For reasons I've never really understood, the 60s were a great decade for many people, despite many bad things happening throughout it. There are too many to list, such as the assassination of President Kennedy, psychoactive drugs going mainstream, and the struggles of the civil rights movement. However, one event hangs over the decade and gives a macabre feeling to the entire thing: Vietnam. While America never declared war on this country, the conflict fought there would eventually kill over 40 thousand americans, over a million vietnamese combatants, and tear the US apart as protest after protest echoed throughout the country. This documentary, produced by John Ford and narrated by Charlton Heston, goes over the situation in vietnam as of the early 70s (when america was deciding to reduce its involvement in the country), but isn't really specific enough to interest those wanting to know more about the conflict. The film says how the vietnam war (from vietnam's perspective) was a civil war that america got involved in. The communist north's objective was to unify the entire country under a socialist government led by the communist revolutionary, Ho Chi Minh. The south's goal was to simply be left alone, but they weren't. Even when america, Australia, Taiwan, and all the other countries aiding the south pulled out, the fighting did not stop. If america wanted to, it could have easily annihilated the entire north at the push of a button, but doing that would bring america into direct confrontation with China; north vietnam's primary ally. Over a decade earlier, the chinese had provided the north with the training and weapons necessary to fight a guerrilla war against vietnam's militarily superior French colonial owners. They would continue supplying them with millions of bullets, thousands of guns and vehicles, radios, and whatever else they needed to fight the united states. Before getting involved in the ground war in vietnam, america attacked the north from the air. Many pilots were shot down and sent to brutal prison camps, the most notorious of which was known mockingly as the Hanoi Hilton. Prisoners in these camps would often be beaten or starved for refusing to say a statement against america, condemning it for its position in the war. Wives of servicemen appeal directly to north vietnam and visit their embassy in search of answers. Politically, the war is also a disaster for the us. Many politicians are in agreement that the war needs to end as fast as possible so that a peaceful resolution can be reached, but attempts to scale down the fighting sometimes just result in more violence, such as Nixon's decision to invade neighboring Cambodia in 1970. Still, many soldiers think america has a right to be in vietnam and they're doing the correct thing by trying to halt communism in its tracks. After witnessing many anti-war demonstrations, people come to realize the war in vietnam is really nothing like World War 2, as the participants in the latter were fighting for a worthy cause against Nazism. Plenty of leftists around the world didn't regard america bombing a poor, agricultural nation into submission as a "good war." The film ends by saying how with america's influence in vietnam starting to dwindle, it is soon going to be up to the south vietnamese themselves to achieve their freedom. Unfortunately, this would never happen and the war would end with the communist north victorious in 1975. The film was ok. It's not on the same quality I'm used to seeing when it comes to John Ford, but it does at least show footage relating to vietnam I never saw before. It doesn't explain the origins of the war (and because it was made before it ended) it's not an overview either. Due to this, it's more of a curiosity than anything else, as nothing can really measure up to what Ken Burns made about the vietnam war. I still thought this was worth writing about, but don't expect it to be that in depth, especially if you're used to complex documentaries.
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