[Oe List ...] Have you been watching the Vietnam series on PBS?

Wed Sep 27 10:07:07 PDT 2017

This is such beautiful writing Diane.

Thank you,

Herman

On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 12:21 PM, McCabe, Diann A via OE <
oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:

> Terry and I have been watching the series (usually a day or so late) with
> deep interest. I was a junior in high school in the spring of 1968, exposed
> only to mainstream headlines and TIME magazine. (I remember reading an
> article about a Vietnamese farmer who was overjoyed to find, finally, after
> much bombing, earthworms surviving in his field. I was moved to tears
> reading this at age 17.) When Terry and I met in the fall of 1969 at
> college, he organized the moratorium against the war on campus. I began to
> be exposed to the war below the headlines--but not enough to feel that I
> understood much, and as J. Wiegel wrote, there was a lot of life going on
> around us.
>
>
> Taking in this series is in many ways like swallowing difficult large
> pills--but I find myself so grateful to have these stories to fill in some
> of the spaces in our national and global story about this war. And about
> all wars. The other night on one of the episodes a North Vietnamese veteran
> said, "War awakens a savagery in people." And U.S. veteran, Matt Harrison,
> said quietly after describing some horror he witnessed, "The veneer of
> civilization is very thin." And I think of a line from one of my favorite
> novels, STONER, from a professor commenting on the start of WWI: "A war
> doesn't merely kill off a few thousand or a few hundred thousand young men.
> It kills off something in a people that can never be brought back. And if a
> people goes through enough wars, pretty soon all that's left is the brute,
> a creature that we--you and I and others like us--have brought up from the
> slime."
>
>
> Another line from the film struck me came when a North Vietnamese veteran
> talked about noticing how American soldiers reacted when one of their
> fellow soldiers was killed. He said something like, "They gathered together
> around him and comforted each other in respect for the fallen
> solder.           Just as we do.        And I realized that we share a
> common bond with humanity.        And that gave me something to think
> about."
>
>
> http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/home/
> <http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/home/>
> The Vietnam War <http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/home/>
> www.pbs.org
> The Vietnam War is a ten-part, 18-hour documentary film series directed by
> Ken Burns and Lynn Novick that will air on PBS in September 2017.
>
> Here's to our common bond--Diann McCabe
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* OE <oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net> on behalf of via OE <
> oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 27, 2017 10:48:49 AM
> *To:* laurelcg at aol.com; oe at lists.wedgeblade.net
> *Subject:* Re: [Oe List ...] Have you been watching the Vietnam series on
> PBS?
>
> Sorry. My computer sent that before I finished. The Cambodian film was
> from the point of view of a family forced to leave their home by the Viet
> Cong when they took over N. VietNam. Very painful but if you could take the
> Ken Burns series, you might be interested.
>
> Praying for peace,
>
> Jann
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
> To: hfgreenenc <hfgreenenc at gmail.com>; oe <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
> Sent: Wed, Sep 27, 2017 8:43 am
> Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Have you been watching the Vietnam series on
> PBS?
>
> Fred and I lived in Brazil June, 1968 -June, 1970, so got our news via
> Time magazine. The news kiosks had huge pictures of one of the girls killed
> at Kent State with blood spilling out of her head. There were kiosks
> everywhere. That's what awakened me to the horrors of the war. Last week I
> watched a movie made in Cambodia, "First They Killed my Father.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Herman Greene via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
> To: James Wiegel <jfwiegel at yahoo.com>; Order Ecumenical Community <
> oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
> Sent: Wed, Sep 27, 2017 5:31 am
> Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Have you been watching the Vietnam series on
> PBS?
>
> Last night there was the story of Kent State. I knew the broad outlines
> but learned the story in a new way. I wasn't even aware of the burning of
> the ROTC building or the ruthlessness of the Ohio Governor or that all the
> Guardsmen had live bullets.
>
> My wife remembers some of this from television. I said to her we didn't
> watch television very much (right?), so we missed a lot of what others were
> seeing. And yet we had a front row seat to the drama as well when it was
> played out in 5th City and Chicago.
>
> In my mind I thought 5th City was my Vietnam (better than Trump's). Now I
> see being a soldier in Vietnam was altogether different. Being a civilian
> in Vietnam was altogether different from the violence we experienced. Being
> a member of the Viet Cong, the South Vietnam army or the North Vietnam army
> was altogether different. And being a prisoner of war in North Vietnam is
> beyond my tragic imagination.
>
> I was struck in the series that one poll found that 64% agreed with the
> way the protesters were treated at the Chicago convention and 58% agree
> with the way the National Guard handled Kent State. I feel I have been
> living in a bubble. What to me is the underbelly of America that propelled
> Nixon and Reagan and now Trump to victory may not be the underbelly at all.
>
> Even my generation that grew up in the 60s and were in these marches and
> protests is not so progressive now.
>
> In last night's series the back and forth between Woodstock and Vietnam
> was so moving. We hippies and New Left people were so far removed from the
> reality of Vietnam. So many of the privileged in the US were able to avoid
> the war. I was a 1st LT in the reserves after completing ROTC and was on
> deferment. I became ordained and was able to resign. I received an
> honorable discharge. That's my story.
>
> Herman
>
> On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 12:32 AM, James Wiegel via OE <
> oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>
> Aiee, another episode tonight, and more material available on the pbs
> website.  Herman, I recall going down to Lincoln Park one evening and there
> were a lot of activists there and someone was explaining about "guerrilla
> theater".
>
> With morning collegiums, daily office, scripture news conversations,
> teaching school, guild and division meetings, summer programs, security,
> enablement, eg structures, ecclesiola, some social life(Pat and Joe's,
> etc.) and week II assignments, either I was preoccupied or blocked out a
> whole lot of the drama of the Vietnam War.  Wasn't the moon landing in
> there someplace as well?
>
> What I am marveling at is the way in which our country went in, got sucked
> in, and kept digging deeper, and of course the killing.
>
> Oh, and I got the email where you asked if anyone got the email . . . Plus
> the replies of all the other people who got that email.
>
> In Rob Work's book, A Compassionate Civilization, Peace and Nonviolence is
> one of his six ingredients, as is Participatory Governance.  Good emphases,
> I would say, though I cant see the technology and structures that would be
> required to really prevent the sort of thing we got ourselves into back
> then.
>
>
>
> Jim Wiegel
> 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353
> Tel. 011-623-936-8671 or 011-623-363-3277
> <marilyn.oyler at gmail.com>jfwiegel at yahoo.com
>
> <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.partnersinparticipation.com%2F&data=01%7C01%7Cdm14%40txstate.edu%7C5058a84484a44ef2458d08d505bf41b0%7Cb19c134a14c94d4caf65c420f94c8cbb%7C0&sdata=reOjs1Cx7JRZipikdM9yjYrsQXniO9kbAmyACeL4J80%3D&reserved=0>
> www.partnersinparticipation.com
>
> We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.
> Ernest Hemingway
>
> On Sep 26, 2017, at 09:04, Herman Greene via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
> wrote:
>
> --f403043535906470aa055a19d405
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> (Thanks to all who let me know my email showed upon the listserve. I
> haven't received any responses to this message I sent, however, so I am
> resending.)
>
>
> On Sunday night the Ken Burns series dealt with the issues of the first
> half of 1968, including the Tet offensive, MLK's death and the urban riots,
> and Bobby Kennedy's death.
>
> It brought back so many gripping memories for me. I remember the riots in
> Chicago and how it affected us. I remember the Collegium we held with Joe
> after Bobby Kennedy was killed. He asked us if we wer
>
>
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> --
> __________________________________________________
> Herman F. Greene
> 2516 Winningham Road
> Chapel Hill, NC 27516
> 919-942-4358 <(919)%20942-4358> (ph & fax)
> hfgreenenc at gmail.com
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-- 
__________________________________________________
Herman F. Greene
2516 Winningham Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
919-942-4358 (ph & fax)
hfgreenenc at gmail.com
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