Nice documentary Id really like to watch. 10 episodes about the Vietnamese war. The war America never won. Very interesting and if you’re into old rock and soul music, the soundtracks are amazing.
I’ve been watching it, was planning on putting up a thread. Watched 5 episodes so far and all I can say is how impressed I am by PBS. This is one of the most objective documentaries ever made. They took their time to look for not just Americans, but also the Vietnamese who took part in the war. So you get to listen to both sides. Sometimes you watch an American and a Vietnamese describe the same battle. Plus they made a decision not to interview any high ranking officials (e.g. John McCain) who took part in the war, for fear that propaganda might mess it up.
What I learned is that from the word go, the Americans never had a chance. They might have had superior firepower, but Hanoi was always one step ahead.
Ango Ho Chi Minh used to tell Al’amrikis whom he had captured " Why kill you while I can kill you everyday " akiwa pale “Hanõi Hilton” akiwafinya makei.
Those Vietnamese shot down hundreds of US aircraft. The Soviet Union and China gleefully supplied Hanoi with weapons, including anti-aircraft guns. They adapted very fast to using even brand new weapons, which surprised their soviet/chinese sponsors. In fact, the only reason someone like John McCain became famous was because he was the son of a high ranking naval officer. Other than that, there was nothing special about him, as he was just one of hundreds of American POWs.
But even without those high tech weapons, the Vietnamese were generally better soldiers, maybe because they truly believed they were fighting for freedom. In fact, some American commanders have been quoted praising them, some even going as far as stating they wish they had such soldiers in their ranks.
Yeah…
It was the 9/11 of the time…many say there was prior warning. But the US had to be dragged in…the military industrial complex must get it’s way & war is big business, and so on, and so on
S/times when you are a POW you are better of dead than alive .Especially if the captor thinks you have got some plausible intel to share. I read a story of a British pilot who was a POW in Iraq. He said that in the first days alikaa ngumu like he was traine ,but as days passed mental and physical torture took a toll on him. He had to break. Nothing can prepare you for torture sessions from a professional who doubles up as your enemy. Read up about some torture methods Vietcong dealt on Americans. Its hard not to break.
For sure…was just mentioning the story because most people have never heard that side. The only problem with torture is that sometimes info can be made up…but yes, eventually one always breaks.
Yep, France was the source of all that nonsense. It was very odd for them to want to keep subjugating other people (Vietnamese) after themselves getting liberated from Nazi occupation. These are some of the things that Ho Chi Minh didn’t understand. He would attend all these international conferences, where the “all men are created equal” bullshit would be regurgitated, by countries that were still oppressing other people. “All men” was simply code for caucasians. To America’s credit, there were many who were sympathetic to the Vietnamese cause. John F Kennedy, as senator, visited Vietnam and said he understood why the Vietnamese wanted independence. America had been a British colony and it would be just wrong for the US to support colonialism. Then the French threatened to embrace communism if America interfered in Vietnam or supported the clamor for independence. So America had no option but to take a pro-French position. Failure by the west to recognize Vietnam’s right to independence ended up forcing Ho Chi Minh to fully embrace communism.
France was shown fire by Vietnam at the battle of Dien Bien Phu. They were fucked so thoroughly that the French commander in that battle, having underestimated the Vietnamese, committed suicide. This catastrophe also forced the French government to resign. The next government then withdrew from French colonies in IndoChina.
The Americans, knowing all this, decided to occupy anyway. It took the death of 58,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese for them to realize they’d fucked up.