Will's Good idea for the week of 9-3-17

I give you Tie Dye Warrior.

Sean Lane is a Marine captain with an advisory group in Vietnam.

This story, written in 2011 was inspired by a summer fling with the Beach Boys. We'd love to turn this into a short story comp. Sean Lane could be doing something during the Cambodian Incursion. We could have another story about Sean in the Easter Offensive. Actually, we'd like to do a story with him knee deep in the Cambodian Civil War and another with him on hand during the scramble to get the hell out of Phnom Pehn in '75. We'd actually take this all the way into the 80's with Sean putzing around Nicaragua with the Contras.

One day, one day.

Some Questions for Ken Burns

Recently we noted that Ken Burns has made a documentary about the Vietnam War, because that's never been done before, we guess.

Hopefully Burns breaks some new ground. To that end we have some questions for Mr. Burns:

-Will you note that this war was the project of Kennedy, Johnson and the Democrat Party?
-Will you point out that in 1969 President Nixon took over a mess made by the Democrat Party?
-The Tet Offensive was a great victory for the American military, will this documentary examine that victory?
-How much emphasis will be given to events after the Tet Offensive, most of the early histories stopped with Tet.
-Will historian Lewis Sorely be one of the interviewees?
-How much time will be given to General Creighton Abrams' successful COIN program which turned land over to tenant farmers, fortified their hamlets and took away the communist bastions in the countryside?
-Will the public learn that the 1970 invasion of Cambodia was in response to Vietnamese encroachment there and was a highly successful operation?
-The ANZACs contributed a brigade group and the South Koreans two army divisions. Will time be given to allied operations in Vietnam?
-Speaking of, the 1972 Easter Offensive was stopped largely by ARVN ground forces supported by American air power. Will this be discussed?
-Will you document how the ARVN didn't collapse until congress cut off all aid in 1974?
-Will you interview Vietnamese sources who openly admit that Hanoi screwed up by attacking too early in '65, '68 and '72?

Really, Ken? Really?

What is it with Ken Burns making documentaries about subjects that have already been well covered? Here we have news from the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation that Burns has made a doc about the Vietnam War. Ok, I guess. In the last decade Burns did a doc about World War II.

Of course Burns is most famous for his Civil War documentary.

We grew up with Vietnam, the Ten Thousand Day War and that seemed pretty good. Released in 1983, this documentary came along as America was trying to get a sense of the whole conflict. The Memorial Wall in DC was open. One saw Vietnam vets in television series. Magnum PI was a Vietnam vet. There was the A-Team, 'In 1972, a crack commando unit was sentenced to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit.' Literature about the war was coming out. We read with delight the Vietnam: Ground Zero series.

As kids we didn't really 'play' Vietnam. No, always our friends and us were battling Krauts or Japs.

We do not have high hopes for this series. Do we really need another round of docs about protests? We'd much rather see a series about the military lessons of Vietnam.

Can't somebody do that?'

Getty images

Michael Moore You're Fat

Via the Belmont Club, the gastropod Michael Moore:

What do you mean 'we' fat man.

As a comenter on Wretchard's FB post noted, 'Started it. Fucked it up. Gave it away.'

Indeed.

In 1968 the US Army and Marines crushed the Tet offensive, utterly destroying the Vietcong as a fighting force forever.

From there Creighton Abrams took over and implemented President Nixon's Vietnamization policy which included land reform, crucial to turning the countryside against the communists. Then came the highly successful Cambodian incursion, another victory when the ARVN stopped the Easter offensive of 1972 and finally Operation Linebacker II which forced the communists back to the negotiating table.

It was not until the Democrat congress cut off aid and refused to enforce the Paris Peace Accord that the ARVN collapsed.

You gotta love the Democrat Party. They start a war they can't finish and then have the gall to criticize Nixon because they don't like the way he cleaned up their mess.