Vietnam – The Ten Thousand Day War (1980) [Part 3]

Country: Canada
Stars: Joseph B. Anderson, Anthony Astuccio, Peter Braestrup

Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War, a 26-part Canadian television documentary on the Vietnam War, was produced in 1980 by Michael Maclear. The series aired in Canada on CBC Television, in the United States and in the United Kingdom on Channel 4. Maclear visited Vietnam during the production of the series and had access to film material there. He was the first Western journalist allowed to visit that area since the war. The documentary series was consolidated into 13 hour-long episodes for American television syndication. The series was released on videocassette format by Embassy and won a National Education Association award for best world documentary. Series writer Peter Arnett was an Associated Press reporter in Vietnam from 1962 to 1975. CBC aired only 18 of the episodes during the 1980-81 season because the series production was incomplete. The remaining episodes were broadcast during CBC's 1981-82 season. British audiences saw the series during Channel 4's 1984-85 season.

Episodes:

-Episode 13. Air War
The Thirteenth volume of The Ten thousand Day War covers the air war, the US main strategy in stopping the North's advance into the South. Surgical Bombing was the starting theory we would warn the North of what we were going to bomb. Use of the US ability to deliver bombs was controlled and directed directly by the White House under the supervision of the president himself, yes President Johnson actually picked the targets and the munitions applied to them. Various types of bombing strategies are attempted but all fail in their objectives. In 8 years of bombing, the …

-Episode 14. Siege
Episode Fourteen covers the January-March '68 battle for Khe Sanh during the Tet Offensive. Located in the northwest corner of South Vietnam. Khe Sanh is a forward patrol base used to mount search and destroy missions. The Viet Minh forces surround the base and establish artillery positions to shell the base and airfield. For every shell the Viet Minh send into the base the Marines send several back. The North equates Khe Sanh with Dien Bien Phu except that the Americans have complete air superiority and four times the artillery than the Viet Minh have. Westmoreland …

-Episode 15. Tet!
Episode Fifteen covers the Tet Offensive. January '68, The Viet Cong attack throughout the country all at once. Almost every US installation sees some sort of assault. Television brings the attack to the living rooms of every American household. Two years since the involvement of ground troops in the war, the prevailing opinion was that the US was winning the war. The North decides to attack. 80.000 Viet Minh troops infiltrate the south led by the South Vietnamese communists known as the Viet Cong. They even penetrated the US embassy and set it afire. 4,000 Northern …

-Episode 16. Frontline America
Episode Sixteen covers American society from late '67 forward. This period involves some of the most violent dissent in America since the Civil War. October '67, the march on the pentagon brings together the all the factions of the anti-war movement in a huge protest march. The administration views the protesters as political shills in support of communism. The peoples view was that we were indiscriminately bombing anyone and everyone, the television images every night of the destruction in Vietnam bring home the fact that what the government was saying about the war …

-Episode 17. Soldiering On
The Seventeenth volume of The Ten Thousand Day War examines 1969 the period of peak military involvement in Vietnam. The troops have a breakdown in discipline and moral. Drug abuse becomes rampant. With occasional outbursts of rebellion against authority. the GI's slogan becomes, "Don't be the last GI killed in the war" The average age of an American Soldier in WWII was 26, In Vietnam it was 19. It was a war with no clear objective, no clear mission. For the troops, it was a situation of survival, don't do anything to get yourself killed, you have a year to serve and …

-Episode 18. Changing the Guard
Episode Eighteen emphasizes Vietnamization. President Nixon's policy of having the South fight their war on their own with US assistance instead of Americans fighting it for them. ARVN forces reactivate the Khe Sanh base and use it to invade Laos to destroy an enemy supply base. What they didn't realize that they were outnumbered 2-1. The mission was an abject failure. Vietnamization was a return to Kennedy's policy of "It is their war to win or lose" All Southern males are conscripted into the army and hurriedly trained. The US begins to upgrade the Souths army with …

-Episode 19. Wanting Out
Episode Nineteen covers demands in America that we get out of Vietnam. February '69, Nixon is sworn in as president. He sets about trying to build a national consensus on the war and what we should do, he ignores the protesters. He settles on a process of negotiate but continue the fight until an honorable withdrawal is possible. North Vietnam continues with the same policy and pushes another 100,000 troops into the south. Nixon orders a secret bombing campaign from Cambodia in retaliation. There is public uproar of these raids. Nixon proposes that both sides withdraw…