Been watching an episode here and there while deadheading around the country the past 2 months. Finished it today and I highly recommend it. I have never had a consolidated education on Vietnam, so this was an extremely well-done, balanced view of the entire conflict, with interviews of ARVN, VC, NV, Pro-war, anti-war, etc.
If you are a history buff or interested in learning about the Vietnam War, I highly recommend this.
Amazing insight into the country long before we sent troops in.
Link - ( New Window )
The irony was JFK had given an interview in August of 1963 where he intimated that US involvement in Vietnam would not be a long term thing during his administration. Many politicos believed once he won the 1964 Election,he would have pulled us out.Sadly,that never came to fruition as LBJ,who domestically was a great President,escalated the war & created a distrust,anger towards our government that continues to today(And yes,the Nixon years added to that distrust immensely!)!
Ho loved America, he went to Harvard (which probabaly turned him into a commie :-) ). The fundamental miscalculation was that Ho was aligned with Moscow because he was a Communist. Ho wanted NO master, NO colonial power controlling them, he viewed any foreign influnce as a continuation of French colonial rule. Tito is a great comparison, but Ho would not have been aligned to any other sphere if we had not picked up where the French left after Dien Bien Phu. Just stupid.
Having grown up in the aftermath of WWII, I was always under the impression the best way to win a war, is to drive your forces into the enemy territory and take it away from them. Basically campaign and destroy them. Just going for body count and giving back land bloodily taken seemed insane to me and a losing proposition. It appears from the series, that it was fought this way due to political reasons which seems like a stupid way to do it.
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I have taken a special interest in the French Involvement in Indochina during and after WW2. I believe one of the great tragedies is that all parties...France, US, Britain and the Vietnamese (Ho Chi Minh, et. al.) could not have found a "modus vivendi" or non-violent way forward. I really believe that we (US) could have brokered a deal to lure Ho away from the Soviets (sort of like Tito in Yugoslavia) and coupled that with allowing France to retain an economic interest in Vietnam and compensating the French plantation owners for their properties, which would be transferred to the Vietnamese. How much bloodshed, strife and treasure would have been saved! Recall that Ho used the very words of our own Declaration of Independence in his address to the Vietnamese in 1946. I was "of age" during our war in Vietnam, though was not drafted but my heart goes out to all who did fight and suffer during that divisive time in our history.
Ho loved America, he went to Harvard (which probabaly turned him into a commie :-) ). The fundamental miscalculation was that Ho was aligned with Moscow because he was a Communist. Ho wanted NO master, NO colonial power controlling them, he viewed any foreign influnce as a continuation of French colonial rule. Tito is a great comparison, but Ho would not have been aligned to any other sphere if we had not picked up where the French left after Dien Bien Phu. Just stupid.
I disagree. Ho could have been Tito-like if independence had come in 1945, or if the French had done what the British did in India/Pakistan. By 1954 that was gone, and there was a divide (one of many)in the Vietnamese population between being in the Communist sphere of influence or the West's.