Final look [Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Documentary - Review]
The final episode [número tenth] of the documentary series “Vietnam War” from Ken Brun and Lynn Novick was aired and published on October 3rd of last year. Like the rest of the series, this episode is viewing on the events that happened in certain period of the war [from March 1973 till onward]. The episode was mainly portray the US view on the war after the Army started retreating and staying away Vietnam. Throughout the episode, the war between North [Viet Cong and Northern troops] and South Vietnam continuously savaged one another. The conflict went on for a couple of years until the reclaim of government of the Viet Cong at the Independence Palace on April 30th of 1975 [when a North Vietnamese Army tank crashed through its gate]
With the title “Weight Of Memory”, and since the war [between US and Viet Cong] was over, a project was establish in which was to build a memorial for the dead soldiers and this help to bring back good, bad, happy or even sad memories and yet some are important memories. From this episode, I can also pick up a sense of regretting from the veterans, soldiers, marines, etc., of why did they attend this crazy war. Moreover, I can tell that the experiences of the war that many have were unforgettable and they were connected and stored inside their hearts. And not just the soldiers but also the citizens also have the same feeling, I think that for both countries [US and Vietnam] was carrying a heavy weight of unforgettable memories, sweat and tons of tears on their back [just like what the title was conveying]
For many people [I meant a lot], this war is considered as an unjustified war because there were no evident of causes that Vietnam "make the first move" but it was the US who just wanted to make things more "fun and interesting" and destroyed the Vietnam [broke the country to half and f***ed up the Vietnamese citizens lives]. The Vietnam War was a long, costly in which I have heard that it costed the America more than it was during the World War II and much lost. However, they were not giving it up, "WHY?", and the fact that they were just ally [I repeated ALLY for the South Vietnam]. Concluded, I agreed with majorities that this war was ridiculous, waste of time and money.
Finally, review and rewind the entire series, this documentary done a perfect job of outlining the war by cutting to pieces and combining different perspectives to "speak" for the war, and t have taught me many this. Firstly, it taught me that everyone is carefree because they only think of how to solve problems at that moment but not thinking of the results, consequences. In addition, human is selfish because they only gain profits for themselves and not thinking of others. Secondly, wars are so cruel, brutal and harsh and it should never happen. Evidences that I have seen in many episodes are images of corpses, gunshot sound that is even more terrible than thunder sound.
The next thing that I learned that wars can affect people in different ways like mentally, physically, and emotionally. These episodes point out that human is "hurt" because of actual gunshot or because of seeing or heading relatives, family members dead because of war. And finally, especially this episode taught me that the past will not change, that it will always be there and not a single nation to heal that scar. They just have to overcome it, let it go and be happy with the present. Those memories will never be erase and always be stored in the system forever. However, these experiences, memories can be uses to tell stories, to be evidences that war is horrible and should not be happen ever again.
