Guided Assignment 4

My rhet and comp class is taken in conjunction with a lecture on the 60s. This lecture covers everything about the 60s including the Vietnam War which is the topic we're currently discussing.
Right now, we're looking a the use of the media and comparing to other wars America has been/is involved in.
This is a really fascinating topic for me, history buff that I am, because of the way the media has evolved over time. Most of the pictures and posters I see from WWI and WWII are propaganda used to support or condemn the war. Then we move into the Cold War. Propaganda was important during the Cold War as well but we also begin to see uncensored pictures of devastated areas like East Berlin. It wasn't really until Vietnam, the first televised war, that Americans were really aware of what their soldiers faced. Much of it was censored so that support of the war wouldn't drop (which it did anyway), but it was still more than the public had previously seen. Now, in the midst of the War in Afghanistan, correspondents are risking their lives more than ever to provide Americans with the truth about what's happening to their soldiers but magazines and newspapers are too afraid to print the more graphic pictures for fear of losing readers. The Department of Defense also has precautionary regulations when it comes to printing pictures taken from the front.
In my opinion, these images must be shared. It is only once the public gets get an honest idea of the war that they can begin to make informed decisions about if they want this to continue or not. The victims portrayed in these startling pictures are human begins, regardless of race or relationship to the Taliban, and the sooner we realize that the better.
Make love not war y'all.