34. Evening News

During the Vietnam War, the evening news broadcasts in the United States presented a grim ritual: the daily death tally, categorizing losses among the Vietcong, South Vietnamese, and American forces. This statistical breakdown, often showing thousands of Vietcong, hundreds of South Vietnamese, and dozens of American fatalities each day, served as a stark reminder of the war’s toll.

This method of reporting, while meant to inform, also desensitized the public to the human cost of conflict, reducing lives to numbers. It underscored the war’s distant yet pervasive impact on American society, making the conflict a daily, inescapable reality for viewers at home.