When I heard Ken Burns, rock star of documentary film, was releasing a new PBS documentary, I was, of course, excited. When I heard the subject was Vietnam, I was a little confused. PBS already did a 10-hour documentary back in ‘89 through the series “The American Experience, a Television History.” After watching the Burns’ film, though, I have to admit that, although the doc makers did use many of the same interviewees, they did also manage to explore some unique themes, and it’s worth watching. The reason I bring this up, though, is not to do a review of Burns’ new doc, but because, after watching two entire documentary series back to back, it hit me that something specific was missing. The war from the military and political standpoints is discussed in detail in both PBS docs. The protests and counter-protests are shown in all their passion and anger and fear. The lives of the individual Vietnamese, both North and South, are examined and are full of emotion and pain. Occasionally, you’ll see a clip from a reporter in the U.S. who stops someone on the street to ask their opinion, and these same reporters did their reporting on paper, film, and radio, and these headlines are flashed across the screen as you watch the documentaries. The thought that crept into my mind is that, after all my study and all my watching, I do not have a good idea what my fellow Mississippians thought about the war, and I have almost NO idea how those thoughts changed as the war progressed. I realized I could go back and read the Senate and House Journals of the day and try to mine the politicians’ thoughts, but that’s not what I wanted. I wanted to hear from people with at least half a brain, and who care enough to share their thoughts in public, so Historical Beast went down to the campus library and talked with a reference librarian who also happens to be my brother in-law. Credit to Ben VanHorn for all his help and his wonderful idea. I pulled the microfilm from the Jackson, MS newspaper of record, the Clarion-Ledger, from 1961-1975 and went through the letters to the editor, known as “The People’s Voice” section of the paper. I thought, first of all, I’ll get a good sense of how people felt, people who cared enough to write in, but also people who pay attention to the news, and also whose material was thought worthy of the Editorial Page. Thus, some of my vetting had been done for me. I get a bonus benefit in getting to glance through the editorial headlines as well.
I suppose any time you go that far back and read what people were thinking, it will always be interesting, but what I found was disappointing, funny, sad, impressive, and surprising. First let me say that, all through the 1960s, by far and away the primary topic in these letters was race. As far as I can tell by the topic, tone, and tenor of these letters, they were all written by whites. The latter fact never changes, as far as I can tell, but the former does. It’s almost as if the change in decade was a chance to start over. I live in this state, so I’m well aware racism hasn’t gone away, but its frequency on the editorial page did in 1970. This issue of race is important to our story, because the first reference I found to Vietnam or Communism is on October 5, 1961, in a letter from Mrs. J. H. O’Kelly of Purvis, MS. She says that “Jack and Bobby” are too busy “cementing to them the vote of the Negro to assure them White House victory as long as either shall live or until Communism publicly takes over in Washington.” I thought it enlightening to find that Mrs. O’Kelly’s fear of Communist aggression wasn’t off in some jungle in Indochina, but was in the Kennedy Justice Department in Washington. All through this time period I examined, the Editors themselves talk more and more about the war, but the letters to these Editors never change. Of the 300 or so letters I combed through, not one of them specifically comment on the rightness or wrongness of the handling of the war in Vietnam. With the release of this new documentary by Burns, we are reminded of the importance of the war, and the seismic change that occurred. There is most certainly a pre-Vietnam America and a post. However, this lowly historian/correspondent discovered that an examination of what was on people’s minds during the Vietnam era may reveal that, at that time, Americans had a lot of other priorities. Perhaps it’s our need today to justify mistakes we made in Vietnam or understand the extreme loss of life that keeps documentaries like these popular. And perhaps this is having the effect of keeping us divided. Perhaps we should just move on.
“Bentley! Bentley. I suggest…I suggest that you do something different with your life right now.” This instruction was delivered by my boss (at the time) to his unruly Huskie, but it might as well have been given to my entire generation.
As always, the day had given way to night and my mind had wrestled with itself long enough. I needed sanctuary, strong drink and a blank expression with which to watch the news on screens behind the heads of the locals. With the mind of a fried pie I careened my car down a thoroughfare of an unincorporated town in West Virginia, roughly sixty miles from Washington D.C.
“Babylon,” I came to call D.C. as a Sailor stationed in Bethesda, which was appropriate enough that no one cares to question the nickname. It was by a sense of awe, despair, disgust and reverence that I came by it the hard way some years ago.
The Christmas lights around Arlington had shone brightly on my most sentimental evening, awash with history and the sort of romance that saw my Army counterpart’s cheek against mine, her words in my ear accompanied by my kiss on her neck.
Then, the other shoe dropped and zang! I’m departing the parking garage of Target near P.F. Chang’s, a sudden desperate attempt to keep a fellow servicemember alive and out of trouble, and barely having arrived in Rockville, Maryland, found myself in the company of a remarkable amount of police officers. While all was eventually sorted out (one way or another), I did discover that being handcuffed, face down on the pavement amidst a soft rain gave me an amazing opportunity to learn and reevaluate the nonsense I’d allowed a foothold in my life. “Teachable moments,” I’ve come to call such events with a wince oft confused for a smile, and rightfully so.
“It’s an acquired taste.”
Let no good deed go unpunished.
“It was all downhill from there,” I uttered to my glass and coaster on the bar, awaiting another potent haul of ethanol. “Or is it, ‘down on the bed’ from there? Not nearly as catchy.” The general uproar that passed for ambience as karaoke loomed large made my private social commentaries a non-factor.
“Hell,” I continued, mulling over the equal parts glory and horror of yesteryear, “if I was a woman they’d’ve labeled me a slut.” This was most certainly true, as I had responded to the eventual collapse of the genuine, heartmelting romance that blossomed in Arlington by carousing. I went on to live up to the archetype of heathen in the Navy, only I hadn’t needed a new port. D.C. had an endless supply of trysts for me to temporarily bind the wound of heartbreak with. I had largely imploded things with she myself, but damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead, aye?
“Aye, got it!” I said, louder than intended as my libation arrived. Few noticed, none cared. But I digress.
Every single horror of the corruption of public life crept its way into Walter Reed the two years I’d been there as the primary Army and Navy hospitals merged there in Maryland. It was a handful of miles from the epicenter of our Federal Republic, our Representative Democracy. Whatever label you prefer, the genuine, tender romance and the unnecessary legal crucible were equal parts of the same story.
So it was yesterday and is today and will be tomorrow. Wars and rumors of wars will abound along with the usual ugliness, while the bountiful opportunities, resplendence, and monuments sacred to America and Her Republic will ring hollow for any looking for that chapter. However, for those with a soul not set for self-destruct, there was the beauty and elegance and love that I discovered in Babylon. For my part, I vacillated between the cauldron of brutality and the essence of hallowed humanity.
Lucifer and a third of his fellow angels rebelled (at least in part) over the perception that God valued something fashioned from dirt over them; we hamstrung ourselves with our humanity during that time (2011-2013) in Bethesda, both our frailties and our strengths.
Did we make the case against humanity with our failures? I’m not so sure. The defeatism and Apocalypticism of the admittedly conflicted era that was the “new” Walter Reed circa 2011-2013 stands apart from now in several ways. Without the deflating drudgery of rattling them all off, at the very least one could look their friends and enemies in the eye. Betrayal and intrigue might be lurking around the next corner (per the modus operandi of Babylon and the government circuit as a whole) but those seeming eons ago politics was still the art of compromise. Then-POTUS Obama (D-IL) and then-House Speaker Boehner (R-OH) can hardly be soberly accused of engaging in the politics of blood sport we’ve now.
Now? Depending on their background, looking one’s enemies and/or friends in the eye might get you flagged on any number of social media platforms and could very well get you labeled with some sort of “-ism”, as one type of “-ist” or another. A whole decade ago Section 230 was applied within the spirit of its creation, lending the happenings online a sort of Wild West vibe when juxtaposed to the great cosmic gag-reel taking place now.
“What is Section 230?” one might ask. This, too, is a well-placed and unscripted question, but it makes little difference when Louis Farrakhan can spit his vile verbal excrement at hapless passerby on social media, but not Donald Trump. No, indeed. Hardly an avid defender of the former POTUS, I nonetheless present our Federal support and protections for our Silicon Valley overlords as Exhibit A for the how/why (either/and/or) the Federal Communications Commission has adequate pretext to cry foul. This is tantamount to “collateral censorship”, or censorship by proxy. That’s the biggest item George Orwell didn’t foresee in my favorite novel, “1984”: private enterprise conducting the censorship, and not the state itself.
Since I’ve likely lost anyone who hates The Donald for my defending his First Amendment rights, I might as well toss a grenade in this burgeoning dumpster fire. Wouldn’t Joe Manchin lead off that way?
“The wind only blows sometimes.” “He’s exactly right!”
While hardly the binary option both the Communists of the Far Left and the Fascists of the Far Right want all the Sheeple to give an “Amen!” and believe, the conflict between being a John Locke liberal in favor of largely laissez-faire capitalism (not the crony kind) with a strong, (but) limited Federal government and in wanting a respectable return on our investment in Section 230 protections granted Silicon Valley (and company), it is amusing on a perverse level.
“Afterall,” I told myself, “everyone hates a centrist, so you might as well enjoy it, Jack. The good news is, only White elitists are storming off after closing your column a few paragraphs back. They can kick rocks. There’s surely a Mother Jones article or athletic mutant defecating on the very flag that enables their miserable existence out there, somewhere, that they can flee to. Still miserable, but they showed me! No First Amendment for the people who make us think and shit.”
It was only at the end of this paragraph that I realized I wasn’t just thinking this as I tapped it into a note on my phone for later insertion into this very diatribe. I was muttering much of it out loud.
“Ignore the madness of a world that has made this swashbuckler appear normal. Ignore the celebutante-rejects aghast at those not absorbed in Chinese spyware ‘social’ apps available on any mainstream App Store.”
And why not? Afterall, the Communists now want the populace to swallow the latest swill their Thought Police have puked out, and nod slowly, basking in the wisdom of the notion that Black children being taught mathematics is racist. Conversely, the Fascists want the citizenry at-large to embrace their latest, unintelligible Reductio Ad Absurdum that beating cops to a pulp while shouting racist terms at the non-White officers is okay as long as they’re patriots. Thin Blue Line and all. “Thin Blue Line”, you ingrates? Put the straw down.
“In God We Trust.” Mhmm.
“Dear God Almighty,” I mumbled into my Long Island Iced Tea, nearly gone due to the urgent need to anesthetize myself. No reply, and not because He wants us to forget He exists, but because it’s the pizza we ordered, and it has arrived with all the trappings. Whose fault is that?
The lunacy in the former example is in those on the Far Left who by proxy think the Black intellect is so dormant, psyche so timid, that there need be no Black doctors, economists, engineers, et cetera, in the future. Mathematics is a rather integral part of the process of those career paths. Who’s holding who back with racist ideology again, exactly?
The madness in the latter example is at least as vivid and particularly poignant from people on the Far Right who think cops can do no wrong. You say The Filth went too far in Example X? “I say they didn’t go too far enough!” some neo-Successionist will bleat with the fervor of a patriot, by God. Just a patriot to another country, and not this one. But why quibble about it? Sure, seems reasonable enough to pass muster on “Squidbillies.”
Imitation being the highest form of flattery, the method to the unorthodoxy of this publication has never been less necessary. Both extremes in the sadly binary world of Castro and Mussolini neophytes demand the long-term vision, the sort of engaging in politics (again, “The Art of Compromise”) as a year-round endeavor that there is no app or “hack” for. The marathon, not the sprint, is what is at hand. I’d rather flatter the Edward Brooke III, the Alexander Hamilton, the Barbra Streisand, the Hunter S. Thompson and even the Master Shake with imitation than embrace the intellectual suicide of either Irredeemable America or Exceptional American Unilateralism.
Whichever clown car takes the stage from either extremist wing of discourse, they both will assure us that we’d feel so much better if only we’d embrace their brand of groupthink. Tsk, tsk, I know, but such is the rot of the putrescence we’ve inexplicably opted to wallow in.
“Soylent Green is people.”
What both teams of malcontents mean is we’ll feel much better carrying all of our favorite shows with us on all of our devices as they continue embezzling and funneling money to the duopoly in Babylon. The royalty on Capitol Hill will then reward our wholehearted faith with continued malignant governance and further insolvency on every level (social, fiscal, geopolitical, et al).
“Who knows?” I mumbled with a shrug. “With any luck, the dead will walk again and we’ll have an existential reason to disallow the Neanderthals in Congress from fucking the same coconut over and over while saying they’re carrying out the people’s business. All, naturally, with a straight face. And pursed lips. Can’t forget the ‘duck face.’ Gotta meet my fellow Millennials halfway.”
“You say something, Hun?”
The bartender had taken notice of my glass being devoid of strong drink, and grew concerned. Animals entering sexual congress with fruit, however, passed muster.
‘Of course it did,’ I thought, but could only reply with a low rasp as I exited my barstool.
And on the 8th day, God made bears. Lots and lots of bears.
Does this era need introduction? Or, rather, may a suitable introduction be written? I report, you deride.
1: In any rational era, the sudden appearance of lurid photographs of well-known public figures tends to happen without the consent of those captured in the images. Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Anthony Weiner, et al. Notable exceptions to this are of the celebutante variety who sport last names such as Hilton and Kardashian, but then, their deliberate release of self-incriminating material isn’t indicative of a rational era.
That there’s a Stairway to Heaven but a Highway to Hell is indicative of expected traffic volume.
The great Jerry Falwell, Jr., well his undeniable greatness as an Evangelical Christian minister and university president is so ineffable, so vast, that he was no longer able to be confined by any notion of modern decency. If that’s still a thing, that is. Either way, the photograph posted containing the erstwhile head of Liberty University (and descendent of the late and decent Jerry Falwell) is disturbing on several counts. Let’s take a look:
Now, I’m not sure if it’s the ghastly attempt at humor (yeah, “black water”, haw haw haw!), the self-caricature of the gut and the unzipped pants combined with the awful rug on his counterpart (who is not his wife, for those keeping score at home), the fact that students of said Evangelical university get expelled for drinking and/or extra-marital sexual encounters, or that this wasn’t a leak at all that makes this such a disgrace. He could’ve just said it was a faux Black Dog in his glass and been done with it.
The man (so-called) “leaked” it via his own social media aperture, and then delivered a truly abysmal mockery of an apology on-air, and I quote: “I’ve promised my kids I’m going to try to be…I’m gonna try to be a good boy from here on out.” Rock and Roll, Jerry!
Oh and Mrs. Falwell, when your marriage does end, remember: you [expletive deleted] your rebound, and that’s it. You don’t permanently abscond from reality and keep [expletive deleted] them long-term and/or marry them. Especially, I might add, if you plucked them from the extras of “The Walking Dead.”
Silly me. But seriously, though: booze and Evangelicals and social media shouldn’t mix.
2: At times, the headlines write themselves. In their own attempt to swing loose with reality, as it were, Iran has a fabricated aircraft carrier resembling one of those wielded by the United States Navy. “Why”, you ask? An entirely unscripted and well-placed question. For their own propaganda purposes that is, until the entire experiment blew up in their faces. Living out their own version of “delirium tremens”, Iran was so successful in this charade that their accidental destruction of a prop US Navy aircraft carrier poses a threat to a major thoroughfare in the oil trade. Posing an existential threat to traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, and things apparently unbeknownst to Iran such as tides can shift the wreckage, endangering oil tankers.
Give the Ayatollah our best. Speaking of “the best”, if you’re going to challenge the world’s preeminent naval power, you’d better come correct. The Battle of Evermore this is not.
3: Biden must face Trump in debate(s). Yes, it’s answering a “double dog dare” from the POTUS and no, you don’t want to give in to the whims of a bully. But if you don’t follow through then it looks like you’re hiding in a basement and afraid to face Donald J. Trump on the stage. What’s the worst that could happen? They then “triple dog dare” one another to a lindy hop dance-off to the “Misty Mountain Hop” or hand out four sticks (one to both members of each ticket) to swing with? Why would you be afraid of that if you’re in the Biden camp unless, per the Trump camp’s assertions, the former Vice President will be unable to remember whether he’s going to California, or another, “y’know, the thing” that the Founding Fathers said? The great equalizer is the human ego. They’ll debate.
This is an event waiting to go wrong. Don’t hang out with bears. [image credit to Daily Caller & Barstool Sports]4: Meanwhile, the National Park Service has posted a warning urging American adventurers not to confront bears but, if they do, to not take advantage of their slower companions. And no, this is not made up. Nor is the response of a pack of humans, recently, to a bear arriving in their midst. They didn’t flee or otherwise attempt to discourage the bear; instead they took pictures of their merry band whilst feeding the bear. Good call, ‘Murica.
5: Bill Barr’s appearance was a disgrace for everyone except the Attorney General. For committee chairman Nadler, to open the hearing with that statement was an outrage; and Jordan, thanks for the monologue on things that happened before Barr was back on the job and for God’s sake put your damn coat on!
6: Stat of the Week: the POTUS’ campaign is knocking on 1 million doors a week; the former VPOTUS’ camp is knocking on 0. As in ZERO. Z-E-R-O. This sort of nonsense only seems like nonsenseuntil the time when the levee breaks. Underestimate the mad media genius of The Donald at your peril.
Y’know what? Let’s just cancel everything. If everything’s priority one, then nothing is priority one.
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Black Lives Matter: Let’s cut through the fat together, shall we? Yes or yes? Good. With that, we have a problem in America. Several, actually. We live in a police state, for one thing, and for another, paramount now, is said police state taking a particular interest in African Americans.
Let’s also consider the unbelievable, highly-classified powers of FISA courts to spy unopposed on our own people without their knowledge indefinitely, the ability of the Federal government to suspend the Constitutional rights of American citizens suspected of terrorism via the Patriot Act and the inexplicable repeal of the Smith-Mundt Act (which forbade the Federal Government from using propaganda on American soil). Are you drinking what I’m pouring?
With no malice in my heart toward the many fine police officers across the land (a few I’ve known personally), I say again: we live in a police state.
Over the past decade alone, we have seen increasing examples of the use of excessive force on a disproportionate number of black Americans. Data clearly shows that Whites compose 76.5% of America’s citizenry while Blacks make up 13.4% of it, the former were shot to death by police 370 times versus 235 for the latter.
For those who want to bring out FBI data displaying prevalence of crime amongst inner city black neighborhoods, recall the negligible difference in drug use between whites and blacks and the parity in gun culture between the two.
America glorifies violence, and that crosses ethnic lines. Don’t believe me? Look at what I call “Dollar Voting”, in essence, what we value and spend our money on. What does our art and culture reflect? If we’re being real, it ain’t peace. Does hip hop culture lend itself to violence? Listen to the top ten hits of the genre and get back to me; but before you get back to me, let me know what Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Reed and “The Dukes of Hazzard” were all about while you’re at it.
As for the movement itself, “Black Lives Matter” is driving home a simple point: yes, every house in the neighborhood matters but only one of them is on fire.
We hardly need a hashtag for Blue (Police) Lives Matter; they roam about largely unopposed, vested with a badge and lethal weaponry, and we provide a safety net (union, pension, et cetera) and, in general, blanket support to include the high probability that bad actors aren’t held accountable in court.
All Lives Matter? Do they? Maybe I’d be more decisive in answering these questions if every new episode of “Death By Cop” didn’t always star a black man.
– Jack DeViney
*************
New Orleans Police Department preps for ongoing confrontation and protest throughout downtown.
All Lives Matter(?): Two things can be true at once. In fact, very few things in our world are mutually exclusive of themselves. One can, for example, be in favor of the events in the George Floyd case never happening again and find the phrase “Black Lives Matters” offensive. They are not mutually exclusive. Both can be true. This depends on your definitions of words. Words matter. Words have meaning. Facts matter. Facts have meaning.
If by any definition, one is not a racist, but they will not stand shoulder to shoulder with Black Lives Matter signs, or they won’t kneel down in front of a mob of protestors, they become….what? Insensitive? Divisive?
To be true to this point, I believe “All Lives Matter” or “Blue Lives Matter” are equally asinine. We don’t protest on things we agree upon. We don’t stand outside and shout “the sky is blue”!
Are things worse now than the mid-1960’s? Or do we see public discord in 3D now? We report, you deride.
The assertion that a black man can not step from his home without fear of imminent death from a racist ‘Mericuh is as equally preposterous as the media’s “1619” narrative that America is as systemically racist as at any time in our history. Really? Where’s the poll of young, black men asking them if they’d rather live in 1865, 1965 or 2020? I must’ve missed that astute revelation.
Instead of regurgitated statistics that the left/media refuse to acknowledge anyway, how about we come at this from a novel approach. [So] what is your suggestion? I mean, with all of the statistics stating the exact opposite of your point, what are we doing wrong? Are our hiring standards too low? Is training being swept aside to fast-track officers onto beats? Do we provide immunity to officers that is unnecessary and counter-productive? Let’s get to the “nut cutting” as they say.
If we want to turn this into another narrative where the right just refuses to admit there is a substantial issue and is instead hiding behind years of conservative practices…show me! Where are the statistics that support any of this nonsense? That show America is systemically racist and prejudiced against black Americans? Where are the politicians that you are particularly citing as responsible for these aggressions? Or is it just “orange man bad”, with his “basket of deplorables”?
“You’re killing your father, Larry!”
Once again, the left/media have overplayed their hands. We were told millions of Americans would die if we didn’t shut the world down indefinitely. Now if you have a small business and want to re-open smartly so that you don’t lose everything, you’re killing grandma! We were told that if we would just allow LGBT marriages, all examples of bigotry would be history. Now if you’re a Millennial male that won’t go out with a trans-woman (a man by all scientific facts and definitions), you’re a homophobe! And now, if you won’t march to the beat of this drum, well, you’re just a racist. Or worse, an “Uncle Tom.”
It’s tiring. It’s divisive. It’s unnecessary. This issue is one we must agree on, or we don’t have a country. You cannot have law and order if one group is being systematically hunted down and killed by those sworn to protect us.
Facts matter. Statistics matter. Two things can be true at once.
When I heard Ken Burns, rock star of documentary film, was releasing a new PBS documentary, I was, of course, excited. When I heard the subject was Vietnam, I was a little confused. PBS already did a 10-hour documentary back in ‘89 through the series “The American Experience, a Television History.” After watching the Burns’ film, though, I have to admit that, although the doc makers did use many of the same interviewees, they did also manage to explore some unique themes, and it’s worth watching. The reason I bring this up, though, is not to do a review of Burns’ new doc, but because, after watching two entire documentary series back to back, it hit me that something specific was missing. The war from the military and political standpoints is discussed in detail in both PBS docs. The protests and counter-protests are shown in all their passion and anger and fear. The lives of the individual Vietnamese, both North and South, are examined and are full of emotion and pain. Occasionally, you’ll see a clip from a reporter in the U.S. who stops someone on the street to ask their opinion, and these same reporters did their reporting on paper, film, and radio, and these headlines are flashed across the screen as you watch the documentaries. The thought that crept into my mind is that, after all my study and all my watching, I do not have a good idea what my fellow Mississippians thought about the war, and I have almost NO idea how those thoughts changed as the war progressed. I realized I could go back and read the Senate and House Journals of the day and try to mine the politicians’ thoughts, but that’s not what I wanted. I wanted to hear from people with at least half a brain, and who care enough to share their thoughts in public, so Historical Beast went down to the campus library and talked with a reference librarian who also happens to be my brother in-law. Credit to Ben VanHorn for all his help and his wonderful idea. I pulled the microfilm from the Jackson, MS newspaper of record, the Clarion-Ledger, from 1961-1975 and went through the letters to the editor, known as “The People’s Voice” section of the paper. I thought, first of all, I’ll get a good sense of how people felt, people who cared enough to write in, but also people who pay attention to the news, and also whose material was thought worthy of the Editorial Page. Thus, some of my vetting had been done for me. I get a bonus benefit in getting to glance through the editorial headlines as well.
I suppose any time you go that far back and read what people were thinking, it will always be interesting, but what I found was disappointing, funny, sad, impressive, and surprising. First let me say that, all through the 1960s, by far and away the primary topic in these letters was race. As far as I can tell by the topic, tone, and tenor of these letters, they were all written by whites. The latter fact never changes, as far as I can tell, but the former does. It’s almost as if the change in decade was a chance to start over. I live in this state, so I’m well aware racism hasn’t gone away, but its frequency on the editorial page did in 1970. This issue of race is important to our story, because the first reference I found to Vietnam or Communism is on October 5, 1961, in a letter from Mrs. J. H. O’Kelly of Purvis, MS. She says that “Jack and Bobby” are too busy “cementing to them the vote of the Negro to assure them White House victory as long as either shall live or until Communism publicly takes over in Washington.” I thought it enlightening to find that Mrs. O’Kelly’s fear of Communist aggression wasn’t off in some jungle in Indochina, but was in the Kennedy Justice Department in Washington. All through this time period I examined, the Editors themselves talk more and more about the war, but the letters to these Editors never change. Of the 300 or so letters I combed through, not one of them specifically comment on the rightness or wrongness of the handling of the war in Vietnam. With the release of this new documentary by Burns, we are reminded of the importance of the war, and the seismic change that occurred. There is most certainly a pre-Vietnam America and a post. However, this lowly historian/correspondent discovered that an examination of what was on people’s minds during the Vietnam era may reveal that, at that time, Americans had a lot of other priorities. Perhaps it’s our need today to justify mistakes we made in Vietnam or understand the extreme loss of life that keeps documentaries like these popular. And perhaps this is having the effect of keeping us divided. Perhaps we should just move on.
