Here’s my conversation with Ken Burns, whose new PBS documentary series, “The Vietnam War,” will debut on September 17th. Among my questions:

  • Vietnam veterans don’t like talking about the war — how did you get them to open up?
  • Was that because of how they were treated when they came home?
  • Do they look back on it as a waste? What about families of the 58,000+ soldiers who died?
  • We’ve been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan longer than we were in Vietnam, yet there’s virtually no anti-war effort — is that because we don’t have the draft?
  • How do the Vietnamese view the war, both those who were in it and later generations?
  • You interviewed former Viet Cong — was it hard to find them? Are they heroes in Vietnam?
  • How important was media coverage, putting the war in Americans’ living rooms every evening?
  • Are we more polarized politically now than we were then?

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