TV+War

= __"TV War"__   =

The Vietnam War was more “alive” than any other war had been. It was televised to the public for the first time creating a reality shock to all Americans at home. Sitting in your living room watching the death of one more person knowing that your son could be next was heart breaking to most. It was also the first time bodies were shipped home for a burial. Loved ones were opposed to the fighting and turned to protest against the war. Although Vietnam was televised so were major protests. Some people had no idea what happened in war until it was on their TV, and they viewed live footage. Many were turned off from the war and began to question the real reason hundreds of thousands of troops were being sent.

A reporter records battlefield activity in Vietnam for ABC News

There were even clips of soldiers saying they didn’t know what they were fighting for all they knew was they were there to fight and would continue to fight until they were sent home. How could one sit home and not began to realize this was a war that was being lost at the expense of great casualties? In Vietnam Protest Theatre Nora Alter argues that "...the United States had become by far the most visually organized country in the history of the world ... it was by the 1960s that the dominant visual media had become, in their turn, dominated by television so as to turn the Vietnam War into arguably the first (not the last) television war." No one was able to create their own images of war in their mind because there were real images being created that took away from the fantasy that everyone //wanted// to believe was happening.

__**Real Vietnam Footage**__ media type="youtube" key="IC4tpeN6pj4" width="425" height="350"

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