History Illustrated: TV Vietnam

History Illustrated: TV VietnamBy: Ricardo SerranoPage 1

Panel 1: Front-shot of an old, 1960s television. We’re inside an average white American living room. Television was a privilege back then. The TV is displaying a group of American soldiers rushing a Vietnamese village.

Caption: It was the Sixties. Kennedy had died and having a television was a thing of privilege. Something to be proud of.

Panel 2: We see a soldier with a flamethrower spraying the village with fire. There’s chaos in background. We’re still looking at these images from the TV set, in the living room.

Caption: But it was a privilege that came with a price. It made the horrors of the world an inescapable reality, and they came in a variety of channels.

Panel 3: Still a front-shot of the TV from the living room, the TV showing a burning hut in the village. We see a burning body next to it.

Caption: The Vietnam War was one such horror. This was a war America would lose.

Panel 4: Same scenario, TV in the living room, but now with a reporter interviewing a soldier as the village’s destruction plays on in the background.

Caption: The myth of the country’s innocence would shatter. America's soldiers became the bad guys, both in the countries they fought for and against.

Soldier being interviewed: ---should be proud. We’ve got a bunch of nasty killers fighting for freedom here.

Panel 5: Shot of the television being shut off, the image basically turning into a thin line of static.

Caption: It would not be last war to be televised.