Serious Vietnam war footage

Burns

You never do see real footage of the vietnam war. My hats go off to everyone who served in that war. The beat kicks in at 4:37.

rook

damn. thanks for the video

young_cream

thanks for posting. you are right, rarely is actual footage seen

tripledouble

"is it worth it?"

"yeh..i... they say we are fighting for something...i dont know"


damn

Mad Drama Teacher

Thanks for the footage.

That Tim Buckley song captures the soldiers.

captainplanet

Thanks for the footage.

That Tim Buckley song captures the soldiers.

that's tim buckley at the end? beautiful tune. and powerful footage, thanks for sharing.

BreakSelf

I think this is from the Letters Home from Vietnam documentary. Really powerful stuff. Such an incredibly harsh war.

Jimster

My brother did some work for a client that really got him into researching the war. He had a book (can't recall the title) which had interviews with the US kids (and they were just kids) that were out there popping the caps. He said the book was full of and I read some of it.

I could tell I was growing up because it was the first time I felt physically sick after reading something. It was a stupid war. I kept thinking of the stories for years afterwards.

Vietnam has however bounced back from the war really well as far as I am told. The mentality of the people is very optimistic. Cambodia is still f*cked though.

eric

When i was in vietnam my whole vision of the conflict changed,...
How US Gov.think they can beat them,....can not beat population with so much will.
R.I.P to all the fallen soldiers from both side.

DrBorisQ

Agreed, once you have been there (in and around Khe Shan in particular) you realise that there was no possible way the US could have won the war.

As for Cambodia still being fucked. Do you think so? It has come on in leaps and bounds since '79 if you think about how bad it was, you don't just bounce back from having ~20% of your population slaughtered.

Duderonomy

My dad lied about his age and got drafted, went to Vietnam aged 17, and he has some stories from that, but the weirdest thing is the way he describes almost all of the soldiers doing heroin there as if it was no big deal... fully accepted as the best form of escapism (him included).


I've been to Cambodia. Went there in 2000, and it was pretty f*cked, pretty lawless, wild sh*t, but I hear that since Tombraider was filmed at Angkor Wat, money is slowly being invested into the infrastructure, and things are slowly picking up.

DrBorisQ

Wow, I think of myself at 17 and can only imagine how ill equipped I would have been to deal with a situation like that.

Yeah Cambodia is pretty lawless, and there is some crazy shit that goes down there. I think on the whole that they have made incredible progress, and the fact that the people are so generous, kind and always have a smile on their face I think is just amazing.

Bambouche

There's a brilliant documentary about G.I.s who protested Vietnam while they were enlisted. This, as you know, is criminal, and many of the soldiers served years in prison for their objections. Besides covering the anti-war movement, the documentary focuses on the hundreds and hundreds of underground G.I.-written newspapers (AWOL Press, Counter-Attack, Fed Up, Off The Brass, The Ultimate Weapon, Where Are We?). These newspapers were written and produced by G.I.s on bases all over the world. The soldiers would clandestinely distribute the papers on bases, which is a court marshal-worthy offense.

The name of the film is Sir! No Sir!







http://www.sirnosir.com/



Besides the usual Vietnam footage, which is hard enough to watch, this movie explores "fragging" (where G.I.'s would throw--or threaten to throw--fragment grenades at their commanding officers when ordered to fight the Vietnamese). After Nixon saw that the majority of the ground troops were resisting, he moved to B-52s, and carpet bombed indiscriminately. The intercept agents who eaves-dropped on the Vietnamese radio reports of the damage (and were in charge of creating the intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff) soon realized they were just as culpable as the soldiers on the ground, and they started refusing to translate/provide intelligence.

If you're not familiar with the protests, resistance trials and military prison uprisings (Rebellion at Fort Dix Stockade, Oleo Strut demonstration, Servicemen's Union, The 9 For Peace, The Presidio 27, etc.), this movie covers them. One of the most wrenching scenes is during the Dewey Canyon 3 demonstration where 1,500 Vietnam Veterans threw their medals onto the steps of the capital and one soldier announces, "We don't want to fight any more, but if we have to fight again it will be to take these steps" --and he throws his purple heart onto the steps of the capital, where someone has made a little sign that read, "trash."

There's also an interview with Jerry Lembcke, who wrote the book, The Spitting Image, which dispels the myth of veterans being spat on when they returned home from the war. Instead, the movie shows how the veterans were really at the heart of the anti-war movement.

There's also footage of the "Armed Farces" tour, which was an alternative to the Bob Hope tour, where celebrities would tour the world and perform for servicemen who were serving and resisting. Rita Martinson sings, "Soldier, We Love You", which makes all the soldiers look like kids.

BONUS: Boots Riley wrote the end credits song, "Captain Sterling's Little Problem."


It's a beautiful film.

mumbosauce

My dad lied about his age and got drafted, went to Vietnam aged 17, and he has some stories from that, but the weirdest thing is the way he describes almost all of the soldiers doing heroin there as if it was no big deal... fully accepted as the best form of escapism (him included).
.

I watched something on this. They were saying that a lot of soldiers got hooked and when they came back they were using their military training to rob banks. Also it got so bad that the military had to test and detox troops before they came back.

They also showed a clip of a soldier smoking heroin or opium out of a shotgun barrel.

Mad Drama Teacher

There's also an interview with Jerry Lembcke, who wrote the book, The Spitting Image, which dispels the myth of veterans being spat on when they returned home from the war.

It might have been a myth for that guy, but it was real for others.

Danno3000

They also showed a clip of a soldier smoking heroin or opium out of a shotgun barrel.

As I understand it, that's the origin of "shotgunning".

Mad Drama Teacher

Thanks for the footage.

That Tim Buckley song captures the soldiers.

that's tim buckley at the end? beautiful tune. and powerful footage, thanks for sharing.

Yeah, it's called "Once I Was" and is on his album Goodbye and Hello.

young_cream

They also showed a clip of a soldier smoking heroin or opium out of a shotgun barrel.

that is a REALLY bad idea

kicks79

Soldier we love you is a beatiful and moving song. I'll have to check out the doco.
Soldiers coming back from nam and robbing banks? wasn't that the plot to that film Dead Presidents?

Duderonomy

There's also an interview with Jerry Lembcke, who wrote the book, The Spitting Image, which dispels the myth of veterans being spat on when they returned home from the war.

It might have been a myth for that guy, but it was real for others.

Not spit, but my Dad said the reaction from people was often far from supportive... typical conversation in a Diner might've gone "Where'd you get the sun tan?" "Vietnam" = get up and move to a different table.

My Dad's best stories are about the US military's treatment of it's own. I'll make him write a book on that stuff sometime.

djdaze

They also showed a clip of a soldier smoking heroin or opium out of a shotgun barrel.

that is a REALLY bad idea

so is your screename

DB_Cooper

They also showed a clip of a soldier smoking heroin or opium out of a shotgun barrel.

that is a REALLY bad idea

My Dad would often smoke pot through a shotgun in Vietnam. The barrel is "broken" like so:



and unloaded. You light a bud near the breach and hit it out of the business end. No more dangerous than smoking out of anything else, but you better clean the shotgun well after use.