Pens and Swords‪.‬

Abstract: The US military's leadership is almost entirely composed of graying senior officers who were assigned their first command as junior officers on the front lines in Vietnam. Many of the brass harbor a residual sense of betrayal and paranoia toward the media, a quiet bitterness underscoring the perceived truth that, form the military's point of view, the press, above all bears responsibility for the US debacle in Southeast Asia. Post-Vietnam presidents apparently have agreed with the Pentagon that the media needs to be culled, vetted, and locked down into tightly controlled pools during war-time operations. Nonetheless, since Bill Clinton became commander-in-chief of the US armed forces in 1993, the distrust and polarization that have characterized the relationship between the military and the media for almost 3 decades have slowly eroded. A cautious atmosphere of mutual understanding and symbiotic exploitation has matured.