I am 38, second to youngest of 5 siblings.
I know, I may have been too young to understand all of the implications, but I learned.
I remember my oldest brother and sister with their POW bracelets. I remember seeing the helicopter evacuation on TV. I may not have understood it all, but I do remember
I can not tell you of the ugliness from first hand knowledge, but I know what happened after the fact. You cannot lump everyone under 50 as not knowing what went on. I don't think that's fair.
As my children remember what happened on 9/11, but were too young to fully understand, I remember Vietnam
I had a POW bracelet. It was congressman Sam Johnson of Texas. I got to meet him when he came home. In sixth grade, we had to write a report about our heros. Most wrote about superman. I wrote about Lt. Col. Sam Johnson.