Artistic License as History

The Documentary “The Vietnam War”: Artistic License as History by W. R. Baker

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/the-documentary-%E2%80%9Cthe-vietnam-war%E2%80%9D-artistic-license-as-history

Excerpt: As time creeps or races by, those who experienced the Vietnam War are fading from the scene and it’s becoming increasingly important to record a history of that war that is truthful. Increasingly, the written word is being tossed aside in favor of film and the “documentary” – both allow for “artistic license” instead of facts. Ken Burns and Lynn Novick took $30 million and ten years and used only 80 interviews that, like some others have said, tell how America was wrong, while the communist bloc with the American protestors and politicians were right all along. Was the American soldier (using this as an all-encompassing term) always right, always moral, always politically correct (especially by today’s standards)? Of course not. Among the many things missing from the documentary were the answers to these same questions of the VC, NVA and the North Vietnamese Government who habitually violated all their agreements, including the Geneva Conventions.