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Surf Culture and the Vietnam War

In the early years of the Vietnam War a cultural revolution was underway on the West Coast of the United States. It wasn't women's liberation or the counterculture. It was the Shortboard Revolution. As the modern sport of surfing was taking shape, many of its earliest adopters were being sent to war the jungles of Vietnam.

The result was an unexpected and little documented cultural exchange. The California Surf Museum has curated an exhibit of how surfing made its way to Vietnam during the war and how returning veterans changed surf culture. 

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