Burns & Novick's The Vietnam War #3

Episodes 8-10 aired and covered events from April, 1969 on. The series is now complete. All episodes are now online here. The film was very well done. I enjoyed it a lot, even though it deeply saddened me a few times. Thank you, Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and many others involved.

Episode 8 topics include:

-President Nixon starts withdrawing US troops but escalates bombing

-North Vietnam's treatment of POW and South Vietnamese

-Woodstock

-Hispanics in US Army

-Fragging by US soldiers

-Ho Chi Minh dies and his successor Le Duan repeats his mission -- unification of Vietnam under one party rule by the Communist Party

-Start of lottery for draft

-Weathermen violence, more protesting

-North Vietnam leaders portray US as nothing but cruel invaders

-My Lai incident hits the media

-Antiwar protests increase, plight of vets

-Negotiations in Paris 

-US troops enter Cambodia, which reignites antiwar movement

-Kent State incident, followed by more campus protests

-Post traumatic stress disorder.

Episode 9, May 1970-March 1973, topics include:

-Treatment of vets after they come home from Vietnam

-Trial of Lt. Calley and others for My Lai

-North Vietnamese coerce prisoners of war to make antiwar statements and call USA a criminal nation

-Vietnam vets against the war, John Kerry testifies before Congress

-May Day tribe, Rennie Davis

-Pentagon Papers, which revealed US gov't leaders knew South Vietnamese were very weak and how strong the enemy was. 

-Documents stolen by Daniel Ellsberg and leaked to press

-Nixon formed "plumbers" to get info on Ellsberg and his co-operatives

-Use of defoliage Agent Orange 

-Rigged election in South Vietnam

-Nixon's great concern about war with the upcoming 1972 election

-Negotiations between US and North Vietnam, US withdrawal and POWs

-One POW, Dr. Kushner,  critical of Kerry testimony

-Dr. Kushner's wife had exceptional views, which North Vietnamese expolited

-1972 invasion by North Vietnam supported by USSR, China

-ARVN collapsing, US resumes bombing, which was very successful

-Huge loss of other Vietnamese lives didn't matter to North Vietnamese leaders

-Nixon orders land mines in water around Hanoi to halt incoming supplies. USSR protested but did nothing.  

-Famous photo of naked South Vietnamese girl  running after bombing

-Wife of POW Kushner speaks at 1972 DNC, supports and nominates McGovern.

-McGovern lied about intervening in peace negotiaions 

-Watergate breakin

-Jane Fonda in Hanoi denouncing POWs for war crimes and USA for aggression and atrocities

-1972 Republican National Convention. Nixon wins reelection

Episode 10
-POWs invited to White House.
-March 1973 last American troops left Vietnam, except a few Marines to guard the American embassy. Brutal civil war between North and South resumed.
-John Dean testifies about Watergate breakin.
-Russia and China more reliable allies to North Vietnam. South Vietnam too poor to alone withstand North Vietnam takeover. ARVN soldiers abandoned their duties. President Thieu resigned and fled country.
-Many South Vietnamese tried to escape Vietnam, expecting the worse from the North.
-North Vietnam established re-education camps.
-China invades North Vietnam.
-Post-traumatic stress disorder
-Vietnam Memorial. Many liked but one vet calls it a black scar.
-In 1985 a USA vet visits Vietnam. Economy regaining prosperity and people welcomed him. USA wanted accounting of POWs/MIAs and Vietnam refused. They relinquished in 1994 and USA lifted embargo.
-Another vet's return trip.
-What became of people interviewed for the film. 

Burns & Novick's The Vietnam War #2

Episodes 6-7 covered the events of 1968 (an exception noted below). What a year! The Tet Offensive starting January 30, the mini-Tet offensive in May, North Vietnam's massacre of South Vietnamese in Hue, Martin Luther King's assassination, Bobby Kennedy's assassination, the Democratic National Convention in Chicago with the attending riots and violence, Nixon winning the presidential election, attempted peace talks including arguing about tables.

Mostly news to me was the extent of North Vietnam propaganda and lies to Vietnamese people, and the cruel treatment of them, hordes of women included, sending them off to battle.

The testimony of a Japanese-American U.S. Army officer in Episode 7 was very powerful.

Also in Episode 7 was a hilarious comment about General Creighton Abrams, who took over command of U.S. operations in the Vietnam War in 1968 (after General Westmoreland). Abrams was a "soldier's soldier", and "the kind of guy who could inspire aggression in a begonia."

The My Lai Massacre occurred in 1968 but was not included. There is a brief mention of it in the summary for Episode 8, covering April 1969-May 1970, which airs tonight. I suppose the film makers put it there because it didn't hit the news until about 18 months after it happened.

Burns & Novick's The Vietnam War #1

We have been watching the film series, The Vietnam War, Episodes 1-5 the latest 5 days, Sun-Thu. There will be 5 more episodes Sun-Thu next week. They can be viewed on PBS's website shortly after they are aired on television. The whole series is 18 hours.
http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/home/

I didn't care much for Episode 1, maybe because of the time span covered. But 2-5 have been excellent. I learned quite a bit from them, especially the USA inside politics the press didn't report at the time. LBJ was an awful human being. Yet he was funny with the colorful Texan language and idioms he used. I found some scenes unpleasant, even gruesome. I am amazed at some of the scenes captured by video cameras -- how somebody managed to be filming in those particular circumstances and Burns et al got and used their film. Episode 5's time frame ends just before the 1968 Tet Offensive. Having been there during that peak period of the war, the next episodes will be interesting.

Back in the USA, a coincidence occurred without my being aware of it at the time. I visited some friends in St. Louis about 2 weeks ago. I was headed home at the St. Louis airport, walking from the central part to the gate where my flight was to be. Walking toward me was Ken Burns. I didn't do anything to show that I recognized him. I didn't know then about the film series. If I had known, I probably would have said something to him and that I was a Vietnam vet.