Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam(1987)

Addressed to the heart of America.

Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam is a documentary that weaves together real letters written by American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines during the Vietnam War. Through their intimate correspondence to families and friends back home, the film captures the human experience of combat—fear, longing, duty, and loss. Archive footage and period news coverage provide visual context to these first-person accounts, many written by service members who never returned. The letters form a powerful, unfiltered narrative of the war from those who lived it, offering a poignant counterpoint to official histories. Rather than focusing on military strategy or politics, Dear America centers the voices of ordinary men and women confronting extraordinary circumstances, making it an essential portrait of the Vietnam era.