Ken Burns: How Vietnam War sowed the seeds of a divided America

[turbinetree]

Ken Burns surveyed the audience at the Kennedy Center in Washington and asked that anyone who served in the Vietnam war stand up. To prolonged applause dozens rose, among them Senator John McCain and former secretary of state John Kerry.

Then Burns asked everyone who had protested against the war to stand up too. Veterans including McCain joined the applause as they did so.

Then, spontaneously, some members of the two groups reached across the stalls and shook hands. Burns said he “couldn’t tell the difference” between them and expressed hope that this is how reconciliation begins.

“I thought that was kind of nice,” said Jim Greene, 72, who went to Vietnam in 1966 as a tank commander in the 2nd marine division. “Time heals most wounds.”

The gathering last Tuesday night went on to watch a 45-minute preview of The Vietnam War, a 10-part, 18-hour documentary about what Burns and his co-director Lynn Novick call the most important event in American history since the second world war.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/16/ken-burns-vietnam-war-documentary-john-mccain

I was a protester and proud of this fact..................

[Achilleaze]

1. .

[Pantagruel]

2. Graduated HS in 1965

I went on to college, many friends went off willingly and unwillingly to war. By 1969, most (some never returned) that served in VN were back and radicalized against the war. Only liars and scoundrels continued to support that insanity by the late 60's.

[Cirque du So-What]

3. Graduated HS in 1972

I was living in Dogpatch USA, so I wasn't in proximity to protest beyond network news & my Jefferson Airplane albums. Growing up with images from that horrendous war spilling from the TV every evening filled me with a sense of inevitability that I would get swept up into that war. I did not, however, although I enlisted in the US Navy in 1973 - partially as a means of 'inoculation' against being drafted into a future conflict on terms other than my own.

Although I didn't participate in protests, which just didn't happen where I lived, I saw a great number of older near-peers return home; some didn't survive, and some took their own lives after getting back. All were changed to varying degrees and, over time, it became clear that a divide was developing - even in my far-from-metropolitan locale.

[Archae]

4. I graduated in 1978, but was still happy when our involvement in Vietnam ended.

It had gone on for so long, I was afraid I'd get drafted and sent there too.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. I was a protester too,

starting in 1969, after my brother had been sent there.
4 years after my husband had returned from there.

He did not not take it well.

[LeftInTX]

6. Dinner table fights...

My dad was career military, he went there in 1966, when I was 10.

We constantly argued about it in the 70s.
He was against the US pulling out.