(Oh Jesus, let's hope there's never a Season 2.)
In a September that saw all kinds of new seasons of television drop on every channel from broadcast to streaming, I thought it might be almost impossible to find the time for an 18-hour documentary about the Vietnam War. But I also felt it was important to watch an 18-hour documentary on the Vietnam War. Certainly more so than, like, the fourth season of Transparent, you know? I've also never seen any of Ken Burns' work. I know, right?
I found this thoroughly informative. "Enjoyable" is probably an inappropriate word to use, but I liked how much I learned, if that makes sense. (History nerd!) To this point in my life I'd always thought of the Vietnam War as just this messy morass of jungle-fighting in Southeast Asia - which, granted, it was - without ever understanding the timeline of it all, the political machine at work that churned out bad decision after bad decision, the complicated ethical quandary of reconciling "we shouldn't have gotten involved with this war" with the pot-committed notion of "but we shouldn't quit now." It's a tragedy, obviously, and an opportunity for a lesson learned. I'd say "let's not forget this one," but the fact that I hardly knew the half of it at 29 years of age despite being well-educated and all makes me a bit of a cynic on that front.
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