PBS's The Vietnam War

What a phenomenal job PBS, Ken Burns and Lynn Novick did with this piece. Just a masterpiece from start to finish.

If you have not seen The Vietnam War, and you can handle the very mature subject matter shown over the course of this 10-part, 18-hour documentary, it is absolutely worth seeing.

All 10 parts are available to watch online in either the Broadcast Version or the Explicit Language Version.

I actually picked up the box set a few weeks ago--I only watched part one so far, I need to make time to finish the rest. Very compelling, to say the least..

How does it differentiate itself from the many other Vietnam war documentaries out there?

definitely going to watch this at some point, looks really interesting

So far I've only watched part 1 and the first 1/2hr of part 2. I will probably buy the box set eventually.

I can't speak to to other Vietnam documentaries, but this is basically a year by year look at the war from both a US and Vietnamese perspective (South and North). There are numerous former Viet Cong soldiers who recount the events of the war, numerous ARVN soldiers and US soldiers, so that is probably the most interesting aspect.

The Vietnam War is also very good at showing what is happening in the US at the same time as what is happening in Vietnam. They cover MLK's assassination, as well as JFK and Bobbie Kennedy's. They cover the 1968 presidential election (and cover how a presidential candidate, Nixon, utilized a foreign government to get elected).

Also the series starts with a look at the 100 years before the US even arrived on Vietnam.

Great question. There are many good documentaries out there covering the subject material very well.

They really hit it out of the park with this one, Burns can do no wrong. The Civil War is also amazing.

Just watched first two episodes. Pretty good mix of larger historical brief and more narrow personal reaccounting. Not sure it's doing all that much to make it stand out from all the other good Vietnam documentaries out there.

Still kind of interesting how inherent prejudice one group of people have against one another keep barring them from reaching peaceful resolutions.

You see that grow exponentially as the series progresses. So many hundreds of thousands of people died do to one side or the other being unable or unwilling to give anything up at all.

For example, there is one peace talks segment where the shape of the table stops the negotiations from happening.

3 episodes in and enjoying it a lot.

if you have time check out the national parks one KB did. it's fantastic

That sounds fascinating. I need to watch this.

Most documentaries, and pretty much most discussions, take the war in its entirety; to view something that breaks it down year by year would be very insightful. The war had an incredibly varied cadence to it, both in Vietnam, and at home in the US politically and socially.

It's important to document this stuff, too; as a resource, there are hardly any WWII veterans left sadly, and the Vietnam veterans will also sadly be in short supply and gone before we know it. Not a pleasant thought or one I like to really talk about, but there you have it.

If you like this series, you guys should check out Brothers in War. It's a documentary about people of one particular unit and their experience in Vietnam.

Quite sad...but a very good series. Anyone who thinks things are so "awful" in the US now should watch it.

I watched a few episodes. All I have to say is gawwwwwwwwwwwwd damn.

Really insightful, wrenching stuff.

I can see why people think it is controversial, but I honestly think that is the point; people need to stop being offended by the controversial and simply accept it as a prompt to debate like adults, not squabble like children. My dad and I were sitting there and he and I got into a big debate over Kissinger and McNamara because they were both bastards, but I thought McNamara at least recognized the wrongs later on and tried to correct them by pointing them out, while Kissinger just kept on committing them.

My dad, like many vets, is of the mind that we should have kept fighting and that leaving was an insult to everyone that died and fought over there, Vietnamese and American. He is a stubborn old far but I find it hard to disagree with him from an emotional standpoint, and I'd like to think that if the multiple administrations during that war were not such a political shitshow we might have fared better.

I tell you what, though, that last segment about The Wall had me in tears for like 20 minutes. I don't know why. I've never served, never lost a friend to violence, but for some reason that freaking thing just gets me choked up.

What you'll see throughout the series is that the administrations were not only shit shows, they knew full well they would never win and hid it from the American public. They knew this sadly from the moment the war started. I can completely understand why your dad feels the way he does about staying in the war. Since we were unable to liberate the south it brings into question what the people on that wall died for.

I almost cried a few times during the series. That's exactly how one should feel reflecting on the people who died serving this country.