The Vietnam War: A film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick

[orangerful]

Finally got around to watch the first episode of The Vietnam War, the new Ken Burns documentary on PBS. It is all streaming for free on the PBS website and after watching the first episode, I can already say this should be required viewing for everyone.

I'm not sure about you, but we never even got to the Vietnam War in history class. I think we may have glossed over it one year, when summer was fast approaching. It barely got a mention, probably because it would have been far too complicated to explain in a matter of days to a bunch of teenagers ready to be done with school.

The first episode is long, almost 90 minutes, and it is entitled "Deja Vu" (1858-1961). The story of Vietnam's long struggle for some kind of freedom is laid out and what a mess it was. The episode switches back and forth every few minutes to footage from the war, creating eerie parallels and a sense of all this has happened before, and all this will happen again (and again, and again). It was pretty much like watching someone dig a hole, yet they are standing in the hole while they did it, totally oblivious to that fact and then, after that hour and a half is over, you are looking up out of that hole going "oh...shit" because there is not way out without making a mess of things.

I have to applaud all of the people they interviewed for being so honest. Some of the statements made so far were kind of shocking, and you can tell by the look on the people's faces as they say them that they know what it all stemmed from looking back, but at the moment those feelings were real, that horror was real, that desire to fight was real.

It feel so far away and so recent. This is one of those moments in history that we tend to ignore because it was so messy, but it is also a point in history that changed the United States forever. Burns made a comment in an interview that many of the problems we are wrestling with now along party lines start here.

Anyone else watching?

Comments

[jerusha]

It's on my list. I can't access it easily from where we are, but I do have a source, and I plan on watching it. I adore documentaries, and Ken Burns is a gift. I know he spent a decade working on this one, and I agree--it's something that's often glossed over in history class because most high school curriculums run out of time, and it's complicated and messy.

[yourlibrarian]

We just started watching the 1st episode yesterday. We've been watching at mealtime, which seems quite appropriate. When I was in school the farthest we made it up to was WWII and might or might not get through those years. I took courses on the Vietnam War in college. But I agree that the background given in the opening episode is content that the American public knew very little about. At best, they were aware it had been a French colony. That accidental death of the OSS guy seems pretty tragic, and the fact that they'd given Ho Chi Minh critical health care is fairly ironic.