I just watched a “making of” special on PBS on the making of the new Ken Burns documentary of the Viet Nam war. It will air in September, and should be as thorough and influential as was his documentary of the Civil War.

One of the things mentioned was that Viet Nam is a very young country, and while they were filming there, particularly in the North, most of the population has been born since the war ended. Much the same can be said about this country, although our own population is relatively older, and many of us who are boomers were young adults when the war was being fought.

Opinions were set back then, and many haven’t changed since those days. No doubt the show will be seen differently by people who experienced those times, and those who actually fought there. It occurred to me, Ken Burns did not “take sides” in his highly acclaimed Civil War documentary, and I can trust he’s not taking sides in this one either. But the audience, at least the American audience, will have taken sides well before they watch this, and they will bring that sensibility to this production. There will be fireworks.

Those of us who recognize the role that conflict played on our current political divisions will see this program very differently. Old wounds will be reopened, history is not what either side remembers, it is something in between. The Ken Burns Civil war was highly respected as history, I suspect this production will be very controversial.

Keep that in mind before you watch. A lot of people who were there and then, either as soldiers or as civilians (many as both) will be saying “that’s not the way it was”.

That’s the trouble with history, isn’t it? Even those who lived through it won’t remember it the same. And no one saw all of it. We all just experienced our little piece of it, even if we were in the middle of it.