Ken Burns' The Vietnam War

**PNWbrit** · 09-19-2017, 12:49 PM

Originally Posted by Not bunion

Meanwhile they were busy helping to topple legally elected governments around the world.

Cono is a fan of that though.

**Cono Este** · 09-19-2017, 02:07 PM

Originally Posted by PNWbrit

Cono is a fan of that though.

Way to cunt up a another thread.

Don't you have someone to bill?

**PNWbrit** · 09-19-2017, 02:12 PM

Originally Posted by Cono Este

Way to cunt up a another thread.

With your opinion...

Sorry.

It's a great documentrary so far. No surprise he always does great work.

**wyeaster** · 09-19-2017, 03:10 PM

Originally Posted by Cono Este

Way to cunt up a another thread.

he just beat me to it. helicopter rides for all!

**Cono Este** · 09-19-2017, 07:11 PM

So we put troops on the ground because a sonar man on the Maddox said an attack was "probable". Great.

My swim coach was a recon marine in the Da Nang beach landings. Toughest sob I ever knew.

**Buster Highmen** · 09-19-2017, 07:38 PM

I was of nam draft age and dodged it. I had friends wrecked by nam and met so many crazy nam vets. Some friends never came back.

While that was a divisive time, by my metrics, we've surpassed it in our current political and social polarization.

Obviously, we missed something there.

**neckdeep** · 09-20-2017, 12:15 PM

Originally Posted by DIYSteve

The biggest rifts I recall were between the flag-wavers -- including those with America: Love It or Leave It! bumper stickers -- and "the hippies," most of whom would never consider themselves hippies but happened to have long hair and side burns because that was the dominant style unless you were a fundamentalist Xian. BY FAR, the biggest manifestation of hatred was directed by the flag-waver rednecks against the so-called hippies. And it had more to do with civil rights and women's rights than Vietnam. As I said, Vietnam was largely a proxy for the other changes that were going on.

Yeah, I had a neighbor who was an officer and a decorated combat veteran who was in country 65-67 helping run a battalion of ARVN protecting the rubber plantations up near the Fish Hook. He went to war a scion of a military family with good intentions but, as well educated officer, he was all too aware of how the war was being mismanaged, how the ARVN treated their own people like dirt and how badly it was going to go sour for us. He came home disillusioned and a lot more open-minded. He was embraced by the hippies and became part of the veterans against the war movement. He knew John Kerry (regarded him as too much of a self-promoter). He'd barely taken his uniform off in '68 when a hot hippie chick "deprogrammed" him with Orange Sunshine fueled all night sex. If she spat on anything, it was his dick. He still talked about that 40 years later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spitting_Image

**GeezerSteve** · 09-20-2017, 12:31 PM

Sounds like an interesting book, and it confirms my experience and the experience related to me by the many Vietnam vets with whom I have been friends and/or attended college and/or worked with through the years. AFAICT the spat upon/baby killer myth was fabricated and promoted as part of wedge politics strategy and usually uttered by pro-war chicken hawks who never experienced a single day of combat.

Originally Posted by Buster Highmen

While that was a divisive time, by my metrics, we've surpassed it in our current political and social polarization.

I agree. But note that the seeds of today's polarization were planted back then, and the polarization got ramped up by cynical wedge politics of draft-dodger-turned-chicken-hawk Newt Gingrich. As I said above, the issue of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam civil war was largely a proxy for other changes happening back then, and those issues continue to be fodder for wedge politics. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

**Cono Este** · 09-20-2017, 09:40 PM

I wish they could chronicle the Chinese support of North Vietnam. You would think after Korea we would have expected it, but it seems they thought we could win without crossing the dmz like we did in Korea and drawing in direct Chinese intervention.

Hopefully we do not repeat that mistake again. There is no win in their part of the world.

**wyeaster** · 09-21-2017, 10:14 AM

it's always "them," isn't it, cono.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09...e-vietnam-war/

**Skistack** · 09-21-2017, 11:02 AM

Originally Posted by DIYSteve

^ ^ ^ "Retaliation for Gulf of Tonkin" was the pretext by which LBJ and Congress sold the American public on greatly escalating U.S. involvement in the Vietnam civil war. The emerging historical view is that the first GOT attack likely occurred but was overblown, and the second GOT attack never happened. I'd be very surprised if Burns' documentary fails to make that quite clear and thus the author of that piece somehow missed the context of Burns' use of that phrase.

The basis for Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now was Kurtz, the rogue ivory trader-turned-demigod in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Apocalypse Now was closely based on that book. Maybe Rheault's was weaved into the Kurtz's persona in the movie?

ETA1: Reading Heart of Darkness then watching Apocalypse Now makes for an edifying weekend.

ETA2: This from the wikipedia entry for Colonel Kurtz:

My HS senior year English class read HoD and watched AN. Also watched/read 1984. Pretty fun class.

**GiBo** · 09-21-2017, 03:17 PM

Originally Posted by Moeghoul

I'm learning quite a bit from the series. Anyone notice Trent Reznor contributed to the music for the series?

Same here.

The Renzor score is OK, but last night he had this annoying NIN sounding synth guitar riff going over serious dialogue. Just seemed out of place. Also, I don't know why there ALWAYS has to be music playing.

Last night seemed a little disjointed too. Maybe it was the indica.

**plugboots** · 09-21-2017, 03:39 PM

Trent talks about the music here:
http://www.pbs.org/video/trent-rezno...-score-s69jtk/
He says at one point that "they" wanted him to bring the volume up so-to-speak. Maybe that was the spot he was talking about.

**wyeaster** · 09-21-2017, 05:42 PM

https://blackagendareport.com/ken-bu...-thrones-again

**stuckathuntermtn** · 09-22-2017, 02:12 PM

They are all available on PBS.org, uncensored if you'd like. I really liked the first one. A lot of background that I did not know. Also, the way things are framed in context is really good. I think I've watched 3 episodes now. I like how they start out "Major support for the Vietnam war is provided by..."

**plugboots** · 09-22-2017, 02:15 PM

^^^ Agree. I watch the uncensored versions mirrored from my phone.

**PNWbrit** · 09-22-2017, 02:48 PM

Originally Posted by plugboots

^^^ Agree. I watch the uncensored versions mirrored from my phone.

Fuck.

I did not know there was an uncensored version. DVR'd the broadcast one because PBS on demand/roku channel is sometimes weird about having these big ticket shows out immediately.

**plugboots** · 09-22-2017, 03:14 PM

Huh, I guess that's a weird byproduct of cutting the cord, (a reason we considered not cutting the cord was our use of the DVR).

**hawkgt** · 09-22-2017, 03:18 PM

music last night was great, never wrong opening with jimi

**hutash** · 09-22-2017, 06:20 PM

I've watch two episodes, and will get caught up as time allows. Nice perspective, and very different from the one we got on the nightly news at the time. I remember the body count totals on the news. Having lived through it as a grade school/middle schooler, I am learning a lot we were never told about.

Knew some kids in school who lost brothers, and my brother was in the last lottery that was held. He pulled a relatively high number, so was reasonably safe, but our friend up the street got "7", and we knew he was fucked. He went through the whole induction process, but the war wound down, and he never got called up. We lived in a typical white bread neighborhood in California, but there was a very mixed feeling about the war.

**stuckathuntermtn** · 09-22-2017, 07:31 PM

Originally Posted by PNWbrit

Fuck.

I did not know there was an uncensored version. DVR'd the broadcast one because PBS on demand/roku channel is sometimes weird about having these big ticket shows out immediately.

There was like 1 swear word in the 3rd episode. IDK how much different the broadcast version would have been. Probably not much.

**wyeaster** · 09-22-2017, 08:32 PM

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09...e-predictions/

**Bronco** · 09-22-2017, 08:56 PM

Originally Posted by stuckathuntermtn

There was like 1 swear word in the 3rd episode. IDK how much different the broadcast version would have been. Probably not much.

Maybe he's referring to the copious amounts of dead and mangled bodies?

**neckdeep** · 09-23-2017, 09:33 AM

Ran into my old neighbor, the combat vet and amateur Nam historian, at the grocery store last night. I asked his opinion and he proclaimed the series to be excellent. He'd been waiting 50 years for this. He was especially gratified that a KIA member of his battalion, the man he respected the most, received mention. 1st Sgt. Poolaw was a true Army legend and losing a three war veteran and one of the army's most decorated men really hurt those younger soldiers.

http://aivmi.org/1st-sgt-pascal-cleatus-poolaw-sr/

**stuckathuntermtn** · 09-23-2017, 10:53 AM

Originally Posted by Bronco

Maybe he's referring to the copious amounts of dead and mangled bodies?

Idk, they show those on history shows all the time. That was all of the History Channel's B roll for a while.

Hm, can't watch episodes before they air without being a PBS member. Guess I'll wait. Or can I be one of those online for free?