The Vietnam War by Ken Burns

I was a 61C20: marine diesel engineer, I was trained to repair marine diesel eengines, such as you would find in landing craft, tug boats, barge mounted cranes, etc.

We traveled a lot on the rivers and canals below Saigon, on down all over the Mekong Delta. One stop we would make on the way, was Vung Tau. Vung Tau was considered

to be an in-country R&R venue. The area was absolutely beautiful. The South China Sea has some shallow areas, and the skipper(CW2) of our landing craft knew where a

nice little sand bar was, a place where we could ground, wait for the tide to go out so we could inspect the screws(propellers) of the craft.

A friend of mine(Will, Duvall,Wa.) walking down the ramp.

willy on ramp.jpg


Ah, I got carried away, I was going to post a video:

 
tnthomas said:
Ah, I got carried away, I was going to post a video:

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That reminds me. I had hundreds of pictures of those cute Filapino girls that would entertain the troops at the Airman's club. But I had to get rid of them before I went home because my ex-wife was a certifiable jealousy nut case. I also had to get rid of the ones of Captain Carolyn Berry who was one of the nurses and a Kate Jackson look-a-like.
 
tnthomas said:
So, what source are you all watching this series from? Cable/satellite stations? Or, streaming from PBS?
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Just on the local PBS station by way of my rabbits ears. Actually it's a flat rectangular white plastic antennae about the size of a piece of notebook paper that I bought a Wally World.

But I am pretty sure you can stream it from their web site too.

http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/watch/
 
Trade said:
That reminds me. I had hundreds of pictures of those cute Filapino girls that would entertain the troops at the Airman's club. But I had to get rid of them before I went home because my ex-wife was a certifiable jealousy nut case. I also had to get rid of the ones of Captain Carolyn Berry who was one of the nurses and a Kate Jackson look-a-like.
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Nut job jealous ex-wife.....sounds familiar, that's what happened to the pics of our "crew" in Saigon, at a Hai Ba Trung st. bar. :shrug:
 
It's been a fascinating series. I was a child when the Vietnam war started and an adult by the time it ended. Two of my boyfriends were drafted to 'Nam. Two friends also ended up there. All survived but one killed himself sometime afterwards at home in the U.S.:( The series has left me with so many questions. It was excellently done as all Ken Burns' films are. I feel so deeply sorry for the Vietnamese people left behind after the fall of Saigon.
 
I have been watching the show and support our boys even more now....lies, lies, lies...sad.................I got married in June of '72, drafted three weeks later and was at Fort Knox in training when the peace accord was signed ......
 
I spent 1967 at an USAF base in Thailand, and quite frankly I am convinced that "politics" played a more important role in that war than anything resembling "victory". There were numerous missions our pilots had to conduct where they were limited in just how they could conduct their attacks. Many of these things may still be "classified", and I have only "hearsay" info, so I cannot speak with certainty, but after hearing and seeing some of the nonsense that went on, I don't think that our leaders were doing a good job, or telling us the truth.

One of the most glaring issues, and one that cost us several F-105's, and pilots, was the bombing of the Doumer Bridge...connecting Hanoi to Haiphong. Our pilots had to run a gauntlet of SAM missile sites and could only bomb the center span...because the SAM sites and the approaches to the bridge had heavy civilian populations...and it was a "No-No" to cause any more civilian damage than necessary....DUH!!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Biên_Bridge

The main concern seemed to be the worry that China might enter that conflict "officially"...even though there was ample evidence that they were the driving force behind the North Vietnamese efforts. It was all a huge "chess" game with our military being little more than pawns in the political games being played.
 
tnthomas said:
Nut job jealous ex-wife.....sounds familiar, that's what happened to the pics of our "crew" in Saigon, at a Hai Ba Trung st. bar. :shrug:
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Jealousy is a relationship killer for sure. That's one thing I learned from my first marriage. And the one piece of advice I will give to anyone in a relationship is, If your significant other starts to shows signs of jealousy, get the Hell out immediately! Do not pass go, do not collect $200.
 
Don M. said:
I spent 1967 at an USAF base in Thailand, and quite frankly I am convinced that "politics" played a more important role in that war than anything resembling "victory". There were numerous missions our pilots had to conduct where they were limited in just how they could conduct their attacks. Many of these things may still be "classified", and I have only "hearsay" info, so I cannot speak with certainty, but after hearing and seeing some of the nonsense that went on, I don't think that our leaders were doing a good job, or telling us the truth.

One of the most glaring issues, and one that cost us several F-105's, and pilots, was the bombing of the Doumer Bridge...connecting Hanoi to Haiphong. Our pilots had to run a gauntlet of SAM missile sites and could only bomb the center span...because the SAM sites and the approaches to the bridge had heavy civilian populations...and it was a "No-No" to cause any more civilian damage than necessary....DUH!!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Biên_Bridge

The main concern seemed to be the worry that China might enter that conflict "officially"...even though there was ample evidence that they were the driving force behind the North Vietnamese efforts. It was all a huge "chess" game with our military being little more than pawns in the political games being played.
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Politics, for sure. The Vietnam "war" wasn't lost militarily, it was doomed to failure from the start politically.

...then, there was the sham Paris Peace agreement, hammered out by Henry Kissinger, who collected a Nobel Peace prize for it. Later, he did try to give it back, after the ceasefire failed.
 
Trade said:
Jealousy is a relationship killer for sure. That's one thing I learned from my first marriage. And the one piece of advice I will give to anyone in a relationship is, If your significant other starts to shows signs of jealousy, get the Hell out immediately! Do not pass go, do not collect $200.
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Yes, I learned [the hard way] how to recognize those 'red flags'...
 
tnthomas said:
Politics, for sure. The Vietnam "war" wasn't lost militarily, it was doomed to failure from the start politically....then, there was the sham Paris Peace agreement, hammered out by Henry Kissinger, who collected a Nobel Peace prize for it. Later, he did try to give it back, after the ceasefire failed.
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Looking back, I think the ONLY reason we got involved in both the Korean and Vietnam wars was to give our weapons industries a Huge Windfall. It seems that our War Machine is about the Only industry left in this nation that excels....But, we have to USE it frequently to keep it Well Oiled. Our government has to find "excuses" to keep the popular support positive for a Defense Budget that consumes 600 Billion+, per year. If we truly had a "Dept. of Defense" instead of a Global Police Agency, our munitions industries wouldn't have such a "cash cow" to draw upon every year....and we might not have to maintain hundreds of military installations all over the globe. To some extent, I can understand the ISIS/Taliban hating our guts for our involvement in the Muslim nations, and I'm wondering if this N.Korea crap isn't the precursor to the next round of conflicts. Quite frankly, I think Teddy Roosevelt had it correct when he said we should "Speak Softly, but Carry a Big Stick". We should let these other nations go to pot, if that is what their people allow, But have a clear understanding that any attack on our nation will be a suicidal act on their part.
 
tnthomas said:
Politics, for sure. The Vietnam "war" wasn't lost militarily, it was doomed to failure from the start politically.
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There was no way we would have won militarily.

I still here people say we should have nuked Hanoi.

Yeah, right. If we had done that the Chinese and/or the Russians would have jumped in and you would have a WW3 Armageddon scenario.



 
Trade said:
There was no way we would have won militarily.

I still here people say we should have nuked Hanoi.

Yeah, right. If we had done that the Chinese and/or the Russians would have jumped in and you would have a WW3 Armageddon scenario.
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True, I was speaking to the fact that our military personnel and effort were capable, and had all the right tools. Too bad it wasn't still WWII, because that's how the war was administered, for the most part.

Insurgents, guerrilla warfare- not new concepts, just hard to deal with in a conventional military approach. Harder yet to micro-manage from 8,900 miles away.

Lyndon Johnson made the statement- " ultimate victory in the Vietnam War depended upon the U.S. military winning the "hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese people".

Hearts and minds, certainly, however...but what are WE needing the U.S. military to win support...for what exactly? The original premise as I understand it,was to come to the aid of a nation that wanted US to help fight off aggression from the North. If that were true, then wouldn't the "hearts and minds" issue already be in the bag?

The average Vietnamese that I ran into were rice farmers. They farmed rice in their rice paddies, with their water buffalo. They led simple lives, from what I could see, they were content, and it didn't really matter to them who was running the [corrupt] government in Saigon.
 
The thing that struck me was how many times the Vietnamese asked the US to help them gain their freedom from the oppressive French colonial rule. They asked for decades and decades. Ho Chi Minh asked for years before he was even exposed to Communism. Even after WWII, we made the decision to deny them their freedom and give the country back to the French. Apparently, our politicians completely ignored our own history or felt that the Vietnamese people were somehow less deserving of freedom.
 
squatting dog said:
I almost envy some of you. My experience in Nam was a might different. I tried to put it down on virtual paper. I'll include a link, but, be WARNED, it is a might graphic.

https://lifeisacarnivalblog.wordpress.com/2017/07/26/youve-changed/
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We got a ROK (Republic of Korea) dude into the hospital when I was at Danang who had been bitten on the finger by one of those pit vipers. They called it a "step and a half" snake. The ROK's were some pretty bad assed soldiers from what I understand. This was the only one I encountered though and he was a really nice polite friendly dude. Like about 99% of all Koreans his name was "Kim" something or other. Anyway he had survived the bite but his finger, I forget which one it was, had turned really black and rotten looking and the skin and flesh was sloughing off of it. The doctors wanted to amputate it, but Kim was having none of that. He stayed with us about a month or so and by the time he left that finger was recovering pretty well and he was able to keep it.

When I was in medic training at Sheppard AFB in Texas there was a retired guy in the hospital there getting treatment for a rattlesnake bite that he had gotten seven months before. That thing was really ugly because he had lost a lot of the meat on his leg. A good four inches of his shinbone was still exposed. Snake bite is nasty. It's not like in the movies where they cut a little X over it, suck out the poison, have one bad night of fever, and then they are good to go in the morning.
 
squatting dog, Thanks for sharing your blog article. The theme of change hits the nail on the head.

I know that walking through the nam completely sucked. Being on the nước we would see water snakes,

wasn't sure about whether or not they were poisonous, didn't want to find out. Leeches, so much for taking a dip in the

river, to cool off.

Re: the ROKs, yea they were tough, would see them practicing some kind of martial arts en-masse, on the deck of their

LST, which was moored near-by. I had heard that they despised the Vietnamese, reasons unknown.
 
ROK's were definitely the baddest of the bad asses. They did surround their compound with the skulls of the enemy mounted on posts, and yes, for some reason they absolutely hated the Vietnamese. I also realized that anytime our firebase's were hit with any kind of rocket or mortar attack, none of those ever hit anywhere near the Korean compound. I believe the Vietcong truly feared them.
 
I was trained to kill at Camp LeJeune.
I landed in Vietnam in early 1990 and spent 14 months there.
That's all I have to say about it.
 
I always thought that Kennedy sending troops into Vietnam was because of bad advice he was getting. I believe that advice was based largely on what happened hears earlier, the Bay of Pigs. In effect, we chickened out there. We sort of half-heartedly tried to overthrow Castro, but allowed the undertaking to fail, because of our timidity. And then, with an opportunity to "stand tall" against Communism in Vietnam, the advisors told Kennedy that we just had to get involved. Many people think that our involvement was strictly LBJ's fault, but I blame JFK, based on my incomplete recall of events then.
 
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