REFLECTIONS

Who is Ken Burns?

He is a renowned American documentary filmmaker. I first became familiar with Burns and his films when he released a baseball documentary in 1994.

Following that production, Burns has done films on the Civil War, jazz, national parks, Prohibition, the Roosevelts, the Vietnam War, country music, the West, cance, the Brooklyn Bridge and many others.

The author and filmmaker was also executive producer for “The Mayo Clinic,” a two-hour documentary directed by Erik Ewers and Christopher Loren Ewers, and produced by Julie Coffman, and written by David Blistein. It premiered on PBS in September 2018.

Burns discusses his new documentary about the American Revolution, his Vietnam War series and more on The American Legion’s award-winning Tango Alpha Lima podcast.

“The American Revolution,” a six-part, 12-hour documentary series, premiered Nov. 16 on PBS. Burns set his mind to doing the project as soon as the Vietnam series concluded in 2017.

I am proud to be a member of the Blooming Prairie American Legion. I receive the monthly magazine and enjoy it immensely. The November issue includes a piece on Burns. Here are some excerpts:

“I knew how difficult it would be,” (Burns) says. “No photographs. No newsreels. It was proportionately as hard as our Civil War.”

“Burns also shares how the death of his mother when he was 11 indirectly led to his career.

‘After she died, my dad had a very strict curfew (for me),’ he says. ‘But on school nights, he would let me stay up late sometimes until 1 a.m. watching old movies. It was the first time I’d seen him cry. Not when she was sick. Not when she died. Not at the impossibly, sad funeral. That’s when I decided to be a filmmaker.’”

“It exposes the best and worst of us,” he says of his Vietnam War documentary. “It is really fundamentally a portal into human behavior, experience, that good and bad stuff.”

“Burns’ father served in World War II, arriving in France in April 1945. “He liberated some other things,” he says, referring to his discovery of a stash of wine, “One bottle at a time.”

To read the full profile, visit legion.org/information-center/news/tango-alpha-lima/2025/september/american-history-lessons-from-ken-burns

Visit legion.org/tangoalphalima to listen to/and or watch more than 300 Tango Alpha Lima episodes.