Vietnam War Historian Breaks Down 7 More Vietnam War Scenes In Movies | How Real Is It? | Insider

[@majormattmason8408]

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.

[@paulkeinrath6235]

I used to have a boss who was a Vietnam vet who said Forrest Gump was the most accurate he has ever seen.

[@wyldhowl2821]

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? 😅

[@clineshaunt]

@@wyldhowl2821That and Bachelor Party

[@hypgnosis3159]

Platoon made a relative of mine who was a nam vet walk out and practically break down ... I can't recall which scene

[@negtype13]

I find it very hard to believe that a movie that wasn’t even a war flick ( just a few designated scenes) caused all that for your friend instead of one that was TOTALLY dedicated to the horrors of/anti-war. Still, I guess it’s just personal triggers which will vary from individual but it still colors me confused especially when Platoon displayed ambushes on BOTH sides a decade before and the napalm scene (which this dude conveniently forgets to comment on) in Gump is COMPLETE BS! He would’ve been TOTALLY incinerated/sucked into the flames searching O2/expansion. And it wasn’t Sam Davis, it was Sammy Davis and it had NOTHING to due with Napalm. He was able to turn his howitzer into a bee-hive round that took out a charging enemy. He then heard his injured buddies calling for help and he took his inflated mattress and carried them back to safety. He NEVER ran into a carpet of napalm to save his fellow soldiers!🙄

[@Geronimo_Jehoshaphat]

Numerous Vietnam War vets have volenteered to me that Forrest Gump's segment is the most accurate to their actual experience.

[@2bteachable2]

Me too.

[@lubrew5862]

My uncle has stated it.

[@tommyt1971]

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.

[@npdcpa]

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.

[@Geronimo_Jehoshaphat]

@@npdcpa The people who were there are the authorities. Not this academic.

[@philipwerner8001]

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.

[@dieseljester]

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.

[@samalcatraz8751]

Were you able to reach the Mitchell Award?

[@dieseljester]

@@samalcatraz8751 Mitchell, Yes. I fell just short of getting the Earhart though before I had to turn Senior Member.

[@Native_love]

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.

[@dieseljester]

@@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. 😅

[@tomahawkm4687]

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

[@Autobotmatt428]

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.

[@Dreagostini]

@@Autobotmatt428 And abandoning that hill would serve that purpose how?

[@3baxcb]

@@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.

[@Dreagostini]

@@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.

[@3baxcb]

@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.

[@Stand_By_For_Mind_Control]

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.

[@MrWhipple42]

Black Hawk Down was an example of an 'exciting" (i.e., harrowing) movie about mechanized warfare.

[@ViPro2023]

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

[@michlo3393]

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.

[@Stand_By_For_Mind_Control]

@@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.

[@michlo3393]

@@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.

[@nathanglover8938]

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

[@duskbrood1]

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"

[@ThePentosin]

​@@duskbrood1 It does stand for rocket propelled grenade now, even if it didnt originally.

[@dandalo]

@@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.

[@wimvanderstraeten6521]

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.

[@gmlogan4889]

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.

[@alanmacpherson3225]

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.

[@nigeh5326]

The Japanese treated Allied POWs terribly as well as the civilian populations killing many thousands. One of my great uncles was in a POW camp in Burma he came home here to Britain a broken man. He was nothing but skin and bone and suffered from malaria for the rest of his life. I was only a boy when he passed but I can clearly remember him saying he hated the Japanese and could never forgive them for what they did.

[@alanmacpherson3225]

@nigeh5326 My dad was a POW who worked on the Burma Thailand railway. He was Private Neil MacPherson WX16572 2 2/2 Pioneer Battalion Australian Army. Later in the war he was shipped to Japan to work in the coal mines . He actually said conditions were better in the mines than on the railway.

[@patricklundquist9869]

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.

[@wyldhowl2821]

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.

[@wyldhowl2821]

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.

[@nigeh5326]

As long as humans have existed we have fought and killed each other. All nations have their stories of massacres and mistreatment of civilians and military personnel. No matter how civilised we think we are just below the surface we are still animals capable of terrible things. Name a war and there will have been crimes committed by all sides even in the ‘just’ wars such as WW2.

[@Dudemon-1]

Come on, now. The editing makes it sound like there wasn't torture in North Vietnam. Jeremiah Denton was used for propaganda, but blinked out T-O-R-T-U-R-E in Morse Code during a television propaganda interview. And survivors have recounted how terrible the torture was. Denton was at the Hanoi Hilton, then the Zoo, and then transferred to what was called "Alcatraz". He spent years in solitary confinement in a tiny cell. Don't whitewash their evil!

[@SnowmanTwin07]

My father fought during the war when he was around 19 I believe! He fought for the south and loved watching Vietnam war movies 🙂

[@mrckapm2241]

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?"

[@Indylimburg]

Agreed. I hate that kind of stuff.

[@DJ-iu5bb]

right like The Tuskegee Airmen Major Payne lol

[@sergioparisi9527]

About 25% of Vietnam veterans were drafted. God bless the men and women who served.

[@Corrello88]

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.

[@TheFailedmessiah]

Lol watch family guy doing a white guys dialog in a spike Lee movie

[@philippvoid1800]

finally Hamburger Hill. my favorite war movie of all times.

[@lllllREDACTEDlllll]

The Scent of Burning Grass is such an amazing title for a war movie. Anyone who has seen combat will immediately understand why that is so powerful. Bravo.

[@Vindicator18]

Still need to do Danger Close and The Odd Angry Shot.

[@axnyslie]

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.

[@wyldhowl2821]

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.

[@nhimai9721]

There's a War Museum in HCMC, you should definitely visit it.

[@KingAmroth]

I really do love this series and the experts and how they educate around the clips. Thanks for this content.

[@cannae216]

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.

[@Autobotmatt428]

Well the last time they had Rambo 2 in the list which wasn't even set during the Veitnam war

[@nigeh5326]

Set in the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan a film I would recommend is ‘the beast’.

[@isaacmartinez6904]

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.

[@KishorTwist]

My Lai massacre already happened so they didn't need Casualties of War to make them look bad.

[@boondocker7964]

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.

[@connorhoffman4760]

@@KishorTwistnot every veteran participated in the my lai massacre. But yes plenty of war crimes happened.

[@playerthirteen9695]

@@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.

[@boondocker7964]

Interesting.@@playerthirteen9695

[@TheRafaelRamos]

Nice you included Hamburger Hill! 😎👍 Great job

[@ricardoaguirre6126]

He should cover the opening battle scene from Tropic Thunder.😂

[@Claire-jt7pl]

This guy was my professor!!! Me and my classmates loved his class !

[@artemislunanettybecker8641]

You know they were a good teacher if you remember them.

[@gregkerr725]

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.

[@brunozeigerts6379]

Though my favourite part is Burt Lancaster's character explaining why he's still a major. (I did the only thing I've ever been trained to do. I saluted.) Still cracks me up.

[@sgtn00dle]

Incredible that the revolver at 10:05 has to be censored -- in a video about the Vietnam war 🙄

[@morganpethis3960]

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.

[@skunkwerkz777]

@@morganpethis3960 mtv aired the f out of papa roach and last resort, dont be naive

[@aussieman4791]

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

[@Misogynisticfeminist]

So we know why America kept attacking, but why did the NVA keep going back? The same reason?

[@bicivelo]

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. ?

[@craigfinnegan8534]

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.

[@Synthetic-Rabbit]

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.

[@jaredsavage1584]

The dude who blinked "torture" was an American POW in Japan during WW2, get your facts right gang, though they definitely both tortured pows

[@Synthetic-Rabbit]

I see where the confusion may be though - I didn't know the video was taped by Japanese News@@jaredsavage1584

[@bestyapper]

He said both sides did a lot of bad things.

[@Synthetic-Rabbit]

@@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.

[@Flibbybibby]

@@jaredsavage1584 You are so confident in your stupidity! Hilarious.

[@michaelb1761]

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.

[@bestyapper]

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

[@tommyt1971]

The punji trap would also have the effect of puncturing your legs again when your buddies would try to drag you out of it.

[@bertbccfu9564]

They would also coat it in sewage to cause infection

[@parkeydavid]

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.

[@craigfinnegan8534]

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.

[@t2av159]

This is really entertaining, keep em coming!

[@84gssteve]

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.

[@menachem2521]

I think Bill did a much better job in this video than his first one. Good job.

[@zeroonezero6270]

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.

[@Autobotmatt428]

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.

[@iammattc1]

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.

[@rnlansdownemobile]

The sad thing is after the US army left Vietnam, many Vietnamese civilians had to flee because the VC army were seizing property, killing and imprisoning everyone alike (Yes their fellow Vietnamese). They said stuff like "Oh you're rich? That must mean you supported those Westerners and got favoured. So we're gonna take everything you have in the name of the people, in order to rebuild our country". My grandma was one of many who fled. She sold everything she had just to buy a boat ticket to get out of Vietnam after 1975, because sometimes the VC will just execute people on the spot for suspicion of allying with the US. Imagine a tiny fishing boat that carried like 50+ people with inadequate food/water, and she somehow landed in Malaysia and eventually was transferred to Australia. The chance of survival was 1 to a 100. I think not many knew about VIetnam's aftermath. It sounded strange to say but there are many Vietnamese who missed having the US army around, and they hated the new communist government.

[@jmar1973]

My uncle served in Vietnam as part of a Huey crew. His test scores upon enlistment made them recommend that duty. While I didn't follow in his footsteps in regards to military service (In '91 we were scared that the Gulf Conflict would become the next Vietnam) I admired my uncle greatly. He was my hero and inspiration. Rest In Peace John Charles Mayfield. 🙏🏿 ❤

[@cheeseguru1017]

Would love for this guy to break down Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan

[@nigeh5326]

Doubtful they would as it was not a U.S. action but a primarily Aussie one.

[@jimtom5027]

Glad you were there, how about the 11th ACR and Airborne in Cambodia

[@throwabrick]

'84 Charlie Mopic' and 'The Boys from Company C' never get enough love.

[@shaggybreeks]

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.

[@bob_the_bomb4508]

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…

[@throwabrick]

@@shaggybreeks Thank you for your input.

[@hookeye2]

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

[@shaggybreeks]

@@bob_the_bomb4508 You mean "bouncing betty" mines? They were definitely real.

[@lowkeygames2274]

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

[@marnwal]

Professor Allison you need perhaps look at the experiences of the Australians and New Zealanders in (a) The odd Angry Shot and (b) Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan. One fiction the other based (accurately I believe) on how ANZACs drove back VC and North Vietnamese regular forces.

[@ByronJoule]

The view from the lighthouse excited even the most seasoned traveler.

[@snowroaches]

Why did he gloss over the torture at the "Hanoi Hilton "?

[@johnnelson5503]

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.

[@snowroaches]

@@johnnelson5503 I'm just saying he kinda glossed over why they nicknamed it that, or they edited that part out.

[@skunkwerkz777]

@@snowroaches probably because they wanted to only highlight US crimes which is why the narrator reminds us of his book about the my lai massacre in more than one video

[@RW77777777]

@@skunkwerkz777 yup! they're still spitting on vets decades later and he's getting paid to do it

[@stevilknevil107]

White guilt. Notice how many times he mentions racism in his two videos 😂?

[@anti-antifamclovin7627]

Forrest Gump is such a masterpiece. I recently MADE My daughter watch it with me. She fought me so hard on it and I finally told her if she sits down and watches the first 10 minutes and doesn't like it she can go do what she wants. She was glued to the TV the entire time and even made me pause it when she had to go to the restroom. It held up so well. Just as good now as the day it came out cuz it's timeless. I bet eventually my daughter will show it to her children too and of course they'll love it

[@islandblind]

I agree. "Go Tell the Spartans" is a great film. Also, having a soldier with Forrest Gump's challenges in Vietnam was fairly realistic, given the existence of the 100,000 Project.

[@ScreenHackTV]

'PAVN wore uniform ' - shows a photo of ARVN

[@shaggybreeks]

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!

[@truongnguyendac2032]

@@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.

[@Autobotmatt428]

@@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.

[@marcusaurelius4777]

"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

[@Misogynisticfeminist]

@@shaggybreeksThe picture was added after his part, and he probably didn’t have any involvement in picking it.

[@Rasta1105]

Hamburger hill is one of my favorite movies of all time

[@justinszuch6184]

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

[@wgdavidson9669]

Having served, I would say that Full Metal Jacket (despite some obvious embellishments) represents the most realistic example of boot camp.

[@ww3032]

Not for a modern day boot camp though. A lot of the stuff that happened aren’t allowed anymore, thankfully.

[@zeroonezero6270]

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.

[@gregwilliamson3001]

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! 👍🏻

[@bruceinoz8002]

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?

[@RenegadeRanga]

"So you dont want to mistreat them too much." Hanoi hilton enters the chat.

[@Autobotmatt428]

Or What the vc did to are guys

[@Tony-m4b]

USA shouldn't have ever disregarded Vietnam's first democratic presidential election, which kicked off the war soon after.

[@Braceyourselfitscomimgs00n]

He forgot my favorite one I think..Platoon by Oliver Stone. But overall I truly appreciated his insights about Vietnam War.

[@boondocker7964]

Platoon kind of got it, if a movie can get it.

[@marlonmoncrieffe0728]

He already commented on 'Platoon' in the last video.

[@Apillis124]

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'.

[@mikeb9475]

@@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.

[@theconversationalpainter2020]

He should check out Danger Close the Australian Vietnam war film about the battle of Long Tan in 1966.

[@twrampage]

Would love to see what he says about Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan

[@naedynot1]

Yes!

[@ryanbales8116]

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.

[@infin8ee]

Seems to have forgotten that Australian forces were there!

[@jansenart0]

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)

[@craigfinnegan8534]

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.

[@ducomaritiem7160]

You seriously missed the French movie "Dien Bien Phu"! Directed by a survivor of that battle, filmed at the actual site... such a great one!❤

[@dominic6634]

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

[@tommyt1971]

MACV was my dad’s unit. Tet started just 2 mos before his tour was up.

[@Autobotmatt428]

Your dad was SOG?

[@Bobbymaccys]

FINALLY! Covering hamburger hill!

[@srujan00]

Breaks down military history professor: He's a decent professor, but he teaches at Georgia Southern - not an Ivy League school. 6/10

[@trjozsef]

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.

[@cleverusername9369]

This guy does love his acronyms

[@bob_the_bomb4508]

“A Bright Shining Lie” is worth a look

[@3baxcb]

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.

[@quangvule262]

I can tell that Bill is very knowledgeable about the Vietnam War. But as a Vietnamese who was born and lived in Vietnam, I can say that Bill knows little about the Vietcong and the PAVN when it comes to their brutality. If you have to rank the VC, the PAVN, and the North Vietnamese police. I would say the PAVN is the least brutal, they had some educated people in their ranks and files. The North Vietnamese police, actually called "Public Security" (Công An in Vietnamese) is next in rank for brutality. Why do I mention them? After the war, they gradually replaced the PAVN regular troops in running concentration camp, which imprisoned South Vietnamese officers and government officials. I rank them in second place because most of them were brainwashed and their hatred for the South Vietnamese, and American could be understood, for example, many of their relatives died either during bombing campaigns or fighting against ARVN and US forces in the south. The VC was the North Vietnamese puppet in the south. They carried out many terrorist attack against South Vietnamese people, from bombing to beheading. You can look up 1965 Mỹ Cảnh restaurant bombing, there are some gruesome pictures of that incident on the internet. So I say the movie is somewhat accurate to depict the VC to be brutal. And they were pretty uncivilized. Like the majority of the PAVN and Công An personnel, they came from peasant background with little to no education. That part about Vietnam you have to understand in order to understand the conflict. After the 1954, both the officer corp and the rank and file of the PAVN started to enlist more people from the poor peasant group of people, the educated personnel started to be phased out, either by communist ideology reason or they returned their civilian life. Whatever the reason, very few PAVN officer, even the ones at the highest ranks, possessed proper education, almost none had military education, even Vo Nguyen Giap. And at the end of the 1967 purge of "anti-Party revisionists", the rest of the most competent, educated officers in the PAVN were completed removed from the military, including head of the military intelligence, a colonel, and head of operation and planning, also a colonel.

[@AG-ok7no]

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 is everyone suddenly using PAVN now? As a Vietnamese, have you heard it used before?

[@craigfinnegan8534]

When you mentioned the correlation between education and brutality I immediately thought of the Khmer Rouge. They qualified as the most brutal of all because of what they did to their own people in the years following the war. I know Vietnamese are one people (with some ethnic differences between northern and southern Vietnamese), but the sheer sadism of the KR towards other Khmer was unmatched. As far as their education level, I remember reading that when the KR first entered Phnom Penh their soldiers ate toothpaste thinking it was food and washed their faces in toilet bowls because they thought that's what they were meant for.

[@paulwee1924dus]

And what about: "Tropic Thunder" ?!

[@martinconnors5195]

Hey Bill, i asked my Great-Uncle what El Alamein was like. He said that "you grew up quickly, especially when your friends get killed". He died in 2014 aged 92

[@luissallard9761]

That's innacurate right there,PAVN They were NVA North Viietnam Army

[@matthewmontgomery6885]

Bro, the dude has books written about it and teaches a college course on the history of the war, I think he knows what they were called 😂 a simple Google search shows that's its actually PAVN, and was referred to as NVA by the opposition forces

[@ChronicSlubz]

The picture depicting WW1 when he’s talking about hamburger hill is actually a WW2 picture. Just saying…

[@davidderbyshire8808]

Because he was talking about trench warfare being similar to that in ww1…those words exactly…just saying

[@ChronicSlubz]

@@davidderbyshire8808 I know but at least put up a pic from WW1

[@LuoSon312_G8]

would highly recommend "Rescue Dawn" that is a doozy

[@marlonmoncrieffe0728]

Still no review for 'Rescue Dawn' (2007)?

[@AbbyYarra]

My wife's father fought in the Korean War. He did not like to talk about it much. The only thing he stated is that he swam a river to escape his unit in the north korean army.

[@littleguy6753]

I was hoping to see his remarks on "84 Charlie Mopic" a 1980s Vietnam War movie shot from the perspective of a combat photographer

[@coreyjohnson1744]

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.

[@KevinJDildonik]

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.

[@gmlogan4889]

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. 😂

[@menachem2521]

I'm sure the bathroom facilities varied

[@hookeye2]

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.

[@TC-ti2sr]

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.

[@jasonwalters6329]

My dad an US Marine during the Vietnam conflict base in Danang….war movies were triggering for him….but I asked him which was the closest depiction from his experience….believe it or not he said Forest Gump….he said it would be all quiet in the jungle then the war would come through…then quiet again besides the wounded I assume.

[@djjasonceol9611]

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.

[@theknave69]

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.

[@seedy80]

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?

[@natedigger5678]

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.

[@seedy80]

@natedigger5678 OK, thanks. That makes sense.

[@zaiah9252]

Suggestion: BJJ(Brazilian Jiujitsu) artist breaks down BJJ scenes in movies and tv

[@bloodontherazorwiretv]

I like your stuff

[@AG-ok7no]

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?

[@skunkwerkz777]

you are correct to be suspicious, some governing body doesnt like the verbiage and is slowly replacing words to make their impact less. You cant call a commie a commie anymore its the Peoples "whatever"

[@linphillips8331]

Not combat scenes, but I always felt that the boot camp sequences in Forrest Gump were very accurate.

[@hypgnosis3159]

Man, ill tell ya, Mr. Allison knows his business . .. i have several relatives who went to vietnam as Army, Navy, and even one Marine (an in-law) and each one told me different movies that they held in high regard as actially historically accurate... Go figure 🤔 I guess everyone's experience was unique and their memories and actual set & settings are decidedly subjective

[@Ironfist85hu1]

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

[@bryanmatthews2370]

You vc?! 😂 I don't know why but that's something I yell at people in DayZ, that and "Charlie's in the trees!"

[@jackp8687]

He is a professor of Southern. GATA and Hail Southern. I just graduated from there with my degree in History

[@tonytaylor8198]

This (Forest Gump) is based on a battle West of Cai Lay, Republic of Vietnam, 18 November 1967

[@MeepFromSpongebob]

Regarding the "Genders didnt matter in the war", neither did age. My grandpa served in Nam and died of Agent Orange in the 70s (shout out US Government for killing my Grandpa with that), the first person he killed in Vietnam was a little girl who was sent into camp with a grenade around her neck, the Viet Cong told her to find the officers tent or a tent with the most people in it more than likely and she got into camp and just stood there crying then slowly started walking forward. Picked up his rifle and took his time, shot her between the eyes, no pain. What an awful, wasteful war.

[@hookeye2]

Clue for you... they are all like that...

[@TheCrusher72]

None of that happened.

[@MeepFromSpongebob]

@@TheCrusher72 alright Federal Agent nice try

[@TheCrusher72]

@@MeepFromSpongebob right out of some movies and crap…

[@MeepFromSpongebob]

@@TheCrusher72 You will usually find that stories in movies are loosely based in some reality. The idea of a child being used as a suicide bomber in Vietnam being too unbelievable? Might need to read up on some history my boy

[@MrBlonde294]

04:38 ARVN picture

[@angrytom1923]

Noticed that too.

[@NuclearWitch]

Awesome video

[@hypgnosis3159]

One of my relatives said, where he was ( i core, I don't know when or what his specifics are ) SIWs , or "Self inflicted wounds" were a thing, not rampant, but happened to some degree of frequency

[@jenniturtleburger3708]

I always heard the North Vietnam Army called the NVA. I don’t know why but I can’t remember gearing them referred to as PAVN. I don’t know how that happened, but I just haven’t.

[@rileymcphee9429]

"There were a few units that were notorious for their treatment of noncombatants." Interesting he doesn't name them.

[@hypgnosis3159]

Mortars, snipers , rocket propelled grenades and booby traps & rigged IEDs were prevalent , with VC using as many brief "hit & run" tactics as were humanly possible

[@DanteRU0312]

Just because he wrote a book on My Lai massacre doesn't mean he needs to deny that American POWs were tortured.

[@ragglefraggle9111]

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

[@Genessyss]

you sound like a massacre denier.

[@Autobotmatt428]

@@Genessyss Do you know what happen in Hue city what the NVA did there.

[@RW77777777]

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

[@peterclarke7006]

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?

[@squidbate3404]

To say that the Russian roulette scene is completely out of the realm of possibility is hilarious. That seems tame compared to things that were done in Vietnam.

[@BunMangViet]

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

[@boohankins2993]

Deer Hunter's writer wanted to do a movie involving a russian roulette scene so this whole movie was created around one memorable scene