In a subsequent post, Johnson has linked to the takes of several more dissenters from the Burns narrative.I wrote Yale’s Charles Hill. Professor Hill is diplomat in residence and lecturer in International Studies at Yale as well as a research fellow of the Hoover Institution.Before he alighted at Yale, Professor Hill had an incredibly distinguished career in the State Department. In the course of his career in the government he served in Saigon during the climactic period of the Vietnam War (1971-1973). Among the roles he served was that of mission coordinator in the United States Embassy. Molly Worthen covers Professor Hill’s work in Vietnam in chapter 6 of her precocious 2005 biography, The Man on Whom Nothing Was Lost: The Grand Strategy of Charles Hill.Professor Hill watched the documentary with intense attention. I asked Professor Hill if he would comment on the documentary, however briefly. He responded:The most repulsive sub-theme starts at the very outset when a veteran says: “I was scared. I hated them. I was SO scared!” This quaking fear of American troops is repeated throughout the 18 hours, often silently with just quick photos of US soldiers with expressions of fear.In a separate message he commented on the documentary’s depiction of the war after 1968:When the US and South Vietnamese cause turned the war on the ground in a sharply different direction and began actually to win it (I was there), the cultural elite of Haight-Ashbury and Woodstock, promoted by the media, simply stopped reporting on the war so that the astonishing South Vietnamese victories over the invading North Vietnamese Army on three international fronts in 1972 was barely mentioned. Burns’s aim is to make sure the annoyingly christened (sic) “Millennials” will be locked into the leftist narrative of his own formative years -– to him, the real “Greatest Generation.”I think we are beginning to get somewhere.
Saturday, October 21, 2017
A Yale professor who doesn't think much of Ken Burns's Vietnam documentary
Scott Johnson of Power Line got in touch with Charles Hill for his view, and got a blunt response:
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Fighting soldiers from the sky / Fearless men who jump and die / Men who mean just what?
ReplyDeletePersonally I've only had time to view more than snippets yet. Maybe you can find a filmmaker that can get us all gung ho again. And, yes, since, judging from how long Ken Burns' stuff sticks around, a bunch of our progeny will probably be watching it for decades, likely forced to in school. Some young men and women will choose to become brainwashed in a millennia-old process of de and reprogramming called basic training where drill sergeants punch you hard in the gut while berating you and some have been known to even piss on you to make you tough. But at least our boys and girls got a choice today. I was offended when Gen. Kelley kept going on about the 1%. If they make a man or a woman out of you, why are so many of them homeless that we have to have a charity for them these days?
ReplyDeleteBecause war is horrifying and can leave scars and even wounds that affect the rest of a person's life.
ReplyDeleteToo bad you missed your calling. Fraternity men are prepped for corporate leadership combat.
ReplyDeleteReal men (and now women), real trained men (and now women) who can't even maintain a civilian home. The few, the formerly proud, part of the 1% of homeless. Really impressive. More should be brought through the fine fire. Hmmm....
ReplyDeletehttps://www.va.gov/HOMELESS/housing.asp
So piss on it.
ReplyDeletePiss on what?
ReplyDeletePiss on earth, good will to men who we are not trained to kill.
ReplyDeleteYou have not watched it, you hated it before it hit the airwaves. Your revisionist hawkishness on Nam is sickening and very dangerous because it means you're all for repeating it. Dog! Dog of war!
ReplyDeleteI have merely offered the take of people very qualified to comment on the series.
ReplyDeleteWhat am I "all for repeating"?
A decades plus long quagmire in a jungle, you know, that bungle in that jungle. It ain't been all that great over in the sand either. But we got all this weaponry and manpower and your ilk cries for more so it's all so quite expected.
ReplyDeleteWell, you do have to have the overwhelmingly largest military in the world if you want to have a secure nation.
ReplyDeleteIf I recall correctly, you advocated much more fireworks down in Central America during your beloved Ronnie's reign.
ReplyDeleteBut militarily the push is on for more more more. Trump has suggested renewed nuclear proliferation as well.
ReplyDeleteYes, I was all for the Nicaraguan resistance effort to rout the Marxist-Leninist. The Cold War was still on and the last thing we needed was a Soviet beachhead a few mere hundreds of miles from our border.
ReplyDeleteI sent 'me money. Regularly.
ReplyDelete"Push is on for more" is kind of vague. More what?
ReplyDeleteI'd like to hear Ken Burns respond. He and his female collaborator constantly said they tried to be truthful and thorough
ReplyDeleteAnd I presume you thought a Nam repeat thinkable down there, without defeat. Maybe, because the Cong were tenacious and warmed up with the French before us
ReplyDeleteActually, the good guys did win, for at least a while. The Resistance wore down the FSLN to the point where an election had to be held, and Violetta Chamorro won it, over Daniel Ortega. And over in El Salvador, ARENA had a controlling majority in the government for a while into the 1980s. Alas, Latin America being what it is, both of them have turned left again, but those developments have been overshadowed by the complete ruination of Venezuela.
ReplyDeleteGee, glad we don't live there but some think our guys and gals should be fearless and fearsome in battle as they die in faraway locales fighting for freedom for someone else's fatherland.
ReplyDeleteDepends on whether national security is at stake.
ReplyDeleteAnger and fear—for a long time, I couldn’t sleep without a loaded gun at my bedside. Guilt—I was almost court-martialed after my platoon killed two Vietnamese civilians mistaken for Viet Cong. Grief—the names of 18 comrades are etched into that black marble wall in Washington.
ReplyDeleteFinally, the nature of the Vietnam war worked against me. How was I to wrest meaning from a succession of random firefights and ambushes that achieved nothing, of aimless patrols run over the same ground again and again, to no effect?
http://lithub.com/the-dirty-secret-of-war-it-can-be-as-compelling-as-it-is-ugly/?utm_content=bufferd5ce9&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
I wrestled for weeks with the fact that I had loved the war as deeply as I’d hated it. A part of me, and no small part, either, had proven vulnerable to the lurid excitement of violence. Jumping into a hot landing zone, leading my platoon under fire produced an intoxication no drug could match. Having been raised a good Catholic boy, I knew I wasn’t supposed to have had those feelings; yet I had. To admit to them in print seemed disgraceful, like admitting to some forbidden desire. For a long time, I tried to reconcile my love of combat with my revulsion for it, until I realized that reconciliation was impossible. As there is a duality in human nature, so is there a duality in war that must be taken for what it is.
ReplyDeleteIbid
"An intoxication no drug could match."
ReplyDelete(His fear) concentrates inside him, and through some chemistry is transformed into a fierce resolve to fight until the danger ceases to exist. But this resolve, which is sometimes called courage, cannot be separated from the fear that has aroused it. Its very measure is the measure of that fear. This inner, emotional war produces a tension almost sexual in its intensity… too painful to endure for long. All a soldier can think about is the moment he can escape his impotent confinement and release his tension. All other considerations, the rights or wrongs of what he’s doing… the battle’s purpose or lack of it, become so absurd as to be less than irrelevant. Nothing matters except the final, critical instant when he leaps out into the violent catharsis he both seeks and dreads.
ReplyDeleteIbid
Sounds like fun. So let's have war for everyone!
ReplyDeletePhilip Caputo was born in Chicago, and raised in the suburbs of Berwyn and Westchester. He attended Fenwick High School and Loyola University Chicago, graduating with a B.A. in English in 1964. From 1965–1966 Caputo served in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) as an infantry lieutenant (platoon commander) in the United States Marine Corps. Caputo served in combat and earned several medals and awards upon completion of his tour of duty.
ReplyDelete"He talked about how during his administration the United States will witness the greatest military buildup in the history of the country. Who benefits? Well, the Pentagon benefits, defence contractors benefit and workers in particular states benefit," says Abelson.
ReplyDeleteFrom a military perspective there are other reasons to keep soldiers close to the action despite the human cost of war. Experienced or battle-hardened militaries perform better when called upon for real action.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/whitehouse-trump-afghanistan-economy-1.4258762
But, from what I can tell, you advocate "no war ever" as a policy unto itself. How can that play out in the real world? If force is off the table in any national-security situation, how are we to ever be secure? Taken to its logical conclusion, your premise would involve dismantling our entire Department of Defense as well as our intelligence agencies.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, no one denies that wars are horrific. But so are tornadoes and earthquakes, but no one denies their inevitability and makes requisite plans for dealing with them.
ReplyDeleteNo, some humans profit from war, and many find it the greatest drug the world has ever known. There are many reasons for its implementation and escalation. Some even find killing fun. And in the 21st Century, it certainly enriches some. These are inevitabilties we can put an end to: profit and fun for some in killing. That's all. Oh, and there is a commandment prohibiting same, just like with all fun and profitable things.
ReplyDeleteAnd so we proliferate, ain't it great?
ReplyDeleteSo, first the fear, then the fight. Then from there things might come out right. Caputo describes the feeling as better than sexual delight. So not to worry that Ken Burns did not censor videos of fright. Everything is rightie right! Ahh....
ReplyDelete