Has Anyone Watched the Ken Burns Vietnam Doc?

[Heathermomster]

I started watching the Ken Burn Vietnam documentary Friday night, and I think that it was interesting how it was noted how no one talks about the Vietnam War.   My family descended from poor southerners.  My paternal grandfather's family came from the MS Delta in the 1930s and was born in a swamp...I am not joking.  My paternal grandmother was the youngest of 12 children, and her family was highly religious and poor.  Her family literally grew and shot most food they ate in central west Alabama to survive.  My grandmother passed away 6 years ago at the age of 92, and she never learned to drive.  Anyhoo..

Just prior to high school graduation, my Dad joined the USAF in delayed enlistment to avoid the US Army draft, and he did receive a draft card.  He went to Vietnam about 6 years later when I was 3 months old.  He avoided jungle warfare by standing guard over USAF planes.  Dad never dreamed of avoiding the draft by fleeing to Canada, and he was not raised in an environment that understood how to pay for higher education.  I am the only one of six grandkids to graduate college.  Anyhoo..

Did your dad serve in Vietnam?

Edited November 6, 2018 by Heathermomster

[Lady Florida.]

31 minutes ago, Heathermomster said:

 

Did your dad serve in Vietnam?

Well, I'm obviously much older than you. ? My dad was stationed in Japan in peace time between WWII and the Korean War. FIL was in the army in WWII but never saw action.  

I'm from the generation who lost contemporaries to the Vietnam War. Those who lived through it came back forever changed. High school classmates. Brothers of friends. I'm one of the lucky ones who didn't lose anyone close to me.

Dh's draft number was 3 when the draft was discontinued. When he told me that I thought he must be exaggerating but I looked it up and yes, his draft number was 3. He narrowly avoided being drafted and likely being sent to Vietnam. They held the lottery for those who would have been drafted that year (1973) but no one was actually called up. 

Edited November 5, 2018 by Lady Florida.

[Lecka]

Yes.  My husband took a CLEP (or DSST?) test for History of the Vietnam War and passed after watching it (as well as some additional studying, as well as background knowledge he already had from being interested in it throughout his life).  

My step-dad did serve. He and my mom watched the documentary as well.  

My dad had a child (my oldest sister) to help him avoid service.  

Edited November 5, 2018 by Lecka

[Heathermomster]

My maternal grandfather spent WW2 afloat the USS San Diego and was recalled for the Korean War.  He talked about the USN all the time.

I think my dad graduated in 1966.  ETA;  My sister's FIL is on permanent disability from serving.

Edited November 5, 2018 by Heathermomster

[Junie]

Yes, my father served in Vietnam in the US Army.

He had undiagnosed PTSD and suffered a mental breakdown about 15 years ago and was put in a hospital mental facility.  He passed away a few months after he was admitted to the hospital.  TV coverage of the war in the Middle East was apparently the trigger for his breakdown.

It is my understanding that he served 3 tours and saw some really horrendous things.  My mom said that he suffered flashbacks, especially in the early years after the war.

It was just last year (or maybe 2 years ago) that I was finally ready to see the Vietnam Wall.  There is a (small, inadequate) plaque near the Wall dedicated to those who died as a result of their injuries.  I consider my father one of them.

I didn't know that Ken Burns had made a documentary about the Vietnam War.  I don't think that I would be able to watch it.  I might see my dad.  ?

[scholastica]

My Dad served and I couldn't watch it. Every time I tried I cried and got so angry. It was unhealthy for me. 

[livetoread]

 My father joined during his residency after med school, but he joined as a non combatant and served in a MASH unit in Vietnam. He did not see combat, but saw the results first hand. He got a lot of experience in trauma surgery anyway. He does tell some funny stories about the army trying to train the doctors in combat during basic training and the wiseass stuff the doctors would do, like wave a white flag instead of advance during live ammo training. He grew up in a very sheltered religious bubble, and I think the hardest thing for him was to see what war did to people’s characters. It was hard to hang onto a moral center. He talks about how depraved the atmosphere was - angry and hopeless and nihilistic.

[Junie]

(((Texasmom33)))

Yep.  My parents' marriage didn't survive, either.

Vietnam messed up my dad, too; but, I don't think he ever realized it.  He was very proud of having served in the Army, so that's one thing that I can hold on to.  He wasn't necessarily a good father, but he was a proud soldier.

When my mom and I watched Forrest Gump, my mom looked at me and said, "That was your father."  And, yes, there are many similarities.  Raised in the Deep South, dropped out/flunked out of school in 8th grade...  Not quite on the same page with the rest of the world.  When I met my aunts at my father's funeral, they said that he had always been a little bit "slow".  It's hard to determine how much damage the war did and how much was already there.

I am glad to have all of my father's medals, though.  I almost didn't get them.  My step-mother wanted to keep everything when he passed.  When she passed away several years later I was unable to go to her (out-of-state) funeral.  My father's belongings were taken care of by her children.  It turns out that the medals were kept by one of the teenage grandsons who is interested in military history.  He willingly gave them to me when he found out I wanted them.

[Annie Elle]

My father served several tours in Vietnam. He came from a military family, went to a military college and was career USAF. My father was an amazing man who had an exemplary career and was a wonderful father.  I consider myself fortunate to be an Air Force brat who has lived all over the world. My childhood was very sheltered growing up on different military bases.

But I believe he had undiagnosed PTSD. I didn’t notice the alcohol problem until I was an older teen. After he retired from the Air Force, his health began to unravel. When he died unexpectedly in his sleep at 66, his health was poor. But I was thankful he didn’t commit suicide. Not recognizing the PTSD back then but knowing something was really wrong, I begged doctors to help with his drinking problem. He never got the help he really needed.

I started watching the Ken Burns documentary but couldn’t watch more than a few episodes. Knowing that my father lived through that and that it stole so much from him broke my heart.

I spoke at my father’s funeral because I wanted him to be remembered as the honorable man he was and not the broken man he became at the end.

[kbutton]

My dad served during the tail end of the war, but his assignments were all in the states or Europe due to his particular skill set. He had four brothers that served (one probably just after the war), and none of them went to Vietnam either. 

I had a high school teacher who was wounded in Vietnam, and he talked about his experiences there quite often.

I grew up with an awareness that Vietnam vets were not treated well and that the war was particularly awful, but I think, where I grew up, vets were afforded more respect than they were given in other parts of the country. My parents had bracelets with names of POW/MIA's, the local summer parade still features a float with a depiction of a Vietnam era POW (EVERYONE stands respectfully when it passes), the POW/MIA flag is flown at a lot of public buildings (and would hang in my high school). I can't imagine what it was like for vets who were not given support at home.

Still, I have been reticent to watch the documentary because I know it was such a difficult war. I did see some documentaries as a kid, but they were a bit over my head. I remember asking my dad an innocent question about prison camps that came out a bit flippantly, and he replied quite hotly with information about POW's that I still would find shocking to hear (I was maybe 12 or 13). That he got so worked up about a kid's question without having been there himself spoke volumes to me about the awfulness of that war.

The only vet I know that openly struggled with PTSD fought in Korea--the "forgotten" war. He struggled with nightmares, waking up screaming for his life. I met him when he was older, and I think he had come to some peace by then. 

 

[LMD]

I'm so sorry pps.

My dad was one of 2 men in his graduating class to avoid being drafted. He said that he was surprised to not be. I might ask him more about that, his father had served in the British army in India - my dad was born on an Indian tea plantation.

The documentary sounds interesting.

[Katy]

Yes, multiple tours.  I haven't brought myself to watch that documentary yet.