Vietnam: Go Watch

Sadly, I have to be out this morning attending a funeral so that is going to take up a better portion of my day.  Instead of talking about the markets I want to make a suggestion that if you have the time and the stomach for it then go watch Ken Burn's PBS series on the Vietnam War.  

Vietnam was the background of my childhood.  We ate dinner every night when I was a kid around 6:00 and my father kept CBS news on in the kitchen so he could listen to Walter Cronkite at the same time.  Vietnam was front and center every night for us.  It was the background noise to our dinner conversations.   I was born in 1960 and obviously as a young kid I was pretty oblivious to the early years of the war.  But by the time I was about seven I became interested in the space program.  The mid-1960's were also the glory days of the Apollo moon program so I watched the news for information about NASA and the astronauts.  In the process I was served a healthy portion of Vietnam.  I don't remember much about Vietnam until the Tet Offensive in 1968.  I know Tet was the turning point in the war but it was also the turning point in my hometown.  After Tet, after Walter Cronkite came on the TV and said we couldn't win the war, opinions in my hometown changed.  A lot of folks thought we should just get out at that point and a lot of other people believed if we had a national effort like World War II then the war could be over quickly.  We didn't go that far and the war dragged on for years afterwards.  

Watching the Vietnam documentary, especially when they show scenes of America in the 1960s, is like rerunning memories from my childhood.  If you're about my age or older go watch it if you can and see if you feel the same way.  If you're younger then go watch Vietnam and compare it with today.  They say that history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes.  See if you agree.  I know that it seems as if we forgot the lessons we should have learned in the past twenty years or so.

Back soon talking about the markets.