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Zorro

(15,691 posts)
Sun Sep 3, 2017, 12:08 PM Sep 2017

Get ready for the next round in the battle over the Vietnam War

There are two Vietnam wars, and the second is still going 40 years after the first ended. The United States fought the first one from 1959 to 1975 in the jungles, villages and airspace of Indochina. The second is the war over how that war, the first lost war in America’s national history, is remembered. This month, as Ken Burns’ 10-part Vietnam documentary is aired on PBS, the second conflict is sure to heat up again with renewed intensity.

The positions will be fiercely argued. What was the war good for? Absolutely nothing, as the 1970 song put it? Or was it a heroic cause? The most important — and poignant — group who will offer answers to these questions is Vietnam veterans themselves.

They see themselves reflected, against the roll of the dead, on the black granite walls of Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, or in the faces of Frederick Hart’s evocative sculpture of three soldiers nearby.

Many who served came home and got on with their lives, whatever the wounds and scars of war. A more visible subset of aging warriors sits astride motorcycles in Veterans Day parades or stands in the median strips of our streets holding cardboard placards. They live their lives as war survivors. They ponder what might have been.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-reston-vietnam-refought-20170903-story.html

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SHRED

(28,136 posts)
1. For me the real heroes were...
Sun Sep 3, 2017, 12:13 PM
Sep 2017

...those that served time as conscientious objectors, were in the streets getting beaten or worse, and/or fled to Canada.

But that's just me.

Peace.

Bradshaw3

(7,455 posts)
2. Took a lot of courage to be a conscientious objector in those days
Sun Sep 3, 2017, 12:22 PM
Sep 2017

While it took a lot of cynical cowardice to get five deferments for "bone spurs" or spending a year in Alabama doing Texas National Guard "duty" to avoid going to Vietnam.

 

Hoyt

(54,770 posts)
5. My senior year in college, I had a 70+ year old history professor. I bet he was under 5 feet
Sun Sep 3, 2017, 12:38 PM
Sep 2017

tall. He let all the seniors out of the final exam and met with us to tell us he had contacts that could get any of us to Canada if we wanted to go. He was a hero.

With a draft number of 32, I resigned myself to being drafted. Somehow, after waiting with my duffle bag packed for 2+ years, the draft was ended.

I think those who were drafted -- and were used in that idiotic war -- deserve respect too, as well as those who joined to avoid being drafted. For most, there wasn't much choice. Also heroes are those like Kerry and those who stood up to the Lt. Calleys and firebombing and killing women and children.

But I agree those who fought in the streets and conscientious objectors are just as deserving and heoric.

Vietnam was just 20 years after WWII. What I cannot understand is those who join up nowadays knowing we are in the 21st Centurys' Crusades.

What really burns my rear are those from that era -- Vietnam and Civil Rights -- who have grown up to be white wingers.

 

Hoyt

(54,770 posts)
3. Vietnam and Civil Rights made/helped this country re-evaluate itself. I think we forgot the lessons.
Sun Sep 3, 2017, 12:22 PM
Sep 2017

Will definitely watch the the documentary.

Bradshaw3

(7,455 posts)
4. Yeah it will open a lot of wounds
Sun Sep 3, 2017, 12:30 PM
Sep 2017

and reignite arguments that are tribal rather than informative. I love Burns' films but he has a tendency sometimes to follow the myths more closely than historical accuracy. That's not a judgment on all his work but some. It will be difficult for me if he doesn't include in a key way the destruction that we did to the people and country. A recent book about veterans who wanted to come forward with stories about the murder and torture they participated in during their tours was completely ignored by the media, except for Bill Moyers. Too bad because that is a part of our legacy too. To me A Bright Shining Lie remains the best book about Vietnam to this day.

Paladin

(28,204 posts)
6. I wonder if Burns' documentary will deal with the Maya Lin controversy.
Sun Sep 3, 2017, 12:54 PM
Sep 2017

Some right-wing politicians and their dumb-shit followers opposed her design of the D.C. memorial...because she was Oriental.

Piece of shit war, fought for no decent purpose. And this country ended up learning not one damned thing from it. One of my cousins went over there with the Army and came back a drug-addled PTSD victim; finally blew his own brains out. Don't expect me or my family to watch the PBS series.

 

Thor_MN

(11,843 posts)
8. Some rugs are Oriental. Some food is Oriental. No people are Oriental.
Mon Sep 4, 2017, 12:06 PM
Sep 2017

Some people are Asian.

Not Asian myself, but I tend to listen. Watched a Vegas dealer get very gently shamed for using that phrase.

 

Not Ruth

(3,613 posts)
7. I do not recall anything majorly heroic about the Vietnam War
Sun Sep 3, 2017, 12:55 PM
Sep 2017

But certainly there were isolated acts of individual heroism and defiance of the military.

Will Ken Burns also acknowledge the heroism of our enemy?

Will My Lai be one of the 10 episodes?

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