I'm actually looking forward to a few nights off as I've been watching this just before bed and it's really started to affect my sleep.

I find myself feeling the same. I thought I might miss it...but NOT...this is pretty heavy stuff to go to sleep on!

That's my favorite.

Born in 1958, I was a kid during most of Vietnam. For the most part I was oblivious to what was going on. I knew there was a war, but with all the WWII movies and tv shows at the time I just thought there was one long war that had always gone on and everybody went when hey got out of school.
I remember being with my dad in the car and telling him when I went to the war I wanted to be a jeep driver. Dad freaked. I guess he'd never considered the idea of me going to war. He told me there probably wouldn't be a war by the time I was old enough. He was right, I was 16 when it ended. In fact I ended up in the sweet spot of never even having to register, turning 18 in 1976.

My brother in law was drafted and got sent to Vietnam. He was stationed out of Lawton, OK and we used to go visit my sister a lot while he was gone.

My older brother turned 18 in 1966. My mom was scared he'd be drafted. My uncle was a big wig with local plumbers union. He pulled strings and got him an apprenticeship to protect him. Turned out his number never came up so it didn't matter.

By 1972 I was 14 and remember well the law changes due to the draft. Old enough to fight, old enough to vote. There was a big push aimed at 18-20 year olds to vote for the first time. Liquor laws were also changed to 18. The law took effect at midnight on a Saturday night. Bars didn't close till 1:30 and 18-20 were lined up outside waiting for the clock to hit 12.
The front page of Sunday's paper had a large photo of an 18 year old girl walking out of store carrying a 12 pack.

In 1977 I became good friends with a guy. Never knew he was in Vietnam until Apocalypse Now was released two years later.
We were sitting in his livingroom getting stoned and he mentioned having gone to see Apocalypse Now and how it freaked him out because it was so real.
Out of curiosity I asked him about it.

He had been part of a helicopter crew. Every night they would fly around with infrared/night vision and pick off Viet Cong. He would sit in the chopper and just shoot them as he saw them. He'd see somebody running with the night vision and POW!, he'd pick them off. I asked him how many he shot and he had no idea. To him they were somebody who would kill if they got the chance.

There was a village they would attack on a regular basis. There was a bridge at the village they would blow up and then keep coming back to blow it up again because it was constantly rebuilt.

One time they came under heavy fire. Bullets flying around inside the copter. He remembered everybody screaming, "Get us the fuck out of here! Get us the fuck out of here!"

It's a damn masterpiece. That's all.

It really is.

NO, not the kitty cat!!!

I'm relived (and not surprised) that Burns included the Jackson State killings along with the discussion of the Kent State killings. The former typically gets forgotten.

Watching this has truly been reassuring in that the US has been this divided before probably worse.
That story about the Pulitzer Prize winning photo of the refugees running from the bombing was haunting.

I definitely have to space each episode out more when I watch it as some of these are tough to watch. They're fascinating, but I can't watch it every night.

Burns' best is Jazz.

I haven't dove into this yet. Only watched bits of parts 2 and 3. My preliminary judgement is that it's too long in many parts and too short in others. He spent less than five minutes on the Gulf of Tonkin incident. That's like the most pivotal, debated, and controversial moment of the war. And it's complex. He should have spent a half hour on it.

Only if you don't know jazz.

The Vietnam War is not something I wanted to watch on a Saturday Night, but I saw I think episode 7 talking about the Kent State shootings. Wow this is good, I'll have to watch all of them now.

What's that supposed to mean?

Hahahhahha! I love this exchange so much. I love the chats. This is good.

I was already on the fence about the NFL anthem protests, but you know what? This series has made me seriously reconsider the whole debate. I served in the military for 23 years so people could have the right to protest in their own ways.

Plus whenever you protest some sweet music festival tunes will always play over the top of it.

Absolutely. I rewatched that segment a couple of times just to fully understand what was taking place. Similar to the famous execution photo from an earlier episide, I had no idea there was actual film/video of the event. Chilling stuff to watch and try to comprehend what makes humans want to do that one another.

I DVR's the whole series, and last night watched the first episode. First of all, damn you do learn something everyday. I didn't know the French were the first to use Napalm (who comes up with that? Really. Do they feel any guilt?) What was really perplexing was that they showed (albeit in reverse), a man being executed, children running with napalm burns on their skin, firefights, and yet, they bleeped out the word "shit." That's fucked up, isn't it? You can let Junior see a man getting shot point blank in the head, but don't dare cuss! Weird. Reminded me of television back in the day where the only way you'd see a woman's breasts were either in documentaries about indigenous tribes in the Amazon, or as they were about to enter the showers to be gassed.
As it is, I'll be watching the rest of the series, though maybe I'll wait until the DVD set is released. It should be uncensored on DVD, right? You never know anymore.

The DVD/BD is already out. It was released 2 days after it premiered. I picked up the BD from Amazon and I'm watching it through the discs. Language is a little harsher. You hear the interviewees using "Shit" a lot.

I agree, great seeing it on PBS.. But, I think it is worth having on DVD/Blu ray..

I still have the series on my computer based DVR, and am seriously considering lopping off the PBS intros and outtros, and saving them to my digital library. Incredible documentary. Hard to believe all that went on when I was a kid.

The whole show is also online on PBS's website, in both the broadcast and uncensored versions.

Speaking of this and in a more generic term, does your PBS station now promote a "Passport"?? Mine does and limits a bunch of shows to only being view-able online to those who give at least $60 to belong. Initially I thought it was limited to viewing stuff on the PBS channel on my Roku but I just visited the local channel page and it's there also.

Yes, and I do donate yearly, so I get the passport videos.