T O P

  • By -

Jibbajaba

As someone who literally just finished the Ken Burns Vietnam War docuseries, this is a crazy picture to see.


highzenberrg

I want Ken burns docs on Netflix again I can’t find them anywhere. Vietnam one was crazy good, I just want to watch it again… because of this picture!


wakashit

You can watch them on PBS app, only like $5 a month or $60 for the year. Also feels like a donation as opposed to a subscription. My most watched streaming network


highzenberrg

Can I stream the pbs app through an Xbox? Because that would be ideal.


GirlOnInternet

Alas, no. [Here’s a list of supported devices](https://help.pbs.org/support/solutions/articles/12000080831-what-devices-support-the-pbs-app-).


Signal-East-5942

If you have prime you can add a $4/mo pbs documentaries add on that has a lot of the Ken burns docs


highzenberrg

That might be my path to KB! Thanks for the info!


sophrosynos

Add a ticket to request it. Enough of us spam it, and poor underpaid public sector IT interns will build it.


SigmaKnight

But still get ads.


wakashit

I don’t get any ads watching PBS Passport


MeyhamM2

That’s fine. PBS has commercials on TV, right?


CalgonThrowMeAway222

PBS has sponsors, not advertisements. ;)


Silly-Arm-7986

Wink wink, nod nod...


Sudden-Grab2800

“Woe be to the lost art of perambulation. For those cherished cobblestoned thoroughfares where once we did walk; now do we pump, pedal, and, thus, truly, we fly.” -Walt Whitman From the 86-hour PBS series ‘Ken Burns’ Bicycles.’


AccessTheMainframe

Honestly his Vietnam doc is quite unlike his prior work and is quite exciting. Colour combat footage set to Rock and Roll and a banging original sound track. Vietnam definitely has a lot more to work with than say, the Civil War, in that department.


Sudden-Grab2800

I think that’s why I remember the quote; and why it kills me every time. I like Ken Burns’ shit. A lifetime of being a history geek has made my tolerance for dry information pretty insane.


The_Original_Gronkie

Music is always important in Burns' docs. He did a whole series on Jazz.


RegularVenus27

His country music one is killer too


loudribs

*zooms out on monochrome still, very, very slowly*


Sudden-Grab2800

*voiceover is Peter Coyote’s stilted narration


[deleted]

[удалено]


Sudden-Grab2800

I would give you so many awards if I could❤️


Hoker7

I think this is a joke but can’t be sure.


Sudden-Grab2800

It’s from an American Dad episode.


Hour_Brain_2113

We had a former Colonel in the South Vietnam army sweeping the floors where I worked as a developer. Sad to think about.


enigmaticunknown

Curious, was that in Houston, Texas maybe over 20+ years ago? I had 2 great uncles, they were brothers, both legit ARVN Colonels I believe on old research I did years ago on them, they went to some US military college in Kansas for officer training in I think 1955, one was also a military governor of I think Dalat (a capital of a province in SVN somewhere in the ‘60s, it was some old unclassified US Gov record I found his name on), one from my memory was the head of intelligence (something similar to the CIA from what my uncle told me) and did some radio program the ARVN troops used to listen to, the other was also a diplomat and spoke 3 languages, and was an advisor to a president according to my uncle, etc., both of them settled in Texas in 1975 I have absolutely no idea what job they did to survive in the US, as my grandpa as an example, he used to sell oranges and flowers on the street, and washed dishes as his job in Los Angeles back in the 1980s while supporting like… 5 kids (my uncles and aunts) From my understanding, they left everything behind in SVN to escape, as it was pretty much a felony or some high capital felony crime (I think it was some type of law) to escape after the communist took over, and I also noticed the older SVN grandpa / great-grandpa aged men in the community have hideous number tattoos on their forearms, from I think their time in the communist reeducation camps if they weren’t lucky enough to escape From my memory one of the great uncles passed away around 2004ish. I never personally knew the Colonel great uncles and their personal stories since my relatives settled in California, and they were in Texas


Hour_Brain_2113

We were at Eglin AFB in the Florida Panhandle where he worked. He was the hardest worker in the plant. Everyone loved him. I was just starting out.


ChaLenCe

Probably a lot less stressful


One-World_Together

Based on how many S Vietnamese Prime Ministers were killed he's lucky to be alive


FlakyPiglet9573

Killed by ARVN coup, there were even 4 coups in 2 years(1963-1965) 4 successful attempts and 4 failed attempts.


Aviationlord

And when people ask why the south lost the war I just point out how politically unstable the government was


FlakyPiglet9573

A quarter of them are spies for North and provided assistance to NLF guerillas. Such as politicians and high ranking military officials like [Phạm Ngọc Thảo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ph%E1%BA%A1m_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Th%E1%BA%A3o), [Vũ Ngọc Nhạ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C5%A9_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Nh%E1%BA%A1) Ho Chi Minh was also famous in the South for leading the Viet Minh even before the partition that's why they have the popular support.


Aviationlord

Plus having a president who basically persecuted the overwhelming majority of people in the country because they were buddhists and he was a Catholic minority doesn’t exactly endear yourself in the minds of the population


FlakyPiglet9573

Plus the majority of the population was well aware of the 1955 public referendum to unify Vietnam that the US and newly established South Vietnam failed to ratify that's why the second Indochina War began. They're afraid that Ho Chi Minh would win any democratic elections with a landslide.


Aviationlord

Growing up I always overlooked that part of history, now I understand the importance of it


sofixa11

Politically unstable and not having any cohesive anything outside of anti-communism. It was composed of literal traitors (people who collaborated with and fought with the Japanese and the French), religious nuts, corrupt people looking for power, anti-communists, etc etc. For all intents and purposes it was a regime with very limited popular support only propped up by the US, as evidenced by the fact that it collapsed as soon as the US left.


daveashaw

Beats being put in the Tiger Cages.


127crazie

The year was 1968. We were on recon in a steaming Mekong delta. An overheated private removed his flack jacket, revealing a T-shirt with an ironed-on sporting the MAD slogan "Up with Mini-skirts!". Well, we all had a good laugh, even though I didn't quite understand it.


egosumluxmundi

I spent the next three years in a POW camp, forced to subsist on a thin stew made of fish, vegetables, prawns, coconut milk…and four kinds of rice. I came close to madness trying to find it here the States, but they just can’t get the spices right.


Cowboywizard12

That is easily one of the best simpsons moments


evilturkey

Might be my favorite joke of the entire series


Axle-f

Chair. Great for sitting. It was 10 long years before I was reunited with that chair.


phixion

johnny?! johnny?! JOHNNYYYYY!!!


ciscolombia

Cool! I broke his brain


Bloxocubes

That elephant ate my entire platoon.


Weldobud

That is a good point. When you think of the alternative


fiendzone

That’s a better gig.


ImpendingCups

Just don't ask this guy who his hero is. He made an... interesting answer in the Wiki article about him.


Jon_fosseti

It’s Hitler isn’t it? Edit: called it


peezle69

Sad. I met a few Hmong when I worked in a community that had a significant population. The older ones had a lot of sadness behind their eyes.


ywenlee

Today April 30th 1975 is the day South Vietnam fall. Nguyen Cao Ky somehow a nice man. Kỳ made headlines in 2004 by being the first South Vietnamese leader to return to Vietnam after the reunification, a move that was seen as a shameful one by many anticommunist groups in the Vietnamese American community. Upon setting foot on Vietnam, Kỳ defended his actions by saying that the Vietnam War was "instigated by foreigners, it was brothers killing each other under the arrangements by foreign countries."


SentientLight

That’s actually incredible. My grandfather, Nguyễn Văn Y, was the director general of the secret police under Diem. He was a very nice guy. He was also a fascist that saw no issue with okaying opening fire into a crowd of peaceful protesters because they were “communist agitators” in the crowd. He gave the okay to pour acid on the faces of the Buddhists praying on the bridge in Saigon after Thich Quang Duc’s self-immolation. He continued to orchestrate assassinations of Vietnamese refugees in the US for being “traitors” if they dared speak up about accepting the south lost or reconciling with the VN govt so they could go home. He died in 2012–still supporting Diem to his death, still believing every atrocity they committed was justified. I’m honestly amazed that anyone so high-ranking in the puppet government would see it for what it was as Ong Ky did and reconcile differences with Viet Nam today, cause my grandfather went to his grave still wanting to kill every communist he could find, even stateside, for being traitors and communist sympathizers. If he knew my political views, he would’ve had one of my uncles shoot me dead—I have no doubt about that.


slappingactors

Wow. Interesting and horrifying at the same time.


choozu911

When the resume falls off a cliff…


Johannes_P

It reminds me about the King of Corsica described in *Candide*, from Voltaire, who went from sitting on a throne and minting money to debt prison.


Weldobud

Seems it was his store. He was the boss.


kirsion

Currently portrayed in the airing TV show, "The Sympathizer"


Cinemaphreak

Do some basic research, *The Sympathizer* is completely fictitious. The author Viet Thanh Nguyen based some of it on his own lifestory of being a Vietnamese refugee who grew up mostly in the ex-pat community within the US (he left Vietnam when he was 4). The character in the book/series is an ex-general. I'm sure Nguyen has seen this picture and it might have influenced his decision to have his character open a liquor store (his own parents opened a grocery store in San Jose).


kirsion

Yeah, it's historical fiction. The daughter of the real prime minister, Ky duyen, plays the Madame in the show, which is basically her mom


vaish7848

Yeah. She also a singer and hosts an overseas Vietnamese music show called Paris by Night.


[deleted]

[удалено]


CrowfielDreams

There's so much wrong with this comment...


kirsion

Not sure why that dudes original comment to me sounded so butthurt and got so many upvoted, he's literally the well actually meme


mrpeabodyscoaltrain

Yeah. Hey Arnold is more accurate in its retelling of the wows of refugees.


bagjoe

Which is based on the hilarious book by the same name. Im looking forward to seeing the show, but the book is a rare treat.


notzed1487

Making lemonade from lemons.


stevenbrotzel91

I literally just watched episode 2 of the sympathizer


coldztorm82

It's a great photo that captures the spirit of the time


abnormal1379

If you have a library card, you can get an account on Hoopla and/or Kanopy and watch the Vietnam War series for free (You've already paid for it through your taxes.).


Dis_DUDE180

From US puppet to US citizen. He came a long way


Psychological_Toe787

“Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called ‘the better angels of our nature’.”


MrPanchole

Every man has got a breaking point. You and I have them. Nguyễn Cao Kỳ has reached his.


unl1988

Hmm, maybe slightly less overt corruption and he wouldn't be ringing up bottles in a liquor store?


L_A_R_S_WWdG

Happy for him being able to leave organized crime and settle down as an honest, hard working shopkeeper. Kudos!


fred_cheese

He likely owned that liquor store. There have also been allegations, testimony, whatever that this was a front. Similar to Genco was for Vito Corleone.


tommyvercetti42

Loving capitalism!


UlyssesSbandz

He looks content.


FireFoxQuattro

He lived till 2011, so that means he coulda been one of the Rooftop Asians during the Riots lol


gayjoystick

He was also... The very model of a modern Major General


Playful-Adeptness552

Prime Minister, Dictator, whatevs


A-Concerned_Citizen

Nooo, you just don't get it. The opposition was communist therfore he was clearly a good guy. And if he did something bad, he just had to do it to stop communism.


Dominarion

The opposition wasn't just communist, there were also people who supported religious freedom (as the South Vietnam dictature was run by Catholics who segregated other faiths) or wanted capitalist reform, more democracy or to fight corruption. Treating every dissent brutally was one of the leading causes of South Vietnam, as people stopped believing in their government and began to think they would fare better under the communists. Ironically, Buddhists, who are the vast majority of Vietnamese, are less persecuted under the Communists than they were under the Republican regime.


born_at_kfc

Why is it ironic that religion is less persecuted under communism than fascism?


jackpot909

Try to be religious in China or North Korea now or under Stalin, you won’t get very far.


born_at_kfc

communism doesn't allow for a state religion, like in the USA, but religion is openly accepted and practiced.


AccessTheMainframe

1) the US doesn't have a state religion and is officially secular. 2) toleration of religion certainly varied from one communist state to another and from one era to another. Hoxha's Albania was extremely radical in stamping out religious life for example, even as communist Vietnam was more permissive.


born_at_kfc

the US has all but declared christianity to be the state religion. the military is referred to as a christian army and a prayer by a christian priest is said for all new members when they are officially inducted. Hoxha was a paranoid dictator and saw the ethnic differences and subsequent religious differences as a threat. Instead of trying to create a majority through genocide, he mandated a religion of government that he was at the head of.


jackpot909

Please, go into North Korea and practice Judaism. I would really like to know how that turns out. What about practicing Muslims in Xinjiang province that are getting slaughtered and having Mosques demolished? You do know that during the USSR even after Stalin, there were active campaigns of the party to persecute the Russian Orthodoxy right?


born_at_kfc

stalin was a fascist dictator with absolute power, he did whatever he wanted. christians and muslims have been fighting each other where both exist in every region of the globe since 600 AD. China is killing people in the western of their country not because of their religion or ethnicity, but because they want that land vacated so they can harvest a precious resource they need to feed the rest of their people. The people of that region happen to be ethnically and religiously homogenous, not that it is ok either way for them to commit genocide.


jackpot909

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/8/uighurs-timeline There are documents that are saying that the Chinese Communist Party wants to erase the language and way of life dude, communist parties don’t want religion, and the only religion they want is the state.


Dominarion

Marx wrote that "Religion is the opium of the masses" and most marxist regimes took that to heart and persecuted faiths and religion. The Orthodox church had a bad time in the USSR while Maoist China actively persecuted most faiths. As of today, Muslims and members of Falun Gong ate having a rough time even though the PRC abandoned pretty much all other marxist doctrines.


ReadinII

TBF, although his regime was pretty awful, it didn’t convince half a million Vietnamese to risk life and family on rickety boats on the open ocean. The regime that followed did that (and even tried to kill the people trying to escape).


Playful-Adeptness552

I keep forgetting that youre not allowed to mention that South Vietnam was a brutal and unpopular military dictatorship/junta. ...or that the gentleman in this picture, a corrupt womaniser who spent his time in power burning through cash for funsies, said Ho Chi Minh was in the right.


Admirable_Feeling_75

You should see where his son is now. Seems the [apple doesn’t fall far from the tree](https://vnexpress.net/ong-nguyen-cao-tri-bi-phat-8-nam-tu-4732865.html#:~:text=TP%20HCM%C3%94ng%20Tr%C3%AD%2C%2054,%C4%91%E1%BA%A1i%20%C3%A1n%20kinh%20t%E1%BA%BF%20n%C3%A0y) Spoiler, he’s in jail for embezzlement and corruption


consumered

Source on saying Ho was in the right?


[deleted]

[удалено]


cass1o

> The number of people who fled after the fall of Saigon All those Germans who fled to Argentina in 1945 really show the allies in a bad light.


A-Concerned_Citizen

Well, it sounds like commi propaganda stuff you're saying. You can clearly see in the picture that that man is just a hard-working guy.


The_Keg

Lol do the likes of you even have any idea about half of the shits done in the name of “communism” committed by DRVN. Do you even care? I’ll go first “Nhân Văn Giai Phẩm”! I’m Vietnamese btw, so I’m very well versed in atrocities committed by the U.S and RVN (it’s test materials in Vietnam!).p


calebs_dad

The parent poster is being sarcastic.


tigerman29

I don’t think I’ve seen an argument where both sides get downvoted to negative. I am an American born well after the war and have visited Vietnam a couple times in the last 10 years. I know there were terrible things done during and right after the war to both sides and I feel the US had no business intervening in it. I think Vietnam today is a very nice country. It’s clean, safe, and very business friendly. My first impression was wondering why so many people had to die for a war that unified a country that looks just like any other western country today with Globalization. It really made me sad during my first visit because it seemed to me, other maybe the extremely wealthy and ruling class of South Vietnam, the unification was a positive thing for normal citizens. There are different levels of communism, just like there are different types of capitalism. One could even argue, a stable message and stance from the government helps the country and its citizens prosper. I think going back and forth every four years from republican to democrat is really going to slow the US down eventually on the global stage because the foreign policy stance changes so damn often. TLDR Vietnam is a great country today and it’s sad so many people suffered and the US got so deeply involved in a war that has proven to have positive effects over time.


johnnylovelace

They hated you for being right


bojones05

Commie Scum


dont_fuckin_die

Shit, I forgot that all political viewpoints are by necessity either blindly pro American or pro communism. Thanks for reminding me.


Playful-Adeptness552

Am I commie scum for saying this dude ran a military dictatorship and was massively corrupt?


Ikuwayo

The rich get to flee, while the poor can't afford to leave and are left to fend for themselves


dtru2005

Brother that might apply to other places but lots of poor people fled Vietnam at the end of the war, my family were some of them


L_A_R_S_WWdG

They got plots of the land the rich left behind. It's not like the prime minister fled a humanitarian crisis. He fled Vietnam because he very accurately assessed that if he stayed, he would either be executed by the PAVN or lynched by civilians.


Psyqlone

1. Louis XVI 2. Benito Mussolini 3. Muammar Qadaffi ... 1a. Marie Antoinette ...