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All well written war books are anti-war novels. If the book is honest, and the experiences accurately related, nobody should read the book and say, “Man, I wish I was involved in that!”If they do, then the author failed to get across to them how traumatizing his experience was. “All Quiet on the Western Front”, “We Were Soldiers Once… And Young”, “Dispatches”, “A Rumor of War”, are all great books. And none of them glorify war or whisper to the reader, “Come on, son, you want to get into one of these as soon as you have a chance!”"We were children of the 1950s and John Kennedy's young stalwarts of the early 1960s. He told the world that Americans would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship" in the defense of freedom. We were the down payment on that costly contract, but the man who signed it was not there when we fulfilled his promise. John Kennedy waited for us on a hill in Arlington National Cemetery, and in time we came by the thousands to fill those slopes with our white marble markers and to ask on the murmur of the wind if that was truly the future he had envisioned for us."Joseph L. Galloway author We Were Soldiers Once… And Young

I like that format that Jon Pennington used to answer this question so I’m going to do the same.DocumentariesAmerican Dynasties: The Kennedys (TV Series 2018– ) (about the Kennedy Family)American Experience: JFK (TV Series 2013-) (about President John F. Kennedy)American Experience: LBJ (TV Series 1991-) (about President Lyndon B. Johnson)American Experience: Nixon (TV Episode 1990) (about President Richard M. Nixon)American Experience: RFK (TV Episode 2004) (about Robert F. Kennedy)American Experience: Chicago 1968 (TV Episode 1995) (about 1968 Democratic National Convention)Eyes on the Prize (TV Series 1987– ) (about the civil rights movement)American Experience: Malcolm X: Make It Plain (TV Episode 1994) (about Malcolm X)American Experience: Freedom Riders (2010) (about civil rights activists called Freedom Riders that challenged racial segregation in American interstate transportation during the Civil Rights Movement)American Experience:Freedom Summer (2014) (about the summer of 1964, when hundreds of activists took to the streets and schools of Mississippi.)American Experience: Citizen King (TV Episode 2004) (about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)King in the Wilderness - HBO Original Documentary (2018) (about the last years of Martin Luther King Jr.'s life)4 Little Girls (1997) (about the September 15, 1963 murder of four African-American girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama)The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (2015) (about the rise and fall of the Black Panther Party)The Vietnam War: A film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick - PBS (about the Vietnam War)Vietnam: A Television History (TV Mini-Series 1983– ) (about the Vietnam War)American Experience: Summer of Love (TV Episode 2007) (about the social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967 in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district)American Experience: 1964 (2014) (about the political, social and cultural events in the United States for the calendar year 1964.)The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003) (about the life and times of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara illustrating his observations of the nature of modern warfare)MoviesApocalypse Now (1979) (revolves around Captain Benjamin L. Willard, who is on a secret mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz, a renegade Army officer who is presumed insane.)Platoon (1986) (A young soldier in Vietnam faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.)Full Metal Jacket (1987) (A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.)Mississippi Burning (1988) (two FBI agents assigned to investigate the disappearance of three civil rights workers in Jessup County, Mississippi)Born on the Fourth of July (1989) (depicts Kovic's life over a twenty-year period, detailing his childhood, his military service and paralysis during the Vietnam War, and his transition to anti-war activism)JFK (1991) (the investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy led by New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison)Malcolm X (1992) (dramatizes key events in Malcolm X's life: his criminal career, his incarceration, his conversion to Islam, his ministry as a member of the Nation of Islam and his later falling out with the organization, his marriage to Betty X, his pilgrimage to Mecca and reevaluation of his views concerning whites, and his assassination on February 21, 1965)Heaven & Earth (1993) (during the Vietnam War, a Vietnamese woman struggles with life hustling on the streets, where she comes face to face with those involved in the conflict around her.)Nixon (1995) (biographical examination of former U.S. President Richard Nixon)Thirteen Days (2000) (President John F. Kennedy and his advisors come up with a plan of action against the Soviets during October 1962)Ali (2001) (A biography of sports legend Muhammad Ali, focusing on his triumphs and controversies between 1964 and 1974.)We Were Soldiers (2002) (dramatizes the Battle of Ia Drang on November 14, 1965)Bobby (2006) (the lives of a retired doorman, hotel manager, lounge singer, busboy, beautician and others intersect in the wake of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.)The Help (2011) (the story of young white woman and aspiring journalist Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelanon and her relationship with two black maids, Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson, during the Civil Rights Movement in 1963 Jackson, Mississippi)The Butler (2013) (As Cecil Gaines serves eight presidents during his tenure as a butler at the White House, the civil rights movement, Vietnam, and other major events affect this man's life, family, and American society.)Parkland (2013) (Chaotic events take place at Parkland Hospital in Dallas after the attack that assassinated President John F. Kennedy.)Selma (2014) (based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches led by James Bevel, Hosea Williams, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John Lewis)Jackie (2016) (the story of Jackie Kennedy's life after the 1963 assassination of her husband John F. Kennedy)LBJ (2016) (the beginning of presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson following the assassination of John F. Kennedy)Loving (2016) (The story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a couple whose arrest for interracial marriage in 1960s Virginia began a legal battle that would end with the Supreme Court's historic 1967 decision.)TV Films and Mini-SeriesThe Missiles of October (TV Movie 1974) (the talks and bargaining between major leaders, in both the United States and the Soviet Union, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.)King (TV Mini-Series 1978) (The story of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., from his days as a Southern Baptist minister to his assassination in Memphis in 1968.)Kennedy (TV Mini-Series 1983) (Biography of the 1961-1963 Presidency of John F. Kennedy.)Robert Kennedy and His Times (TV Mini-Series 1985– ) (based on the 1978 Robert F. Kennedy biography of the same name by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.)"The Wonderful World of Disney" Selma, Lord, Selma (TV Episode 1999) (based on true events that happened in March 1965, known as Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama through the eyes of an 11-year-old African-American girl named Sheyann Webb)The '60s (TV Movie 1999) (National issues and events profoundly affect two families, one white and one black, in 1960s America.)Path to War (TV Movie 2002) (the decision-making behind the Johnson administration's escalation of the Vietnam War in the mid 1960s)The Kennedys (TV Mini-Series 2011– ) (miniseries chronicling the lives of the Kennedy family)Killing Kennedy (TV Movie 2013) (dramatizes the presidency and assassination of John F. Kennedy, as well as the life of Lee Harvey Oswald in the years leading up to the assassination).All the Way (TV Movie 2016) (Lyndon B. Johnson becomes the President of the United States in the chaotic aftermath of JFK's assassination and spends his first year in office to quickly pass the Civil Rights Act.)BooksA Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.Kennedy: The Classic Biography by Ted SorensenCounselor: A Life at the Edge of History by Ted SorensenPresident Kennedy: Profile of Power by Richard ReevesAn Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 by Robert DallekFlawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973 by Robert DallekPassage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IV by Robert CaroThe Triumph & Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson: The White House Years by Joseph A. Califano Jr.An Idea Whose Time Has Come: Two Presidents, Two Parties, and the Battle for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by Todd S. PurdumParting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-63 by Taylor BranchPillar of Fire : America in the King Years 1963-65 by Taylor BranchAt Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 by Taylor BranchJudgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr, and the Laws That Changed America by Nick KotzWalking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement by John LewisAn Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America by Andrew YoungFreedom's Daughters by Lynne OlsonThe Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. Edited by Clayborne CarsonWe Were Soldiers Once...and Young by Lt. General Hal Moore, Joseph L. GallowayThe Best and the Brightest by David HalberstamBloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans by Wallace TerryA Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil SheehanDispatches by Michael HerrEnding the Vietnam War: A History of America’s Involvement in and Extrication From the Vietnam War by Henry KissingerFather, Soldier, Son: Memoir of a Platoon Leader in Vietnam by Nathaniel TrippFire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam,’ by Frances FitzgeraldIn Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam by Robert S. McNamara with Brian VanDeMarkA Rumor of War by Philip CaputoVietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow

To add to the other good answers here, the outbreak of the war - literally firing the first shots - was actually rather comical, especially considering how quickly that war turned so ugly.Seven southern states had declared their secession in 1861, including South Carolina. South Carolina seized all federal property around Charleston, except Fort Sumter :Well fortified and mostly surrounded by water, this fort wasn't easy to seize.Federal troops hunkered down for an uneasy stand-off. As resupply ships were dispatched to the fort, the Confederates demanded the fort be evacuated. The union refused.The south opened fire on the fort at 4:30 AM. This marks the start of the shooting war. Here's the interesting thing : Nobody was hit by cannon fire. As if the South were deliberately trying to avoid casualties; perhaps by firing at predictable times and targets and avoiding powder kegs and such.This went on for 36 hours and still - not a single person was even injured. The fort could probably have been flattened in that time had the south desired.Finally, the Union commander - Major Anderson, agreed to evacuate. The rebels stopped firing and agreed to let them go in peace.Anderson had one condition, though : everybody has to salute the Union flag as it is brought down during a 100-gun salute.The south (rolling their eyes, no doubt) agreed. A confederate ship came to the fort to deliver their mail.During the salute, one of the guns set a powder keg ablaze, killing Private Daniel Hough and Private Edward Galloway.After surviving a 36 hour enemy bombardment, the first two casualties of the war resulted from friendly cannons that were firing blanks.