Roush Review: A Deeply Personal History of the Vietnam War
Review
Vietnam: The War That Changed America
Nearly 50 years have passed since the fall of Saigon marked the end of the Vietnam War, a tragic conflict that divided the nation as unprecedented TV news footage brought combat and its cost (some 58,000 U.S. lives) into our living rooms like never before, and in many ways, never since.
With you-are-there immediacy and first-person emotional intimacy, the stirring six-part docuseries Vietnam: The War That Changed America (narrated by Ethan Hawke) relives the turbulent era by blending raw archival footage with dramatic personal accounts from a wide array of those whose lives were never the same. “Sometime this year, you will go crazy, maybe more than once,” a veteran remembers being told upon arriving in the distant land few had even heard of. That prediction came true, and then some.
There have been more comprehensive documentaries about the war (Ken Burns‘ definitive The Vietnam War as an excellent example), but few as sharply focused on the personal. We hear from U.S. soldiers, including best-friend tunnel rats, the overwhelmed leader of a swift boat patrolling dangerous waters, and a popular disc jockey trapped behind enemy lines during 1968’s surprise Tet Offensive game-changer, which occupies much of the second episode.
A member of the U.S. Military Police watches a TV report of him rescuing a diplomat from the American Embassy in Saigon when it was swarmed by North Vietnamese infiltrators. “That’s me right there,” he says, narrating his own visual story while downplaying his heroism. “I just did my job.”
The series also interviews Viet Cong and South Vietnamese, with such diverse American subjects as a disillusioned Army nurse and the wife of a downed Navy pilot. In the most affecting scenes, wartime buddies are reunited after decades, few more wrenching than that of former Marine platoon commander William Broyles, Jr. and Jeff Hiers, a disgruntled enlisted man who resented the Oxford grad on sight and refused to salute, reflecting the atmosphere of futility and resentment that consumed the troops on the ground. Broyles, who would later co-create the groundbreaking ABC drama series China Beach about the war, remembers his fear that he would be “fragged” (killed by his own men) until he realized his true purpose was “to be responsible for these kids … Our purpose is to stay alive.”
“Believe it or not, that’s me!” says another former Marine, watching coverage of him guarding the American Embassy in its shattering final days of desperate evacuation. We believe him, and we feel it anew.
Vietnam: The War That Changed America, Series Premiere, Friday, January 31, Apple TV+
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