ABSTRACT
For the United States, the Vietnam War (1961-1975) was the single most devastating episode of the larger Cold War, the near half-century of political and ideological tensions between the East and the West that reverberated around the globe from 1945 to 1991. It has also been said that the Vietnam War was the most divisive event in U.S. history since the Civil War, pitting Americans on the home front against each other in support of the war or in angry opposition to it. Along with the Civil Rights Movement, the war in Vietnam-and responses to it-shaped much of what we have come to think of as the history of the 1960s. The Vietnam War is still fresh in many minds; its validity and meaning are still contested and still politically sensitive. Veterans, survivors, and their families in both the United States and Vietnam still live with the after-effects.
