While I was reading They Marched I went to see The Fog of NIKE SHOX

While I was reading They Marched I went to see The Fog of NIKE SHOX, the documentary film about Vietnam-era

defense secretary Robert McNamara. The movie was interesting but kind of creepy and unpleasant, with McNamara

spinning his life story and, it seemed, trying to make himself appear wise, erudite and philosophical. At one

point he recounts traveling to Vietnam in the early ’90s and meeting with one of the former leaders of the

Communist forces. A heated debate ensues about cause of the war: the Vietnamese leader claims that his side

fought for independence against imperialist foreigners, and McNamara claims that US war leaders fought to keep

Vietnam free from the rule of a Soviet and Chinese puppet government. The Vietnamese replies something like

“you must never have opened a history book, since Vietnam fought China for centuries.” The audience laughs.

My Former Sec of Defense Went to Cuba and All I Got Was This Lousy Near-Apocalypse