> Maybe it's a cliche but my dad would say about Korea and other wars "no pics, no words, you had to be there". So that was a teenage trope in the 80s and 90s too for my generation, if you were trying to be cool just say "you had to be there".

sounds like a partial retroactive justification to me. sure, you wouldn't get the full experience via a photo or verbal anecdote, but it's not like camera smartphones were ubiquitous in the 80s either.