The Vietnam War was a decade of agony … Vietnam seemed to call everything into question. ibid.
Those who lived throughout it have never been able to erase its memory. ibid.
‘The French attacked and seized our country in the middle of the 19th century. The invasion was bloody and cruel.’ ibid. Bao Ninh, North Vietnamese army
Ho Chi Minh was born in 1890 the son of a minor official in the French regime. ibid.
But the country Ho Chi Minh hoped to unite was itself bitterly divided. ibid.
France poured thousands of men into Vietnam. ibid.
The United States was no longer neutral. ibid.
The French government begged president Eisenhower to intervene. ibid.
An election everyone knew Ho Chi Mihn would win. ibid.
Diem [South] had imprisoned tens of thousands of citizens without trials and ordered the executions of hundreds more. ibid.
In North Vietnam, unbeknowst to Washington, Ho Chi Mihn, the father of Vietnamese independence, was now sharing power with a more aggressive leader, Le Duan, who was even more impatient to unify his country. Ken Burns & Lynn Novick, The Vietnamese War II: Riding the Tiger (1961-1963)
In South Vietnam Kennedy felt he had to act. ibid.
A whole array of chemicals was used. ibid.
As the people’s anger grew, so did the ranks of the Viet Cong. ibid.
‘The more you think about the American strategy the more you know that it was never going to work out particularly well.’ ibid. Tom Vallely, Marine
‘We don’t have a prayer of staying in Vietnam. These people hate us. But I can’t give up a piece of territory like that to the communists and then get the people to re-elect me.’ ibid. Kennedy to friend
‘A Buddhist monk becomes a martyr.’ Soon other monks would become martyrs. ibid. monk’s chant
When college students protested in support of the monks Diem closed Vietnam’s universities. ibid.
On November 1st 1963 troops loyal to the plotters seized key installations in Saigon and demanded Dien and Nhu surrender. ibid.
‘I just stayed awake last night thinking about this thing. 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 …’ Ken Burns & Lynn Novick, The Vietnam War III: The River Styx (January 1964 – December 1965), LBJ
An estimated 40% of the South Vietnamese countryside and more than 50% of the people were effectively in the hands of the Viet Cong. ibid.
Le Duan believed it was time to move quickly in 1964. ibid.
For the first time American pilots were going to drop bombs on North Vietnam. ibid.
On March 2nd 1965 the United States began a systematic bombardment of targets in North Vietnam codenamed Operation Rolling Thunder. ibid.
In March of 1965 Johnson finally took the action he had managed to avoid for so long: he was putting American ground troops into Vietnam. ibid.
‘There ain’t no daylight in Vietnam.’ ibid. LBJ
More than 200 journalists and photographers would die. ibid.
‘The day’s operation burned down 150 houses, wounded 3 women, killed 1 baby …’ ibid. reporter
‘You can’t expect to do your job and feel pity for these people.’ ibid. grunt
As they continued to escalate the war Johnson and McNamara were frustrated that American commanders in Vietnam, who had come of age during World War II and Korea, had a hard time of making sense of what was happening on the ground. Ken Burns & Lynn Novick, The Vietnam War IV: Resolve (January 1966 – June 1967)
America’s most important allies – Britain, France and Canada – refused to take part and were calling instead for peace talks. ibid.
‘We were all the same – we were all working class and poor and we all wanted to be marines real bad.’ ibid. soldier
And blew the hamlets to bits … would drive more than 100,000 civilians from their homes … More than 3,000,000 homeless people right across the country. ibid.
‘The war by 1966 began to impact the middle class.’ ibid. Bill Zimmerman
Reservists and guardsmen were almost always white … An army heavily skewed toward minorities and the under-privileged. ibid.
The South Vietnamese army seemed to be at war with itself. ibid.
The North Vietnamese took pride in capturing American airmen. ibid.
‘A time comes when silence is betrayal.’ ibid. Martin Luther King
‘You adapt to killing and dying … This is war; this is what we do.’ Ken Burns & Lynn Novick, The Vietnam War V: This is What We Do (July 1967 – December 1967), marine
In the summer of 1967 the men overseeing the war in Vietnam remained outwardly optimistic whatever private doubts they may have held. ibid.
President Johnson had been forced to raise taxes to meet the War’s ever climbing costs. ibid.
Racial unrest would grip American cities. ibid.
Tiger Force: They killed scores of unarmed civilians … but no charges were ever brought. ibid.
All through the Fall of 1967 the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong continued their series of border battles in preparation for their surprise offensive still months away. ibid.
‘There was no reason to take that hill … We accomplished nothing.’ ibid. grunt
Vietnam was the first real helicopter war. Helicopter pilots flew more than 36 million sorties. Their crews scattered propaganda leaflets over the enemy and poured lethal fire into their positions. Carried troops and supplies and artillery into battle, and lifted the wounded off the battlefield so swiftly that most reached a field hospital within 15 minutes. Ken Burns & Lynn Novich, The Vietnam War VI: Things Fall Apart (January 1968 – June 1968)
1968 would prove to be a watershed year in the history of the Vietnam war and the world … American leaders promised that victory was finally in sight, that there really was light at the end of the tunnel. ibid.
January 31st 1968: 84,000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops attacked 36 of South Vietnam’s 44 provincial capitals … ‘To crack the sky and shake the earth.’ ibid.
All over Saigon nothing was going according to plan. ibid.
‘There’s blood on my pants; I guess I’m hit.’ ibid. reporter
‘I have no idea why the communists believed that when their forces advanced people would rise up.’ ibid. Pham Duy Tat, South Vietnamese army
‘To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe in the face of the evidence the optimists who have been wrong in the past.’ ibid. Walter Cronkite
Fires came within two blocks of the White House. ibid.
The world seemed to be coming apart. ibid.
By June of 1968 the spirit of revolution over the Vietnam War, over injustice, over human rights, seemed to have spread everywhere. The pressure to bring an end to the War was building. President Lyndon Johnson had already decided not to run again. Ken Burns & Lynn Novich, The Vietnam War VII: Chasing Ghosts (June 1968 – May 1969)
The war against the War intensified back home pitting classes and generations against one another. ibid.
The Saigon regime was still there and the US planes were still bombing. It was obvious the radio wasn’t telling the truth. ibid.
‘A Democratic convention is about to begin in a police state.’ ibid. Walter Cronkite
It suddenly looked as if peace were possible. ibid.
Nixon was lying and Johnson knew it. ibid.
Cholera and Typhoid killed thousands. ibid.
The army inspector-general would eventually admit that more than half of the 11,000 kills by the ninth infantry had been unarmed innocent civilians: no-one was ever held accountable. ibid.
‘I chased somebody into a tunnel … We had a wrestling match in the dark and I got the upper hand and crushed this person’s trachia … The other casualty was the civilised version of me.’ Ken Burns & Lynn Novich, The Vietnam War VIII: Sea of Fire (April 1969 – May 1970), James Gillam
Nixon knew that military victory was impossible. ibid.
As American soldiers began leaving South Vietnam, American weaponry and material poured in. ibid.
African-Americans … suffered a disproportionate number of combat deaths … Africa-American soldiers were still treated differently from their white counterparts. ibid.