I wasn't born until 1984, so I don't have any personal experience with the Vietnam war, but the first time I remember becoming aware of the concept of "war" was the Persian Gulf War ('90/'91). I remember watching on the news the green, I guess they were tracer bullets?, flying across the dark skies and then plumes of orange and yellow light as bombs blew up in the cities. Thinking about that still makes me feel queasy.
Since then, I think wars have become more remote and removed from the eye of the general public. Even though we have the 24-hour news cycle now that really kicked off after 9/11, we really do not get much information about the atrocities of war until long after the fact.
I run a fiction book club at a local bookstore and cafe, and I'm hoping to pick a book soon that will help to contextualize the US war in Afghanistan by reading fiction. I'm not sure if people (in general) realize that this war is still going on because we don't really hear about it anymore. With the recent treaty between the Taliban and US the situation in Afghanistan has the potential to deteriorate rapidly. I have a friend who teaches university in Central Asia, who has many Afghan students, and he told me that his students are terrified about what will happen. It's such a complex situation, and reminded me of the things I've read about the Vietnam War.