This starts on Sunday evening and I will be checking it out. Comprehensive 10 episode, 18 hour documentary on the
Vietnam War. Sounds like a lot to take in, but I realize there was a lot going on during those years so it should be
interesting. Ken Burns puts together a quality product and I expect nothing less here.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

interesting.

my favorite 'nam doc will always be "dear america". nothing speaks for the war better than the soldiers who fought in it. besides the novelty of celebrity voices (which wears off, the less you concentrate on it), everything is wrapped up very nicely in that. and has a killer soundtrack that pretty much every other vietnam-related movie ripped off.

At first it seems long but the damn war went on for 10 years. Will really just be an overview. Better clear out space on the DVR.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

I'm sure it'll be superb.

Been rewatching the dust bowl one recently. Just in bits and pieces. He does good work.

I caught the Civil War one as well as the one on the Roosevelts. Never saw the Baseball one though, I should probably seek that one out.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

I've been kind of into a documentary kick of late. I watched Civil War one this spring I think. I barely remember the one in Roosevelts but I know I watched part of it when it came out. These burns episodic docs lend themselves to streaming or DVR in my life as my scheduale is inconsistent at best.

My wife really enjoys the documentaries as do I but sometimes they are easier to just crush in one 3 hr slot rather than a 10 episode one. I understand
something like the Vietnam War doesn't fit in a nice 3 hr package but stories that can fit in that time frame can be easier to digest and move on to the
next thing.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

I couldn't stand that Civil War one but I was like 16 when it came out. Old dudes talking while photos slowly move across the screen with a banjo plucking in the background. Kill me now.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

The baseball series was sentimental hogwash.

I think he could possible be accused of veering a little too much towards sentiment--maybe?--but I love his other work.

I assume you like it now, though....what with the combination of history and photography?

Have not tried since. Maybe when I retire.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Yeah, it's a big time investment....I was watching it in bits on my laptop last year before the laptop died, and the new one doesn't have a cd-drive....

I'm curious to see how this stacks up with the well made Vietnam movies of the last 30 years.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

They reshowed it on pbs this year out here. DVR was my friend. Missed the first episode though. I didn't enjoy it as a young teen as my parents watched it (think dad has the VHS tapes, hell I migh of got them as a Christmas gift for him. Or great battles in history). It's better as an adult.

Remember when the Vietnam vets were all on the younger side of middle-age? Now they're all old, like the WWII and Korean vets when I was a kid. Now I'm their age. Time's going too fast.

Or I'm just way too old. Students in a class today didn't know when WWII ended and had no idea that there was a peacetime draft (we were discussing the "fat, drunk, and stupid" scene from Animal House).

I hadn't thought about that, but I couldn't agree with you more. Vietnam vets will always be late twenty somethings in my head. Unfortunately, for many of them I still feel sadness for, remembering how broken down they seemed when I was a kid

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

The Baseball doc was way to East coast slanted but nonetheless superb. A great history of the game going back to the late 1800's and is a staple in winter time when there is a foot of snow on the ground or is 30 below wind chill.

Yep, had to be beyond tough to get spit on when returning home. These men all deserve nothing but respect.

watch it again, it's fantastic.

I've seen it in its entirety no less than 5 times.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

With my dad being a vet of nam I forget that many vets are significantly younger than he is. He went to a reunion of his LZ a few years back and those guys have had it rough. They were all draftees while he was an officer of a few years before heading over. According to him, at least a dozen or two years back, the most realistic Nam movie he had seen was Apocalypse now. To this day I'm not sure if he was serious or not

where I grew up there were a lot of kids who's dads had been in the war...one guy's dad was killed there. not surprisingly, they *seemed* a bit more rough around the edges and aggressive. Anyway, I actively disliked the sort back when I was a 6'00 130 lb straight A kid. Now I definitely feel empathy for any family member that had to deal with issues.

That being said, one of my besties (the guy with the 9 on his ACT)...his dad took a bullet to the face in Vietnam and he was a pretty solid dude. very level headed. no violence or aggression in his persona..don't think he drank a drop of alcohol. his mom however, now she was a huge BIOTCH!

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

I'm looking forward to this. Hopefully it's not PBS pledge drive week. They seem to run these kinds of shows during those.

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“Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.”- JD Vance
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Yeah, that surprises me, that he was a vet--but it makes sense if he was an officer. I think they stopped the draft the year my oldest brother would have been eligible.

I've heard some Vietnam vets mention Hamburger Hill as having the most realistic battle/firefight scenes.

Hamburger Hill is terrific.

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'Your AT&T Universal Card has arrived'? Oh God, Kick-fucking-ass, I got a Master Card! I don't believe it, man. Life is kinda cool sometimes.

it's funny; at the time, "hill" caught flack for being part of the wave of vietnam war movies that added little to the spectrum of the war. now, it has a 100% rotten tomatoes rating. only took 30 years.

"casualties of war" is another good preachy war movie. but any "first person" war movie about vietnam seemed to borrow a lot from "platoon", which was based on oliver stone's actual tenure, so i tend to hold dramatized vietnam movies up against it.

"the deer hunter" preserved a lot of the personal struggles of the war, but it invented some of the POW stuff. and cimino had a flare for the dramatic.

"apocalypse now" borrowed heavily from the conrad novel, but i'm sure those who endured the war could relate to the themes.

I was ignorant about jazz when his series aired so it didn't bother me much at the time, but I can only imagine how infuriated I'd be if I watched it now, especially the later episodes. As I recall Burns was insistent on documenting every time Ellington or Armstrong so much as took a shit and his treatment of anything the least bit avant-garde post-Coltrane was to just have Wynton Marsalis dismiss it all as elitist trash.

If I wanted to guess why my dad said what he said there are two options. One was he was just being a smart ass. Very possible but I think in some ways it would be very much that he related to it. He was also a big fan of Conrad and made me read Heart of Darkness when it was presented as part of a project in..I can't remember if it was a history or English class. Been a long time. It was a compare and contrast with AN.

My mom tells me that when Apocolypse now come out my dad wanted to see it do much and they couldn't get a sitter so they took my brother and I to the movie. Somehow I got to age 40 without knowing this but I guess you don't remember much when you are 2. Mom said she turned to him a about half an hour into it to tell him she thought it might be a mistake.

Dad liked hamburger hill a lot and I'm sure he knew a few people who were there as he was also 101 airborne. He was stationed near there during his second tour while it was going on I believe. He left army in 69 or 70 Tommy when he was in late 20's. Most of his men were 18-20. Draft ended in 73. His stories are more funny than serios on the war, kinda focus on some of the absurdity. Really never talks about it.


I sat down last night and started streaming Civil War documentary. I think I need to see if some of his other stuff is available. My 6th grader is a history nut and maybe it's something him and I can go together in a few years. He's not sitting through a 20 hour documentary though. I don't think his mom will approve of me showing him Apocolypse now.

I've always wished that more thoughtful combat vets could feel comfortable telling their individual stories. I deeply respect their reticence and I think I understand it, but think that it's a great civic loss.

Beyond anything else, I think they illustrate our commonalities

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

Well said, RR. In my limited experience with some of these guys I found that the ones who were willing to open up were most comfortable with a very small group of guys with the same experiences.

In particular, when I was in the Navy, we had a guy onboard ship who was in the Marines during the Vietnam Era until 1976.

He got out of the Marines and enlisted in the Navy because he liked the service and wanted to do his 20 but was screwed up because of the combat experiences. His wife said he would only talk about it with guys who were "there".

He would sometimes only get 2-4 hours sleep during the night but be ready for duty all squared away the next morning at Quarters.

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."