This episode is again inter cut with Denton Crocker's Jr mother talking to the camera about some letters she received from her son fighting in Vietnam.
You can sense the troubled pessimistic tone in them. Denton was more forthcoming to a letter he sent to a friend where he admitted his nerves were shot to pieces.
As suspected in the previous episode Denton was killed in Vietnam, his mother recounts seeing two uniformed messengers walking up her road.
Episode 4 underlines that the majority of Americans, young and old supported the war but fault lines were appearing. Anti war protesters and divisions were intensifying.
The rich and privileged were avoiding the draft, the poor and the black were being drafted. We saw familiar scenes of Muhammad Ali speaking out against being drafted and Martin Luther King taking the enormous decision given LBJs record on civil rights to take part in an anti war rally.
Despite LBJs regular doubts, his advisers remained confident even if the South Vietnamese leadership were a liability causing a rift between the generals as well as the South Vietnamese people. One soldier remarked that at one side they were fighting North Vietnam and on the side the South Vietnamese were fighting among themselves.
Robert McNamara was always outwardly confident but privately he harboured doubts. Operation Rolling Thunder was an initiative to bombard the North Vietnamese with constant bombings.
Still the North Vietnamese were having successes with their ambushes, the military and the politicians had to spin negative stories ever more. The press and even the soldiers realised the truth was not always being told.
Another riveting episode, more distressing was hearing from airman Alvarez, one of the first US servicemen to be shot down and held captive. He thought he might be a prisoner for a few years, it turned out to be over 8 years which included constant torture.