1 00:00:02,100 --> 00:00:04,633 HARI SREENIVASAN: This Sunday night, PBS will air the first of 10 episodes of the new Ken 2 00:00:04,633 --> 00:00:08,033 Burns and Lynn Novick documentary "The Vietnam War." 3 00:00:08,033 --> 00:00:10,066 It's been 10 years in the making. 4 00:00:10,066 --> 00:00:13,966 And Judy Woodruff met with the co-directors at the Vietnam Memorial recently to talk about 5 00:00:13,966 --> 00:00:16,533 why this topic and its resonance now. 6 00:00:16,533 --> 00:00:20,766 LYNN NOVICK, Documentary Filmmaker: Thinking about every single name here as a story. 7 00:00:20,766 --> 00:00:25,366 JUDY WOODRUFF: That's the tall older of the latest Ken Burns and Lynn Novick documentary, 8 00:00:25,366 --> 00:00:26,633 "Vietnam." 9 00:00:26,633 --> 00:00:30,866 LYNN NOVICK: We just tell a few of them. 10 00:00:30,866 --> 00:00:35,866 JUDY WOODRUFF: The team culled hundreds of hours of footage into 18. 11 00:00:37,866 --> 00:00:42,333 It's a flash point in history that's been examined countless times, but they say it's 12 00:00:43,233 --> 00:00:45,400 still not fully understood. 13 00:00:45,400 --> 00:00:47,466 KEN BURNS, Documentary Filmmaker: There's one way to think about it, is there's really 14 00:00:47,466 --> 00:00:51,433 only one name on the wall here, which is your name, your story, your brother, your uncle, 15 00:00:52,366 --> 00:00:53,366 your father. 16 00:00:53,366 --> 00:00:55,466 That's the important thing. 17 00:00:55,466 --> 00:01:00,166 JUDY WOODRUFF: Vincent Okamoto is the most highly decorated surviving Japanese American 18 00:01:01,033 --> 00:01:03,100 veteran of the Vietnam War. 19 00:01:03,100 --> 00:01:06,966 VINCENT OKAMOTO, Vietnam War Veteran: The real heroes are the men that died, 19-, 20-year-old 20 00:01:08,100 --> 00:01:10,333 high school dropouts. 21 00:01:10,333 --> 00:01:15,333 They didn't have escape routes that the elite and the wealthy and the privileged had. 22 00:01:16,266 --> 00:01:17,966 And that was unfair. 23 00:01:17,966 --> 00:01:21,766 They weren't going to be rewarded for their service in Vietnam. 24 00:01:21,766 --> 00:01:26,766 And yet, their infinite patience, their loyalty to each other, their courage under fire was 25 00:01:31,333 --> 00:01:33,733 just phenomenal. 26 00:01:33,733 --> 00:01:38,733 And you would ask yourself, how does America produce young men like this? 27 00:01:40,766 --> 00:01:45,300 JUDY WOODRUFF: After tackling the Civil War and World War II, Novick and Burns vowed: 28 00:01:47,266 --> 00:01:49,833 KEN BURNS: We're not going to do any more wars. 29 00:01:49,833 --> 00:01:54,833 JUDY WOODRUFF: But as they realized hundreds of Vietnam War veterans were dying each day, 30 00:01:56,933 --> 00:02:00,966 they decided to take on what they call the most important event in the second half of 31 00:02:01,833 --> 00:02:03,900 the 20th century for Americans. 32 00:02:03,900 --> 00:02:08,533 KEN BURNS: There's an interesting thing, having done these three wars, that the Civil War 33 00:02:08,533 --> 00:02:13,533 and the Second World War are really encrusted with the barnacles of sentimentality. 34 00:02:16,033 --> 00:02:18,533 And that's not a problem with Vietnam. 35 00:02:18,533 --> 00:02:21,433 And so, in a way, we get it raw. 36 00:02:21,433 --> 00:02:23,933 Nobody's going to sentimentalize Vietnam. 37 00:02:23,933 --> 00:02:25,933 It defined who we were. 38 00:02:25,933 --> 00:02:28,866 It was this horrible loss. 39 00:02:28,866 --> 00:02:33,866 And I think a lot of the divisions that we experience today had their seeds in the Vietnam 40 00:02:35,266 --> 00:02:37,833 conflict, and we haven't really gotten over them. 41 00:02:37,833 --> 00:02:39,900 LYNN NOVICK: It's still with us in this very present way. 42 00:02:39,900 --> 00:02:44,700 I think we came across a quote after we finished the film that all wars are fought twice, on 43 00:02:44,700 --> 00:02:46,733 the battlefield and in our memory. 44 00:02:46,733 --> 00:02:49,633 I think we're still fighting the Vietnam War in many, many ways. 45 00:02:49,633 --> 00:02:53,166 The great gift for this project was that so many of the people who lived through it are 46 00:02:53,166 --> 00:02:58,166 in their 60s and 70s, and they're here today, and they remember it very, very well. 47 00:03:00,200 --> 00:03:03,433 And they told their stories to us in the most generous and brave way. 48 00:03:05,433 --> 00:03:07,566 People took tremendous risks to kind of open themselves up and just tell us what it was 49 00:03:07,566 --> 00:03:08,766 really like. 50 00:03:08,766 --> 00:03:13,200 MAN: You adapt to the atrocities of war. 51 00:03:13,200 --> 00:03:17,666 You adapt to killing and dying. 52 00:03:17,666 --> 00:03:22,666 After a while, it doesn't bother you. 53 00:03:24,033 --> 00:03:27,233 Let's just say it doesn't bother you as much. 54 00:03:27,233 --> 00:03:32,233 I was made to realize that this is war and is what we do. 55 00:03:33,100 --> 00:03:35,633 And that stuck in my head. 56 00:03:35,633 --> 00:03:36,633 This is war. 57 00:03:36,633 --> 00:03:38,700 This is what we do. 58 00:03:38,700 --> 00:03:42,633 JUDY WOODRUFF: The documentary comes at the war from all sides, the divisions among Americans 59 00:03:43,866 --> 00:03:46,733 and the divisions among Vietnamese. 60 00:03:46,733 --> 00:03:51,733 Burns and Novick say they wanted to include all voices, but avoid passing judgment themselves. 61 00:03:53,800 --> 00:03:57,300 KEN BURNS: In addition to a whole cast of American characters, every possible stripe, 62 00:03:59,300 --> 00:04:02,500 we have also got North Vietnamese soldiers, and Vietcong guerrillas, and North Vietnamese 63 00:04:02,500 --> 00:04:06,900 civilians, and South Vietnamese civilians, and South Vietnamese soldiers, and South Vietnamese 64 00:04:06,900 --> 00:04:09,033 diplomats. 65 00:04:09,033 --> 00:04:11,766 But we're not putting the thumb on the scale of any kind of political agenda. 66 00:04:11,766 --> 00:04:16,766 We are just interested in sharing the stories of a remarkable set of people. 67 00:04:18,766 --> 00:04:22,733 NARRATOR: As many as 230,000 teenagers, many of them volunteers, worked to keep the roads 68 00:04:25,500 --> 00:04:28,600 open and the traffic moving. 69 00:04:28,600 --> 00:04:31,300 More than half of them were women. 70 00:04:31,300 --> 00:04:36,300 Le Minh Khue, who had left her home in the North with a novel by Ernest Hemingway in 71 00:04:38,266 --> 00:04:42,000 her backpack, observed her 17th birthday on the trail. 72 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:46,266 LE MINH KHUE, Lived Through Vietnam War (through translator): We all had to endure. 73 00:04:46,266 --> 00:04:48,700 The jungle was humid and wet. 74 00:04:48,700 --> 00:04:52,733 Bombs fell day and night. 75 00:04:52,733 --> 00:04:55,866 We women had to find a way to survive. 76 00:04:55,866 --> 00:04:59,033 We thought it was terrible. 77 00:04:59,033 --> 00:05:04,033 MAN (through translator): My brother, the seventh child in our family, joined the local 78 00:05:06,733 --> 00:05:09,933 resistance. 79 00:05:09,933 --> 00:05:14,933 The Americans came through on a sweep and killed him. 80 00:05:16,533 --> 00:05:20,533 Another brother was ambushed while he slept, shot through the heart. 81 00:05:21,966 --> 00:05:25,633 MAN: I never considered the Vietnamese our enemy. 82 00:05:28,066 --> 00:05:33,033 They had never done anything to threaten the security of the United States. 83 00:05:33,033 --> 00:05:37,466 They were off 10,000 miles away, minding their own business. 84 00:05:37,466 --> 00:05:42,466 And we went there to their country, told them what kind of government we wanted them to 85 00:05:43,333 --> 00:05:45,400 have. 86 00:05:45,400 --> 00:05:46,766 JUDY WOODRUFF: There have obviously been hundreds, if not thousands of books... 87 00:05:46,766 --> 00:05:48,700 LYNN NOVICK: Indeed. 88 00:05:48,700 --> 00:05:50,133 JUDY WOODRUFF: ... written on this here and, I'm sure, in Vietnam. 89 00:05:50,133 --> 00:05:52,300 Do you think you now understand this war, Ken? 90 00:05:52,300 --> 00:05:57,166 KEN BURNS: No, I think there's something -- just like you can be married for years and years 91 00:05:57,166 --> 00:06:02,066 and years, and that other person remains kind of inscrutable to the end, this is the arrogance 92 00:06:02,066 --> 00:06:07,066 of history and biography, that we think that we can know, go into the past, and do it. 93 00:06:08,666 --> 00:06:11,266 Every day was a daily humiliation of what we didn't know. 94 00:06:11,266 --> 00:06:14,400 We always had not just scholars, but veterans present. 95 00:06:14,400 --> 00:06:17,166 And their B.S. meters are so fine. 96 00:06:17,166 --> 00:06:20,833 And they would go, you know what, I'm not so sure about that. 97 00:06:20,833 --> 00:06:23,300 And they'd say, in my experience, it was like this. 98 00:06:23,300 --> 00:06:28,300 JUDY WOODRUFF: The documentary team shot about 40 times the footage they eventually used, 99 00:06:30,633 --> 00:06:33,633 and spoke with more than 1,000 witnesses in the U.S. and Vietnam, one-third of them Vietnamese 100 00:06:37,233 --> 00:06:39,566 or Vietnamese-American. 101 00:06:39,566 --> 00:06:42,533 Research took them to almost 20 countries. 102 00:06:42,533 --> 00:06:45,200 Facts were checked and rechecked. 103 00:06:45,200 --> 00:06:50,200 In addition to sorting through 5,000 hours of historical footage and photos -- one took 104 00:06:52,233 --> 00:06:55,933 a year to locate -- they wove 120 pieces of music from the period in with original music, 105 00:07:00,366 --> 00:07:05,333 led by composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who did the soundtrack for hit movies 106 00:07:07,333 --> 00:07:11,266 like "The Social Network" and "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," as well as from Yo-Yo 107 00:07:12,133 --> 00:07:14,933 Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. 108 00:07:14,933 --> 00:07:19,933 The filmmakers say they hope that, by airing this documentary, what happened will become 109 00:07:21,333 --> 00:07:24,500 clearer, even if the why continues to provoke debate. 110 00:07:24,500 --> 00:07:29,166 The documentary comes out at a moment in American history when we're thinking a lot about America's 111 00:07:29,166 --> 00:07:34,166 role in the world and how important Americans are and America compared to the rest of the 112 00:07:34,633 --> 00:07:35,566 world. 113 00:07:35,566 --> 00:07:36,933 And judgments are being made. 114 00:07:36,933 --> 00:07:39,466 So there's a timeliness here, isn't there? 115 00:07:39,466 --> 00:07:42,066 LYNN NOVICK: Yes, people ask us how -- what does it feel like to have the film coming 116 00:07:42,066 --> 00:07:44,100 out in this moment? 117 00:07:44,100 --> 00:07:48,066 And it's just the sense that we live in this extraordinarily polarized and divisive moment, 118 00:07:49,233 --> 00:07:50,466 and we don't seem to be able to talk. 119 00:07:50,466 --> 00:07:52,166 We don't seem to be able to listen. 120 00:07:52,166 --> 00:07:54,866 We don't seem to be able to agree about basic facts. 121 00:07:54,866 --> 00:07:59,566 And yet so much of that really started escalating during the Vietnam War. 122 00:07:59,566 --> 00:08:02,933 The resonances of where we are in the world and who we are in the world, especially -- we 123 00:08:02,933 --> 00:08:07,800 have been in several wars that are not unlike the Vietnam War for the last 15 years. 124 00:08:07,800 --> 00:08:12,800 JUDY WOODRUFF: And, inevitably, there are the questions of lessons from this war, so 125 00:08:14,233 --> 00:08:16,666 many lessons that may or may not have been learned. 126 00:08:16,666 --> 00:08:18,700 What do you think they are? 127 00:08:18,700 --> 00:08:22,133 KEN BURNS: Well, they're legion, but the one that we could agree on is that we're not going 128 00:08:22,133 --> 00:08:24,866 to blame the warriors anymore. 129 00:08:24,866 --> 00:08:28,766 History is the set of questions we in the present ask of the past. 130 00:08:28,766 --> 00:08:32,733 If we can't talk about the current toxicity, let's go back and look at the other one, and 131 00:08:32,733 --> 00:08:37,733 maybe, with the kind of courageous conversations you can have, permitting people to have and 132 00:08:39,733 --> 00:08:43,266 hold views opposite of your own, you could really begin to have something, and not just 133 00:08:43,266 --> 00:08:47,466 the talking at or the shouting over that we do today. 134 00:08:47,466 --> 00:08:52,266 MAN: For years, nobody talked about Vietnam. 135 00:08:52,266 --> 00:08:56,733 It was so divisive. 136 00:08:56,733 --> 00:09:00,133 And it's like living in a family with an alcoholic father. 137 00:09:00,133 --> 00:09:05,066 Shh, we don't talk about that. 138 00:09:06,233 --> 00:09:08,200 Our country did that with Vietnam. 139 00:09:08,200 --> 00:09:12,300 And it's only been very recently that I think that the baby boomers are finally starting 140 00:09:13,033 --> 00:09:13,900 to say, what happened? 141 00:09:13,900 --> 00:09:15,933 What happened? 142 00:09:15,933 --> 00:09:20,566 JUDY WOODRUFF: You can see more of my conversation with the filmmakers in our next piece. 143 00:09:21,833 --> 00:09:24,900 The documentary will air for the next two weeks. 144 00:09:24,900 --> 00:09:29,900 HARI SREENIVASAN: "The Vietnam War" premieres Sunday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on most PBS stations. 145 00:09:31,833 --> 00:09:36,100 You will find more online information right now, including an excerpt about a Navy pilot 146 00:09:38,033 --> 00:09:41,033 who spent more than eight years in captivity, making him the second longest held American 147 00:09:41,033 --> 00:09:42,300 prisoner of war. 148 00:09:42,300 --> 00:09:44,066 That's at PBS.org/NewsHour.