What do you think about the PBS series on the Vietnam War?

I have watched about three episodes, two early ones and last night the one about the fall of Saigon.

It seems like a detailed plain retelling of facts to me. Except for one omission, I would be surprised anyone finds it controversial.

The omission is that in the episodes I’ve seen, all the present-day interviews of Americans are of white people. It’s weird.

By the way, the episodes stream for free on the PBS web site.

It’s being shown over here on BBC 4. I’ve only seen the first couple of episodes and so far it seems well researched and fair. There are upsetting scenes and I almost stopped watching at one point but I’m going to stick with it.

It’s powerful. Really eye opening. Above all I was so very happy to learn of this child’s fate. That picture has haunted me. They had footage showing her resting comfortably, even smiling, and being cared for. AND she moved to Canada, grew up and has a family.
I tell you though, when they said they almost didn’t run the picture because the child was naked. I came a little unglued in my head at that point. Some how a little girl being naked is some how worse than the fact that she’s on fucking fire.

It’s a very important chronicle of what prior to Iraq was the single greatest strategic blunder in the history of the country. It is particularly important that the viewpoint and history of the “enemy” is included in this series. Had one tenth the population of this country possessed even an inkling of that history, the war would not have been possible.

We’ve only seen 2 of them from 1968 on through Nixon’s impeachment. We have them recording though. Hope we catch them all. I had no idea it went as far back as the 40s. I STILL have no idea why we were there.

OK, glad to see episode 4 is dealing with race issues, that’s better. They pointed out that whites disproportionately got deferments and national guard positions, blacks disproportionately died in SE Asia.

Halfway through, though, and one present-day black guy got a about 5 seconds of screen time.

@Call_Me_Jay Other episodes have numerous interviews with black people, and other races.

@filmfann Thanks, I should hold back and see more episodes.

I just finished watching the complete series.

First of all, I’m glad to see I was very wrong, it was a whites-only show.

For most of the episodes, I saw stories I knew slightly, with tons of detail where I just knew the headlines. Nothing was a revelation or surprise to me, and was intensely interesting to hear from people who were there living through it.

I could not finish episode 9. When they covered the story behind the famous photo of the the girl running down the street, burning from napalm, I had to turn it off. I was crying. I took a break for a couple of days before I watched the tenth and final episode.

The final episode offered a little relief with the American and Vietnamese veterans embracing.

The big theme for me is that handfuls of “leaders” in power can ruin the lives of millions for no good reason. The same kind of people who thought Vietnam was a good idea thought Iraq was a good idea and now they pushing for war with Iran or North Korea.

Correction: It was NOT a whites-only show. I was wrong about that