The Vietnam War was a complex, controversial conflict that cost tens of thousands of American soldiers’ lives, and hundreds of thousands of lives of soldiers and civillians in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos over the bulk of the war, which was from 1965-75. It was a major driving factor that pushed President Lyndon Johnson to not seek re-election in 1968, and the war generated some of the biggest protests the U.S. had seen to that point. The ten-year war is examined in a new docuseries that is chock full of footage from news media that had unprecedented access to soldiers at that time, as well as interviews with people who fought on both sides of the war.
Opening Shot: An archival shot of helicopters flying over a rural area in Vietnam. “It’s fifty years since America’s war in Vietnam,” says narrator Ethan Hawke, “A war that changed the world forever.”
The Gist: Vietnam: The War That Changed America, directed by Rob Coldstream and narrated by Ethan Hawke, is a six-episode docuseries that combines vivid archival footage of the ten-year war in Vietnam with first-person accounts of people who fought on both sides of the conflict.
As Hawke points out in his narration, the Vietnam War was the first major Ameican conflict that received blanket coverage from American news media; journalists and camera crews embedded themselves with platoons and seemed to have unfettered access, all filmed in living color. A lot of that footage is used in this docuseries, as well as footage of Viet Cong soldiers and operatives, showing the innovative ways they were able to combat and get the upper hand on the American and South Vietnamese military.
The first full-scale battle of the war was The Battle of Ia Drang Valley in November 1965. The first episode discusses that battle, and talks to Tony Nadal, a commander of a U.S. Air Calvary platoon that took heavy casualties during the battle. We also hear from C.W. Bowman and Gary Heeter, two Army soldiers who became part of a unit called “The Tunnel Rats” for volunteering to explore tunnels the VC had dug in the jungles around the South’s captial, Saigon.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Vietnam: The War That Changed America is a somewhat-condensed take on the ten-year war, which definitely takes a faster-paced look than, say, Ken Burns’ series The Vietnam War.
Our Take: Despite the fact that the footage and itnerviews in Vietnam: The War That Chanted America are remarkable, it feels like we’re getting a highly-compressed version of the first war where the American military was defeated, and changing how Americans saw military conflict.
We do give credit to the docuseries’ filmmakers for getting the footage from various news agencies as well as soldiers and airmen who took their own footage. It really gives a viewer an immersive view of what it was like for these young soldiers to be dropped into these blistering hot jungles and cities, battling an enemy that knew the territory and were more motivated. The theme of “what are we here for?” permeates the entire series, despite the fact that — then and now — the American participants that were interviewed had thoroughly bought into being in combat.
We also give credit for the filmmakers to find footage of and interview Viet Cong soldiers and operatives. It helps to personalize the people that the Americans and South Vietnamese were fighting against, and it’s also a way to show just how determined they were to win this battle against a country they saw as imperialistic invaders. In the cases of both the American soldiers and the VC soldiers and operatives, the mental toll of wartime is examined, with the filmmakers often holding shots of interviewees as they pause and get emotional talking about scenes that are still vivid in their minds six decades later.
But the first episode speeds through the first two years, not really giving a lot of details about particular battles or sieges. What we do know is that the U.S. felt like it was getting the upper hand, but it also seems like that assertion goes more or less unchallenged by the filmmakers. We also hear a little bit about some of the more horrible acts the soldiers were ordered to do with civillians around — burning down villages being the most significant ones.
The second episode concentrates mainly on the Tet offensive, where the VC surprised the US forces during Tet, the Vietnamese new year, and laid siege to Saigon and towns around the south for weeks. That not only moved the goalpost as far as what an American victory in the region might have looked like, but it was the start of people back home wondering just why we were there in the first place. That was definitely a riveting episode to watch.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: The first episode ends with the start of the Tet offensive in January, 1968.
Sleeper Star: Bowman talks openly about how his love for Heeter transcended even the brotherly bond soldiers in battle would have, and how heartbroken he was when Heeter lost a leg after stepping on a landmine and was sent home.
Most Pilot-y Line: None we could find. Yes, the needle drops we hear during the series are pretty familiar to the Vietnam documentary and drama genre, stuff like the Rolling Stones and The Doors. But that music has become such a shorthand for what things were like during the late ’60s, its use almost can’t be helped.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite its compressed format, Vietnam: The War That Changed America has remarkable footage and fascinating interviews with people who had a first-person perspective of what it was like to fight the Vietnam War.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
