Goddamn Ken Burn’s you’ve done it again – “The Viet Nam War” is a masterpiece

If you don’t know,  Ken Burns and Lynn Novak have made a documentary on “The Viet Nam War”

It’s spectacular, poignant and measured. There is no grandstanding, no rah rah, just people’s story’s juxtaposed against the historical record of the war itself. I’m 3 episodes and 5 hours in… and I’m crying.

When you watch a documentary of war that is done well, you sense the sacrifice. You get a picture of the love the men have for each other, the respect the combatants have for the enemy and the effort they go thru merely to survive. There is never glory, only courage, bravery, loss, blood and senseless death. The glory and psychological pieces are left for the politicians and bureaucrats who plan the damn things.

I am so grateful to have never had to fight in a war. I don’t think I could survive. I get depressed just trying to live through my day to day dealings, and I live in the most perfect place in the world! To survive under fire and in the middle of nowhere is amazing. I am always in awe of veterans.

What is so deeply troubling about Viet Nam is: the US knew it was a disaster BEFORE IT STARTED. They knew the second they sent troops it be A DISASTER. And yet, they did it anyway. For a flawed ideology – the domino theory. What a crock of shit!

War is hell and we never learn that lesson.