VFP-111 Monthly Chapter Meeting
WHEN: Friday, October 20, 6:00pm
WHERE: Bellingham Food Co-Op Connections Building
405 E. Holly St, Room 103
WHEN: Friday, October 20, 6:00pm
WHERE: Bellingham Food Co-Op Connections Building
405 E. Holly St, Room 103
Marines marching in Danang in 1965.
Merely an Empire
David Thomson
Roger Harris is from Roxbury, in Boston. For decades he taught in the school system there. He wears a grey pinstripe suit; his smart bow-tie has a purple streak. He looks patient yet tough, as durable as a former athlete. But he had days in 1967 as a young Marine near the DMZ in Vietnam – the demilitarised zone, aka the ‘dead Marine zone’ – that he can’t talk about:
You go over there with one mindset and then you adapt. You adapt to the atrocities of war. You adapt to killing and dying, whatever … When I first arrived in Vietnam there were some interesting things that happened and I questioned some of the Marines. I was made to realise that this is war – and this is what we do.
Harris gives the camera a funny look, half shy, half guilty, all of him doubtful that we can understand. It reminded me of the opening of Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), where the French woman talks about all she has seen in Hiroshima and the Japanese man responds: ‘You saw nothing in Hiroshima.’
Is it a sign of civilisation that we want to tell the story of our disasters without breaking down? Isn’t it human to remain brave and lucid in the face of catastrophe? Will we find mercy in the particular stories of men and women, soldiers and onlookers? If we insist that these disasters happened to humans, because of humans, can humanism be persevered with? Or is a faith in humanism now wishful thinking? Perhaps our best chance of advancing through the minefield is to be a fool, to kid ourselves, and try to think of courage.
The Vietnam War, a film made by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, comes in ten parts, with beginnings, middles and end credits; and lasts 18 hours altogether, which some may feel is a lot to ask of busy, anxious wrecks who have their own troubles to patrol. Not that 18 hours on your couch, attending to war, is really so much if you need courage and history in your life. The film took ten years to make, at a cost of $30 million. That’s a lot of money by documentary standards, but it was done in the Burns tradition: there was a seeding deal with PBS, but the greater part of the money was raised by Burns himself, a visionary documenter of America’s past and a model businessman too. Even as he was launching the Vietnam series, he was working on another show, about country music.
The Vietnam War starts at the end of the Second World War, with the Japanese finished in Indochina, the uneasy resumption of French control, and their attempts to ignore the pressures of nationalism and the push for independence. And you follow it through to the end of the era called ‘Vietnam’, knowing that that time did not end in 1975, but will last as long as the walking wounded trudge on, and for as long as there is anyone left who understands the remark, made in the film, that ‘Vietnam drove a stake in the heart of this country’ – and knows that the country spoken of here is not Vietnam, despite its three million lost lives. In the course of the film you hear all the reasons there were for being in Vietnam, and how inadequate and confounding they were, because no one had a better explanation than was latent in every bright blade of grass in the paddy-fields, where the greens could be so pretty.
Read the rest of the review on the London Review of Books.
David Thomson
- The Vietnam War directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick
- PBS, ten episodes, from 17 September
Roger Harris is from Roxbury, in Boston. For decades he taught in the school system there. He wears a grey pinstripe suit; his smart bow-tie has a purple streak. He looks patient yet tough, as durable as a former athlete. But he had days in 1967 as a young Marine near the DMZ in Vietnam – the demilitarised zone, aka the ‘dead Marine zone’ – that he can’t talk about:
You go over there with one mindset and then you adapt. You adapt to the atrocities of war. You adapt to killing and dying, whatever … When I first arrived in Vietnam there were some interesting things that happened and I questioned some of the Marines. I was made to realise that this is war – and this is what we do.
Harris gives the camera a funny look, half shy, half guilty, all of him doubtful that we can understand. It reminded me of the opening of Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), where the French woman talks about all she has seen in Hiroshima and the Japanese man responds: ‘You saw nothing in Hiroshima.’
Is it a sign of civilisation that we want to tell the story of our disasters without breaking down? Isn’t it human to remain brave and lucid in the face of catastrophe? Will we find mercy in the particular stories of men and women, soldiers and onlookers? If we insist that these disasters happened to humans, because of humans, can humanism be persevered with? Or is a faith in humanism now wishful thinking? Perhaps our best chance of advancing through the minefield is to be a fool, to kid ourselves, and try to think of courage.
The Vietnam War, a film made by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, comes in ten parts, with beginnings, middles and end credits; and lasts 18 hours altogether, which some may feel is a lot to ask of busy, anxious wrecks who have their own troubles to patrol. Not that 18 hours on your couch, attending to war, is really so much if you need courage and history in your life. The film took ten years to make, at a cost of $30 million. That’s a lot of money by documentary standards, but it was done in the Burns tradition: there was a seeding deal with PBS, but the greater part of the money was raised by Burns himself, a visionary documenter of America’s past and a model businessman too. Even as he was launching the Vietnam series, he was working on another show, about country music.
The Vietnam War starts at the end of the Second World War, with the Japanese finished in Indochina, the uneasy resumption of French control, and their attempts to ignore the pressures of nationalism and the push for independence. And you follow it through to the end of the era called ‘Vietnam’, knowing that that time did not end in 1975, but will last as long as the walking wounded trudge on, and for as long as there is anyone left who understands the remark, made in the film, that ‘Vietnam drove a stake in the heart of this country’ – and knows that the country spoken of here is not Vietnam, despite its three million lost lives. In the course of the film you hear all the reasons there were for being in Vietnam, and how inadequate and confounding they were, because no one had a better explanation than was latent in every bright blade of grass in the paddy-fields, where the greens could be so pretty.
Read the rest of the review on the London Review of Books.
VFP-111 Co-Sponsors WPJC's IDP Commemoration
VFP to Launch Vietnam Full Disclosure Campaign Opposing
Probable Ken Burns' Airbrushing of Vietnam War
Probable Ken Burns' Airbrushing of Vietnam War
This is a video clip of Veterans For Peace Co-Founder Doug Rawlings that Maine Public Television plans to air several times before the airing of Ken Burns' The Vietnam War. VFP chapters plan to counter the documentary with our voices.
VFP-111 Founding Member Bill Distler Dead at 70
Glioblastoma, an aggressive, malignant brain tumor kills long-time peace veteran on Monday, June 5
Glioblastoma, an aggressive, malignant brain tumor kills long-time peace veteran on Monday, June 5
Yesterday morning from Bill's wife, Lisa, on The Friends of Bill Distler Facebook page:
My sweet husband, Bill, " walked on" this morning at around 7:00 a.m. I'm so grateful to have had slept by his side for one last night. What a beautiful spirit he has. What a loving, brilliant, difficult, and inspired husband and lover I have had! 26 years of loving Bill Distler and having his baby, I have been richly blessed.
Now to cope, while you're letting that sink in.
Peace now, my friend. Presente!
On Saturday, June 10, graveside services will be conducted at Bayview Cemetery at 12 noon, followed by a celebration of Bill's life at Westford Funeral Home, 1301 Broadway, Bellingham, at 1 pm.
Courtesy of Ash Woolson
The Hidden Tragedy of the Vietnam War with Investigative Journalist Nick Turse
On Contact's Chris Hedges discusses the hidden tragedy of the Vietnam War with author of Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam.
On Contact's Chris Hedges discusses the hidden tragedy of the Vietnam War with author of Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam.
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