Baby Killers

As I kinda expected, Ken Burns's "The Vietnam War" has evolved into a nifty piece of anti-war advocacy. Last night this PBS documentary pulled back the curtain on this theme. Not that there is a lot wrong with this point of view. But it still is a little irksome that the sacrifices of so many young American soldiers have been and, once again, are diminished instead of respected.

Up to now this Nam recounting has been pretty much down the center ... but last night it took a decided left turn ... accenting the negatives surrounding this war -- the massacre at My Lai, "fragging" of officers, the Kent State shootings, the huge anti-war demonstrations across the U.S., heroic soldiers being tagged as baby killers ... all within a background of counterculture music.

We, who were not then members of the Weather Underground, were being tweaked for our inaction. On camera,veterans and families who, in previous comments, talked primarily about the rigors of the war, now revealed themselves as rabid peaceniks ... with the implication that we all should have been too. Burns and company were rubbing our noses in our inaction.

This sudden shift in message got me curious as to why. I had heard that Lynn Novick was the real power behind this documentary, so I started there. She was born in 1962 so she couldn't have had any first-hand knowledge of this war. But in her Wikipedia Entry I discovered that she had previously worked for Bill Moyers, that ultra-radical leftist who had been a very effective propagandist for the anti-war movement. Suddenly this hidden agenda revelation all started to make sense. It is never too late to kick a sleeping dog.