I never realized how f***ed up the political situation in South Vietnam was until seeing this. I had read a lot about the fighting but not a lot about the politics that lead up to it. I was born in December of 1965 and my earliest memories were the planes and helicopters coming back to the airport in the early 70s as I played in the sand box at my uncles house next to the National guard base. My fascination with planes and armor grew from this to the plastic addiction I have today. God bless all our Vets!

I watched a couple episodes - the timeline is very confusing. Although it generally follows events from the beginning it throws in a bunch of later stuff which seems more of an afterthought, or filler. Still, I've been learning a lot about the Kennedy years and politics in Viet Nam at the time.

Jim

So far it's really good. I also don't like the flash-forward thing he is doing.

Was just wondering if any of you were watching the PBS series on Vietnam? My friend and I are having a tough go of it for different reasons and time frames. He is an early war and I am a late war vets and things are very confused for both. Hope it explains some things for younger people and maybe for older ones too. Wayne

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I watched a couple episodes - the timeline is very confusing. Although it generally follows events from the beginning it throws in a bunch of later stuff which seems more of an afterthought, or filler. Still, I've been learning a lot about the Kennedy years and politics in Viet Nam at the time.

Jim

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Jim I think this was done on purpose to keep the audience engaged while giving you the backdrop of the conflict. when something about history is narrated, and in particular in this case before the US became fully involved it can become monotonous to the audience. By doing these short 2 minute US GI interview bursts it keeps the viewer engaged

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Was just wondering if any of you were watching the PBS series on Vietnam? My friend and I are having a tough go of it for different reasons and time frames. He is an early war and I am a late war vets and things are very confused for both. Hope it explains some things for younger people and maybe for older ones too. Wayne

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Im taping it , I dont know if Ill ever watch it .took me 45 years to put it in the back of my mind , never forgotten. Im a Vietnam late war vet also . Da Nang 71 72 , . How are they portraying us ? as criminals or heroes ? In 72 I landed in Seattle . we were greeted with protesters calling us all sorts of foul names. back then you were allowed to wait right near the gate of the arriving flights. a woman threw one of those industrial ash tray / trash bin at us . I was soaked in cigarettes and brown water. the cops told US to keep moving ! now were heroes ... go figure . Thats why we say welcome home to each other , no one else said it to us . probably wont watch it !

The access to voices from the North and the Viet Cong, as well as South Vietnamese, makes it invaluable for understanding the conflict. Americans tend to reduce the war to simple "we could have won/it was unwinnable," ignoring the plain fact that IT WAS A CIVIL WAR. The lack of those voices at the time made us commit some egregious and serious blunders; without them now, understanding the war is simply impossible.

One salient example is the attack known as LZ X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley which was immortalized in the outstanding book We Were Soldiers Then... And Young by journalist Joe Galloway (who was present) and General Hal Moore, who commanded two battalions of the 7th Air Cav. Both the book and the subsequent movie with Mel Gibson focus on the American soldiers fighting for their lives against what turned out to be a much-stronger force of VC and NVA regulars than intelligence had indicated.

But the show interviews several surviving soldiers from the other side who reveal how, despite horrific 7-1 casualties against, they learned how to fight against America's superior firepower by "getting so close you can grab the other guy by his belt buckle." Never mentioned in Galloway's book or the movie is how a few days later, the NVA wiped out a force of US troops at LZ Baker nearby when they got in too close for close air support or artillery support.

Without that information, the student of history thinks "it was an unwinable war because we didn't DO the "right" things. Actually, the war was lost because we didn't understand what we had gotten into, the country's tortuous history, its long hatred of foreign invaders, and the conflicting goals of its various factions.

While it's true that Americans were appalled at the carnage of the war as it ground on, we tend always to see things through the lens of our own experience. The war was much larger than simply North vs. South or Communists vs. non-Communists, with many elements that didn't even concern us, such as the Buddhist monks self-immolating over what were issues that had little to do with the conflict.