Veterans give views about PBS documentary on Vietnam War
George Dvorznak, circa 1968
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Participating in the April 9 panel discussion are Ed Blank, left, and George Dvorznak.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Andy Nigut shares his observations during the panel discussion.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Ron Worstell shares his observations during the panel discussion.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Todd DePastino
Half a century ago, U.S. troops serving in Vietnam had little idea of what was transpiring beyond their not-so-friendly confines.
“We got a newspaper maybe once a week, if we were lucky, and that was maybe two weeks old when we got it. We had some information that was sent to us by our families, but that was it,” Army veteran Ron Worstell recalled.
“And if we’d gotten it, I don’t know what we would have done with it. I mean, it was all about survival,” he explained. “We would have set that aside, because it wasn’t important at the moment.”
Ron Worstell, circa 1968
And so his viewing of “The Vietnam War: A Film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick” contained quite a few revelations, as it has for others like him who have watched the 10-part PBS series.
“I noticed right away when it started airing that our veterans started talking about it,” Mr. Lebanon resident Todd DePastino, director of the regional Veterans Breakfast Club, observed during an April 9 panel discussion about the documentary.
“They were reacting very powerfully to each night’s episode,” he said. “They were reacting with rage and sometimes bewilderment, a lot of times recognition, and it was just fascinating to hear their responses to what they were seeing and hearing.”
DePastino decided to organize a forum for further conversation, and joining Worstell on the panel at Peters Township Public Library were Army veterans Ed Blank and George Dvorznak, along with Andy Nigut, who was wounded while serving with the Marine Corps.
Dvorznak, a Peters resident, also found the series to be a learning experience.
It told me about a lot of things I really didn’t know about, ever,” he said. “I didn’t know about political ramifications. I didn’t know about the history of Vietnam: how we got where we were, how they got where they were. I occupied my day doing my job.”
As commander of a supply and service company, that included feeding 50,000 people breakfast, lunch and dinner daily.
Ed Blank, circa 1966
“I don’t believe that the stated political goal could have been achieved by military force alone,” Dvorznak said, adding about prolific documentary-maker Burns: “I think he did a pretty balanced job, and as far as I’m concerned, the people who come out the worst in that thing were the very top political and military leadership of our service.”
Blank, a retired journalist who lives in Mt. Lebanon, had a different perspective.
“As it progressed,” he said, “it seemed to me Ken Burns was being less narrative and more in a mind to balance what he was showing us.”
That included the portrayal of those who opposed the war and treated those who served with a severe lack of respect.
“By the time we got into the protesters, I was furious, Blank said. “To me, they were our greatest enemy. They did nothing for any of us, and I’m telling you here and now, if I could resurrect the thousands, the 58,000, who died in that war and replace them with protesters, I would do it in a heartbeat.”
For Nigut, a Westmoreland County resident whose face was injured severely by a grenade, the series did not provide any huge revelations, besides some of the history of events that led to the war.
Andy Nigut, circa 1968
“The documentary did confirm my thoughts about Vietnam, that it was not a military war. It was a political conflict,” he said. “I totally believe that the enemy I fought in Vietnam was a created enemy. My true enemy was here in the United States.”
He read a list of U.S. presidents from Harry Truman to Richard Nixon, spanning the late 1940s to the early ’70s, whom he believes were at fault with American and Vietnamese politicians and military leaders “for the purpose of power, prestige, profit, political gain and personal gratification, resulting in pain, suffering, destruction and death.”
“They had the power to not enter any conflict in Vietnam. They had the power to withdraw from Vietnam at any time, especially 1968, when we were all aware of what was happening,” Nigut asserted, referring to the North Vietnamese action known as the Tet Offensive.
“They chose not to,” he continued. “So for seven more years, they sustained the political conflict, resulting in 27,184 Americans, hundreds of thousands of North, South Vietnamese, military and civilians being killed.”
For more information about the Veterans Breakfast Club, which as its mission “to create communities of listening around veterans and their stories to ensure that this living history will never be forgotten,” visit veteransbreakfastclub.com.
George Dvorznak served with the Army in Vietnam from May 1967 through May 1968 as commander of the 229th Supply & Service Company in Long Binh, near Saigon.
Ron Worstell was drafted into the Army in March 1968. He served as a radio operator with the 1st Infantry Division, west of Saigon, from September 1968 through June 1969. Worstell has returned to Vietnam twice, once for humanitarian work, and serves as volunteer at The Wall in Washington, D.C.
As Duquesne University ROTC graduate, Ed Blank shipped with the Army’s 40th Signal Battalion to Vietnam in August 1966 and then became the commander of the 267th Signal Company. Based for much of the time in Qui Nhon, Blank’s company traveled much digging trenches and setting up poles for the miles of telephone line needed to connect the farflung Army forces.
Andy Nigut served with the Marine Corps in I Corps in 1968, when he was wounded by an enemy rocket attack. After a long recovery, he became a counselor and, with other young combat veterans, created a street-level counseling outreach that today is known as the Vets Center.