Length: 692 words (2.5 pages)
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Media and the Military

 

        During the Vietnam War the media was left unchecked and brought the

wartime images of death and carnage into America's living room.  These

images served as morale killers and eventually turned much of the public

against its own government.  During the Gulf War on the other hand, the

military filtered what reached the public's eye and morale was kept to all

time highs.  In wartime the government should be able to manipulate public

opinion by controlling the media.

 

        War is not pretty, and it is not for the weak at heart.  Images of

war should not be broadcast into living rooms live.  During the Vietnam

conflict this is what happened.  Pictures and real time video of our troops

being slaughtered during battles of the Tet offensive and the siege of Khe

Sahn were sent home for all of America to see (Klein 50-51).  Again, war is

not pretty and the way you keep morale up is you don't let the public know

how bad war really is.

 

        Television is one of the most powerful tools of media and ?by the

mid 1960's television had become the most important source for news for

most of the American public, and beyond that, perhaps, the most powerful

single influence on the public.? (Hallin 106)  So people trusted what

reporters like Walter Cronkite were telling them.  They believed it when

NBC journalists told them things like, ? the Marines are so bogged down in

Hue that nobody will predict when the battle would end?more than 500

marines have been wounded and over 100 dead since the in Hue began.? (Klein

51)  Don't get the wrong idea though, these things really happened but the

public didn't need to know it.

 

        The constitution and 1st amendment still mean something but

national security should come first.  People rioting all over the country

in anti war protests should be an issue of national security.  Without the

support of your homefront no country can win a war, especially a foreign

war (Franklin 250).  It is impossible to get support at home when NBC is

showing them pictures of their boys getting massacred every night on the

nightly news.

 

        On the other hand, during the Gulf War in Iraq the horrors of war

still existed, maybe not to the same extent, but they were there

nonetheless.  These horrors however where kept out of our living rooms by

systematic filtering by the US army.  Now the army didn't just seize tapes

and erase bad parts.  Very few reporters and cameras were allowed to the

front lines.  When tapes had to be delivered back to the headquarters for

broadcast the army drivers would routinely ?get lost? (Fialka 2).  The army

also stuck the majority of the reporters with the marines.  Now the army

consisted of 295,000 and was the main attacking force.  The Marines on the

other hand only consisted of about 80,000 and were really a sideshow.  They

would be sent into no lose situations where small bands of Iraqi soldiers

would have to surrender and these were the images pumped back into our

living rooms, images of a nonviolent conflict with no losers (Fialka 6).

 

        Morale for this war was extremely high.  This was done by the way

the war was presented to the public. The United States saw ?a combination

of Lawrence of Arabia and Star Wars i.e. heroic western leadership of the

Arab world joined with mouth gaping demonstrations of advanced weaponry?

(Mowlana 23).  With this support, President Bush had no problem with

launching full out assault and crushing Hussein's army in a matter of weeks.

Johnson, who had almost no support, was leery of going in no holds barred

like Bush did.

 

        Filtering what images America is allowed to see during a foreign

war is a good idea and should be done.  This was done during the Gulf War

but not the Vietnam Conflict.  Morale for each of these wars was at

opposite ends of the spectrum and it is believed that this morale is what

wan and lost these respective wars.