I will always remember talking to my mom before a deployment to war. She asked me why we were off to war. My response was, “don’t ask me…I’m a soldier and do what I’m told. Ask your congressman.” Our American men and women have always responded to our governments call. The “purpose” of a war is always political though. Determining the “worth” of a war should always focus on the politicians who decided, not the soldiers who executed.
One of the most hyped “events” of American television, The Vietnam War, has started on the PBS network. The directors are Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. Acclaimed for his documentaries on the Civil War, the Great Depression and the history of jazz, Burns says of his Vietnam films, “They will inspire our country to begin to talk and think about the Vietnam war in an entirely new way”.
In a society often bereft of historical memory and in thrall to the propaganda of its “exceptionalism”, Burns’ “entirely new” Vietnam war is presented as “epic, historic work”. Its lavish advertising campaign promotes its biggest backer, Bank of America, which in 1971 was burned down by students in Santa Barbara, California, as a symbol of the hated war in Vietnam. Read more here.