Vietnam War 10 Part Series

[Astryd Boschee]

This is Part 1 of a 5-part series on eating our way through Vietnam. We spent three weeks in Vietnam, starting with Hanoi in the north, making our way down over 1,000 miles to Ho Chi Minh City in the south.

Neither of us knew what to expect, except for a vague idea that the food is probably going to be good, concluded from our deep love for phở and conjured-up images of streets of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

Vietnamese food has a unique identity, but it draws on influences from the Chinese in the north and from the Khmer people by way of modern-day Cambodia to the west. Colonial French influences brought foods like bnh m (literally, bread, in Vietnamese), pt, ốc (snails) and coffee, all of which metamorphosed into uniquely Vietnamese dishes that have remained mainstays.

We sent two members of our team to Vietnam, where the majority of our cashews are grown and processed, to gather as much information as possible about the environmental, social, and economic impacts of our cashews, and to better understand our cashew supply chain. Please enjoy Part 2 of a two-part series where Carly, our Director of Innovation, reflects on the sustainability aspect of the cashew trade in Vietnam.

After a day of site-seeing in Ho Chi Minh City, I hit the road to begin our packed five-day tour to visit four organic cashew farms and three processors. Cashew farming and processing take place in the central and southern portion of Vietnam, many of them very near the Cambodian border and the former Ho Chi Minh Trail. Cashew farms resemble idyllic orchards; they are full of bird life, often flanked by small subsistence farms bearing a variety of vibrant tropical fruits and vegetables, and other groves of cash crops (such as rubber trees and peppercorn vines). The sweet fruity and floral smell of cashew apples fills the warm air while farmer workers, all women that we saw, tend to the fallen cashew apples and debris on the orchard floor.

Not only are cashews a great sustainable food source in their own right, they can play an important role in reducing our dependence on foods made from and by animals. Animal agriculture contributes more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transportation sector combined, it is responsible for the majority of global freshwater consumption, and it is a primary driver of rainforest deforestation, topsoil erosion, desertification, species loss, and water pollution. Moving towards a plant-based diet, away from things like meat, milk, dairy, and eggs, is the single most impactful consumer choice a person can make towards reducing their environmental footprint.

The Vietnam War is a 10-part American television documentary series about the Vietnam War narrated by Peter Coyote, written by Geoffrey C. Ward and directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick.[1][2][3] The first episode premiered on PBS on September 17, 2017. This series is one of the few PBS series to carry a TV-MA rating.

The series features interviews with 79 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war or opposed it as Anti-war protesters, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both the North and the South.[5] Burns deliberately avoided "historians or other expert talking heads" and "onscreen interviews with polarizing boldfaced names like John Kerry, John McCain, Henry Kissinger and Jane Fonda." Instead, interviews were intended to provide a ground-up view of the War from the perspective of everyday people who lived through it.[4] The third episode features an interview with retired UPI reporter Joseph L. Galloway, who was awarded a Bronze Star with "V" device for assisting with the wounded in the Battle of Ia Drang.[6] Others interviewed include Vincent Okamoto, Karl Marlantes, and Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried, a popular collection of linked short stories about the war.

The researchers for the film also accessed more than 24,000 photographs and examined 1,500 hours of archival footage.[4] Within the series' 17-and-a-quarter-hours, there are scenes covering 25 battles, ten of which are detailed scenes documenting and describing the action from a number of perspectives.[7]

The Vietnam War was released on Blu-ray and DVD on September 19, 2017. Extras include a 45-minute preview program, two segments on the lives of two of the series' participants, and deleted scenes.[8] The series is also available for digital download, and can also be seen on Kanopy.

Washington Post opinion writer George Will noted that the series is "an example of how to calmly assess episodes fraught with passion and sorrow." He continues: "The combat films are extraordinary; the recollections and reflections of combatants and others on both sides are even more so, featuring photos of them then and interviews with many of them now." Will concludes his column by declaring the series a "masterpiece".[12]

Ken Burns anticipated politically motivated criticisms of the film from both the left and the right: "After The Vietnam War I'll have to lie low. A lot of people will think I'm a Commie pinko, and a lot of people will think I'm a right-wing nutcase, and that's sort of the way it goes."[14]

San Jose Mercury News writer Tatiana Sanchez reported that some American and South Vietnamese veterans were "angry, [and] disappointed" with the documentary. They characterized it as a "betrayal". She writes: "veterans of the South Vietnamese military say they were largely left out of the narrative, their voices drowned out by the film's focus on North Vietnam and its communist leader, Ho Chi Minh. And many American veterans say that the series had several glaring omissions and focused too much on leftist anti-war protesters and soldiers who came to oppose the war."[15]

Scholar Thomas Bass criticizes the film for its "urge toward healing and reconciliation, rather than truth".[17] Bass's main objection is that the film perpetuates the narrative of the two Vietnams that justified U.S. involvement, arguing that "Southern Vietnam was never an independent country" and that Edward Lansdale played a role in that U.S. creation. He notes the prominent feature of Duong Van Mai Elliott in promoting this view, and the absence of a Daniel Ellsberg interview. Bass contends that this, together with the film's reliance on architects of the war such as "former generals, CIA agents and government officials, who are not identified by rank or title, but merely by their names and anodyne descriptions" is deemed as evidence of the film's "conservative credentials". Newsweek echoed Bass's objection that the movie obscures facts about the root causes of the war and its framing by the United States.[18]

The PBS website describes the series as featuring "more than 120 iconic popular songs that define the era",[21] including songs by then contemporary artists. Of these, 38 songs were selected for the series' soundtrack album, which was released on September 15, 2017.[22]

This film explores U.S. policy toward Vietnam, focusing on how the U.S. commitment expanded from providing supplies to military advisors, and ultimately combat forces in response to the growing challenge of the communists. Scenes show the bombing of the U.S. Embassy and barracks building in South Vietnam, scenes of U.S. soldiers and Marines in combat, and footage of Ho Chi Minh and the Vietcong. Other personalities shown are Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

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This 13 part series covers the history of Vietnam from France's colonial control, through the 1945 revolution, to the 1975 U.S. evacuation from Saigon and the years beyond. The series' objective approach permits viewers to form their own conclusions about the war.101--Roots of a War--Despite cordial relations between American intelligence officers and Communist leader Ho Chi Minh in the turbulent closing months of World War II, French and British hostility to the Vietnamese revolution laid the groundwork for a new war.102--The First Vietnam War (1946-1954)--The French generals expected to defeat Ho's rag-tag Vietminh guerrillas easily, but after eight years of fighting and $2.5 billion in U.S. aid, the French lost a crucial battle at Dienbienphu--and with it, their Asian empire.103--America's Mandarin (1954-1963)--To stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia, America replaced France in South Vietnam--supporting autocratic President Ngo Dinyh Diem until his own generals turned against him in a coup that brought political chaos to Saigon.104--LBJ Goes to War (1964-1965)--With Ho Chi Minh determined to reunite Vietnam, Lyndon Baines Johnson determined to prevent it, and South Vietnam on the verge of collapse, the stage was set for massive escalation of the undeclared Vietnam War.105--America Takes Charge (1965-1967)--In two years, the Johnson Administration's troop build-up dispatched 1.5 million Americans to Vietnam to fight a war they found baffling, tedious, exciting, deadly and unforgettable.106--America's Enemy (1954-1967)--The Vietnam War as seen from different perspectives: by Vietcong guerrillas and sympathizers; by North Vietnamese leaders; by rank and file; and by American held prisoner in Hanoi.107--Tet (1968)--The massive enemy offensive at the Lunar New Year decimated the Vietcong and failed to topple the Saigon government, but led to the beginning of America's military withdrawal.108--Vietnamizing the War (1968-1973)--President Nixon's program of troop pull-outs, stepped-up bombing and huge arms shipments to Saigon changed the war, and left GI's wondering which of them would be the last to die in Vietnam.109--Cambodia and Laos--Despite technical neutrality, both of Vietnam's smaller neighbors were drawn into the war, suffered massive bombing, and in the case of Cambodia, endured a post-war holocaust of nightmare proportions.110--Peace is at Hand (1968-1973)--While American and Vietnamese continued to clash in battle, diplomats in Paris argued about making peace, after more than four years reaching an accord that proved to be a preface to further bloodshed.111--Homefront USA--Americans at home divide over a distant war, clashing in the streets as demonstrations lead to bloodshed, bitterness and increasing doubts about the outcome. 112--The End of the Tunnel (1973-1975)--Through troubled years of controversy and violence, U.S. casualties mounted, victory remained elusive and American opinion moved from general approval to general dissatisfaction with the Vietnam war.113--Legacies--Vietnam is in the Soviet orbit, poorer than ever, at war on two fronts; America's legacy includes more than one half million Asian refugees, one half million Vietnam veterans and some questions that won't go away.Series release date: 9/1983

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