The Vietnam War: History in an Hour

Vietnam - The Ten Thousand Day War Disc 1/2
English | XviD MPEG 4 Codec ~807 kbps | 640 x 516 | MP3 VBR ~122 kbps | 25 fps | 7 x 48 min | 5 GB

The real story behind the longest, most controversial war in modern history. Known as history's first "living room war," the Vietnam conflict is presented in this nearly 10-hour documentary with clarity, authority, and insight, complete on 2 DVDs. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Peter Arnett and narrated by Richard Basehart (Moby Dick, La Strada), Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War covers the entire conflict, examining the shifting attitudes of the United States toward Vietnam from 1945, when the battleground was known as French Indochina, to 1975, when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese. This superb award-winning series of programs re-examines without blame or judgment the rise and fall of America's 20-year commitment to the war in Vietnam. Forceful and evocative, with film clips shot by both sides, it revisits the time and place that molded a generation and changed the course of American politics forever.

A quickly forgotten chapter in United States military history is relived in this harrowing war drama from director Ridley Scott, based on a series of Philadelphia Inquirer articles and subsequent book by reporter Mark Bowden. On October 3rd, 1993, an elite team of more than 100 Delta Force soldiers and Army Rangers, part of a larger United Nations peacekeeping force, are dropped into civil war-torn Mogadishu, Somalia, in an effort to kidnap two of local crime lord Mohamed Farah Aidid's top lieutenants. Among the team: Staff Sgt. Matt Eversmann (Josh Hartnett), Ranger Lt. Col. Danny McKnight (Tom Sizemore), the resourceful Delta Sgt. First Class Jeff Sanderson (William Fichtner), and Ranger Spec. Grimes (Ewan McGregor), a desk-bound clerk getting his first taste of live combat. When two of the mission's Black Hawk helicopters are shot down by enemy forces, the Americans – committed to recovering every man, dead or alive – stay in the area too long and are quickly surrounded. The ensuing firefight is a merciless 15-hour ordeal and the longest ground battle involving American soldiers since the Vietnam War.