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Great documentary series: things I learned.

posted 7 years ago by sabita (20)
6 replies | jump to latest

I really enjoyed this Ken Burns series. It gave a very good account of the war, especially the views of the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong.

I learned some interesting new things:

1. There were divisions within the North Vietnamese Communist Party leadership and that Ho Chi Minh had been sidelined by the 1960s.

2. The South Vietnamese army did have some decent soldiers and good officers.They proved that in 1968 and in 1972. The image of the corrupt ARVN soldier was a myth.

3. The M-16 assault rifle used by the Americans and the South Vietnamese was not as effective as the AK-47 Kalashnikov as a combat weapon.

4. The war was unwinnable, and Johnson Administration knew it even in 1965. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara still advocated sending more troops and expanding the bombing of the North despite his own doubts.Is that not the definition of madness?

Any others?

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

To me, what really stood out is how much of an asshole LBJ truly was. He allowed his ego to get in the way of reason and lied so much that he started believing his own bullshit.

[–] merkin64 (122) 6 years ago

The whole was based on lies and Johnson was not the only one. Kennedy denied that American troops were involved in the fighting when in fact they were. Robert McNamara lied repeatedly about the progress of the war. By way, the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, probably never actually happened.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

True, but LBJ is the one that escalated the conflict and US involvement the most.

[–] ebhaynz (3688) 5 years ago

I agree, I've studied the Vietnam conflict for years and I've come to the conclusion that LBJ escalated the troops right after he got elected in his own right. He had told the Generals "after I'm elected, you'll get your war".
One thing I did not know is that throughout 65, 66, 67, and early 68 it was widely believed and reported that we were winning the war. So many reports and quotes by the media "that it could be over almost any day now". I read Robert Mason's book "Chickenhawk"(a MUST READ btw) and he mentions this so many times during his one year tour he quickly became cynical. So many soldiers, airmen, etc. knew on the very first day in Vietnam that it was a complete Clusterf_ _ _ _! Just shows how much an idiot LBJ and his cronies were.
After getting out of office LBJ rarely talked about the Vietnam conflict, he was traumatized by what he had done and he ended up drinking, smoking, and eating himself to death.

[–] diagoro (490) 6 years ago

I've studied the war before. Aside from having the North Vietnamese point of view (which was a great balance, especially where they display how each side experiences pain and loss in the same way), there were two takes;

1. How the US, mostly Johnson, just slowly fumbled into the whole war. How many times the US could have cut their loses, or made a different decision along the way. It was just a complete cluster **** from the get go.....and many people knew it!

2. How utterly chaotic the South Vietnamese political situation was. Along with my first point, there was no way to win the way.

I know my Vietnamese friends/exes will hate this opinion if it should ever be read. But the US should never have been there. Vietnam deserved the right to be unified after the French left. Communist or not, all the US did was extend the colonial era, killing thousands upon thousands along the way.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Based on the way they covered the Nguyễn Ngọc Loan's execution of a captured terrorist in Saigon I stopped watching and chalked the entire show up as leftist propaganda.

There are countless account of the act and why it happened, the facts of the capture terrorist wasn't wearing a uniform whch made him a spy not a soldier, add to that he had just killed an officer and the officer's family. He should have been shot on the spot. But burns plays it out without giving the justification for why it was done, that is just a chicken shit way to continue selling the same bullshit coverage it was given by the liberal media when it was presented on the news in 1968. I don't know the full story behind every bit of Vietnam but knowing how Burns covered this well known bit I have to assume the whole series is biased bullshit.