Anyone here live through the Vietnam War?

Take it from someone who was at Kent Sate in 1970, what you are seeing now pales in any comparison to the Viet Nam era. America was much more sharply divided over VN than Iraq. Whether I agree or not, I am glad we have free speech in this country.

 

Dam* no edit - Kent State.

 

Being froma small town I didn't see any first hand, but I watched the protests on TV with my parents. I do remember it was much more vocal, more hard edged opinions to the war. I also have a cousin who served in Vietnam, and I remember the party welcoming him home. He had both legs injured by a land mine, and was in a cast from the waist down. Everyone was happy to see him, and happy he would regain the use of his legs (alot of soldiers didn't come home in one piece). He, however, was not happy. He was mentally scarred for life. The traumas he endured have followed him his entire life.

 

There is no comparison to the protests of this war and the Vietnam war.

Vietnam left legacy of protesting inhumanity

''War means an ugly mob madness, crucifying the truth-tellers, choking the artists, sidetracking reforms, revolutions, and the working of social forces,'' said radical writer John Reed in 1917.

His words still ring true today as Americans in recent days have paused to remember the war abroad and the war at home that raged in Southeast Asia and on the streets and campuses of America during the Vietnam conflict.
A quarter of a century after the end of the Vietnam War on April 30, 1975, America still bears the scars of that conflict. Thirty years after the killing of four students during antiwar protests at Kent State University in Ohio on May 4, 1970, voices of dissent still share the hope that those who fought the Vietnam War and those who opposed it will all find an honored place in this nation's history.
Ron Kovic is one American who fought in the war abroad and in the war at home. A gung-ho Marine in Vietnam, Kovic in 1968 received war wounds that left him paralyzed from the chest down and forced him into a wheelchair. Coming home from the carnage that would claim the lives of nearly 60,000 Americans and millions of Asians, the embittered but emboldened Kovic became a strong spokesman for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, one of the most able and effective peace groups to blossom during the '60s and '70s. Ron Kovic would later become known to millions of his fellow Americans through his searing autobiography, ''Born on the Fourth of July.''
Nearly three years ago, I had the privilege of meeting Kovic when I was invited to Washington to help the veteran, activist and author celebrate his 51st birthday on July 4, 1997. Though Ron Kovic's birthday party was attended by such living legends of the left as consumer advocate Ralph Nader, historian Howard Zinn, octogenarian activist Dave Dellinger and Pentagon papers pilferer Daniel Ellsberg, it was Kovic who reminded all present that ''we are all leaders.''
On that hot and humid night in the nation's capital in 1997, Ron Kovic brought tears to the eyes of his listeners when he said, ''I believe that my injury was a blessing in disguise. I believe that I was born and that every American was born to change this country, to leave that war behind and to make something beautiful out of the horror of that war.''
Larry Colburn is another Vietnam veteran who is trying, like Ron Kovic, to make something of beauty from the horror of war. In 1968, Colburn was a gunner on a helicopter in Vietnam. Along with crewmates Hugh Thompson and Glenn Andreotta, Colburn helped to stop the bloody carnage of the infamous My Lai massacre when Thompson landed the chopper between American soldiers and the Vietnamese they were killing. As many as 500 Asian civilians may have been murdered at My Lai by American soldiers under the command of Lt. William Calley, but it was the compassion and bravery of Colburn, Thompson and Andreotta that kept the killing from being even worse.
Speaking at the Athens Human Rights Festival in 1998, 30 years after the My Lai massacre, Colburn urged his audience to ''remember the brutality and inhumanity of war.'' Colburn and Thompson returned to My Lai 30 years after the massacre to salvage some beauty from the war by dedicating a peace park there. ''It's a living peace park with orchards and fish ponds,'' Colburn told me during his Athens appearance two years ago. Crewmate Glenn Andreotta was killed in action less than a month after My Lai. His name is forever engraved on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.
The Vietnam War is over but its scars have not yet healed. A legacy of protest and skepticism left over from the war is proof that the old activist Dave Dellinger was quite correct when he told a federal judge in Chicago in 1970 that because of the war, ''a new generation of Americans will not put up with tyranny, will not put up with a facade of democracy without the reality. People no longer will be quiet. People are going to speak up.''


http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/050600/opi_0506000042.shtml

 

Was all the coverage in black and white

 

Funny you should mention that. While one set of protesters were protesting the Vietname War, another set were protesting race relations at the same time. America was in general very protest happy during the Vietname War years.

Another difference was that the Vietnam War lasted years and the peace movement grew as the war continued. Hopefully, the Iraqi War will be over in the matter of days, not years.

 

There is no comparison to the protests and division caused by the war in Viet Nam. I remember. I was in the first Draft Lottery. It was an attempt to address the inequity of being able to stay out of the draft by being in college... something that affected all races who were poor in this country.

If you want to imagine a strange feeling, imagine sitting in front of the TV as they drew the numbers out one by one. Each day of the year had a corresponding number drawn at random from a drum. The lower your number, the greater the chance that you would be drafted. Mine was #336. I had friends and relatives whose #'s were below 200, which almost insured being drafted, unless you failed the physical. Some of them went to Viet Nam.

This is nothing like it, in my opinion, at least for the United States. I can't recall if the demonstrations were as extensive around the world, but I believe they were from time to time.

 

72% support this war

There is no draft


It appears to be a successful war so far.


It's not even close...they're only comparable in that they're both conflicts. The comparison pretty much ends there.

 

The numbers of the Draft Lottery corresponded to the different birthdays of the year, if that wasn't clear.

 

gater...not so...at the beginning of the war in SE Asia, the support was much, much higher than it is now...and rose in the 1st year...but then beagn to drop off sharply...that is what we remember, we forget the flag waving that opened the whole thing.

 

This is very true. Many forget how popular the Viet Nam War was at first. We were so naive. We thought we could do what the French could not.

 

MacBeth -
That may depend on when you truly define the "beginning" of the VN war. JFK? Johnson? Early Nixon? I'm not so sure "popular" is as good a description as much as "benign neglect".

Perhaps it was just my personal social environment, but the "Domino Theory" of containing Communism was questioned very early on.

 

My lottery number was 72 in 1973. Rumor had it that they were going to take guys up to 150. Then the peace came.

 

Giddyup, you were damned lucky, like I was. In 1969, which was the year of the first Lottery (it could have been '68, my mind is going!), the cut-off point was much higher. It was all pretty strange, wasn't it?

Thank goodness we have a professional military like the British these days. They both are superb. Anyone who thinks we should return to a draft, except in extremis, is crazy, imo. It was a nightmare, in many ways.

We are able to do far more, with fewer people, than we could before. I think they need more benefits, higher salaries, more funds for all the ordinance and fuel needed for training (there is no true substitute for live fire exercises and constant, extensive training, imo), and more sense in what equipment we purchase for them to use.

We have a tendency for buying the largest, most expensive programs built in the most Congressional Districts available. (with a generous helping of pork tossed in... it tends to go together) If we didn't fling money left and right on what some Congressperson wanted built in their district, we might be able to have a larger force. We're not always going to be able to pick and choose our conflicts, like the Administration has with Iraq. Someday it may come back to bite us.

 

I totally agree with you deckard. One day after things change in this world, its going to come back and haunt america. There has never been a country in the last 50 years thats even come close to the amount that the US has in regards to screwing around with stuff that we have no buisness interfering in.

And Coma I feel sorry for you. Just because someone doesnt want to see people needlessly killed is not a "hippy"

There are many things in this world that we dont understand. And if you fail to question why the most powerful country in the world is going to attack millions of people when the majority of the world doesnt approve of it. The you just choose to ignore the things around. Then there is nothing that i can say that will change that.

 

I forget how this happened but the American military is a much more respected part of our society than it was in the 60's and 70's, which tempers criticism a great deal. OTOH, dissent during wartime is a patriot duty. To meekly follow orders as if this was a duty is foolish. The history on this is long in American history, among others: while in Congress Abraham Lincoln spoke out strongly against the Mexican American War, even during it's prosecution.

 

Being an all volunteer force is an enormous aspect of why the military is so respected. I suspect the leadership of our armed forces would be appalled if we returned to the draft and abandoned what is serving us so well and with such distinction today.

It also eliminates the motivation behind a great deal of the disaffection from military-age Americans, at least during Viet Nam, who were having to fight a war that was seen as a mistake and morally indefensible by tens of millions. I was one of those millions.

That's why the honorable dissent taking place today is of a different caliber... far less heat and anger. It affects you quite differently if you are REQUIRED to fight instead of making the CHOICE to serve. And if the people being directly affected involuntarily are those people of a foreign country, Iraq or another place, and not you, your friends and relations, your neighbors.

It is a luxury we should appreciate. Those people in the military freely do what many of us choose not to, for all the different reasons that exist, which is to serve and protect US. So it is up to US to insure that they are sent in harms way for good reason. That's why we have a vote in every election and why it drives me to distraction when people say that it doesn't matter who you vote for. Those elected make these decisions. And these people between us and danger are not a treasure to be spent lightly.


(geez, that looks long-winded. sorry)

 

Thanks for that explanation.

The military is one of the few examples of racial diversity in the workplace in America, as well. The combat/ non combat ratios are skewed a bit funny, but that's because poorer folks go into the military as a vocation and not for the potential for combat.

Personally I think we should have a draft. The political accountability you explained so well is the why.
This is my pure blue sky speculation but after all this usage of the reserve forces in the past few years, a *lot* of those folks are not going to re-up. But then again, with the way we use ground forces these days, may be we don't need the raw numbers provided by the reserves, and they were talking about changing the reserves role anyways so who knows.


Back to Vietnam : the anti-war protesting started very early (pre-war!) against Gulf War 2, whereas it took a while to coaelesce against Vietnam.

 

I was in the first lottery.. It was really crazy as the whole university was in it at the same time. Frosh to seniors. I still remember watching it as the student center, straining to see the TV with everyone crowding. I went around all day thinking my number was something like 300 only to go home and have my parents tell me it was 31.

Deckard and others are largely right. A friend of mine has always claimed that there was no anti-war movement in the 1960's, just an anti-draft movement. He was partly right but as the present shows there is really an anti-war movement now.

The level of protest throughout the world and even in America in the prewar stage and with volunteers is impressive and a hopeful sign that the world is improving. Dinosaurs like Bush, Sharon and Sadam who think soley in terms of military might and force are actually on the defensive as "new Europe" and the "new world" start to compete with "old America" "old Israel" and "old Iraq".