Caputo recalled that as a young man he dreamed of “charging up some beachhead like John Wayne. Many of the students have also read the personal stories by Vietnam veterans such as Philip Caputo that accuse World War II movies of making combat seem glorious and convincing many young men in the 1950s and 1960s to fight. The Vietnam films tend to be more critical of the American struggle in Southeast Asia. Most World War II movies they watch are largely supportive of the war effort. Thus, they readily understand the variation they often see in the way Hollywood treated these wars in feature films. They are familiar with the fact that the former has often been referred to as a “good war” and that the latter was a source of bitter controversy. Most undergraduates I teach know that Americans have celebrated World War II more than they have the war in Vietnam.
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