Like a number of you, Allison and I have been watching the recent Ken Burns series about the Vietnam War. Like so many of his other documentaries, it carefully weaves together the story of that troubled era, placing each major leader and event in its proper place. It also has that human touch that marks Burns’ storytelling, breaking the wide narrative to focus on the experiences of ordinary people who patrolled the jungles, marched in protest and captured it all behind the lens of a camera.
In his Civil War epic, Burns was restricted to diaries and letters, but for this series, he and his crew interviewed dozens of people, American and Vietnamese, about what they had seen and felt. It was striking how vividly these men and women could recall the events of a half century ago: the sounds of exploding shells, the feel of boots sloughing through the rice paddies. Several of them pulled up a pantleg or unbuttoned a shirt to reveal the traces of old wounds. I can remember that day because I see it every day. I am marked forever.
My mind goes immediately to King Henry’s words in the English camp before the Battle of Agincourt:
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
