OT: The Vietnam War on PBS

[oldude]

As someone who grew up during the Vietnam war and experienced the loss of a number of friends and family members during that awful conflict, it is difficult for me to watch the PBS series, although I have watched parts of it, usually turning it off after 20 minutes or so.

In my mind, from the U.S perspective, Vietnam demonstrated two fundamental problems for this country: ignorance and arrogance. Our ignorance related to who we were fighting and why. Our arrogance assumed that U.S. military superiority would ultimately defeat the enemy. But the enemy suffered over 2 million killed and wounded in the war, yet still prevailed.

I have walked by that long black wall in DC, honoring the sacrifice of 58,000 Americans on four separate occasions, but I have yet to do so without being brought to tears.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

Thanks. This is one of countless books that I know about but have never read. That you have recommended it may just be enough to get me to crack it open at long last. Assuming you have described the thesis accurately, it certainly sounds credible.

The outline in the Wiki cited is pretty accurate. He's a little to linear(simplistic) in his thinking overall for me, but the anthropology seems pretty sound to this amateur. I think it's a better explanation than this:

 

[Ozimoto]

Thanks. This is one of countless books that I know about but have never read. That you have recommended it may just be enough to get me to crack it open at long last. Assuming you have described the thesis accurately, it certainly sounds credible.

Not to go off topic too far, but a funny story about the book "The Naked Ape." It was a reading assignment in my high school health and human behavior class. Since I went to a Catholic High School, the nun in charge of our school book store had a problem with the work "naked" so the course list (which included the names of required books) listed the title as "The Natural Ape." The bookstore was sold out of the book (or at least that's what we were told) so I had to get the book from a regular bookstore. Needless to say I had a difficult time finding it...

As for the documentary itself, I have enjoyed watching it although some parts are maddening and difficult to get through. I myself was much too young to have been involved personally, but I had a cousin who was a Navy Corpsman on a hospital ship off the coast and an uncle who was a Marine in country. For me, part one was the most informative as I wasn't as well versed in the events in Vietnam immediately after the end of WWII and how the US inadvertently set themselves up for problems by making statements that led former colonies to expect us to support them in their efforts for self determination while at the same time trying to maintain good relationships with former colonial powers from Europe (in this case, France) in an effort to contain Soviet/Communist expansionism in the West.

 

[itsasport]

You cannot defeat an enemy unless you invade and conquer their homeland, which our leadership refused to do.

Germany would not have been defeated in WWII if we and the Russians had stayed in France and Eastern Europe.

The Battle of the Bulge gutted the German Army in Europe. The same thing haoppened in the TET Offensive. The Viet Cong forces were destroyed (which was what the North wanted) and the NVA lost many of their best units.

Westmoreland wanted more troops, but only to fight in the South.

When the North Vietnamese stalled in negotiating , Nixon instituted a No-holds-barred air attack that included Hanoi, Hiphong harbor, and anti-aircraft rockets and artliiery (all previously off-limits.)

Within several weeks, all resistance to air attacks ceased and the bombers attacked at will.

If that had been done after TET, followed by a aground assault (augmented with armored divisions as in the Iraq wars, is there any question that we would not have been able over-run the North?

We would have suffered a lot of casualties, but at the end of TET we had about 17,000 KIA.

Boy the end we had lost an additional 40,000 and many WIA.

I think that we would have lost many fewer in a converntional ground invasion of North Vietnam (and warning the Chinese of serious consequences if they intervened- including NUCS)

I joined an infantry battalion of the 101st Airboren Division in September, 1970. We had the rare good fortune of having as our company commander a professional soldier. He was a very experienced and thoughtful man.

I was one of many replacements necessitated by two months of jungle fighting outside of HUE that pushed the NVA deeper into the jungle. The unit (with a lot of artillery and air support) had wiped out two NVA infantry battalions. and had suffered 60% casualties in the process.

Our company commander addressed his newly rebuilt unit at a firebase before we were to load up in choppers.

He told us that our leadership had decided not to win the war. His goal was to get as many of us as possible out of Vietnam in one piece. But to do that, we had to be very good soldiers and fight like hell.

I am curious as to when Burns concludes the narative because the Vietnam War did not end for the Vietnamese until after their invasion of Cambodia (in which they had 25,000 KIA.) and the terrible tradegy of the "Boat People."

The Vietnamese people are still paying for the consequences of the successful North Vietnamese invasion.

Since the war, former Ameerican officers have met with retired NVA Colonels. It was not uncommon for the later to whisper in an Americans ear that they wished we had won because what happened in Vietnam was bad for all Vietnamese (Read "The Vietnam Gulag.")

Thanks for letting me vent.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

You cannot defeat an enemy unless you invade and conquer their homeland, which our leadership refused to do.

Germany would not have been defeated in WWII if we and the Russians had stayed in France and Eastern Europe.

The Battle of the Bulge gutted the German Army in Europe. The same thing haoppened in the TET Offensive. The Viet Cong forces were destroyed (which was what the North wanted) and the NVA lost many of their best units.

Westmoreland wanted more troops, but only to fight in the South.

When the North Vietnamese stalled in negotiating , Nixon instituted a No-holds-barred air attack that included Hanoi, Hiphong harbor, and anti-aircraft rockets and artliiery (all previously off-limits.)

Within several weeks, all resistance to air attacks ceased and the bombers attacked at will.

If that had been done after TET, followed by a aground assault (augmented with armored divisions as in the Iraq wars, is there any question that we would not have been able over-run the North?

We would have suffered a lot of casualties, but at the end of TET we had about 17,000 KIA and lost an additional 40,000 and many WIA.

I think that we would have lost many fewer in a converntional ground invasion, our strength.

I joined an infantry battalion of the 101st Airboren Division in September, 1970. We had the rare good fortune of having as our company commander a professional soldier. He was a very experienced and thoughtful man.

I was one of many replacements necessitated by two months of jungle fighting outside of HUE that pushed the NVA deeper into the jungle. The unit (with a lot of artillery and air support) had wiped out two NVA infantry battalions. and had suffered 60% casualties in the process.

Our company commander addressed his newly rebuilt unit at a firebase before we were to load up in choppers.

He told us that our leadership had decided not to win the war. His goal was to get as many of us as possible out of Vietnam in one piece. But to do that, we had to be very good soldiers and fight like hell.

I am curious as to when Burns concludes the narative because the Vietnam War did not end for the Vietnamese until after their invasion of Cambodia (in which they had 25,000 KIA.) and the terrible tradegy of the "Boat People."

The Vietnamese people are still paying for the consequences of the successful North Vietnamese invasion.

Since the war, former Ameerican officers have met with retired NVA Colonels. It was not uncommon for the later to whisper in an Americans ear that they wished we had won because what happened in Vietnam was bad for all Vietnamese (Read "The Vietnam Gulag.")

Thanks for letting me vent.

I suspect you did not get a big kick out of Anthony Bourdain's little food trip into Hanoi! I know I didn't.

 

[bags27]

I want to be cautious about using terms like "we" and "us" when referring to conduct carried out by governmental bodies. Putting that aside . . .

Even accepting the metaphor that the war was "unwinnable", the U.S. quite arguably achieved a number of its major objectives. To see how so, we need to consider the war in the context of U.S. geopolitical thinking in the 1940s and 50s. The real enemy was (for lack of a better expression) third world radical nationalism in the wake of the breakup of the traditional colonial order. The concern was that the third world, with its rich source of labor and war materials, would chart a course that did not necessarily "compliment the economies of the west" (to take the phrase of George Kennan, I think). To his credit, President Eisenhower notes the point in his "domino theory" speech -- that if the Vietnamese prevailed it would have the effect of cutting off U.S. access to important raw materials, leaving the region increasingly outside the orbit of U.S. influence. In this respect, there was a very credible logic behind the domino theory (which is generally derided today). The strategy was to attack radical nationalism at the core and to strengthen entrenched positions in the surrounding regions (a process I once heard described as one of "extirpating the rot at the core, and inoculating the periphery against the infection"). One can like it; or one can hate it. But I think there is no denying that this objective was qualifiedly achieved in Southeast Asia in the decades following WWII. You see it with the establishment/strengthening of authoritarian U.S-friendly regimes in Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia, and the attack on areas seeking to strike an independent course. A similar process is seen through the 1980s in Latin America (described by Henry Stimson, the Secretary of War under Truman, as "our own little region over here, which has never really bothered anybody").

Perhaps. I hope that someday we can view the Vietnam War (our commonly accepted term) more benignly; otherwise, the continued bitterness of a spectacularly immoral waste of human beings. But in fact, it didn't seem to me, at least, to curtail radical nationalism (your phrase; not sure what it means: what is "non-radical nationalism"?): the Shah falls soon afterwards with enormous repercussions to American foreign policy (not to mention toppling a president); the USSR, believing in America's demonstrated weakness to follow through, invades Afghanistan; and China gains enormous prestige because of its support of Vietnam. And of course, both Vietnam (united now) and Cambodia became Communist--though the latter not permanently so. I take your point on the others you name (Thailand, etc), but was the debacle of Vietnam actually necessary for the U.S. to impose those regimes? The U.S. had been doing that in South America for the entire 20th C. Again, assuredly we (intellectuals, if you wish) can read positive things into the Vietnam War, but on balance I reluctantly continue to view it only as an unmitigated disaster in every conceivable way.

 

[itsasport]

l really love his show for the insights it gives into the local cultures. I watched the show in Hanoi with some trepidation. But Bordain was careful, as always, to separate the people from the government they might have the misfortune of living under.

I don't remember anything that offended me. Unlike a young lady on the Travel Channel who visited South Vietnam, including the tunnels and much worse, stood in front of the war museum celebrating the NV victory.

She expressed surprise that the Sough Vietnamese were freindly to Americans- as if we were the enemy not the North. I also always refer to Saigon by its' real name. (What would the French think of renaming Paris to Adolf Hitler City.)

 

[MilfordHusky]

As someone who grew up during the Vietnam war and experienced the loss of a number of friends and family members during that awful conflict, it is difficult for me to watch the PBS series, although I have watched parts of it, usually turning it off after 20 minutes or so.

In my mind, from the U.S perspective, Vietnam demonstrated two fundamental problems for this country: ignorance and arrogance. Our ignorance related to who we were fighting and why. Our arrogance assumed that U.S. military superiority would ultimately defeat the enemy. But the enemy suffered over 2 million killed and wounded in the war, yet still prevailed.

I have walked by that long black wall in DC, honoring the sacrifice of 58,000 Americans on four separate occasions, but I have yet to do so without being brought to tears.

The first time I saw the wall was on Veterans Day in about 1986. The weather was cool, drizzly, gray, and depressing. The area was filled with people, several of whom left flowers. There were several letters that parents and siblings had written to their lost loved ones. I read one mother's message to her fallen son and about lost it. The inclusion of about 58,000 names--names like yours and mine--makes it very personal.

 

[connie]

As someone who grew up during the Vietnam war and experienced the loss of a number of friends and family members during that awful conflict, it is difficult for me to watch the PBS series, although I have watched parts of it, usually turning it off after 20 minutes or so.

In my mind, from the U.S perspective, Vietnam demonstrated two fundamental problems for this country: ignorance and arrogance. Our ignorance related to who we were fighting and why. Our arrogance assumed that U.S. military superiority would ultimately defeat the enemy. But the enemy suffered over 2 million killed and wounded in the war, yet still prevailed.

I have walked by that long black wall in DC, honoring the sacrifice of 58,000 Americans on four separate occasions, but I have yet to do so without being brought to tears.

The important thing to consider here is what is meant by "U.S." (or "us" or "we" or "our" or "America", etc., as used here and in other posts). Neither the Vietnamese nor Vietnam were or are my enemy. It was not and is not my war or even "our" war. Rather, U.S. foreign policy in Southeast Asia (taking 1945 as a somewhat arbitrary starting point) was instituted by high-level government officials, without the slightest knowledge or consent of the general population (nothing unique about that). Those officials certainly knew the policies they devised, and more importantly why they were instituted. The now-declassified archive reveals extensive, careful and thoughtful planning, with an eye toward cementing U.S. post-war economic hegemony, to be achieved by establishing U.S. client states in the third-world. This meant undermining and attacking political movements that threatened to constrain U.S. access to third-world markets and resources (including but not limited to cheap labor and raw materials). It also meant installing and/or backing authoritarian regimes, with heavy U.S. economic, military, and diplomatic aid.

Again, this is all pretty standard stuff. Should not be surprising. But you would not need to read the documentary record to know that. It is manifested in the historical record. Naturally, given the relations of power the execution of the planning and policy was largely though not entirely successful on a global scale, at least for a time. A case in point is Latin American, where from the 1940s through the 1980s the U.S. government repeatedly intervened--militarily, economically, politically--to thwart movements that posed the threat of independence from the U.S. sphere of influence (I won't review the record, which is readily available.) Those interventions were highly though not completely successful. As for Southeast Asia, the U.S. certainly did not achieve all of its objectives. But it did tend to stem the tide of radical nationalism in that region, albeit at consider, largely unanticipated costs. Naturally, many failed military interventions can be attributable to ignorance or arrogance. But that is merely an instrumental observation.

The point is that all this focus on how and why the U.S. government failed to achieve its objectives distracts us from a far more fundamental issue: was the over-arching objective justifiable (regardless of whether its manner of implementation was ill-conceived and ill-advised)? One rarely finds that issue expressly addressed in mainstream discourse addressing "the Vietnam war", largely because it is assumed that U.S. policymakers were selflessly committed to spreading democracy and stopping the spread of communism (which they were, but not for the reasons assumed). Instead, we are invited to honor the dead and shake our heads over the loss of so many of our fine young men, who were lead to their deaths by incompetent and even corrupt politicians "bumbling to do good" (to quote Scotty Reston).

Finally, I knew several people (including close family members) whose lives were ruined by the war. But that does not necessarily mean I honor the American dead any more or any less than I would honor the dead from any war. Wars are generally fought by poor sons-of- who get pushed onto a battlefield by rich men and politicians.

 

[bags27]

I want to be cautious about using terms like "we" and "us" when referring to conduct carried out by governmental bodies. Putting that aside . . .

Even accepting the metaphor that the war was "unwinnable", the U.S. quite arguably achieved a number of its major objectives. To see how so, we need to consider the war in the context of U.S. geopolitical thinking in the 1940s and 50s. The real enemy was (for lack of a better expression) third world radical nationalism in the wake of the breakup of the traditional colonial order. The concern was that the third world, with its rich source of labor and war materials, would chart a course that did not necessarily "compliment the economies of the west" (to take the phrase of George Kennan, I think). To his credit, President Eisenhower notes the point in his "domino theory" speech -- that if the Vietnamese prevailed it would have the effect of cutting off U.S. access to important raw materials, leaving the region increasingly outside the orbit of U.S. influence. In this respect, there was a very credible logic behind the domino theory (which is generally derided today). The strategy was to attack radical nationalism at the core and to strengthen entrenched positions in the surrounding regions (a process I once heard described as one of "extirpating the rot at the core, and inoculating the periphery against the infection"). One can like it; or one can hate it. But I think there is no denying that this objective was qualifiedly achieved in Southeast Asia in the decades following WWII. You see it with the establishment/strengthening of authoritarian U.S-friendly regimes in Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia, and the attack on areas seeking to strike an independent course. A similar process is seen through the 1980s in Latin America (described by Henry Stimson, the Secretary of War under Truman, as "our own little region over here, which has never really bothered anybody").

Well said, Connie: a very thoughtful piece. I still am not sure what "radical nationalism" is: after all, virtually all nations (if we assume nationalism is a formation of the early modern period--say, since the late 1600s) are birthed in violence. And while I agree completely with your position, I think the question of justifiable is a bit idealistic. We elect people to make decisions for us: we are a representative democracy. Theoretically, if (a very big "if") we don't like their decisions, theoretically we elect new representatives (although LBJ --> RMN: meet the new boss, same as the old boss, right?). In practice, however, those who are elected are steeled by the political process to make tough, manly (and I use that word specifically, since Thatcher, Meir, Indira Gandhi, etc were also quick to go to war) decisions "for us."

 

[oldude]

The important thing to consider here is what is meant by "U.S." (or "us" or "we" or "our" or "America", etc., as used here and in other posts). Neither the Vietnamese nor Vietnam were or are my enemy. It was not and is not my war or even "our" war. Rather, U.S. foreign policy in Southeast Asia (taking 1945 as a somewhat arbitrary starting point) was instituted by high-level government officials, without the slightest knowledge or consent of the general population (nothing unique about that). Those officials certainly knew the policies they devised, and more importantly why they were instituted. The now-declassified archive reveals extensive, careful and thoughtful planning, with an eye toward cementing U.S. post-war economic hegemony, to be achieved by establishing U.S. client states in the third-world. This meant undermining and attacking political movements that threatened to constrain U.S. access to third-world markets and resources (including but not limited to cheap labor and raw materials). It also meant installing and/or backing authoritarian regimes, with heavy U.S. economic, military, and diplomatic aid.

Again, this is all pretty standard stuff. Should not be surprising. But you would not need to read the documentary record to know that. It is manifested in the historical record. Naturally, given the relations of power the execution of the planning and policy was largely though not entirely successful on a global scale, at least for a time. A case in point is Latin American, where from the 1940s through the 1980s the U.S. government repeatedly intervened--militarily, economically, politically--to thwart movements that posed the threat of independence from the U.S. sphere of influence (I won't review the record, which is readily available.) Those interventions were highly though not completely successful. As for Southeast Asia, the U.S. certainly did not achieve all of its objectives. But it did tend to stem the tide of radical nationalism in that region, albeit at consider, largely unanticipated costs. Naturally, many failed military interventions can be attributable to ignorance or arrogance. But that is merely an instrumental observation.

The point is that all this focus on how and why the U.S. government failed to achieve its objectives distracts us from a far more fundamental issue: was the over-arching objective justifiable (regardless of whether its manner of implementation was ill-conceived and ill-advised)? One rarely finds that issue expressly addressed in mainstream discourse addressing "the Vietnam war", largely because it is assumed that U.S. policymakers were selflessly committed to spreading democracy and stopping the spread of communism (which they were, but not for the reasons assumed). Instead, we are invited to honor the dead and shake our heads over the loss of so many of our fine young men, who were lead to their deaths by incompetent and even corrupt politicians "bumbling to do good" (to quote Scotty Reston).

Finally, I knew several people (including close family members) whose lives were ruined by the war. But that does not necessarily mean I honor the American dead any more or any less than I would honor the dead from any war. Wars are generally fought by poor sons-of- who get pushed onto a battlefield by rich men and politicians.

While you offer a compelling analysis of U.S. policy at a strategic and global level, it appears to sidestep another fundamental truth regarding Vietnam. As Ho Chi Minh was gaining power he reached out repeatedly to the U.S.

He saw his movement as a fight for freedom and democracy and felt a kinship with America. Faced with the choice of siding with an upstart like Ho Chi Minh or the remnants of Vietnam's colonial oppressors, we chose the latter.

There was every possibility that the U.S. could have achieved it's goal of establishing a " U.S. client state in third world" Vietnam simply by negotiating with the individual who captured the support of the people in their century old battle against colonial oppression. Our ignorance in not knowing who we were fighting pushed Ho Chi Minh and his supporters right into the arms of communist China and the Soviet Union at a cost to the U.S. of billions of dollars and 58,000 lives.

 

[connie]

You cannot defeat an enemy unless you invade and conquer their homeland, which our leadership refused to do.

Respectfully, not my enemy, not my leadership. Nor the enemy or leadership of the considerable majority of Americans, who to their credit regard the U.S. war against Vietnam as not a "mistake" but fundamentally immoral.

When the North Vietnamese stalled in negotiating , Nixon instituted a No-holds-barred air attack that included Hanoi, Hiphong harbor, and anti-aircraft rockets and artliiery (all previously off-limits.)

As background, it is worth noting that the U.S. was bombing Laos at least as early as 1964. There is a very good study of this in The Air War in Indochina. One summary indicates that from 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped more than two million tons of ordnance on Laos during 580,000 bombing missions, equal to a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24-hours a day, for 9 years – making Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in history. A considerable amount of the ordnance remains unexploded. The literature indicates that even to this day, children are being maimed if not killed as a result.

As a thought experiment, one might contemplate the reaction in the U.S. had, say, Libya carried out a comparable campaign over Appalachia for a similar period of time.

The Vietnamese people are still paying for the consequences of the successful North Vietnamese invasion.

That plenty of people suffered horribly in the wake of the war is hardly disputable. To characterize the event as a result of a "North Vietnamese invasion" is rhetorically dubious even if factually accurate, particularly given that it is the U.S. government that invaded the country of Vietnam well over a decade before the fact. In any event, knowing what human beings are, it should come as no surprise that when you invade another country and subject it to years of ground and aerial assault--destroying its meager industries and economies, poisoning its natural resources, propping up a corrupt puppet government, and killing hundreds of thousands of its people--any opposition that manages to survive at all is likely to become hardened, ruthless and vindictive, even to its own people. That does not excuse the behavior. But it goes some distance toward explaining it. One need only look at the aftermath of the American Revolution and the American Civil War to see examples of like behavior.

Since the war, former Ameerican officers have met with retired NVA Colonels. It was not uncommon for the later to whisper in an Americans ear that they wished we had won because what happened in Vietnam was bad for all Vietnamese (Read "The Vietnam Gulag.")

I am sure that vastly more Vietnamese and others in the region wished that the U.S. had followed the advice of Marine Commandant David Shoup, that the best contribution the U.S. could make to its people is "to get our [sic] bloody, dollar-crooked hands out of their affairs".

And with that, I am done with this thread. Anyone interested can PM me.

 

[bags27]

Respectfully, not my enemy, not my leadership. Nor the enemy or leadership of the considerable majority of Americans, who to their credit regard the U.S. war against Vietnam as not a "mistake" but fundamentally immoral..

I fully support your right to say this, and I certainly feel it myself sometimes.

But realistically, we live in a nation-state. If we pay taxes, drive on roads that taxes built, take medical care paid for by NIH and therefore taxes, etc, etc, etc, then we own the decisions made by that state. So, we can say what we want to say emotionally, but, unless we do own our country and all its decisions, we don't feel the need to work as hard as possible to influence outcomes. Cicero contemptuously looked down on his fellow Senators who ducked the important decisions and who lived "by their fish ponds." And Diogenes the Cynic could walk around naked, eating garbage, and call himself a man of the universe (cosmopolite) rather than a man of a particular polis. Today, with the complexities of life, I believe we can't duck our responsibilities to own what our representatives do, however much we are tempted to disown them.

 

[connie]

Well said, Connie: a very thoughtful piece. I still am not sure what "radical nationalism" is: after all, virtually all nations (if we assume nationalism is a formation of the early modern period--say, since the late 1600s) are birthed in violence. And while I agree completely with your position, I think the question of justifiable is a bit idealistic. We elect people to make decisions for us: we are a representative democracy. Theoretically, if (a very big "if") we don't like their decisions, theoretically we elect new representatives (although LBJ --> RMN: meet the new boss, same as the old boss, right?). In practice, however, those who are elected are steeled by the political process to make tough, manly (and I use that word specifically, since Thatcher, Meir, Indira Gandhi, etc were also quick to go to war) decisions "for us." That's the world of nationalism, where every state, as "our" president recently reminded the U.N., has its own best interests at heart, and I don't see it changing very much in the near future.

Okay. So I am not done with this thread . . . quite yet, because I did not see this until my previous post.

I very much agree with most what you say here (especially the suggestion that nations are birthed in violence). As to "radical nationalism", what I mean is a conception of statehood that seeks to make a break from certain entrenched societal structures of authority and power. But we need not take time to parse a precise definition (after all, we all know that political science is not really a science). As used in the context of the post-colonial world, I take the term to mean a kind of nationalism where the political leadership attempts to extricate the society from the prevailing influence of the dominant global powers, even if that means seeking alliances. When Vietnam declared its independence in Sept. 1945, Ho Chi Minh reached out to President Truman for a sign of recognition. No response was received, as Truman moved to back the French re-colonization. No doubt, at least part of the reason is that the Truman administration saw an independent Vietnam under Viet Minh leadership as inconsistent with U.S. economic interests in the region. (The idea that Vietnam was perceived at the time as a satellite of the Soviet Union is a complete fiction. The early pages of Vol. 1 of the Pentagon Pages indicates that U.S. intelligence could discern no rapprochement at all between Vietnam and the Soviets. Nothing.)

The problem with the idea that every state "has its own best interests at heart" is that there are class differences within (and across) nations. Governments largely reflect the extant prevailing forms of power. In the U.S., that means private economic power, whose influence tends to dominate policymaking on a national scale. That comes at the expense of the poor, certainly, and the middle class. And that is why the consent of the poor is peripheral at best to U.S. national politics (except when rhetorically convenient). And if I may, the poor aren't stupid. They perceive that the game is rigged. They have no major political voice. And so, on the whole the poor do not even participate in the representative democratic process (what is called "voting" in the U.S.). In that context, the U.S. interest cannot be said to be the interest of the poor.

I realize that much of what I am saying here is extremely broad. But there is only so much one can accomplish in this format. Gotta go!

 

[connie]

While you offer a compelling analysis of U.S. policy at a strategic and global level, it appears to sidestep another fundamental truth regarding Vietnam. As Ho Chi Minh was gaining power he reached out repeatedly to the U.S.

He saw his movement as a fight for freedom and democracy and felt a kinship with America. Faced with the choice of siding with an upstart like Ho Chi Minh or the remnants of Vietnam's colonial oppressors, we chose the latter.

There was every possibility that the U.S. could have achieved it's goal of establishing a " U.S. client state in third world" Vietnam simply by negotiating with the individual who captured the support of the people in their century old battle against colonial oppression. Our ignorance in not knowing who we were fighting pushed Ho Chi Minh and his supporters right into the arms of communist China and the Soviet Union at a cost to the U.S. of billions of dollars and 58,000 lives.

You are certainly right about this critical moment in the early aftermath of WWII. I would have to go back and review the circumstances of the communications b/t Ho Chi Minh and the Truman administration. As I commented somewhere, my thinking is that the administration believed that U.S. interests were better served by backing the French. As to why? . . . I would largely speculate. It is certainly true that in other domains, the U.S. favored strong, "pro-business" anti-communists. It is likely that Ho Chi Minh was regarded (correctly?) as an unlikely collaborator, too committed to Vietnam's autonomy to allow for the penetration of U.S. multi-national corp. interest. Also, politically the administration may have deemed it a necessary compromise to side with the French, given the need to re-establish a functional European economy. Dunno. Need to do my homework.

 

[connie]

I fully support your right to say this, and I certainly feel it myself sometimes.

But realistically, we live in a nation-state. If we pay taxes, drive on roads that taxes built, take medical care paid for by NIH and therefore taxes, etc, etc, etc, then we own the decisions made by that state. So, we can say what we want to say emotionally, but, unless we do own our country and all its decisions, we don't feel the need to work as hard as possible to influence outcomes. Cicero contemptuously looked down on his fellow Senators who ducked the important decisions and who lived "by their fish ponds." And Diogenes the Cynic could walk around naked, eating garbage, and call himself a man of the universe (cosmopolite) rather than a man of a particular polis. Today, with the complexities of life, I believe we can't duck our responsibilities to own what our representatives do, however much we are tempted to disown them.

Ok. The bottom line is that mediations abound. If by "own" you mean "acknowledge one's participation in a wider network of social relations that invariably redound upon others in the world", then I agree. If I click on a link that is sponsored by Urban Outfitters, I am "buying" my pleasure through the exploitation of labor in sweatshops. Similar when it comes to living in the U.S., paying taxes, enjoying the roads, and so on. No one is without some culpability. What the culpability is and what one can do about it . . . well, the burden of that question is something we all carry every minute of every day.

When I say "not my war", I am not disowning personal culpability. It is my way of rhetorically flagging the problems in going "we" "we" "we" all the way home.

I really must go now!

 

[oldude]

You are certainly right about this critical moment in the early aftermath of WWII. I would have to go back and review the circumstances of the communications b/t Ho Chi Minh and the Truman administration. As I commented somewhere, my thinking is that the administration believed that U.S. interests were better served by backing the French. As to why? . . . I would largely speculate. It is certainly true that in other domains, the U.S. favored strong, "pro-business" anti-communists. It is likely that Ho Chi Minh was regarded (correctly?) as an unlikely collaborator, too committed to Vietnam's autonomy to allow for the penetration of U.S. multi-national corp. interest. Also, politically the administration may have deemed it a necessary compromise to side with the French, given the need to re-establish a functional European economy. Dunno. Need to do my homework.

As a young man Ho Chi Minh lived and worked for a time in Boston & NYC. His efforts to ally himself with the U.S. started many years before Truman, when he attempted to meet with Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. In 1945 Ho instructed General Giap to rescue downed American pilots fighting the Japanese.

Major Allison Kent Thomas of the OSS helped train General Giap's fledgling army and sent a number of reassuring messages back to the US government generally dismissing Ho's affiliation with the communists and praising his pro-American posture.

When Ho wrote Vietnam's Declaration of Independence from the Japanese in 1945, he used a familiar phrase, " All men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Ho was no Thomas Jefferson. He was a communist, but one that was receptive to an alliance with America.

 

[BroadwayVa]

I spent 2 years in Viet Nam from Jan 1, 1968 till December 18th, 1969 serving in the U.S. Marine Corps. Some dates you never forget. I do not know if I want to see this again. At the point when I left, I was really glad to go home.

Semper Fi ----You earned your heaven time, if there is one.

 

[BroadwayVa]

To be sure. But Burns also "cherry-picked" those statements. And a lot of them were taken out of context or chronology (depending on interventions by Chinese or Russians). There were at least 2 "truths": the war was unwinnable; the war can be won with just another division of American troops, etc, and they expressed those beliefs also. Also: maybe we can't achieve total victory (like WWII), but we can get a reasonable stalemate (like Korea).

Whether Vietnam was valid or not---(I think not) but that's up to historians. I know that my voice in the crowd is --hissing in the wind---I complained for all to read and see prior to Iraq--and was called every name known to man kind --and some by long time friends---and I'll complain loudly to send more to korea now---I'm in favor of bringing every last one home.
Korea was my war---no we didn't walk away to a long march down broadway, neither did 100 cousins and my uncles and brothers--each came home alone from WW2, my flight from Treasure Island to NY was without fanfare --my wife met met --enough of a parade for me. We were forced to accept a political conclusion--by DC. Korea wasn't worth one American and they took 50,000.
What bothers me more than anything is---the tactics the Chinese used and then the Vietnamese--was well known to our military for 10 years before Korea. Encircle and separate then decimate.
I don't care if the war was right or wrong--can't change it or bring back the dead. I shall always support anyone who is sent to fight by our stupid government--the last time they were right was 1812.
My voice now is to honor those that served be it WW1 or Afghanistan or anything in between--those kids don't always want to be there--drafted or volunteers--

 

[Fairfield Fan]

As someone who grew up during the Vietnam war and experienced the loss of a number of friends and family members during that awful conflict, it is difficult for me to watch the PBS series, although I have watched parts of it, usually turning it off after 20 minutes or so.

In my mind, from the U.S perspective, Vietnam demonstrated two fundamental problems for this country: ignorance and arrogance. Our ignorance related to who we were fighting and why. Our arrogance assumed that U.S. military superiority would ultimately defeat the enemy. But the enemy suffered over 2 million killed and wounded in the war, yet still prevailed.

I have walked by that long black wall in DC, honoring the sacrifice of 58,000 Americans on four separate occasions, but I have yet to do so without being brought to tears.

And the sacrifice doesn't stop. The hundreds of thousands of veterans who came back with PTSD still suffer from it. The thousands who came back with diseases caused by Agent Orange. The children of the veterans who were born with birth defects from Agent Orange. And then there are the Vietnamese who were under the Agent Orange whose children suffered birth defects at extremely high rates.

It doesn't end....

Ken Burns was right when at the end of Episode 10, the narrator said, "Vietnam was a tragedy."

What a waste.

 

[Fairfield Fan]

Whether Vietnam was valid or not---(I think not) but that's up to historians. I know that my voice in the crowd is --hissing in the wind---I complained for all to read and see prior to Iraq--and was called every name known to man kind --and some by long time friends---and I'll complain loudly to send more to korea now---I'm in favor of bringing every last one home.
Korea was my war---no we didn't walk away to a long march down broadway, neither did 100 cousins and my uncles and brothers--each came home alone from WW2, my flight from Treasure Island to NY was without fanfare --my wife met met --enough of a parade for me. We were forced to accept a political conclusion--by DC. Korea wasn't worth one American and they took 50,000.
What bothers me more than anything is---the tactics the Chinese used and then the Vietnamese--was well known to our military for 10 years before Korea. Encircle and separate then decimate.
I don't care if the war was right or wrong--can't change it or bring back the dead. I shall always support anyone who is sent to fight by our stupid government--the last time they were right was 1812.
My voice now is to honor those that served be it WW1 or Afghanistan or anything in between--those kids don't always want to be there--drafted or volunteers--

I remember how concerned my father was that I might be sent to Vietnam. As it was, I missed it. Ended before I turned 18. But I will always remember how worried he was that I would be sent to that pointless war.

So when the government was telling us that we needed to invade Iraq, I thought about my young son and daughter (in the next war, women will certainly be sent into combat). I knew that that war would go on for years. And if it wasn't worth my kids going to war and possibly being killed, then it wasn't worth any other father's children being sent to war to die. So I didn't keep silent.

 

[bags27]

And the sacrifice doesn't stop. The hundreds of thousands of veterans who came back with PTSD still suffer from it. The thousands who came back with diseases caused by Agent Orange. The children of the veterans who were born with birth defects from Agent Orange. And then there are the Vietnamese who were under the Agent Orange whose children suffered birth defects at extremely high rates.

It doesn't end....

Ken Burns was right when at the end of Episode 10, the narrator said, "Vietnam was a tragedy."

What a waste.

What was shocking to me is the reconciliation between Vietnamese and American soldiers. I know that there are special conditions as to why these two enemies might reconcile: they live far apart, different cultures, only really have to interact for days or weeks. But still, this is a model for how to forgive and forget. I'm not sure that, had I been a combatant on either side, I could be so forgiving.

 

[BigBird]

This is one of Ken Burns' best documentaries. The narrative is carried largely by the voices and/or images of those who were involved. The use of "voice over" to present major thesis points was as measured as possible. The use of Nixon's tapes was both illuminating and infuriating.

I lived through this period, but I didn't understand many things back then because there was no way to "zoom out" and clearly see a bigger picture. Like the soldiers, those of us who were mobilized at home in opposition to the war were just kids. We were smart and committed in some ways, but naive and immature in others.

I was in the first draft lottery, and my birthdate would have been the 247 th to be called. They stopped at 195. I was spared having to face a thing I greatly feared. Had I been born just a few hours earlier than I was, my priority would have been 60. There was no reason about it. It was all a fluke, yet that chance event changed my life permanently.

 

[oldude]

And the sacrifice doesn't stop. The hundreds of thousands of veterans who came back with PTSD still suffer from it. The thousands who came back with diseases caused by Agent Orange. The children of the veterans who were born with birth defects from Agent Orange. And then there are the Vietnamese who were under the Agent Orange whose children suffered birth defects at extremely high rates.

It doesn't end....

Ken Burns was right when at the end of Episode 10, the narrator said, "Vietnam was a tragedy."

What a waste.

I've done some volunteer work at the VA hospital in Richmond when I used to live there. Got to know a number of Vietnam vets. Great guys. Every now and then one of them would open up about "Nam." Lots of different emotions from the guys including anger, sadness, regret, etc. I just did my best to listen.

 

[UConnCat]

And the sacrifice doesn't stop. The hundreds of thousands of veterans who came back with PTSD still suffer from it. The thousands who came back with diseases caused by Agent Orange. The children of the veterans who were born with birth defects from Agent Orange. And then there are the Vietnamese who were under the Agent Orange whose children suffered birth defects at extremely high rates.

It doesn't end....

Ken Burns was right when at the end of Episode 10, the narrator said, "Vietnam was a tragedy."

What a waste.

I'm an oncology nurse. A few years ago while working night shift I was caring for a man who had been an infantryman in Vietnam during the years when the military was using Agent Orange. He was receiving treatment for non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a disease he and his oncologist believed was caused by his exposure to Agent Orange during the war. There was no definitive proof of causation in his case but, under the Agent Orange Act, non-HL is one of the cancers with a presumptive link to Agent Orange for Vietnam veterans.

One night at about 2 AM he puts his call light on and I check on him. He's sitting up in bed crying, asking me why his government would do that to him. I had no words, I just listened. He was discharged a few days later and I never saw him again. This week I thought about him and that night.