How did the Vietnam War become famous?

Answer 1

Nearly all wars are famous (or infamous) to their own generation of people. In the US during the 1860s, 1870s, 1880, 1890s, up until the 1920s "the war" was "the Rebellion" (now called the Civil War). After the 1920s...it was the "Great War" (WWI). After 1945 it was "the big one!" (WWII).

Korea got lost in the shuffle for one reason...it was overshadowed by WWII (only 5 yrs apart). Not to mention that WWII vets who fought in Korea preferred to talk only about WWII (and in many cases ignored their second war (korea); that helped to bury the Korean War even deeper.

Then came Vietnam...the draft riots and color television made that war famous. Of course the "world" (meaning literally the whole world) had never seen hi-tech super-sonic jets and bombers (like the B52) in actual combat either...so in a way Vietnam was unique as people around the world could see actual "Cold War" bombers designed and built to drop nuclear bombs...dropping tons of general purpose bombs (H-E=High Explosive) on enemy targets; it was never seen before...and hasn't been seen since! The US dropped over 3 times as many bombs in the Viet War as they dropped on Germany during WWII. Japan was too far to be hit by strategic bombers until 1944...which was a naval war anyway (aircraft carriers, etc.).