I've always felt my dad was either telling the truth, that most of his experience was going out on patrol and the enemy having just left the area and really having little contact. The other possibility is he doesn't want his wife and kids thinking of him in certain ways. Mom says he has never really talked about anything but did have a couple of incidents in which he woke her up screaming in his sleep about something to do with war.

The stories of the stress level, along with how messed up the enlisted are from his group, tells me it's more than nothing.

My friend's dad who has now passed would only talk about the shrapnel in his face. I think he was s but more messed up. I'm not sure if he and my dad ever talked about it. Would not surprise me.

i guess it depends on the personality too. my brother in law served 2 tours of duty in iraq. aside from telling me "jarhead" is his all-time favorite book, and showing me his stash of iraqi money, he never mentions his experiences. one of his war buddies, however, someone he's known since high school, never shuts up about it. it's almost the first thing he'll tell you about himself. not that he's a douche about it, but he's just very open and loose-lipped.

That started with the bum of the month tour we went on starting in Grenada.

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

DS, have you ever read The Things They Carried? I'll send you a copy if you haven't. But I think he talks about some of that stuff--how he'll talk to his kids.

I have that book I think it's on the nightstand between the book about the Kahns and the history of the Ukraine. Good lord my reading list needs help.

1st episode covered 125 years of history in about 80 minutes. I guess that's OK.

Dien Bien Phu is such an amazing story, you could have a ten parter on that disaster alone.

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

Quick fyi I stumbled across. It appears that MANY (ok, five (5)) episodes are available at this time for binge watching online.

http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/watch/

Edit: And a quick heads up to T-Bone. First closing song is your guy Dylan. Fit nicely as one would expect.

Looking forward to checking out the first few hours. Just haven't had the time for much TV lately. I'd suspect there would be a couple Dylan
songs smattered in the docuseries but interesting that he made it so early on.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Thank you.. I'm going to need to watch the first one on this as I missed it and the local pbs stations aren't reshowing it until the 30th.

Last night's episode featured a fair amount about John Paul Vann. Great book on the guy for those interested by Neil Sheehan "A Bright and Shining Lie".

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

When he came to Vietnam in 1962, Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann was the one clear-sighted participant in an enterprise riddled with arrogance and self-deception, a charismatic soldier who put his life and career on the line in an attempt to convince his superiors that the war should be fought another way. By the time he died in 1972, Vann had embraced the follies he once decried. He died believing that the war had been won.

In this magisterial book, a monument of history and biography that was awarded the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction, a renowned journalist tells the story of John Vann—"the one irreplaceable American in Vietnam"—and of the tragedy that destroyed a country and squandered so much of America's young manhood and resources.

Also the first appearance of the Ken Burns' staple, the slowly plinking piano.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I'm already falling behind. My son thinks we should be on the "every other day" schedule with this.

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

We would have won the war if not for the liberal burritos in Washington.

You mean like Bush Jr.,Cheney, Romney, Trump, Limbaugh and all the republican senators ' sons?

Slick Willie at least took a half assed stand

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

War was not meant to be won. It was a money making scheme for the MIC led by Lyndon Johnson's fake Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Were you 82nd RR?

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True. The French applied a WW2 paratrooper strategy with sub optimal numbers against a non traditional force. We had to study it as a part of 82nd leaders training.

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Not at all. But I'd stand with them in a second

Honor and responsibility in that way was instilled in me as 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.

I didn't mean it as a dig. I didn't know if you were an 80s paratrooper. Grenada was a joke but it still held a place on the division wall of operations

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I know. I'd just never ask anyone's son to do something I wouldn't do myself. Especially in defense of us all. Or if I didn't think it was vitally important.

But as a kid for Halloween I once dressed up as a paratrooper. I love the ideas they represent

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

As much as I despise the Kochs, David Koch's money at least occasionally finds it ways into good projects like this one

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

82nd? what, the 101st wouldn't have you?

seriously, that is quite the outfit.

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

What's your general take on the score, and music selections?

Slow plinking piano I don't believe I have noticed. The radio hit the button to create static and silence trick they play at different points has been an interesting wrinkle. Not sure I will appreciate it all the way through.

An interesting factoid was given to me by this show tonight. I knew little about my 2nd uncle who was MIA in the war until the 80's. He was USAF. He was one of the last names on the wall. Watched today and thought I would look into him. Again. We never met, but he was held in high esteem. His mother was a shit. His father still lives and was part of SAC during the WWII and cold war...an absolute stud. He was the guy Slim Pickens was going to be if Baton Rouge area was ever threatened. Anyhoo, tonight's show described what he was doing and why. The internet is a beautiful thing...

SYNOPSIS: On December 21, 1972, a B52 bomber from the 72nd Strat Wing, Anderson
AFB Guam, was sent on a bombing mission during the famed Christmas Bombings
during that month. By the 21st, when the B52 departed for the Hanoi region, 8
B52's and several fighter bombers had been lost since December 18, and 43 flyers
had been captured or killed during the same period.

The Christmas Bombings, despite press accounts to the contrary, were of the most
precise the world had seen. Pilots involved in the immense series of strikes
generally agree that the strikes against anti-aircraft and strategic targets was
so successful that the U.S., had it desired, "could have taken the entire
country of Vietnam by inserting an average Boy Scout troop in Hanoi and marching
them southward."

A very high percentage of B52 aircrew were captured immediately and returned in
1973, a much higher percentage than strategists imagined. Beyond that number,
several were known to have made it safely to the ground, yet did not return for
unknown reasons.

When the B52 from 72 Strat Wing, Guam was hit by a surface-to-air missile in
the early hours of December 21, 1972, the fate of the crewmembers was
varied. Multiple emergency beepers were heard by aircraft in the area,
indicating that several of the crew members had safely bailed out of the
crippled aircraft.

James Lollar was captured and subsequently released in March the following year.
The U.S. did not know he had been captured.

Ronald Perry's remains were returned exactly 3 years to the day from the day he
was shot down. The remains of Randall J. Craddock, Bobby A. Kirby, George B.
Lockhart and Charles E. Darr were returned six days short of the sixteenth
anniversary of their shoot-down. The positive identifications of the second
group to be returned was announced in August 1989.

Another returned POW, Ernest Moore, mentioned that he believed Darr had been
held at the "Zoo" in Hanoi, but the U.S. never changed Darr's status from
Missing to Prisoner. There is every reason to suspect the Vietnamese knew what
happened to all the crewmembers, but especially Charles E. Darr.

Whose radios beeped in distress from the ground that day in December 1972? When
and how did Bobby Kirby, Randall Craddock, Charles Darr, Ronald Perry and George
Lockhart die? If any of them were prisoners of war, why did we allow the
Vietnamese wait 16 years to return their remains?

And I am still waiting for anyone to chime in on the freaking soundtrack.

Burns is pretty good at using music to build emotion. I watched Ep 5 last night and that Musgraves guy who is clearly still disturbed from his experiences over there was telling one of his horror stories and there was this buzzing dissonance in the background I thought was frightening and perfect. I assume that's a Reznor contribution.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Another thing in Ep 5. They had a little interview with a North Vietnamese soldier and the guy looked younger than IMU. It was very strange.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Interesting.

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Elections have consequences.

mildly inneresting list of Vietnam songs: http://militaryhistorynow.com/2016/02/0 ... h-vietnam/

The Animals are an unnerappreciated band.

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

Finished it up last night. I did enjoy all of the music. It was almost entirely based in the 60's which I enjoyed. I also agree with the good Hatchetman regarding all things Animals and Eric Burdon in general.

At the moment, I would have preferred to here a different song when they were addressing the North Vietnamese running through South Vietnam just before the US left entirely. A better tune to play instead of some decent Led Zeppelin would have been https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8VpCKHUXsw. They could have used it in several cases, including when the U.S. finally left the embassy. Early Aerosmith tune Movin Out came out in 1973 and in my humble opinion would have perfectly fit the tone of what was going on at that time.

HOFer Derrick Thomas lost his father (that he never met) in the same way.

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