I’m a big fan of documentaries, one of the things I like most about Netflix is the large number of them on available and Ken Burns is my favorite documentary filmmaker.

The Vietnam War is a ten part documentary series written by Geoffrey C. Ward, directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. Like most documentaries with Ken Burns name attached, it is thorough. The series covers everything. Not just the sixties and early seventies, but goes back to the French Colonial period and the First Indochina War and continues all the way to the fall of Saigon, then follows up with Vets going back to see how things have change since the war and sometimes meeting their former enemies.

Being Canadian and born around the time the US was withdrawing from Vietnam, all I knew about the war was what I saw on TV shows and movies. I didn’t know the U.S involvement spanned twenty years and five presidents, or that it involved traditional armies on both sides. TV always made it look like it was a purely guerrilla war.

That’s what I like most Burns’ documentaries. The level of detail and comprehensive coverage he gives to the subject. You aren’t given simple dates and anecdotes, but first hand accounts from civilians and soldiers on both sides of the conflict. Volunteers and draftees. Draft dodgers and POWs. There is no agenda in this series, notspecific narrative being pushed, just a presentation of the history delivered with peoples personal experiences.

It was an incredibly informative series and I’m glad I watched it. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for the people who had to live through it.