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Me with Huey helicopter at Minnesota’s Camp Ripley
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VISIONS OF VIETNAM
Now is the teachable moment for Ken Burns’ massive Vietnam documentary on PBS with “lock & load” in the White House and the U.S. involvement extended again in Pakistan.
My Idaho fishing buddy and photo journalist Dave Frazier in his memoir, “Drafted! Vietnam in War and Peace,” said it succinctly: “While there were . . . heroic acts on the part of American servicemen, it’s impossible to claim much good came out of the war. We didn’t stop communism, it didn’t rally the nation. About 58,000 Americans died and millions had their lives altered because of the war.”
Like the lead character in “Full Metal Jacket,” Frazier was a public information rear echelon M.F. He revisited Vietnam as a civilian several times.
REMEMBERING THE DRAGON LADY
Ken Burns’ documentary on the Vietnam War shows a news clip of the toxic Madame Nhu on her “goodwill tour” of the U.S. Nhu was the wife of the South Vietnam security chief who was the brother of the corrupt S.V. president Diem.
The “dragon lady” brought her act to Los Angeles in 1963 when I was an editorial assistant at KNBC News. Veteran reporter Bill Brown covered the volatile lady for KNBC while she was in the Southland. www.historynet.com/assassination-coup-madame-nhu.htm
