Vietnam War

[Bengalzona]

(05-17-2015, 12:14 AM)Ryuko Wrote: Zona hit a lot of important points, but I think a major part of it was the widespread use of television. Having the war broadcast directly into your living room removed a lot of the heroism that went hand in hand with war through all our previous wars. Old-fashioned patriotism and idealized heroics were up against images of kids getting their limbs blown off while you are eating dinner. Add in the fact that it was a war against an ideology, it required a draft, and there was a major bungling in the way that protestors were dealt with at home, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Previous wars had an immediate, visible threat as well as our own propaganda machine banging on all cylinders to rally home support. TV made all of that impossible by Vietnam.

Absolutely.

This was the social aspects that I mentioned in the first post. And TV may have actually been the most important.

I remember being at a barber shop when the war was going on and seeing a news broadcast with scenes of severely wounded soldiers being evacuated from the field. In color. It was a bit shocking at the time seeing all of that blood. I can still remember it vividly 45 years later. You wouldn't have seen that in World War II or Korea unless you were actually there in person.