It will be very interesting to see how he frames the beginning of the war and how he describes the combatants. No doubt he'll mention Tet, and domestic politics and things like the events at Kent state. You'll have earnest discussion of the draft and what it meant for American youth. You'll have cultural reminiscences, probably stuff like apocalypse now, Platoon and Tour of Duty (and Rambo, Full Metal Jacket, China Beach and on and on). You can already imagine him interviewing celebrities like Oliver Stone, surviving soldiers and generals, decrepit hippies and aged students now teachers, and official historians pontificating, like so many empty bags of wind. It's 10-part 18 hours, so nearly two hour episodes I'll guess. The first will probably focus on history leading up to Dien Bien Phu and introduce the conflict, framing it in an acceptably slavish fashion, and the last will no doubt be about the American withdrawal with plenty of time for navel gazing and the consequences for America and veterans. One episodes has to be about Tet, and probably one about Nixon and the home front. That leaves 6, unless they're all woven together narratively. The Civil war was probably easy by comparison, historians had already told the stories he mostly dramatized on film, and 'the' history is for the most part 'settled', who is going to be his Shelby Foote this time?

If it's along standard lines it will be portrayed as aiding the french, and then aiding a democratic south Vietnamese government from the depredations of the commie north Vietnamese, with the shadow of the Chinese and Russians looming behind. Typical bogeyman bull-crap. It would be shocking if it's isn't described as trying to prop up an unpopular french regime, then invading to prop up a puppet government, all the while the real enemy was Vietnamese nationalists generally, and the south Vietnamese population specifically, with spillover into neighboring countries. If Korea and 'Dominoes' don't get a prominent mention, I'll be flabbergasted, but it's about as likely as him not mentioning the moon landing and cold war.

He'll probably wring his hands for America with regret over Mai Lai and the necessity of using agent orange, but will he mention others like the Hà My massacre, and more unofficially titles ones? Will he go in depth about the consequences upon the Vietnamese country and population to this day, stuff like Birth defects and illnesses? I bet the word 'reparations' won't be even be conceivable. It would be shocking if he doesn't laud Hugh Thompson Jr. as hero, but will he go in depth on the militarys reaction and wider context? He just might, but that's about as edgy as I expect he may get. They'll likely link/blame it all on 60s counterculture, drugs and free love, the draft and how there were some bad apples who committed some random atrocities, and so forth. Shitty propaganda writes itself.

He'll no doubt mention Ho Chi Minh, but will he go in depth about Verseilles? He just might, it was long enough ago, and who is going to question that hard? No doubt he'll include a North Vietnamese of some sort, as the honorable opposition, as well as south Vietnamese soldiers from the Republic of Vietnam, but will he include any south Vietnamese fighting for unification and independence? Will south Vietnamese pilots bombing their own people be called traitors or collaborators? I very much doubt it. There will be paeans and homage to hospital and nursing staff, but will we see much like this?. I'd respect Burns if we do, but I'm not hopeful. What about North Vietnamese historians? Vietnamese that don't fawn over their American occupiers? If any appear, I'll be surprised if they aren't very carefully circumscribed. More to the point will he mention the Pheonix program? Will he mention the Strategic Hamlet Program and how much it compares to internment in the Boer war, and concentration camps? Those are very doubtful. If it's ends up being described all the standard ways you'd expect then you'll know it's just another weak popular history that has swallowed US propaganda raw and shows it undigested, and is a whitewash.