We have reached episode 5, the number of US soldiers in Vietnam had gone up from about 11,000 in 1965 to more than 500,000 by the end of 1967. The army estimated they had killed approximately 200,000 of the North Vietnamese enemy but more than 20,000 American soldiers had also died.
Despite LBJ's upbeat outlook to the public the war is nowhere near being won and Robert McNamara, the Defence Secretary, who escalated the war is now beset with doubts and is replaced.
We see McNamara in this series but we do not hear much from him directly, he self flagellated himself several years before his death in the Errol Morris documentary, The Fog of War.
The press and the lower rank officers are now aware that the war is atrocious but also the US troops has committed atrocities such as gang rape of civilians.
We see footage of a distressed John McCain in hospital after he was caught by the North Vietnamese, he was a valuable trophy for them as he was a son of an admiral. Watching him being interviewed by a French journalist was sorrowful when he is clearly in pain. Remembering how McCain was ridiculed by a draft dodger like Trump in the run up to the 2016 Presidential elections was upsetting.
This is now an unnerving history lesson for me. I was still not born in this time period, the US is ever deeper in this war, the South Vietnamese government is in disarray and cannot be trusted.