TV review: History Channel's 'Vietnam in HD' puts viewer inside the war

It hits you right in the gut.

The History Channel's "Vietnam in HD," airing on Nov. 8, 9 and 10 at 7 p.m. MST, puts the viewer right in the middle of the death, destruction and despair that was the Vietnam War.

Using film shot by soldiers, archive footage, news clips and the voices of people who were there stitched with voiceovers from actors, "Vietnam in HD" takes the viewer from 1964 and the first, optimistic moments of U.S. involvement in Vietnam through 10 years of buildup and hundreds of thousands of American troops being sent to fight.

For anyone who was of draft age and didn't go to Vietnam, it makes you grateful you didn't have to be there. For those who did go, it's bound to bring back plenty of painful memories. And for anyone who had family members go, it will let you know what they experienced.

You can almost feel the mud they had to slog through. The rivers they had to cross. The tall grass that cut their bare skin as they walked through it.

You can almost swear that the bullets flying by are going to hit you. After all, Americans were the targets of the Viet Cong soldiers on the other end. The booby trap devices hidden in bags of rice were another big danger.

In the first episode, which was sent for review, Joe Galloway, a reporter for United Press International, talks about his wish to report from Vietnam, even as the United States was beginning to get more involved. Finally, his bosses agreed, and Galloway shortly found himself in the middle of a fierce firefight at a helicopter landing zone in the Ia Drang Valley, where a couple hundred U.S. soldiers had been dropped off to engage what they thought was a small enemy force.

They were mistaken — and outnumbered about 8 to 1. Suddenly, there were more U.S. casualties in Vietnam, and that opened the floodgates for more troops to be sent there, for protests back home and for politicians' promises that the fight would be short and successful.

As the graphic footage shows, the war was anything but short, and the success of the operation has been debated ever since.

"Vietnam in HD" comes on the heels of the History Channel's "World War II in HD," which was seen by 24 million viewers in 2009. "Vietnam," narrated by actor Michael C. Hall, is a worthy follow-up.

The six-hour documentary is a valuable history lesson, but its intensity is not for children. There are graphic battle scenes and gruesome sights of the wounded and dead. And as you would expect, there are war language, some obscene gestures and plenty of smoking. Viewer discretion is advised.

The History Channel bills "Vietnam" as "It's not the war you know, it's the war they fought."

Yes, it smacks you right in the gut, but you're better off for having felt it.

E-mail: rwalsh@desnews.com