America’s war in Vietnam was ultimately a tragic affair for all parties involved. Mismanaged and poorly strategized, the war lasted ten grueling years, triggered massive domestic upheaval in the United States, hurt the American economy, and resulted in the US military’s first strategic defeat. This is to say nothing of the misery it inflicted on the people of Southeast Asia; according to the Pentagon’s own assessments, the United States dropped more bombs on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos throughout the war than it did in the entirety of World War II.

It was during the Vietnam War that America’s cult of airpower reached its zenith—yet failed to achieve the victory that America’s politicians had been promising the American people. Among the three most commonly used bombs by US air forces in the war, the CBU-24 cluster bomb, Mk 20 Rockeye anti-tank cluster bomb, and the

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