To help mark the occasion of this monumental documentary project, KQED is producing a series of articles and stories about the war’s impact on the Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- The Vietnam War, Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s highly anticipated documentary series, tells the story of the Vietnam War as it has never been told on film. The 10-part, 18-hour series features testimony from nearly 100 witnesses, including many American who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as Vietnam combatants and civilians from both the winning and losing sides.
The series will have its Bay Area premiere September 17 on KQED 9. The first five episodes will air nightly from Sunday, September 17 through Thursday, September 21. The final five episodes will air nightly from Sunday, September 24, through Thursday, September 28. Each episode will premiere at 8pm.
“The Vietnam War was a decade of agony that took the lives of more than 58,000 Americans,” says Burns. “Not since the Civil War have we as a country been so torn apart. There wasn’t an American alive then who wasn’t affected in some way — from those who fought and sacrificed in the war, to families of service members and POWs, to those who protested the war in open conflict with their government and fellow citizens. More than 40 years after it ended, we can’t forget Vietnam, and we are still arguing about why it went wrong, who was to blame and whether it was all worth it.”
“We are all searching for some meaning in this terrible tragedy. Ken and I have tried to shed new light on the war by looking at it from the bottom up, the top down and from all sides,” Novick says. “In addition to dozens of Americans who shared their stories, we interviewed many Vietnamese on both the winning and losing sides, and were surprised to learn that the war remains as painful and unresolved for them as it is for us. Within this almost incomprehensibly destructive event, we discovered profound, universal human truths, as well as uncanny resonances with recent events.”