LOOKING BACK - Vietnam War, 11/1/1955 to 04/30/1975

Personal note.  I am a Vietnam Vet, USN 22yrs (retired).

"The first American Vietnam War POW on why we need to understand the war" by Anne Azzi and Alison Thoet, PBS NewsHour 9/14/2017




"Why America is still raw over the Vietnam War" PBS NewsHour 9/14/2017

Because it's a prime example of overreach of government power, and the ending of trusting government.  (Vietnam War Wikipedia)

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick sorted through 5,000 hours of historical footage and photos for a documentary that took 10 years to create.  The new PBS documentary series, “The Vietnam War” takes us to a moment in history that is still not fully understood, and comes at a moment when we're thinking about America's role in the world.  Judy Woodruff discusses its resonance with Burns and Novick.

"Voices from all sides trace deep roots and wounds in 'Vietnam War'" PBS NewsHour 9/15/2017

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick spent a decade talking to hundreds of veterans from both sides of the Vietnam War, to capture the complexity of perspectives that persists years later.  In the second part of their conversation, Judy Woodruff speaks with Burns and Novick about their new PBS documentary series, “The Vietnam War.”

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  But, Lynn, do you come away, do you think, understanding how the United States got pulled into this, despite the French being kicked out, essentially, Dien Bien Phu?

Senator John F. Kennedy saying the Americans don’t belong in a land war in Asia.  Decisions made by Eisenhower not to get involved.  And yet the United States was pulled in.

LYNN NOVICK:  Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Did you understand why, at the end, do you think?

LYNN NOVICK:  Well, it is sometimes stunning to think, with all those road maps and signposts saying don’t do it, we still did.

It seems clear that there’s definitely a Cold War context that’s very important, and certain kind of received wisdom, conventional wisdom about that, and that we have to stop communism and containment and that whole idea.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Even so, the film shows that, in May of 1964, President Johnson himself expressed misgivings about why the U.S. was at war and Vietnam’s value in a phone call with national security adviser McGeorge Bundy.

FORMER PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON:  I just laid awake last night thinking about this thing.  The more I think of it, I don’t know what in the hell — it looks like to me we are getting into another Korea.

It just worries the hell out of me.  I don’t see what we can ever hope to get out of there with, once we’re committed.  I don’t think it’s worth fighting for, and I don’t think we can get out, and it’s just the biggest damn mess.

MCGEORGE BUNDY, Former National Security Advisor:  It is an awful mess.

FORMER PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON:  And I just thought about ordering those kids in there.  And what the hell am I ordering them out there for?  What in the hell is Vietnam worth to me?  What is it worth to this country?

MCGEORGE BUNDY:  Yes.  Yes.

FORMER PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON:  Now, of course, if you start running into communists, they may just chase you right in your own kitchen.

MCGEORGE BUNDY:  Yes, that’s the trouble.  And that’s what the rest of the — that half of the world is going to think if this thing comes apart on us.

DOCUMENTARY - "Defying the Nazis, The Sharps' War"

"How a Massachusetts couple saved thousands from Nazi death camps" PBS NewsHour 9/20/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  It started with a school project: Interview someone with moral courage.  For Artemis Joukowsky, it became an enduring project to explore the life of his grandparents, Waitstill and Martha Sharp, who helped more than 2,000 people avoid deportation to Nazi death camps.  Judy Woodruff speaks with Joukowsky and Ken Burns, who tell the story of the Sharps in a new documentary.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  A new Ken Burns documentary airs tonight on PBS, and for this story, he co-directs with another filmmaker for whom the details are very personal.

I talked with the men at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum about the cloak and dagger story behind “Defying the Nazis: The Sharps'  War.”

ACTOR:  A telephone rang, and it was probably the most momentous telephone call that I ever received.  I knew whose voice it was, the voice of my closest friend, Everett Baker.

He said, “Waitstill, Martha, I am inviting you to undertake the first intervention against evil by the denomination to be started immediately overseas.”

JUDY WOODRUFF:  And with that call in 1939, the life of unitarian minister Waitstill Sharp and his wife, Martha, would never be the same, nor would the world.

The Sharps, who lived in Wellesley, Massachusetts, were sent by their church to lead a secret and perilous rescue of refugees and dissidents in Europe before and after the start of World War II.  They directly helped over 100 people escape and had a part in helping over 2,000 people avoid deportation to Nazi death camps.

They expected to be gone for several months, and instead were gone two years.

MORDECAI PALDIEL, Holocaust Scholar:  They were motivated from the beginning to go out there into the kingdom of hell and try to get some people out.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  They left two young children at home.

Artemis Joukowsky is the grandson of the Sharps, and son of the Martha Sharp who was named after her courageous mother.

Artemis, this really has been almost a lifelong project for you, since you were, what, in high school?

ARTEMIS JOUKOWSKY, Co-Director, “Defying the Nazis”:  Yes, I was in ninth grade, and I was given an assignment to interview someone of moral courage.

And I went home and I said to my mom, “Who should I interview?”

She said:  “Talk to your grandmother.  She did some cool things during World War II.”

And that interview changed my life.