If you run an Internet search on Vietnam and the war, most of the information you get begins at about 1962. I think this is telling. It is missing the whole period that led up to the reasons the war happened in the first place. ↗
In the area we're discussing, leadership begins on Madison Avenue, on the desks and in the offices of people who spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying what will get them ratings. ↗
Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols. ↗