Excellent project all together; for what it's worth
some comments.
* This is trivial, but they got across the green of
the Vietnamese countryside: a brilliant, unforgettable green. Not as much as
the earlier series, they also did well to suggest the occasional terrible
beauty of the war, and to get statements from a US veteran or two on the
exhilaration and community of combat. I cannot speak to that point personally,
but in terms of men's behavior, the polished-up version of General Sherman's
"War is hell, and all its glory moonshine" has got to be balanced, at
least for some, by positives, including, with a lot of irony, beauty and
community.
* The final episode didn't make up for the previous
one's unfairness to George McGovern and John Kerry. McGovern was a good and
honorable man, and far more right than wrong. With Kerry, they let stand
without any response the accusation that in his testimony to the Congress for
the Vietnam Veterans Against the War he passed along lies about atrocities by
US forces. The last word on the subject is from an American combatant who said
that he was certain atrocities occurred but that wasn't what he saw, not part
of his war. I believe him, but what is actually the case in terms of the war and the stories Kerry told the
Congress?
* There's a book on Vietnam movies by the PR officer
for General Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. He found THE DEER HUNTER mostly pretty silly
but praised it for showing a small-town's friendly wellcome-home for returning
Vietnam soldiers, as opposed to the usual Hollywood curses and spittle. The US
is a big country, and in the Midwest outside of Madison, WI, and some other
places, the party line among the Peace Movement — as opposed to "The
Revolution" — was to treat grunts and low-ranking officers as (as a critic
of the Wall put it) victims of the war and potential and important allies. (The
VVAW were crucial for the anti-War movement.)
* The approach of the documentary necessarily avoided
the wonkish "Well ...?" Well, were US actions in Vietnam finally, on
balance, right or wrong? Was it a just war, or a "mistake" that with
so high a body count would be a crime? The US lost, and we're still here and doing
OK, and, arguably, would be better off if we hadn't fought. Therefore no vital
interests were involved, by definition of "vital"; certainly there
was no existential threat to the Republic. Alternative, the US opposed the
Communists with vigor, and the Philippines and Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia,
Thailand, et al. aren't part of a Stalinist world. Indeed, the USSR fell, and
the Cold War ended before World War III. All of this precisely because the US
showed that JFK was right and we would (just about) pay any price — and inflict
huge damage — to preserve capitalist, liberal freedom: our spilling so much
blood and spending so much money proved that. The approach of this PBS series was
effective, but a wonkish word or two would have helped.
* I really do have to visit the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, DC. I wanted
to leave a stone there that I had picked up at Kent State, but left the stone
at My Lai instead. Still, I do need to see the Wall.
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