Inside the Vietnam War goes Inside Soldiers Memories

“This is the inside story of the Vietnam War—told by those who lived through it and will always live with it:” So opens Inside the Vietnam War. Americans still remember this terrible tale of our history. For all its horrors and all its brutality, the Vietnam War has become a taboo subject, especially among family and friends of its veterans. It is understood that one does not casually approach the Vietnam vet with questions of discovering what happened to them so many miles away on another continent. The brave and curious person who dares to ask the forbidden is usually met with a negative reply—too many memories. For the veterans the war is a living thing, seeping into dreams with vivid and frightening clarity. But, there are those few, perhaps incredibly brave, men and women who look back on their time spent in the jungles of Vietnam and share with others their story, looking back to a place and time they would rather forget.

Inside the Vietnam War consists of a series of three episodes—“Endgame,” “Search and Destroy,” and “Turning Point”—each fifty minutes in length, which together share the firsthand accounts of those American veterans who served their country. National Geographic keeps viewers enthralled with fast action sequences so that one almost has to keep in mind this is not a war movie nor are these reenactments. The images are all real. And, so is the sound of gunfire—blasts of AK47’s rocket launchers, bombs, machine guns, and the shrills of fighter jets accompany a constant narration, our history lesson. When the gunfire dies down a deep musical score keeps emotions up. Additionally, the use of slow motion video prolongs the moment and the tension.

Produced almost entirely using archived and stock footage, recorded audio of wartime communications, and photographs taken by army photographers “crouching between blasts to snap their pictures,” Inside the Vietnam War succeeds in keeping viewers interested where other history shows sometime struggle. National Geographic helps viewers understand the geography of the war through means of simple maps, using familiar landmarks such as Saigon, to illustrate military tactics and formations. Interwoven with all of this are interviews with the veterans like Commander Paul Galanti of the U.S. Navy who remembers being a POW and tortured by the Vietcong, and Astrid Ortega, a former nurse in the U.S. Army recalls spending “hours removing shrapnel with tweezers.” Inside the Vietnam War is an emotional ride, taking its viewers through moments of fear and sorrow, worry, panic, suspicion and hatred, and bizarrely, sometimes joy.

While I may be only 21 years old and not even born until the late 80s, Inside the Vietnam War was incredibly emotional and unnerving for me. My “step” grandfather had served in the war when he was very young. He says he is very proud of serving and displays the Vietnam Veterans emblem tattooed on his arm. Pictures of his time in Vietnam scatter the walls of the game room and the medals my Nana tracked down last Christmas (because he had never been awarded them) hang proudly alongside the images. Having not covered the war in high school history classes, and being far too curious, I wanted to understand why Vietnam was such a taboo subject, but more importantly, I wanted to know the story of someone I love. I would never get his story, though—at least not now, there are too many memories.

My rating:

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