Lyndon Johnson relied heavily on Robert McNamara to justify continuing in the Vietnam Conflict. Operation Rolling Thunder was based on the idea that you simply drop bombs over and over and over. The weird thing is that the more we bombed, the more the North Vietnamese made their way down the Ho Chi Minh trail. As Johnson and his people continued to lie either deliberately or through omission, the press began to get wind of the failures. Soon the country began to become divided. Students began protesting heavily, but were beginning to be allied with significant citizenry. People from the literary world and show business began to make their presence known. There were street demonstrations and phrases like "love it or leave it" began to be disseminated, or "my country, right or wrong." Of course, these were people who weren't slogging through rice paddies or facing machine gun fire without a real understanding that this war was going nowhere, despite huge casualties. Aw with the previous episodes, we are exposed to the carnage of the poor young men. This was brought about by male egos (and testosterone) and inability to truly evaluate this war. Johnson's trust in his avisers was a huge mistake.
The Vietnam War (TV Mini Series)
Resolve (January 1966-June 1967) (2017)
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"Whoa, what the hell is going on here?" - Marine and Vietnam Vet Bill Ehrhart
classicsoncall3 December 2017
Warning: Spoilers
By the beginning of 1966, President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara couldn't understand how competent military officers who served in World War II and Korea couldn't make sense of what was going on in Vietnam. With two hundred thousand soldiers on the ground, there was very little progress being made, while more and more Americans began questioning our involvement on the other side of the world. Causing Johnson even more dread, Senator J. William Fulbright was about to begin televised hearings on Vietnam in Congress via the Foreign Relations Committee.
By mid 1966, the military draft began to impact the middle class of America. Even so, more than half of the twenty seven million men who reached the age of eighteen during the war managed to avoid service through exemptions and deferments, and with the advantage of hindsight and archival photographs, we are witness to future Presidents Bill Clinton (deferment) and George Bush (National Guard) who managed to avoid the war.
With this and the prior episode, the series breaks somewhat from a traditional documentary approach and introduces the viewer to former combatants in the war relating their perspectives on what was happening on the ground in Vietnam. They explain for example, some of the frustrations soldiers experienced in a war where there was essentially no ground to win, and the only measure of success was reduced to a body count of the enemy. With three million Vietnamese left homeless due to search and destroy missions leveled against the Viet Cong, it wasn't long before it began to dawn on American soldiers that the Vietnamese didn't want us there.
Back home, the anti-war movement was growing in numbers and militancy. Through steady escalation of the war and attempted face saving resolve to secure some semblance of success and victory, the number of American troops in Vietnam by mid 1967 totaled a half million. As a high school student about to graduate in another year or so, my own personal opinion of the war was gradually changing from one of support for the war to one of opposition, while not fully knowing if everything the American people were being told about the war was true or not. Turns out it wasn't.
By mid 1966, the military draft began to impact the middle class of America. Even so, more than half of the twenty seven million men who reached the age of eighteen during the war managed to avoid service through exemptions and deferments, and with the advantage of hindsight and archival photographs, we are witness to future Presidents Bill Clinton (deferment) and George Bush (National Guard) who managed to avoid the war.
With this and the prior episode, the series breaks somewhat from a traditional documentary approach and introduces the viewer to former combatants in the war relating their perspectives on what was happening on the ground in Vietnam. They explain for example, some of the frustrations soldiers experienced in a war where there was essentially no ground to win, and the only measure of success was reduced to a body count of the enemy. With three million Vietnamese left homeless due to search and destroy missions leveled against the Viet Cong, it wasn't long before it began to dawn on American soldiers that the Vietnamese didn't want us there.
Back home, the anti-war movement was growing in numbers and militancy. Through steady escalation of the war and attempted face saving resolve to secure some semblance of success and victory, the number of American troops in Vietnam by mid 1967 totaled a half million. As a high school student about to graduate in another year or so, my own personal opinion of the war was gradually changing from one of support for the war to one of opposition, while not fully knowing if everything the American people were being told about the war was true or not. Turns out it wasn't.
You can't fool all of 'em all of the time
cordenw28 September 2017
Now we're seeing the true strength of the American political system,
I denigrated all of the big shots so far and rightly so. Those in power didn't listen to their privileged advisors and now they're going to have to listen to the people.
Getting them to listen is a tough row to hoe, with every trick in the book used to discredit the protesters and academics.
The wonderful system of democracy and the elasticity of the constitution was stretched to its limit by the movement to get the nation out of this murderous, hopeless war.
Eventually it withstood that particular test.
It should be easy to force a policy reversal when almost every single person in the country wanted that reversal.
Think again!
We see the attitude of the authorities in the early days of protest where the anti war side were beaten up, arrested or battered with water cannons.There was no way they were going to let the people decide how things were going to be run.
Only after the protests moved to the campuses and entertainers got involved did this thing gain heavy momentum, and even then it was still like running water uphill.
That the protesters broke the resolve of the Administration is a tribute to that Constitution and to the most important part, which is "Government by the consent of the People"
Of course it has its flaws in that any bunch of people with a birdbrained cause can now get up and demand special treatment.
That's not a bad price to pay when you know as a citizen that you can eventually stop your Government from carrying on unpopular actions.
It would be a mistake to make such a thing easy, because every single move a Government makes would be in jeopardy if it was. But it's nice to know it's always in your back pocket.
As I write this it's a bit of a jolt to realize that I'm sitting in an armchair saying , cudda, wudda shudda.
I wasn't there so I really have no right to pass judgement. The good thing about this documentary is that it will serve as a reminder that the entire society ran under a different set of rules back then. The rules can change and yet the Constitution can handle the changes. Bravo again Mr Burns and the crew!
I denigrated all of the big shots so far and rightly so. Those in power didn't listen to their privileged advisors and now they're going to have to listen to the people.
Getting them to listen is a tough row to hoe, with every trick in the book used to discredit the protesters and academics.
The wonderful system of democracy and the elasticity of the constitution was stretched to its limit by the movement to get the nation out of this murderous, hopeless war.
Eventually it withstood that particular test.
It should be easy to force a policy reversal when almost every single person in the country wanted that reversal.
Think again!
We see the attitude of the authorities in the early days of protest where the anti war side were beaten up, arrested or battered with water cannons.There was no way they were going to let the people decide how things were going to be run.
Only after the protests moved to the campuses and entertainers got involved did this thing gain heavy momentum, and even then it was still like running water uphill.
That the protesters broke the resolve of the Administration is a tribute to that Constitution and to the most important part, which is "Government by the consent of the People"
Of course it has its flaws in that any bunch of people with a birdbrained cause can now get up and demand special treatment.
That's not a bad price to pay when you know as a citizen that you can eventually stop your Government from carrying on unpopular actions.
It would be a mistake to make such a thing easy, because every single move a Government makes would be in jeopardy if it was. But it's nice to know it's always in your back pocket.
As I write this it's a bit of a jolt to realize that I'm sitting in an armchair saying , cudda, wudda shudda.
I wasn't there so I really have no right to pass judgement. The good thing about this documentary is that it will serve as a reminder that the entire society ran under a different set of rules back then. The rules can change and yet the Constitution can handle the changes. Bravo again Mr Burns and the crew!
Resolve (January 1966-June 1967)
Prismark1014 October 2017
This episode is again inter cut with Denton Crocker's Jr mother talking to the camera about some letters she received from her son fighting in Vietnam.
You can sense the troubled pessimistic tone in them. Denton was more forthcoming to a letter he sent to a friend where he admitted his nerves were shot to pieces.
As suspected in the previous episode Denton was killed in Vietnam, his mother recounts seeing two uniformed messengers walking up her road.
Episode 4 underlines that the majority of Americans, young and old supported the war but fault lines were appearing. Anti war protesters and divisions were intensifying.
The rich and privileged were avoiding the draft, the poor and the black were being drafted. We saw familiar scenes of Muhammad Ali speaking out against being drafted and Martin Luther King taking the enormous decision given LBJs record on civil rights to take part in an anti war rally.
Despite LBJs regular doubts, his advisers remained confident even if the South Vietnamese leadership were a liability causing a rift between the generals as well as the South Vietnamese people. One soldier remarked that at one side they were fighting North Vietnam and on the side the South Vietnamese were fighting among themselves.
Robert McNamara was always outwardly confident but privately he harboured doubts. Operation Rolling Thunder was an initiative to bombard the North Vietnamese with constant bombings.
Still the North Vietnamese were having successes with their ambushes, the military and the politicians had to spin negative stories ever more. The press and even the soldiers realised the truth was not always being told.
Another riveting episode, more distressing was hearing from airman Alvarez, one of the first US servicemen to be shot down and held captive. He thought he might be a prisoner for a few years, it turned out to be over 8 years which included constant torture.
You can sense the troubled pessimistic tone in them. Denton was more forthcoming to a letter he sent to a friend where he admitted his nerves were shot to pieces.
As suspected in the previous episode Denton was killed in Vietnam, his mother recounts seeing two uniformed messengers walking up her road.
Episode 4 underlines that the majority of Americans, young and old supported the war but fault lines were appearing. Anti war protesters and divisions were intensifying.
The rich and privileged were avoiding the draft, the poor and the black were being drafted. We saw familiar scenes of Muhammad Ali speaking out against being drafted and Martin Luther King taking the enormous decision given LBJs record on civil rights to take part in an anti war rally.
Despite LBJs regular doubts, his advisers remained confident even if the South Vietnamese leadership were a liability causing a rift between the generals as well as the South Vietnamese people. One soldier remarked that at one side they were fighting North Vietnam and on the side the South Vietnamese were fighting among themselves.
Robert McNamara was always outwardly confident but privately he harboured doubts. Operation Rolling Thunder was an initiative to bombard the North Vietnamese with constant bombings.
Still the North Vietnamese were having successes with their ambushes, the military and the politicians had to spin negative stories ever more. The press and even the soldiers realised the truth was not always being told.
Another riveting episode, more distressing was hearing from airman Alvarez, one of the first US servicemen to be shot down and held captive. He thought he might be a prisoner for a few years, it turned out to be over 8 years which included constant torture.
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