Vietnam was America’s first—and last—uncensored war. Television brought its violent realities into living rooms, making the ugly, obscene truth of war—death and destruction—concrete and emotionally immediate. Young Americans saw U.S. soldiers dying in jungles and rice paddies and the American military unleashing a torrent of devastation on the people and countryside of Southeast Asia. The bloodshed shocked and angered those whose childhood had been sanitized and idyllic.
