STILL BURNING: PFC Raymond Rumpa, who is featured in “Vietnam in HD,” inspects the damage. (
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Tonight, History does something that the United States government has never been able to do: Explain the Vietnam War.
But, of course, how can you expect clarity when the war that killed 47,424 American GIs and killed or wounded a total of 211,454 was itself called “a conflict,” not a war?
Why? Because Congress never declared war on Vietnam.
Tonight, an incredible documentary, “Vietnam in HD,” presents the battles and massive struggles of this horrible war with actual footage of the events that were occurring.
The footage, for the most part, has not been seen before, and, most astoundingly, in 13 cases, the actual soldiers in the battles featured have taken part in the five-hour documentary.
The special begins each tale in the voices of the actual soldiers, but the stories are completed in voiceover by some great actors.
For example, Army Specialist Barry Romo was a young kid back in the late ’60s. He begins his story by saying that when he told his dad, a WWII veteran, that he was enlisting and volunteering for Vietnam, his dad said, “We went to war to fight people who were putting other human beings in ovens. You will be fighting some poor farmer that doesn’t want to be bothered with you!”
As we see footage of Romo in battle, the voiceover of his words is provided by Adrian Grenier. The same is done for Joe Galloway, who was an eager young reporter in 1965 who wanted badly to cover a war.
Like the naive Romo, Galloway had no idea what he was in for.
His story is partly told by Galloway himself, while the voice of Edward Burns takes over as we see actual footage of horrifying battles he covered, with GIs attempting to crawl through 8-foot-high, razor-sharp grasses while taking enemy fire from all sides.
Galloway is still carrying the horror, guilt and sadness of the war with him everyday.
Other soldiers who fought in this insanely unpopular conflict who tell their stories about situations — such as being outmanned 20 to one — include Charles Brown (voiced by Blair Underwood), Raymond Torres (voiced by Jerry Ferrara), Gery Benedetti (Armie Hammer) and Elizabeth Allen (Tempest Bledsoe).
In addition, you will learn that while no one seemed to want this war, there was bravery beyond imagination taking place in jungles that no one back home had ever even heard of.
The footage has all been remastered into HD. It is so crisp and clean and the clarity is so great that you will definitely forget that what you are watching is real — that those soldiers being killed are really being killed and the firefights in the jungle where people were set aflame is redone in HD but not CGI.
It is narrated by Michael C. Hall, who does a great job of bringing that old war back home. He also reminds us of something we probably never even figured out.
Vietnam was the first war in which victory was determined by body count and not territory.
Don’t miss it.