On June 5, 2026, UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme spotlighted Vietnam's ecological preservation. Meanwhile, podcasters are looking back at the nation's history. On On with Kara Swisher, host Kara Swisher asked if historians are "working on preserving, like folks involved in the civil rights movement, survivors of Vietnam War, indigenous communities" to save history from disappearing.
The country's wartime past is also being revisited through art. On Fresh Air, host Terry Gross discussed actor Clarke Peters and his role as a "Vietnam vet in Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods", a film that follows veterans returning to Vietnam decades later.
For some, those memories remain deeply visceral. On The Daily, legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg recalled his high school years during the draft, noting that "Vietnam was on television every night on all three networks, so it was something you couldn't, couldn't get away from."
While Spielberg focused on the personal anxiety of the era, Tim Dillon offered a more cynical geopolitical critique. On The Tim Dillon Show, he argued that military lessons are doomed to be ignored: "We all learned all of these lessons with Iraq and Afghanistan, and actually, we learned them before that with Vietnam, but no one really cares, because there's a lot of money to be made in war."