Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
There was a lot of negative propaganda put forth by the protest movement about 40 years ago, American soldiers were baby killers, and evil imperialist death squads. The peace movement was incredibly good at vilifying everything. But they had no clue about what these 18 and 19 year old conscripted soldiers went through during a horrible horrible war. Once again the Protest Movement cut a wide swath during their protests.
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To be fair, a lot of soldiers that came back participated in the protest movement.
The Vietnam War was the world's first televised war and the public became exposed to the dark side of war which was a big reality check. A lot of things that happened in the war were war crimes by the standards we use now, and those standards exist partly because of what the public was able to witness.
If U.S. soldiers were using the same tactics as in Vietnam and if it was all on the evening news, I doubt they would enjoy the same hero status that they do now.
I guess is what I am trying to say is that tactics and technology has allowed them to fight a "gentler" war. (Not that bad incidents don't still happen from time-to-time though)