Vietnam in HD — Memorial Day reflections

Vietnam in HD — History.com TV Episodes, Schedule, & Video:

Today I watched all 5+ hours of this excellent documentary. I saw it a few years ago when it first came out but had recorded a rerun recently. Memorial Day weekend struck me as appropriate for watching it again. It's not easy to take all at once but there are advantages. You get consumed by it -- and its sad lessons (the main one being, we don't learn from history).

If only Jesus had stayed out of McKinley's dream

We, which is to say our foreign policy, haven't changed since McKinley's dream at the top of the 20th century when the President was visited by Jesus Christ, who told him to protect "our little brown brothers" in the Philippines, thereby setting forth a policy that turned admirers into enemies and dashed the dreams of those fighting Spanish colonialism, who suddenly found American colonialism in its place.

The brilliance of this documentary is that it's not about policy and politicians but about the experiences of soldiers in the field and their families at home. Lots of home movie footage. It breaks your heart.