban which is only a local threat. History will tell if it is a military mistake and our ongoing occupation only fuels the fire for jihad. We should have learned from the Russians...sad thing is we have had the upper hand in the 'Stan on two occasions and managed to fumble away the gains each time. First time was with Special Forces and missles & $, it was a classic example of using "economy of force"

I would not differentiate too much between the Soviets and the Russians as their intentions have not really changed. Only the current capabilities of the modern Russian army/navy are not the equal to the Soviet army.
But we will need them in the future when a more aggressive army/navy from the East is rising...

As far as Burn's version of the Nam, i like the footage but not the commentary, better with the sound off

[bodes]

There were very few al qaeda in (isis began in Iraq later) the Stan to begin with and nowadays very few at all. Most were/are in Saud & Pakistan in safe havens.We have been fighting the Talaban which is only a local threat. History will tell if it is a military mistake and our ongoing occupation only fuels the fire for jihad. We should have learned from the Russians...sad thing is we have had the upper hand in the 'Stan on two occasions and managed to fumble away the gains each time. First time was with Special Forces and missles & $, it was a classic example of using "economy of force"

I would not differentiate too much between the Soviets and the Russians as their intentions have not really changed. Only the current capabilities of the modern Russian army/navy are not the equal to the Soviet army.
But we will need them in the future when a more aggressive army/navy from the East is rising...

As far as Burn's version of the Nam, i like the footage but not the commentary, better with the sound off

Isis was indeed born out of our departure from Iraq, and historically Afghanistan and Vietnam have had many unwanted guests......For whatever reason the US has decided they were capable of achieving success where so many others have failed...Arrogance or perhaps merely drawing on their string of past military victories....However as similar to Iraq, we are not interested or currently capable (with the numbers of troops in country) of occupying Afghanistan....Bodes

[Dan M]

I think that our leaders have forgotten the lessons of getting into conflicts like Viet Nam which go on and on, draining our country of lives and money and creating a steady stream of refugees that we are seemingly obligated to support. It seems like we are now in a pattern of severe natural disasters. We need to save our funds for our own country and countrymen. If you believe what the Bible says, we're being visited by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

[Kelly w]

I think the US leadership made the moves they thought best for VN. Maybe the leaders were not good enough to see the whole picture as in VN communists wanted only VN and not all asia. To not take ground in VN was cowardly as well for them. But then VN was with 4 Presidents and each one escalated instead of getting out so, it's the US war culture then and now that keeps wars going.

[cjam219]

You speak of US war culture, I googled Canada's involvement in Vietnam and found out a few things 1. about 30,000 Canadians volunteered to fight in southeast Asia
2.More importantly:Canadian involvement in the war

Canadian industry exported military supplies and raw materials useful in their manufacture, including ammunition, napalm and Agent Orange,[4] to the United States, as trade between the two countries carried on unhindered.

"500 firms sold $2.5 billion of war materials (ammunition, napalm, aircraft engines and explosives) to the Pentagon.

What kind of culture would you call this?

I think the US leadership made the moves they thought best for VN. Maybe the leaders were not good enough to see the whole picture as in VN communists wanted only VN and not all asia. To not take ground in VN was cowardly as well for them. But then VN was with 4 Presidents and each one escalated instead of getting out so, it's the US war culture then and now that keeps wars going.

[bodes]

I think the US leadership made the moves they thought best for VN. Maybe the leaders were not good enough to see the whole picture as in VN communists wanted only VN and not all asia. To not take ground in VN was cowardly as well for them. But then VN was with 4 Presidents and each one escalated instead of getting out so, it's the US war culture then and now that keeps wars going.

Kind of hard thinking of VN limiting expansion to just their own country, with the Soviet Union and China supplying military aid.....Bodes