Vietnam War Historian Breaks Down 7 More Vietnam War Scenes In Movies | How Real Is It? | Insider
Military history professor Bill Allison rates more Vietnam War movies, such as "Forrest Gump," for realism.
Allison breaks down additional battlefield tactics used by the Viet Cong, or VC, and People's Army of Vietnam, or PAVN, during the Vietnam War, such as the ambush scene in "Forrest Gump" (1994), starring Tom Hanks, and the nighttime attacks of the Tet Offensive in "Full Metal Jacket" (1987). He covers the public perception of the Vietnam War in the United States, such as the war of attrition portrayed in "Hamburger Hill" (1987); the maltreatment of civilians in "Casualties of War" (1989), with Sean Penn and Michael J. Fox; and the overlap of the civil-rights movement with anti-war and anti-draft protests in "Da 5 Bloods" (2020), starring Chadwick Boseman. Allison also analyzes how the US and Vietnam have used film as a means of reflection after the Vietnam War, such as in the portrayal of the Viet Cong and American prisoners of war in the Russian roulette scene of "The Deer Hunter" (1978), with Christopher Walken, Robert De Niro, and Meryl Streep, and the narrative of unification of North and South Vietnam in "Mùa Gió Chuong" ("Whirlwind Season") (1978).
Allison is a professor of military history at Georgia Southern University. He has written several books about the Vietnam War, including "My Lai: An American Atrocity in the Vietnam War." He is also a Vietnam battlefield tour guide with the UK company The Cultural Experience.
You can find out more about Bill here:
www.profbillallison.com/
You can check out Bill's podcast, "Military Historians Are People, Too!" here:
www.mhptpodcast.com/
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Vietnam War Historian Breaks Down 7 More Vietnam War Scenes In Movies | How Real Is It? | Insider
Numerous Vietnam War vets have volenteered to me that Forrest Gump's segment is the most accurate to their actual experience.
Me too.
My uncle has stated it.
James Doohan, Scotty from Star Trek, fought on Juno beach in Normandy, and said that the opening of Saving Pvt Ryan was frighteningly accurate despite some historical mistakes.
I've also heard about how authentic the scene was, but it only ranked an 8. I wish he didn't mentioned what he didn't like.
@@npdcpa The people who were there are the authorities. Not this academic.
I have a friend who earned the Silver Star on Hamburger Hill. He said the movie is pretty accurate except the hill "wasn't that high". However, there was only one movie he had to walk out of because of its realism and that was Forest Gump. The complete surprise, the chaos, the shouted commands, the desperation and even the way the men moved was so real he had to walk out.
I used to have a boss who was a Vietnam vet who said Forrest Gump was the most accurate he has ever seen.
What is it with Tom Hanks and war movies with battle scenes that have that effect? I guess he came a long way since Busom Buddies, huh? 😅
@@wyldhowl2821That and Bachelor Party
I'm glad he mentioned the "war plan" particularly with Hamburger Hill. Many questioned what was the point? In WWII, you gained ground and island hopped whereas in Vietnam, you played wack a mole and tried to stack bodies higher than your losses without understanding their perspective of you
Well thats missing one point of this battle which was to cut off North Vietnamese infiltration from Laos and enemy threats to the cities of Hue and Da Nang.
@@Autobotmatt428 And abandoning that hill would serve that purpose how?
@@Dreagostini The battle served no purpose at all in the end. The American commanders really didn't know who their enemy was, whether it was the Viet Cong or the PAVN forces who viewed the American GIs and Marines as enemies to wear down for as long as possible until they were killed, wounded, captured, or decided to withdraw from Vietnam for good. It's not the first time in history that a massive armed force failed to understand what its strategy was or how to apply it effectively in enemy territory. Hannibal of Carthage found out the hard way when in Italy, no matter how many Romans he was able to cut down.
@@3baxcb The problem of Hannibal wasn't that he don't know. The problem he had was that he knew he couldn't siege Rome. And with no options to retreat in grace or reinforcements he took the only other option. Ravaging the countryside.
@Dreagostini There was also the factor that Rome refused to accept even lenient peace terms and that they realized that avoiding open pitched battles would deny Hannibal the means to inflict decisive defeats like at Cannae. Rome also decided to attack where Hannibal wasn't deployed while realizing they could buy the time needed to outlast his advantages. Hannibal didn't realize that what worked almost everywhere else wasn't as nearly effective as it was against Rome. Pyrrhus made similar errors in thinking that his strategies would work in Italy.
Watching any movie about infantry getting ambushed makes my palms sweat. I've lived through many actual combat ambushes and IEDs but I stand alive today because of the fact that I experienced it all in either trucks or tanks. And it is absolutely magic how much of a game-changer having a mount is during combat. In 2004 we had a rooftop ambush by Sadr's militia in southern Baghdad and in every conceivable way they had the initiative with rockets and rifles and we were all in soft skin HMMMVs we inherited from 82nd airborne. The end result? We got one guy who was shot in the leg. For straight up humanitarian reasons I hope we never ever have to go back to dismounted infantry warfare. Mechanized warfare doesn't make as exciting of films but it sure is nice having casualties reduced by about 90% lol.
Black Hawk Down was an example of an 'exciting" (i.e., harrowing) movie about mechanized warfare.
I was in Falujah with 1ID in 2004. Attached to 1/16INF. 2004 was wild. You hate Bradley's in garrison, but love em on mission. Lol
I "lived" in an Abrams for the majority of a 12-month stay in Iraq during the surge. While I was happy to be surrounded by armor and not having to go kick in doors with the grunts (even though, we occasionally did), 4 sweaty dudes, buttoned up in a tank in 120-degree heat comes with its own _challenges_ let's just say that.
@@michlo3393 Yeah I was there in 06 we were kicked out of Rustimayah and had to live in a potato chip factory building that had burned down for about 3 months before we moved into an abandoned and flooded bomb shelter next to Sadr city. So many smells I never want to smell again lol. Having said that I love the people and city of Baghdad and I hope they're all doing well. 2nd favorite place I ever lived. Also fun fact I still wake up at night an I'm in that potato chip factory in my dreams. Place is going to live in my head as a liminal space forever I suppose. And we never did have to live in our tanks like that but we were attached to infantry which sort of made that 06-08 deployment the worst thing ever. Bradleys are attack magnets and those guys just love finding ways to get in contact.
@@Stand_By_For_Mind_Control That experience made me a two-pack-a-day smoker for the better part of 15 years afterward. The smell of cigarettes was the only tolerable smell, unless we were using the main gun then the smell of cordite was to me, like the smell of leaded gasoline lol I can close my eyes and remember it exactly. I agree with you 100% about the people, they were the friendliest folks I've ever met. I didn't experience Baghdad outside of a couple of days transiting through the Green Zone on our way home. I spent most of that time in Mosul. Countless hours on QRF or staring at an intersection and swinging the main gun back and forth as a "no-no" to any would-be violators of our presence. The times we did get busy it was mostly a blur. My best memory was a time we had our track blown off from a buried 155 round and watching the mechanics shoot their way in to get us and then hook us up and tow us out.
8:25 - I got to meet Sammy Davis in Indianapolis when I worked at the airport there. He was waiting for his luggage and I being in the Civil Air Patrol at the time, knew what all of his awards and decorations meant that he wore on his dress uniform. I saw his Medal of Honor and made it a point to go over to him, shake his hand, thank him profusely for his service, and then ask if there was something I could do for him. He smiled warmly, thanked me, and said that he was just waiting for his bags to come out on the carousel. I didn't dare ask him what he got the MoH for as typically recipients had to go through something horrific to get it. Instead, I looked him up when I got home and my jaw dropped when I read his story. It was a real pleasure to meet and talk to him.
Were you able to reach the Mitchell Award?
@@samalcatraz8751 Mitchell, Yes. I fell just short of getting the Earhart though before I had to turn Senior Member.
I hope you never washed that hand again! J/K! I'd absolutely freak if I met a Medal of Honor winner. Most of those are given posthumously.
@@Native_love Yeah, I geeked out at seeing all of his awards including the MoH without even knowing who he was and what he had done at the time. He was very nice about it and had even thanked me after I was done with my geekgasm. 😅
A little thing - as a fellow tour guide I love the fact that every time this guy uses an acronym, he immediately gives the full name, eg “an RPG, or Rocket Propelled Grenade”. 4:31 truly the mark of someone who knows how to use jargon, but also make it accessible to an audience
Except RPG doesn't actually stand for rocket propelled grenade that's a backronym it stands for Ruchnoy Protivotankovy Granatomyot or " handheld anti-tank grenade launcher"
@@duskbrood1 It does stand for rocket propelled grenade now, even if it didnt originally.
@@duskbrood1 If it's true, it blows my mind. I guess is the first acronym, that could be in Merriam-Webster dictionary, and it's part of pop-culture, thanks to hollywood. And the origins is in Russian not american.
1. While serving with the 155th AHC in Ban Me Thuot I noticed that out on the main street the Montagnards had built small puptent shaped frames of bamboo or wood, with several longer pieces down the sides and top. Barbed wire was wrapped all around the structure; sides, floor, and ends. A prisoner would be forced inside. There was not enough room for the prisoner to stretch out, sit, kneel, or lie down without being stabbed by rusty barbs. These structures were along the main street in the blazing sun. No place to go to the bathroom. and any passers-by could torment prisoners at will. You don't believe the VC or NVA did the same in retaliation? 2. I used to play guitar with a Vietnamese gentleman who spent over a year in a reeducation camp. He managed to walk away from a work group and make it across the border to Cambodia, then across that country to Thailand and then ultimately to the United States. Taken at his word, things were not much better in those camps. Not enough food or water, drinking their own urine. 3. My uncle served in the Marines as an advisor and could speak fair Vietnamese. He knew General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan. General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan wound up living in Virginia and owned a restaurant in the DC area. My uncle told me that several VC massacred the general's best friend's wife and children in Saigon. The plaid shirted Viet Cong that General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executed in that famous photo was one of those VC. He had been captured moments after the massacre and the general shot him shortly after that. I do not doubt my uncle's word. I know nothing of General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan's character, but I do know that things aren't always as simple as they appear.
Well, that is not surprising. For the Vietnamese, it was more like a civil war with foreign (French then US) interference. There's nothing so bitter as a war among your own kin. The two opposed sides traded all sorts of tit-for-tat atrocities, and in the end, one side was going to lose with its leaders all either dead or fled. It ended how it ought to have ended, but that is not much consolation for guys on the losing side who would be held to blame even today, if they dared to go back. I have one relative who went through a similar thing in another country - wound up on the losing side of a bloody change in power, got imprisoned, tortured, almost executed multiple times.
Incidentally, there is one scene in Full Metal Jacket that depicts these sort of atrocities. When Hue was taken briefly by the North, they got bloody revenge for all the things done to their people by the government of the South, bodies of Southern officials and other US-friendly "collaborators" dumped in mass graves (like in the film). But then Hue got retaken, and no doubt the cycle of revenge got flipped back the other way again, and then probably back again when the South lost Hue for the final time. And naturally, both sides will blame the other (in front of journalists) when a pile of corpses is actually found.
Awesome! So glad you did Forrest Gump! Seems to track with what my Dad said about authenticity (he served as an infantry sgt on the Batangan Peninsula in 1969). You didn’t rate the non-combat parts, but he said the Lt Dan stuff with the showers, socks, rain, etc, was also reminiscent of his time there. A lot like Forrest Gump too, he said in his entire time in Vietnam, he never physically saw the enemy - like face to face. It was always ambushes, booby traps, nightime rocket attacks, etc.
My father fought during the war when he was around 19 I believe! He fought for the south and loved watching Vietnam war movies 🙂
This guy was my professor!!! Me and my classmates loved his class !
The railway bridge in Casualties Of War is in Thailand. It was built by Allied POWs during WW2. I have walked across it a few times on tours that follow the railway to educate people about what happened there. My dad was a POW, Australian Army, and he worked on the line in Burma.
The only time we used “blue line” was in reference to a water way-creek or river-which appeared as blue lines on our maps and were often our only reference points in lowland free-fire zones. Any other assembly position and the like would have had a letter designation, like “X-Ray.” This was in 67 and 68, when I was with the 11th Cav.
I think Bill did a much better job in this video than his first one. Good job.
He was probably told to tone it down a bit. He also seemed to have films in front of him that he liked rather than ones like Rambo.
Yeah but he still f^&* it up. Didn't mention the torcher of our pows by the NVA in the Hiltonor by the vc. He also He also glossed over that the guy the general killed 9:44 was VC Captain in civilian clothing and he was killed for murdering South Vietnamese Lt. Col. Colonel Nguyen Tuan, his wife, six of his seven children, and 80-year-old mother. He has a clear bias.His bias to the war is clear.
The Iron Triangle (1989) is one of the most interesting movies about the Vietnam War I've seen because the story is partially told from the point of view of the Vietcong.
I really do love this series and the experts and how they educate around the clips. Thanks for this content.
Nice you included Hamburger Hill! 😎👍 Great job
The big thing I did not enjoy when I watched "Da 5 Bloods" was how there was a scene where the vets are all talking about real life African American heroes from Vietnam that never had movies made about them. I took a moment to process it before saying out loud (and imagining I was talking directly to Spike Lee), "You're the director. You could have made that movie! Why are you griping about something you're actively taking part in?"
Agreed. I hate that kind of stuff.
right like The Tuskegee Airmen Major Payne lol
About 25% of Vietnam veterans were drafted. God bless the men and women who served.
That movie had a good atmosphere, I liked it, but it kinda fell short in terms of story, I felt a bit awkward seeing these men relive the war again this time fighting a criminal ring trying to steal the gold, it just seemed so out of place.
With the exception of the last movie clip, I have seen all of the these Vietnam War Movies. The best is Hamburger Hill and the saddest is Casualties of War. I even heard that Causalities Of War got criticized by some veterans for making them look bad. But you know what they say any war can make anyone an evil monster.
My Lai massacre already happened so they didn't need Casualties of War to make them look bad.
Platoon was in the opinion of my co-employees who at one time were in RVN when SHTF, was a good interpretation of what the Bleep went on. '66-'67, RVN E/2/1, 1st Mar Div.
@@amazingdanynot every veteran participated in the my lai massacre. But yes plenty of war crimes happened.
@@boondocker7964 Well Oliver Stone was a veteran, and with exception to the romanticized struggle of good and evil between Barnes and Elias, was very much so an amalgamation of his experiences. The actors also famously lampooned by comedies like Tropic Thunder, were thrown into the jungle like soldiers, and apparently even kept rank off camera.
Interesting.@@playerthirteen9695
He should cover the opening battle scene from Tropic Thunder.😂
This is really entertaining, keep em coming!
7:16 it is common in movies to have the lead actor conveniently lose their helmet so they are more recognizable in the scene. I am going to Ho Chi Minh City in March I booked a tour of the Chu Chi tunnels and Mekong Delta while I am there.
A common saying is: "Hollywood hates helmets." They prefer their actors (lead actors anyway), are always more recognizable, like you said. Drama over realism. It is worse in anything involving medieval or earlier type of combats - there they find ways to have neither helmets nor shields, even if their warriors would be mulched without it.
There's a War Museum in HCMC, you should definitely visit it.
Incredible that the revolver at 10:05 has to be censored -- in a video about the Vietnam war 🙄
It's not the pistol, it's the perceived "suicide" aspect of it. Had that gun been held by the VC, it likely would not have been blurred. Not sure how old you are but remember that band Papa Roach? Had that song last resort? MTV couldn't air it not because of swear words, but because it talked about suicide. But songs about murdering other people was totally ok.
Still need to do Danger Close and The Odd Angry Shot.
Bill could have talked about Project 100,000 units when it came to Forrest Gump. His drill sergeant kept praising him ironically for his intelligence and he narrated how good of a fit he was.
This guy is acting like the NVA didn't torture prisoners lmao. Look up that guy who morse code blinked "torture" during an interview. The south did it too but you shouldn't act like the NVA didn't partake.
The dude who blinked "torture" was an American POW in Japan during WW2, get your facts right gang, though they definitely both tortured pows
I see where the confusion may be though - I didn't know the video was taped by Japanese News@@jaredsavage1584
He said both sides did a lot of bad things.
@@jaredsavage1584 You're really cocky for someone who's wrong lol. Denton's one-word report, delivered in Morse code, was the first clear confirmation received by U.S. Intelligence that American POWs were, in fact, being tortured. He later speculated that the North Vietnamese did not learn of his blinking message until 1974.
finally Hamburger Hill. my favorite war movie of all times.
I'd love to her your opinion on Bat 21, my favorite Vietnan movie. True, its not technically accurate despite being based on a real rescue. But I always loved the aerial shots done in real time and the rare nod to the FAC pilots who flew with no protection or defenses.
The punji trap would also have the effect of puncturing your legs again when your buddies would try to drag you out of it.
They would also coat it in sewage to cause infection
'84 Charlie Mopic' and 'The Boys from Company C' never get enough love.
It gets way too much. It's fine as a high school video project is the best I can say for it. It's like somebody found a list of slang terms used by GIs in "the nam" and incorporated them into a screenplay, ticking off words, one by one. They just tried to cram a bunch of guesses and "did you know" factlets into a movie that's ridiculously unrealistic. It's a joke.
The Boys from Company C also includes an egregious example of the ‘Hollywood Mine’, a totally fictitious mine that goes ‘click’ when you stand on it…
@@shaggybreeks Thank you for your input.
Bullshit! I walked over one in four times a trench one night and luckily DID Not step on it due to dry leaves. I walked along the edges, not wanting to make noise. Don't babble about what you know Nothing about!@@bob_the_bomb4508
@@bob_the_bomb4508 You mean "bouncing betty" mines? They were definitely real.
Would love for this guy to break down Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan
So glad you thought highly of Go Tell The Spartans. I never served in the Army...but I grew up in it and my Father fought in WW2, Korea and Vietnam. His character was very much like the major portrayed by Burt Lancaster. But I met and observed every type of personality depicted in the film. The gung ho, low IQ lieutenant (I swear he lived right next to us in our duplex). The career minded Captain who seems very competent,, and wants that CIB. The burnt out sergeant, the radio operator corporal who at a glance looks like he couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag, but in real combat proves a smooth calm warrior. The college grad intel weenie (whose analysis proves spot on) The corrupt ARVN commander who doesn't want to expend his 105 rounds. Even the "mosquito patrol and bug juice testing) is exactly the kind of thing that trickles down from above that an officer has to do. The Vietnamese family who are innocent farmers by day and VC fighters at night. The producers also got the uniforms, weapons, and equipment right for that period.....green OD's wit white name tags...Sikorsky Helo instead of a UH1 Huey, American advisers with M1 carbines, 30cal m1919 browning mg's and M3 Grease guns. The old French compound...(My Dad's unit cleared out just such a compound to repost it and within a day one of the old French bunkers collapsed and smothered two of their guys to death. The movie isn't over the top with battle scenes....but watch the whole movie and it's almost like you can see why we ended up leaving and why South Vietnam fell.
Glad you're reading these comments--most of these movies were in the comments of Pt. 1. So with that in mind... I'd love to hear historians weigh in on the best Iraq/Afghanistan War portrayals, now that 20 years have passed since they broke out. Also love to hear someone react to movies' portrayals about the post-war experience, whether with the VA, families, PTSD treatment, etc.
Well the last time they had Rambo 2 in the list which wasn't even set during the Veitnam war
Why did he gloss over the torture at the "Hanoi Hilton "?
Because he's talking about movies and doesn't have time to go into a full history of every detail. I'm sure if he rated the movie "Hanoi Hilton" he would have discussed more but again, sticking to the film.
@@johnnelson5503 I'm just saying he kinda glossed over why they nicknamed it that, or they edited that part out.
Glad you were there, how about the 11th ACR and Airborne in Cambodia
"So you dont want to mistreat them too much." Hanoi hilton enters the chat.
Or What the vc did to are guys
USA shouldn't have ever disregarded Vietnam's first democratic presidential election, which kicked off the war soon after.
7:17 His helmet falls off when he hits the ground and ends up on the wrong side of the raised bit. Even someone as slow as him isn't going across that to get his helmet.
One about the battle of Hamburger Hill, the 101st didn't just go up 7 times, they took it each time. And it wasn’t 7 either, it was more like 11 or 12. Everytime they took the top of the Hill they would dig into their previous positions and withdraw around an hour later and the NVA would just reoccupy it
So we know why America kept attacking, but why did the NVA keep going back? The same reason?
'PAVN wore uniform ' - shows a photo of ARVN
I can't even stand to listen to this "historian" who uses terms for the enemy that were not used then. And can't even tell the two sides apart. NOBODY used the term "PAVN" back then. IDK if the "historian" is just trying to be cool by using nonstandard language, but I'm pretty sure we can find better historians -- like, people who were actually there. Or even just old enough to remember!
@@shaggybreeks PAVN is exactly what we Vietnamese (or Northen Vietnam people in the war) call our army, we didn't call ourselves Viet Cong, sometimes we called ourselves "Viet Minh army" or "Uncle Ho's Army" (cause we love our Uncle Ho very much), but officially, the name of our army until now is still PAVN.
@@truongnguyendac2032 We call you guys the north Vietnams army the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) not the VC (Viet Cong) thats what we called the souths communist gorilla insurgency.
"Communist guerilla (fixed that one for free, brother) insurgency"...funny, considering it was their god damn country that the French occupied by force, not giving them a choice. The FRENCH were the insurgents, and then the AMERICANS that wanted to install a puppet state to act as a buffer between China and the rest of their occupied territories like the Philippines and Japan which were basically all but colonies except for being called that...The Americans had no business being there or deciding anything. We went because "communism bad" but Vietnam today is thriving pretty decently under that "evil communist government" that you so easily accept the propaganda about. Almost like they WANTED TO LIVE THEIR LIVES IN PEACE AND NOT BE DOMINATED BY ANYONE. Please get that through your thick skull. @@Autobotmatt428
@@shaggybreeksThe picture was added after his part, and he probably didn’t have any involvement in picking it.
I wish they would film the story of the LRRPS that reconned Hamburger Hill before the battle. It's an interesting story. I know he's saying PAVN because that's what they are now, but I'll always call them the NVA because my Dad fought them from October 65 to October 66.
I remember a fascinating chapter entry in the book 'Bloods' about a group of black LRRPs. It was probably an inspiration for the long sequence in the movie 'Dead Presidents' about a LRRP team whose one white guy carried around a rotting human head with him. Sounds like a stupid scene but I remember it being fairly realistic otherwise.
Having served, I would say that Full Metal Jacket (despite some obvious embellishments) represents the most realistic example of boot camp.
Not for a modern day boot camp though. A lot of the stuff that happened aren’t allowed anymore, thankfully.
Strangely, Bill the historian didn’t like the movie much. If I remember right, he said the city setting was off and the sniper didn’t move enough.
Hamburger hill is one of my favorite movies of all time
FINALLY! Covering hamburger hill!
My great uncle was Army Intelligence and in-country ‘67-‘69. All he will ever talk about is the equipment he used, and how he knew he was done with the military after a nighttime fight in ‘69 that resulted in at least 200+ Vietnamese dead
Would love to see what he says about Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan
Yes!
I first saw that movie on Amazon on my tablet. I was working as a valet at a cancer hospital during the beginning of the pandemic and there were literally no cars to park as we opened up the lot for self parking. I was working late one night and watching that movie when an older guy came out, noticed what I was watching, stood by and watched it for a couple minutes, then found a chair, dragged it over, and sat down with me. I restarted the whole movie and we watched it from start to finish in silence.
Seems to have forgotten that Australian forces were there!
He forgot my favorite one I think..Platoon by Oliver Stone. But overall I truly appreciated his insights about Vietnam War.
Platoon kind of got it, if a movie can get it.
He already commented on 'Platoon' in the last video.
In the very beginning of the vid' he mentions a book he wrote, which is about a major battle in Vietnam, that battle is what the ending of Platoon is based off of, and he did comment about it in another vid'.
@@Apillis124 I don't know about the author's book, but I think Platoon's final battle was based on the attack on Fire Support Base Burt, which Oliver Stone was a participant in.
One of my Machining professors was in charged of a patrol boat said the biggest issue he had was guys freezing up and not suppressing enemy forces. Very cool guy
Absolutely agree with him about'Go Tell The Spartans". I would love to see him do a side by side comparison of 'Go Tell the Spartans' with the idiotic 'The Green Berets'. It would be hilarious! 👍🏻
Having read books and heard interviews with many US POWs from the Vietnam War, I would say they would have a big disagreement with this "experts" assertion that the NVA treated them well.
Would you suggest we should have treated better? Respect them according to Geneva convention? I mean back in the 60s white people in the US refused to allow black people to use the same drinking fountain or toilets. We learned cruelty from you i guess
Love Go Tell the Spartans. Also enjoy The Boys in Company C. Can't watch any Vietnam War film with my father, who was there and is a member of the VHPA, likes to point out the inaccuracies. I talked to him quite a bit, and one thing he mentioned that the movies don't capture is the humor and boredom of the downtime.
The siege of fire base Gloria is a good 1 with R. LEE Ermey in it.
My Father was 101 Airborne and fought in Vietnam. He wouldn't talk about his time in Vietnam but after watching Hamburger Hill he took me, my uncle's and cousins to see it, he said it was the closest representation of his time served and answered a few questions and never spoke on it again
I like your stuff
MACV was my dad’s unit. Tet started just 2 mos before his tour was up.
Your dad was SOG?
That's innacurate right there,PAVN They were NVA North Viietnam Army
Read the story of how Col Robert L Howard earned his Medal of Honor in Vietnam. Jaw dropping!!! Let alone the fact he was nominated for the MOH 3 times and wounded 14 times within a 54 month span earning 8 Purple Hearts and the Distinguished Service Cross. Also, how he earned his Silver Star is mind blowing as well!!! He’s noted as one of the most decorated soldiers in the Vietnam war.
“A Bright Shining Lie” is worth a look
The title alone pretty much sums up what led to American involvement in Vietnam. The scenes with the disastrous battle and later how the military advisor is told to toe the line that it was a victory for South Vietnam just show how much the superiors didn't understand what they were doing almost right from the start.
This guy does love his acronyms
I love how RPG can be said as Rocket Propelled Grenade, even tho Ruchnoy Protivotankovyy Granatomot is not meaning literally this... but it is. :D
He is a professor of Southern. GATA and Hail Southern. I just graduated from there with my degree in History
And what about: "Tropic Thunder" ?!
Tet '68 was a multi-faceted operation. It was intended as a serious show of capability to spite and refute the claims that the VC / PAVN were "spent. It was also designed by Hanoi to "skew the roles of the NLF / VC and the PAVN. The southern "irregular"s were NOT trained or equipped as conventional infantry and they had never operated on such a scale in the open in daylight. Thus, when they launched, they needed to move VERY quickly in towns and cities with which not many were familiar.The "timetable' obvious;ly "slipped, or oemthing and objectives did not fall on schedule. There had also been insufficient fighters and "guides" "pre-positioned in strategic locations. The assault on Cho Lon (the big market) seemed to go awry. Fighting in a seriously (even in those days) built-up area is a martial art of its own, not necessarily a good place to be for a bunch of 'farm boys a LONG way from home and conducted without serious, realistic rehearsals. Thus, the lightly-armed infantry and sappers found themselves in a "free-fire zone". US and ARVN air power wreaked havoc. The AC-47 gunships were unleashed . But the Tet Offensive '68 achieved its goals: If made the US look politically and strategically inept. Furthermore the wholesale slaughter of the NLF / VC meant that the "regular" PAVN were now the only real game in town and in charge. It was then the "Hanoi Way" or NO WAY.. A couple of good books that cover some some of the events of time are: "Page after Page", by Tim Page, who took some of the "classic" photographs of the war. Another is "Ridding the Devils" by Australian reporter and all-round interesting person. He managed to survive a VC vehicle ambush on a car-load of reporters / photographers. The other BIG action in Viet Nam was, of course Dien Bien Phu. There are two cinematic versions that I have seen The first was made very shortly after the French fortresses fell. The original used the actual locations for sets. The also had a LOT of captured Legionnaires and equipment to play themselves. (No live ammo for them, though). the other was made as an "international" effort, several decades later, and in colour. There was no trouble finding "locals to fill the roles of the Legionnaires. A LOT of military-aged young men who were in Viet Nam at the time, mostly working for various commercial operations, went into a different, but similar location where a "replica" of al the key bits of the battle had been built. I have not seen it for years; time to look out for it on some "interesting" streaming service?
Gonna call out Forest Gump where we first meet Lt. Dan. Lt. Dan is at a field camp and takes poop in makeshift potty with 4 walls. Those 4 walls would've been very luxurious for that type of area. Most field camps the potty was just a barrel and plywood with a hole in it, no walls. That's based on the 1st hand accounts I've read, seems pretty common.
Walls? Even modern military will just setup a bench next to a ditch. Yes a bench. As in multiple occupancy. So I think it varies. Not sure it's a major point.
My Dad said if the Chinooks (he called them a slang term I can’t type here lol) were ever inbound, you didn’t want to be in the showers because they’d blow the curtains wide open. 😂
I'm sure the bathroom facilities varied
As Grunts, we simply walked out to the trip flare wire and dug a hole. There was a small roll of TP in every C-ration meal. What's shower? 'Several times in the rain. We'd be lucky if it'd be once every week or ten days (or 14), a jump in a river, with or without clothes, depending on the time restraint.
I'm confused about this term PAVN, only in the last few months have I suddenly heard a couple different historians use this acronym. In all my 47 years of life they have always been NVA, every book I've read, every movie, TV show, documentary etc. it's always been NVA. Why are they suddenly using PAVN now? I'm always skeptical about sudden acronym changes. Just like, why did DUI suddenly become OWI? Is there some mysterious powerful group that dictates these things? Is it only me who finds this weird?
would highly recommend "Rescue Dawn" that is a doozy
Still no review for 'Rescue Dawn' (2007)?
Not combat scenes, but I always felt that the boot camp sequences in Forrest Gump were very accurate.
How is having prisoners play Russian roulette not “in the realm of possibility?” It’s LITERALLY possible to play Russian Roulette and people have been doing it since the invention of the revolver. There may not be evidence of it during the Vietnam war, but it certainly could’ve happened. ?
What was much more unrealistic about that scene was the location of the VC holding cages *right on the riverbank.* In reality American forces watched those rivers from the air so closely (all day long) that actual VC would only fill their canteens along them after dark.
I was there for Tet. Interesting times.
One reason for the massive use of air power in order to keep ground casualties down.
You don’t say…
When did NVA become PAVN? For 40 years I only heard of the former but now everyone refers to them as the latter. What's the deal here?
It's not period accurate, but it is correct. There are at least 3 cold war groups with the initials 'NVA', so I guess part of it is the war fading back into history.
@natedigger5678 OK, thanks. That makes sense.
Suggestion: BJJ(Brazilian Jiujitsu) artist breaks down BJJ scenes in movies and tv
I would've love to see him rate the Vietnam flashback in the prematurely cancelled series adaptation of _Quarry_ .
Okay, not a lot of people know this (because they associate the movie with the face painted bank robber), but Dead Presidents IS A VIETNAM MOVIE. (and if you're gonna review that, then you should also look at The Boys in Company C)
Liked em both. Dead Presidents had the kind of raw realism I prefer. Boys in Company C was more Hollywood but also likeable. They should have filmed Dead Presidents going back and forth more in between the stateside robbery and the Vietnam experience to tie the two together more in audience's minds. Clearly the title referred as much to our collective disillusionment with our government as it did that stolen currency.
Would've loved to see one of these done by John Musgrave.
I don't recall ever hearing PAVN. it was always NVA.
PAVN sounds like something that fonda and hayden came up with.
Since we're talking about the Vietnam War, it would've been more accurate to them as NVA. The PAVN didn't come into existence until 1976 when the NVA and LASV (the armed wing of the Viet Cong) were merged.
The picture depicting WW1 when he’s talking about hamburger hill is actually a WW2 picture. Just saying…
Because he was talking about trench warfare being similar to that in ww1…those words exactly…just saying
@@davidderbyshire8808 I know but at least put up a pic from WW1
04:38 ARVN picture
Noticed that too.
"Hamburger Hill" (1987) was a good movie. Nice bath scene. -Da 5 blood = a film with a heavy landmine blast. -Martin Luther King and George Lincoln Rockwell were indeed in America in the 1960s. -Walken in "The Deer Hunter" did justice to his role and "Pulp Fiction" as a USAF officer with his good watch. -A French HY Citroen bus is blown up in the "Full Metal jacket" scene. -M. J . Fox plays a soldier with honor.- -I miss the movie "Tunnel Rats" from 2008?!
Hamburger Hill = a battle wit the 101st airborne division in it. The soundtrack is class A.
On Hamburger Hill, by summer 1968, NAPs were assigned as replacements, mostly E-3 & 4. On air support, fast movers were not simply flying around waiting for a call. RVN- era Pathfinder here, you have to give an entrance & exit azimuth. Army would call local 105, maybe 155. Clear to me when I hear arm chair 11Bs.
Wish you included the 2002 film We Were Soldiers.
They did the last time and he messed it up.
Just because he wrote a book on My Lai massacre doesn't mean he needs to deny that American POWs were tortured.
He wanted to call the VC portrayal in The Deer Hunter "barbaric" like he doesn't know the actual VC mailed the organs of civilians to their families to keep them in line
you sound like a massacre denier.
@@Genessyss Do you know what happen in Hue city what the NVA did there.
I always recall the story of non-combatants who had their arms chopped off because they were immunized by army or NGO medics because of local disease outbreaks; just a nice pile of children's arms heaped together seems like a good reason to start self-medicating
I think you missed the entire point of what he said. He never said they weren't tortured, he said they weren't ORDERED to torture them. Do you understand the difference?
You vc?! 😂 I don't know why but that's something I yell at people in DayZ, that and "Charlie's in the trees!"
Thankyou for sharing your knowledge should be taught in schools
If you're judging Casualties of War based on the accuracy of the bridge scene, you miss the point. All these films take license over the facts in some way or another. But, as a veteran, it's always nice to hear from experts who didn't serve.
My favorite Vietnam War movie is We Were Soldiers with Mel Gibson.
Terrible propaganda film
For the same price, full metal jacket is propaganda too.
How is it propaganda?
@@kb4903 By that logic so is Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Casualties of War etc.
I worked on that film. Spent months with Galloway and Moore, Bill Beck and other vets. 6 weeks on set research in Vietnam. The production team ignored literally everything we advisors submitted. Galloway was pissed. Moore kept quiet. It was an awful and inaccurate film.
Its interesting that some movies actually get somethings right
Breaks down military history professor: He's a decent professor, but he teaches at Georgia Southern - not an Ivy League school. 6/10
WHY NOT ASK A SOLDIER WHO WAS ACTUALLY THERE? THOSE PEOPLE ARE STILL AROUND !
I watched Marine Fox-4 fighter jets drop napalm and White Phosphorus bombs on the Viet Cong. The jet pilots had to pull extreme G-force climbs to get out of the area just seconds before the bombs exploded. The jets were pointed straight up right after a dive to drop the bombs. The plumes of Willie Pete and the flames of burning napalm shot up into the air for hundreds of feet judging from our Huey helicopter hovering nearby. This is the only time our helicopter stayed in the same spot and it was very dangerous for us to be so still because of anti-aircraft weapon fire. I wondered why we were observing the Fox-4 attacks but the pilots never talked about our role in the air assaults. Normally, they were flying at 80 knots at tree-top level so the enemy could not get an accurate aim on our UH-1D helicopter.
my uncle in law he still kicking he was a Tank Driver
Go Tell the Spartans is pretty good
thanks a lot, France
Is it me or did he miss out "Platoon" ? I think that is the best Vietnam war movie ever.
My step dad ended up a POW, I'm guessing by the VC because he was definitely mistreated. When he needs to take a sweaty or wet shirt off, it needs to be done fast because if it stays up over his head for any length of time he freaks out. He's 78 and hasn't spoken a word about it except for the fact he was. Would do anything to hear his story from start to finish
Shame we didn't get to The Greatest Beer Run Ever, it actually had a really good depiction of the buildup to the Tet Offensive
I'm a little disappointed that you did not bring up the issue of all those guys going full auto on a combat position. In Vietnam, and most other combat scenarios for that matter, fully auto would only be used in situations where the enemy position is unclear or where suppressive fire would be needed, such as in a hasty retreat.
The booby trap was the scariest weapon in the war,more deadly then any advance weapons.
How about the Angry Odd Shot with the Australians in Vietnam War?
This is interesting, however, can't help but think you could have just asked an actual Vietnam vet to provide the feedback. Historians are invaluable, but still somewhat rely on the retelling of events.
oh sweet. hes back!
My uncle was a ranger river rat type of military dude you don’t ask about his experience so all i can go on is i saw his shadow box once and he had what i determined to be 5 army commendation medal 2 silver stars 3 bronze stars and a couple medals from the south Vietnamese government. But i never hear miltary stories on any of these vietnam videos about the “river rats”
No mention of 'Danger close' again
Bro is fanboying for north Vietnam