Narrator: Joyce McCollum Interviewed by: Josh Lavis      JL: From your perspective, what were some of the major differences between the Second World War and the Vietnam War?  JM: Oh, Second World War and Vietnam War, well the big one is that everything from the Second World War we didn't see here in this country for months until after it occurred, whatever bombing raid had occurred; whatever fighting occurred, it took two months for the film to come to the theatre-- for a 5 or 3 minute blurb on the theatre movie screen.  The Vietnam war was so highly visible and so graphic. It brought it home just what war really was. We could no longer stay distant from what was actually happening, and that's the really biggest...difference between World War II and Vietnam. Well, also the weapons that were being used. The bombing that we did in World War II did a whole lot of damage. I was stationed in Germany for two years, and there are whole towns that were obliterated by the blanket bombing that our B-52s did, but it took many raids to get it done. In Vietnam, we had fighter jets and super-- well maybe not supersonic-- but we had planes that would fly so fast, and drop so many, in such devastating artillery, that we could lay waste to huge sections of the land in seconds, so the weaponry had really gotten more brutal. Photos courtesy of the family. Back to Community History Home