Editor’s note: Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady is a recipient of the United States military’s highest decoration, the Medal of Honor. He is former president of the Medal of Honor Society.

Needless to say, Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s “documentary,” “The Vietnam War,” has caught the attention of Vietnam veterans. Except for the John Kerryites, the feedback is decidedly negative.


The filmmakers’ obsequious devotion to the Vietnam-era media narrative is breathtaking. Many call Burns and Novick’s “Vietnam” a hatchet job. That attitude certainly has merit, but I barely got past Tet when it was clear to me that what they were doing was more subtle than a hatchet job. A better description is: The filmmakers damned us – not only the veterans, but America as well – with faint praise.

They use a deceitful journalistic tool of gathering token credibility bites from those on the other side of their preordained narrative in an effort to appear objective. Burns and Novick’s “Vietnam” is plagued with media malfeasance including obfuscation, omission and some really messed up moral equivalences.

North Vietnam would have fallen in weeks if the American media had been there and treated it as they did our efforts in the South. The GIs knew this and would often declare that we should

I was especially disturbed by the notion that we wouldn’t carry the Vietnamese dead. In one tour in Vietnam, my unit and other helicopter ambulance units (“Dustoff”), carried hundreds of Vietnamese dead, as well as Communist dead and wounded.

The documentary’s co-creators repeat Walter Cronkite’s apocalyptic version of Tet despite the fact that it was surely one of the greatest military victories in the history of warfare. We killed 41,000 and captured 2,500 of 84,000 enemy combatants. Gen. Vo Nguyan Giap, the Communists’ supreme commander, was ready to quit. (Years later, I would represent Army Gen. William Westmoreland in a visit with Giap, who was willing to go on the record with Westy and admit what a catastrophe Tet was for his side.) Yet it was portrayed as a defeat, thanks to the likes of Uncle Walter, who had his nose up Ho Chi Minh’s posterior. It was like America turned around after Normandy and retreated across the English Channel or George Washington quitting after Yorktown.

Burns and Novick repeatedly remind us that we didn’t understand the Vietnamese. How then do we understand that they would vote for a Communist over a nationalist? As for Ngo Dinh Diem’s popularity, it is worth emphasizing that after the Vietnam division of 1954, hundreds of thousands fled Ho Chi Minh’s North in favor of Diem in the South. How many went North? We have no idea of Ho’s popularity since Communists don’t do polls.

I have seen the terrors of Communism up close – in Berlin, watching them build a wall around their own people; in the DMZ in Korea, where I saw human beings turned into robots; in Russia, where the people were still paranoid of Communists well after the fall of the wall; and in Vietnam, where I personally picked up the remnants of Communists’ atrocities beyond evil. Diem and the refugees recognized those evils, as did many in the South. We saw the fruits of that evil after the fall in the tragedies of the concentration camps and boat people.

Contrasting Burns and Novick’s fawning depiction of Ho versus that of Diem is instructive. Ho embodied many of the characteristics of Burns’ Hollywood. He was an atheist. He was a Communist. He was a propagandist who controlled the media, and he certainly was not celibate. Diem was far from the Hollywood denizens. He was a devout Catholic, so devout that he lived a celibate life in emulation of Christ and many saints. He was an anti-communist, pro-nationalist, and he lived an extremely austere life. He was not a man who coveted opulence. His extraordinary faith and austere lifestyle belies any motive of personal aggrandizement.

The Buddhist burning was covered, but not the Buddhist Communist connection – nor was the fact that many members of Diem’s family were murdered by the Buddhists, some buried alive. Still almost half of Diem’s staff were Buddhists. Diem was a dedicated nationalist with the best interests of his country at heart.

After our complicity in the murder of Diem, Ho said, “I can scarcely believe the Americans would be so stupid.” Ho had a very high opinion of Diem and tried to recruit him. I was in flight school with some Vietnamese pilots at the time we murdered Diem, and I remember their distress, not only because of his death but over the fact that some Americans celebrated it. They would remind us how it felt three weeks later as we mourned President John F. Kennedy’s death.

To draw a moral equivalence between Ho and Diem, Communism and nationalism, is bad enough. But to draw a moral equivalence between the war cowards at home and those who risked their lives for them in Vietnam, as the filmmakers do here, is beyond shameful.

Let me give you Vietnam in a nutshell. It matches in unselfishness anything we ever did. There was really nothing in it for us in a materiel sense. We were simply trying to help a helpless people be free from the horrible evil of Communism. And the Vietnam veteran fought with a valor and humanitarianism never before seen in any war in our history.

Look at the facts ignored by Burns and Novick. The American soldier was never defeated on any significant battlefield in Vietnam. The average infantryman in the Pacific in World War II saw about 40 days of combat in four years. His counterpart in Vietnam saw about 240 days of combat in one year. The percentage of those who died is similar to other wars, but the prevalence of traumatic amputation and crippling wounds was 300 percent higher in Vietnam than in World War II and 70 percent higher than in Korea. Multiple amputations occurred at the rate of 18.4 percent compared to 5.7 percent in World War II. Approximately 75,000 Vietnam vets were severely disabled.

Medal of Honor recipient Gen. Patrick Brady tells the inspiring, miraculous story of his days as a Dust Off air ambulance pilot in Vietnam. Get his reissued book, autographed: “Dead Men Flying: Victory in Viet Nam”

Above our magnificent grunts, the aviation accomplishments in Vietnam are unprecedented. In World War II, aircraft losses were 16 percent, and, in Vietnam, 43 percent. I read that in World War II, some pilots completed tours after 25 missions at an average of four hours per mission, or total 100 hours! In Vietnam, 100 hours was an average month for many, and 25 missions an average week.

As an aside, Mike Novosel, a fellow “Dustoff” pilot, and I were playing golf with a famous fighter pilot much celebrated for having flown 100 combat missions. Between us, Mike and I had more than 5,000 combat missions! Needless to say, we reminded the fighter pilot of this as he bent over an important putt.

Burns and Novick’s narrative is woefully dismissive of the extraordinary valor and humanitarianism of the Vietnam GI. I saw mention of only one of 260 Medals of Honor awarded. What is remarkable is that 30 percent of the Medals of Honor earned in Vietnam, far more than any other war, were for soldiers covering explosives with their bodies to save their fellow soldiers. That is not only a remarkable statistic, it is a remarkable tribute to the quality of our troops.


The film’s creators also ignore perhaps the most amazing story of the war, Charles Kelly and “Dustoff,” the most famous call sign of the war. Kelly gave his life to save aeromedical evacuation. His dying words uttered when he refused to leave patients while under fire – “when I have your wounded” – set the standard for life-saving on the battlefield to this day.

“Dustoff” has been singled out by every supreme commander in Vietnam for special recognition. They led the humanitarian effort and set battlefield survival records unparalleled in combat. Over 500,000 combat missions and more than 900,000 rescued – men, women, children, enemy as well as friendly.

Although one in 10 GIs was wounded, less than 1 percent died, thanks to “Dustoff.” Your chances of survival were greater if you were wounded on a battlefield in Vietnam than if you were on an accident on a highway in America. How in the hell could any documentary of Vietnam omit “Dustoff”?

The filmmakers also ignore the fact that it was the outstanding veterans from that war who were responsible for the unprecedented victory in Desert Storm.

By the way, Congress continues to ignore the “Dustoff” crews. Although they have been recommended for a Congressional Gold Medal, Congress ignored them but found time for the Filipinos in World War II (surely deserving). Not one unit from Vietnam has received this honor.

In addition to the humanitarian efforts of “Dustoff,” Burns and Novick fail to highlight the contributions of the GI to the welfare, health and education of those wonderful people. Vietnam may be the only war we ever fought – or perhaps that was ever fought – in which the American soldier added to their heroism a humanitarianism unmatched in the annuals of warfare. And the U.S. soldier did so during the heat of the battle. He cared for and about those people, especially the young. The Vietnam veteran fixed as he fought. He cured and educated and built hospitals and orphanages in the middle of the battle. He vaccinated thousands, adopted the children, educated them. He cared for and about those people. No barrier, no political system, will erase what our Vietnam veterans gave to those people.

And the fruits of our humanitarian effort are still there in psyche of the people of Vietnam, in their hearts and souls – as they are in the hearts of so many people all over the world who have been touched by the American GI. I have been back three times and was amazed at the treatment I received. Of all the countries in the world that the young want to visit, America ranks No. 1. (Their favorite city is Las Vegas.)

Our defeat was at the hands of our elite in the courtrooms, the classrooms, the cloak rooms and the newsrooms: cowardly, media-phobic politicians; an irresponsible, dishonest media; and other cowards and spoiled brats and professors from Berkeley to Harvard.

Living with the scars of war is difficult. For some, it’s unbearable. But all veterans suffer. The Vietnam veteran suffered physically as much, perhaps more, than any veteran of the past century. But no other veteran has suffered the mental agony of the Vietnam veteran.

The thing that makes Vietnam so intolerable is what the elite tried to do to dishonor the source of those scars, to intensify the pain of Vietnam veterans and destroy their unselfish and honorable legacy. They opened a gash in the psyche of veterans and then rubbed salt in it. And equally as bad were the atrocities committed by the Communists targeting the friends we abandoned.

The Vietnam veterans not only distinguished themselves in combat, they came home and became model citizens. They were the best educated forces our nation ever sent into combat – 79 percent had a high-school education or better. Contrary to media reports, Vietnam vets didn’t abuse drugs more than their civilian cohorts. They were less likely to go to prison than non-vets. Their income exceeded non-vets by 18 percent, and their unemployment rates were lower.

We see horrifying suicide rates among today’s warriors, yet Vietnam veterans, who saw as much or more combat than any warriors ever, after living through the media calumny of their service and sacrifice, had a lower suicide rate than their civilian counterparts. And, as a tribute to their patriotism, despite their shoddy treatment, more than 90 percent of the veterans are glad they served. And so are 87 percent of the American people who saw through the media distortion of their service. Burns and Novick are obviously not among the 87 percent.

The Burns/Cronkite babble that Vietnam was a war we couldn’t win is sad. There is no such thing as “a war we cannot win” if we decide to win. The immeasurable and irredeemable tragedy Burns and Novick label Vietnam is true only in the manner in which we abandoned our allies and mistreated our veterans.

It was our vets in Vietnam who slowed the onslaught of Communism to this day. And Communism is dead in Vietnam; they just don’t know what to do with the corpse.

Humanitarianism was our great victory in Vietnam, a victory as great as in any war. There is an inscription on the wall of a veteran’s cemetery that says they sacrificed their youth that liberty might grow old. There is no one anywhere to whom that better applies than the veterans of Vietnam. Humanitarianism and a roadblock to communism were our great victories in Vietnam.

Next to the Vietnam Wall, we need a John Kerry/Fonda Wall of Shame listing those who prominently blasphemed the Vietnam GI. And let’s add the names of every member of Congress who voted in December 1974 to betray our allies and leave them to be slaughtered by an evil, vicious enemy.

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Very eye-opening. Thanks for posting.

I thought the communists were ready to surrender after the Tet offensive was known only way after the fact.

This thread can continue but you can read additional discussion here:

https://sigforum.com/eve/forums...935/m/1610035034/p/1

General Brady's Medal of Honor citation

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty, Maj. BRADY distinguished himself while serving in the Republic of Vietnam commanding a UH-1H ambulance helicopter, volunteered to rescue wounded men from a site in enemy held territory which was reported to be heavily defended and to be blanketed by fog. To reach the site he descended through heavy fog and smoke and hovered slowly along a valley trail, turning his ship sideward to blow away the fog with the backwash from his rotor blades. Despite the unchallenged, close-range enemy fire, he found the dangerously small site, where he successfully landed and evacuated 2 badly wounded South Vietnamese soldiers. He was then called to another area completely covered by dense fog where American casualties lay only 50 meters from the enemy. Two aircraft had previously been shot down and others had made unsuccessful attempts to reach this site earlier in the day. With unmatched skill and extraordinary courage, Maj. BRADY made 4 flights to this embattled landing zone and successfully rescued all the wounded. On his third mission of the day Maj. Brady once again landed at a site surrounded by the enemy. The friendly ground force, pinned down by enemy fire, had been unable to reach and secure the landing zone. Although his aircraft had been badly damaged and his controls partially shot away during his initial entry into this area, he returned minutes later and rescued the remaining injured. Shortly thereafter, obtaining a replacement aircraft, Maj. BRADY was requested to land in an enemy minefield where a platoon of American soldiers was trapped. A mine detonated near his helicopter, wounding 2 crew members and damaging his ship. In spite of this, he managed to fly 6 severely injured patients to medical aid. Throughout that day Maj. BRADY utilized 3 helicopters to evacuate a total of 51 seriously wounded men, many of whom would have perished without prompt medical treatment. Maj. BRADY'S bravery was in the highest traditions of the military service and reflects great credit upon himself and the U.S. Army.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
This thread can continue but you can read additional discussion here:

https://sigforum.com/eve/forums...935/m/1610035034/p/1

Sorry. In ~12 years, I haven’t looked in on The Lair 3 times. Since I never go to movies, there is no reason to.

Thanks for posting JALLEN. I flew 1,210 hours in combat operations in 13 months in UH-1C gunships and AH-1G Cobra gunships in I Corps just south of the DMZ. My ships were hit 144 times by enemy ground fire and I was wounded by shrapnel from the anti-aircraft fire. I did not hate the enemy troops, i was there to do a job I was asked to do by my country.

The Burns film made me feel guilty. I could only watch two of the six episodes. Therefore, I agree with the need to erect a monument listing all the people who dishonored our country and the troops who fought in Vietnam. The welcome home of the Iraq vets is in stark contrast to the treatment we VN vets received, not only by the American people, news media, and most disgusting, was by the Veterans Administration who was still clogged by the aging WWII and Korean vets.

I will stop my reply before I get censored by Para.

I watched it, all of it. I am still in contact with a pretty fair number of men that I either trained with or served with and they, universally think Burns' work is just a delayed editorial from a 1969 Washington Post editorial. He tells a truth, then tells a lie, then tells a truth and then shades the facts, so on average it's half true I guess. The weather did suck, he got that right and that has to count.

I think the way he used the family of the slain soldier, Denton was shameful.

Thanks JAllen, I don't visit the Lair either so I would have missed it.

I watched three episodes and couldn't watch any more. I served three tours. April 29, 1975 will remain one of the most disgraceful stains in American history and we did it to ourselves

Thanks for posting this JALLEN. I've only watched the first two episodes and have found it difficult to continue. My uncle, a Vietnam Vet, could only watch a little bit of it before he became disgusted with it and turned it off.

This line from the article says it all;
"Our defeat was at the hands of our elite in the courtrooms, the classrooms, the cloak rooms and the newsrooms: cowardly, media-phobic politicians; an irresponsible, dishonest media; and other cowards and spoiled brats and professors from Berkeley to Harvard."
I am so disgusted by the actions of those described above that I get angry just thinking about it. It is difficult for me to think of any group of people more responsible for the damage done to our country in the last 60 years than those described there.
To all veterans, and especially those of you who served in the Vietnam War, you have my undying respect and gratitude. You know what you did over there and for those of us who care enough to listen to your stories and learn the facts, we know what you did, and we are extremely proud of you. May God Bless all of you.

When I was a young man, out of high-school, I thought that a Poli-sci major with a minor in history would be cool.

Then I took a history class where in the 2nd half of the semester we focused on the Vietnam war. I wrote a paper on the Tet offensive and what a great victory it was for the US. Got a C on the paper. I asked why and he said I was wrong. I asked how since I sited all my facts, provided references, and quotes from the leaders at the time. He told me the Tet was a huge failure and that was that.

That is when I learned, at 19yrs old, the differences between ideologies and how instructors in that field were 'teaching' their truths.

I realized then that the arts was no place for me.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
Sorry. In ~12 years, I haven’t looked in on The Lair 3 times. Since I never go to movies, there is no reason to.

You might check it out more often. Like the forum subtitle says, The Lair is about more than just movies. It includes other stuff like TV shows, books, music, video games, and any number of other hobbies.

I was on my second tour in Germany during that particular time in Viet Nam. There were 8 of us in the unit with the same MOS. We all got 24 hour alert to be ready to fly out for Viet Nam.

I was the only one who did not get sent over there. Of the 7 who went, only 2 came home.

I met a number of vets who had been there, and their description pretty well fits the article.

I remember being told not to wear our uniforms in public when we were back in the states because there was a good chance we would be the subjects of hatred by the ill-informed "public".

quote:

Originally posted by Elk Hunter:

I remember being told not to wear our uniforms in public when we were back in the states because there was a good chance we would be the subjects of hatred by the ill-informed "public".

We didn’t have to be in uniform in San Diego. We stuck out like sore thumbs, neatly dressed, haircuts, recent baths and shaves.....

quote:

Originally posted by Shaql:
I realized then that the arts was no place for me.

Part of the problem there is that somewhere along the line history morphed into an art rather than a science.

A local veteran had a similar opinion of the series:

http://www.qconline.com/opinio...ac-57e50720b92d.html

PBS' 'Vietnam' slap in face of all who served

Bill Albracht Nov 5, 2017

When I heard the Ken Burns-Lynn Novik PBS series on the Vietnam War was coming out, I had immediate trepidation as to how it would be handled.

After watching the entire series, I see that I was right in my feelings.

With the exception of the last episode which dealt with our fallen brothers and The Wall, the rest of the series was another slap in the face of all the men who served with honor when our country called.

I feel compelled to quote Jim Webb, Marine Vietnam combat vet, author, former secretary of the Navy and senator from Virginia:

“The sizeable portion of the Vietnam age group who declined to support the counter-culture agenda, and especially the men and women who opted to serve in the military during the Vietnam War, are quite different from their peers who for decades have claimed to speak for them. In fact, they are much like the World War II generation itself. For them Woodstock was a sideshow, college protesters were spoiled brats who would have benefited from having to work a few jobs in order to pay their tuition, and Vietnam represented not an intellectual exercise in draft avoidance or protest marches but a battlefield that was brutal as those their fathers faced in World War II."

Burns and Novik had the unmitigated gall to hold up as spokesman of all Vietnam vets those who came home and protested the war. To further insult us, they held up a draft evader who fled to Canada. This was shown as a righteous alternative to serving your country.

Where were interviews with gallant chopper pilots who came in through shot and shell to pick up our wounded, drop off ammo or provide close air support? Where were the rank and file infantrymen who through fire and steel beat the enemy at every turn in every battle of consequence?

Where were the guys that provided our pay, food, transportation, petroleum oil and lubricants, logistics and supplies? They had an impact on every grunt that carried an M-16. All served, and the vast majority served with honor and were proud, yes PROUD, of their service to our country.

But that is not what America saw. They saw victims. Victims of a corrupt America. And those victims should be pitied and forgiven for their service because, well, they were merely pawns in a war America had no business being involved in.

The North Vietnamese carried out an invasion into the sovereign country of South Vietnam. It was NOT a civil war; it was a war to stop the south being taken over by communism.

There was no mention of how communism, left unchecked, would spread to Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, the Philippines, and then, on to Australia. That was the plan, but the price they paid in Vietnam was so costly that it derailed the entire process, and we did that.

Yes, we did it at a terrible price, but we did it. So to Burns and Novik, nice try in providing the perfect “I told you so” to all who scorned us and took steps to ensure they would never serve.

But the fact is that, when America called, we answered and did so with honor.



Bill Albracht is a decorated Vietnam veteran, retired Secret Service agent, and security consultant, now living in Bettendorf.

An old friend and mentor is a two-tour Vietnam vet. He sent out a reminder of this Burns series a few days before it was televised, and he appeared to be excited about the upcoming series, thinking back on the Burns’ Baseball Series.

A few days ago I got this same open letter, written by General Brady from him. He was obviously pretty hurt by the portrayal of America’s effort in Vietnam, and especially its treatment of the war’s veterans.

We don’t get PBS and had no opportunity to see the series. Obviously, won’t make an effort

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
We don’t get PBS and had no opportunity to see the series.

Dang, man, you are in the sticks.

At least that's what we call the middle of nowhere here in the South.

I was in Viet Nam in 1965/1966, 1970/1971, and 1972/1973. I watched all of the series and it was a very cleverly crafted subtle hatchet job.

I can't believe anyone is surprised by this. Burns is a raving liberal lunatic.

Not directly related to the thread, but when I saw the quote "When I Have Your Wounded" in the article it made me want to do some digging and I came across this hour long documentary about the history of Dustoff.

When I Have Your Wounded