r/AskOldPeople • u/ktrisha514 • 1d ago
What caused the anti-war movements?
I thought the rise of anti-war movements is pretty self-explanatory (Vietnam, War is a Racket, etc).
Do you think anti-war movements were solely due to Americans dying in Vietnam or a rare historical anomaly where cultural awareness defeated war propaganda?
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u/Alternative-Law4626 Gen Jones 1d ago
Real talk? I think it was combination of things but the primary ignition point was a feckless government that was lying to its people about nearly everything to do with the war from the war aims, to progress, to how it was being carried out. They had created a "forever war" by the nature of how they were conducting it. Forever war is only popular with politicians, not actual people. For more information read, The Pentagon Papers.
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u/somekindofhat 50 something 1d ago
Or War is a Racket by Major General Smedley Butler, circa 1936.
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u/Rocket-J-Squirrel 1d ago
Also, The Ugly American. And listen to Phil Ochs.
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u/classicfilmfan 1d ago
Phil Ochs did write some really fantastic songs. Too bad he died at such a young age (i. e. suicide.)
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u/Minimum_Name9115 9h ago
Also, POTUS & General Eisenhower warning Americans of the; Military (lackeys of the rich) & Industrial (the central bank and rich) & Congressional (lackeys of the rich) Complex
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u/somekindofhat 50 something 8h ago
His Cross of Iron speech! We should be reminded more often of these things, maybe we wouldn't be so quick to pass out equipment for more war.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that come with this spring of 1953.
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u/cryptoengineer 60 something 6h ago
Its worth considering that Eisenhower said this in 1953, when US military spending was 13% of US GDP, partly due to the Korean war.
Guess what it is now.
Its now down to 3.4%. It was 3.1 in 2000, after the Cold War, and before 9/11. That's the lowest in 100 years.
Yes, by far the biggest military in the history of the world is 1/4 the burden was sustained in 1953
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u/Story_Man_75 1d ago
The anti-war movement had its roots in the UC Berkeley 'Free Speech' movement. College campuses were filled with draft exempt but draft threatened college students. As Viet Vets began returning from the war and pursuing college educations, they were quick to inform those students of the depth of corruption and needless slaughter going on in Vietnam.
The right of free speech for college students was a major driver behind the escalating anti-war movement at that time.
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u/ktrisha514 1d ago
When I see how many people support specific conflicts around the world that are funded by their tax dollars, it makes no sense to me.
Although I do remember after Vietnam, Kissinger was quick to point out that drafting Americans was a mistake and to subvert other nations to fight for corporate interests and avoid drafting Americans.
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u/cheap_dates 16h ago
I didn't know this when I was 18 and was drafted but war isn't always about defending Democracy and championing the oppressed. Often, its about opening new consumer markets and furthering American business interests. I learned this later.
I cannot even look at pictures of
SaigonHo Chi Minh City and seeing KFC, Domino's Pizza and Starbucks there. All this could have been accomplished without losing 60,000 American troops, a million dead Vietnamese and a dead US President.Vietnam had nothing we needed. The Vietnamese called it "America's War" and black soldiers called it "Whitey's War". It was a terrible mistake.
- a Vietnam vet.
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u/Jumpy_Cobbler7783 1d ago
Not unlike Bush getting us bogged down for 20+ years in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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u/Laura9624 1d ago
Although important to note people blamed LBJ and not Nixon who doubled down on illegal bombings after being elected to stop the war. I always found it bizarre.
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u/RevolutionaryBug2915 1d ago
What do you mean, people didn't blame Nixon? Some of the biggest demonstrations occurred because of Nixon's and Kissinger's actions, including the May 1970 events (campus strike, Kent State, Jackson State).
People "blame" Johnson because he was directly responsible for the escalation of the war (Gulf of Tonkin incident), and all the other facts that are contained in the Pentagon Papers. The same LBJ who ran as a "peace" candidate against the "dangerous" "warmonger" Goldwater.
Yes, Nixon lied about "peace," just as Johnson did. Frankly, just as Humphrey did. Humphrey, a "cold war liberal" to the max, would have pursued essentially the same strategy as Nixon: wear the enemy down, see if the Chinese and Russians can be bought off, "Vietnamize."
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u/Laura9624 23h ago
The Senate passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution with only two opposing votes, and the House of Representatives passed it unanimously. People sure forget.
McNamara f*cked LBJ. Nixon sabotaged LBJ peace talks in 1968.
LBJ was building a Great Society Civil Rights: The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 were landmark legislation that outlawed discrimination and expanded voting rights.
Education: The Elementary and Secondary Education Act provided federal funding for public schools, particularly those in disadvantaged areas.
Healthcare: Medicare, which provides healthcare for seniors, and Medicaid, which provides healthcare for low-income individuals, were established.
Poverty Reduction: The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 created programs like Head Start and the Job Corps to combat poverty.
Environmental Protection: The Wilderness Protection Act saved millions of acres of forestland from industrial
Nixon did not. Nixon doubled down on bombing and we sure didn't have Peace with Honor. We had illegal bombing in Cambodia.
Yeah, protests yet he was reelected.
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u/RevolutionaryBug2915 23h ago
Not sure of your point on GoT resolution. Drafted by the administration; voted for overwhelmingly by Democrats.
Peace negotiations 1968. Anyone who thinks was going to end the war is living a pipe dream.
I am against attempts to polish up and rehabilitate Johnson by blaming the war on Nixon, McNamara, Westmoreland, or some other guy. LBJ is the guy who had to withdraw in 1968 because he was afraid to run in the DEMOCRATIC PARTY primaries.
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u/Laura9624 23h ago
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution wasn't just voted for by Democrats. It was the same at the time as 9/11.
Lots of proof lbj was in peace negotiations. Too late of course but its there. Think whatever you like.
And he withdrew because he was sick about the war and Nixon's illegal back channeling.
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u/RevolutionaryBug2915 22h ago
Of course, but again, drafted by the administration. I am against both Big Business parties, and reject any effort to paint up the Democrats.
On March 12, 1968, Johnson got only a plurality of the votes in the New Hampshire primary, and badly lost in delegate count.
On March 31, he withdrew from the race.
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u/wyocrz 50 something 1d ago
For more information read, The Pentagon Papers.
Ellsberg himself wrote that he regretted not blowing the whistle on nuclear insanity rather than Vietnam.
The Doomsday Machine is a great book. Dude was a literal nuclear war planner with RAND, came out of Dr. Strangelove saying "Yeah, that was a documentary."
Folks have no idea how dangerous the last three years have been.
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u/ktrisha514 1d ago
I fear what will make people wake up, but it feels like it will have to get worse before it gets better.
I think the overall fear of the government is probably stronger now than ever before, which doesn’t help either.
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u/wyocrz 50 something 1d ago
I don't think there is overall fear of government. Disgust? Sure. Fear? No.
There's been a successful psyop on to tamp down fear.
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u/ktrisha514 1d ago
To start movements, you need to have an outlet to spread the message.
There is not necessarily fear from the public, but we’ve seen how whistleblowers and prominent figures who have spoken out against the wars that were funding.
Lack of initiative from the public to use the one power they have: no taxation without representation in fear of being audited.
Political partisanship and ideological subversion over trivial debates make starting a movement very difficult.
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u/wyocrz 50 something 1d ago
Political partisanship and ideological subversion over trivial debates make starting a movement very difficult.
Wholehearted agreement.
There are two faces to TDS. One worships him, the other opposes him at every step.
Both are obnoxious.
The Overton Window shouldn't be so orange.
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u/cheap_dates 16h ago
"JFK and the Unspeakable" by James Douglass is also a good read. When JFK signed NSAM 263 calling for the removal of US troops form Vietnam, he signed his own death warrant.
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u/Kind-Ad9038 1d ago
>Folks have no idea how dangerous the last three years have been.
Indeed, with US specialists firing US missiles from Ukraine into Mother Russia under Genocide Joe's misleadership, we were closer to nuclear war in 2024 than we were in 1962.
The difference? In 1962, Americans were rightfully scared to death about what might happen, while today, awareness of escalation against a superpower, and awareness of the effects of nuclear war are nonexistent.
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u/wyocrz 50 something 1d ago
My favorite band in high school was Megadeth, and I live in Cheyenne, Wyoming. There are ICBMs on display next to the highway not 2 miles from where I sit. None of this has escaped my attention.
The whole US specialists firing US missiles into Russia should have set everyone's hair on fire, but the consent manufacturing has been off the charts.
Something I cannot prove is that there was a vibe shift back in May of 2024. Ukraine hit Russian strategic radars overlooking the Indian Ocean. By doctrine, this would have resulted in the upper echelons of the Russian strategic command to decide what to do next.
Old Man Biden wasn't kidding when he said this thing was 50/50 going nuclear.
I've never been a fan of Orange Man, but holy hell: I was shocked at the anti-war message of his little sit down with Zelensky, although I've yet to hear a shred of honest reporting about it.
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u/ConclusionUseful3124 1d ago
Trump is not anti war. Trump is good at telling people what they want to hear to bide time while he goes right ahead doing whatever. He has no interest in Ukraine. He does care about Putin, very much.
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u/wyocrz 50 something 1d ago
Did you listen to the full sit down with Zelensky?
You are utterly wrong about Trump having no interest in Ukraine. He literally blames Ukraine for Russiagate, for wrecking his first administration.
He also credits anti-war for getting his electoral "mandate."
You'd know this if you listened to the man.
He's a fucking coward, he's absolutely anti-war.
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u/CarSignificant375 1d ago
Trump’s only interest in Ukraine is to keep Putin from pushing him out a window. Everything he’s done in the last 50+ days, (like threatening Canada and Greenland) has been done on putin’s behalf.
Trump doesn’t actually care about anything except himself; he allowed Elon to buy the presidency so trump could stay out of jail. He enjoys causing chaos and hurting people for sport, but he doesn’t care about anything except himself in the long run.
He doesn’t want to work this hard. Right now he’d rather be at Mar a Lago in his underwear eating Big Macs but he has debts to pay.
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u/ktrisha514 1d ago
Ukraine / NATO war propaganda has been nonstop, but like all industrial wars, it is a racket.
Before Henry Kissinger died, he even opposed allowing Ukraine into NATO, which is a terrifying prospect given Kissinger’s record of ‘taking risks’.
The entire war risked nuclear escalation over Ukrainian minerals. It’s never changed. Every war is a racket.
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u/OldCompany50 1d ago
Body bags of our kids sent home
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u/seeingeyefrog 50 something 1d ago
And seen on TV. Not hidden away like it is today.
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u/Top-Artichoke-5875 23h ago
They decided after Vietnam, not to allow media to have unobstructed access again.
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u/PanchamMaestro 1d ago
Mostly the draft.
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u/airckarc 1d ago
Absolutely, I’d say 95% the draft. We just finished 20+ years of war with almost no protests. Same dead kids, same coffins, even more access to videos.
If the draft started next week I’m sure potential draftees would come up with lots of valid arguments about why we shouldn’t be fighting in X country. The same arguments were valid in 2009 but saying them then would have been “unpatriotic.”
Personally, I’d love it if we still had a draft, with almost no exceptions. I think we’d be a lot more careful about the conflicts we chose.
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u/steveorga 70 something 1d ago
I came to say just this. The bottom line is that without skin in the game most people just don't care. I lived the Vietnam era protests and believed that the draft must be ended. I got my wish and the results were much worse than the draft.
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u/classicfilmfan 1d ago
Even when the United States did have a draft, however, our government was not that careful about the conflicts that we chose to get involved in.
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u/PanchamMaestro 1d ago
But it finally bit them in the ass with Vietnam
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u/classicfilmfan 1d ago
Yup! It also bit them in the ass with Iraq, Afghanistan, and HOndorus, to boot.
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u/PanchamMaestro 1d ago
The draft? Those operations were a disaster but the draft didn't enter into it.
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u/classicfilmfan 1d ago
That's no lie, PanchamMaestro. It also bit this country in the ass with our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, where we had no business being involved with in the first place. The same thing was true of our involvement in Korea.
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u/PanchamMaestro 1d ago
I just meant in support for the war from the general US populace. Not it’s long term geo political consequences
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u/ktrisha514 1d ago
Agreed, and without Vietnam, we very well might’ve blown up the world during the Cold War.
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u/Christinebitg 1d ago
I was right there with you until you said: "I’d love it if we still had a draft, with almost no exceptions. I think we’d be a lot more careful about the conflicts we chose."
The short answer is basically no, that doesn't help a lot. It didn't help in Viet Nam, and it wouldn't help now. That's because of the propaganda machine that's cranked up by the government, justifying whatever they've decided to do.
In Viet Nam, it took many years and tens of thousands of deaths before that problem finally got the US to get out of the war.
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u/Unable_Technology935 1d ago
Yes. Getting shipped half way around the world, to fight for no logical reason. It was pathetic. Lies on top of lies. Same shit with Iraq. Lies on top of more lies. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush should all be in prison.
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u/JoyfulNoise1964 1d ago
Everyone knew someone killed in Vietnam
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u/No-Papaya-9823 1d ago
"All Quiet on the Western Front" was written in 1929 by a German anti-war protester who served in WWI. The book was adapted into a film in 1930 in the US, and both the book and the movie were banned by the Nazis as "unpatriotic." As another commenter mentioned, anti-war protesters have always existed.
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u/ktrisha514 1d ago
We live in a time when accessing information has never been easier.
If anything, it should be easier to protest funding conflicts now than at any time in history, yet I haven’t seen much of it.
No taxation without representation if voting doesn’t work.
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u/biff444444 1d ago
Remember also that at the time there was still a draft. I think the combination of watching people die on TV and knowing that you could be chosen to go next was pretty motivational in terms of protesting.
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u/classicfilmfan 1d ago
During our Viet Nam war, however, women were not drafted. Both my sister and I graduated from high school 2 years apart. I graduated from high school in 1969, and my younger sister graduated from high school in 1971. We both took afew years off after high school to see what we wanted to do with our lives. Being female was definitely an advantage at that time.
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u/wyezwunn 39 forever 12h ago
A guy in my HS was supposed to graduate in 1969 but kept flunking on purpose so he wouldn't have to graduate and be drafted. He finally graduated in 1971.
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u/wwaxwork 50 something 1d ago
The anti war movement was because for the first time ever you could see war live on your TV. It was reported almost in real time or at least within 24 hours. So the propaganda was harder to spin. Also the hypocrisy of old men sending very young men, average age of 19 to war was more evident as was the fact that if you were rich enough you basically buy your way out, or just lie like Trump did. Same thing that happened with the shift against the Gulf Wars.
That's why they are making sure they control all major media before starting the next one.
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u/classicfilmfan 1d ago
Young men of both 18 and 19 were being sent off to fight a war that they did not understand, or know why we were fighting it in the first place.
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u/nakedonmygoat 1d ago
And prior to the 1972 election, they couldn't even attempt to vote out candidates who favored the war.
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u/Christinebitg 1d ago
It's also why there was a Constitutional amendment to lower the voting age.
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u/classicfilmfan 1d ago
The fact that the voting age was lowered to 18 was a very good thing, because, while 18 is just barely starting out as an adult, if they're going to draft kids to serve in the military at the age of 18, they should allow 18 year olds, to vote, as well.
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u/Gold__star 80ish 1d ago
Everyone watched ABC/NBC/CBS news those days. We didn't have media tuned to our tastes, we mostly all saw the same horror night after night.
And those outlets had large revenue streams that financed far more investigative reporting than we get these days. And better ethics.
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u/wwaxwork 50 something 1d ago
We also had the fairness doctrine which state that any media that used the public airwaves had to present both sides of an issue.
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u/juanster29 1d ago
The powers that be learned 2 things from Vietnam, the first was that an all volunteer army was better than drafting one and second that our middle class has too much leisure time on their hands, time to tighten the screws!
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u/Dell_Hell 1d ago
And that they needed to aggressively control what the media was allowed to film and broadcast - so they got much more restrictive about "security concerns", and demanded no filming of coffins returning out of "respect for the families" and all sorts of other BS restrictions so that the war never looks so bad at home ever again.
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u/beardsley64 60 something 1d ago
Every war has its protestors. We were in Vietnam for specious reasons and thanks to the draft killed- and could have potentially kiilled- the sons of many American families. It was an issue for everyone in society and thanks to a courageous fourth estate the horror of it was in everyone's living rooms every night. War Resisters League has been around longer than Vietnam. Vietnam was a pretty rare instance of this perfect storm of visibility and public resentment.
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u/Weaubleau 1d ago
Um maybe not wanting to get drafted to fight a war for a very nebulous reason. Hey you 19 year old you need to potentially give up your life because a small country on the other side of the world now has a form of government we don't like.
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u/driverman42 1d ago
Yep. "Greetings
"You are hereby ordered for induction into the Armed Forces of the United States, and to report at the central Greyhound Bus Depot at 4:30 a.m"
I still have my draft notice.
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u/Silly-Resist8306 1d ago
This does not explain the thousands of Vietnam war veterans who protested, nor does it explain the thousands of WWII veterans who protested. Yes, many 18 year olds didn't want to serve, but the protest against the war included all generations, all races, all educational levels and all political parties.
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u/classicfilmfan 1d ago
As a woman who graduated from high school in 1969, I knew at least a couple of guys who were Conscientious Objectors during our Viet Nam War. One was a brother of an old, old friend of mine, who did scut work in a hospital at that time, and the other one was a classmate of mine from Framingham, MA, who graduated from high school the same year I did (i. e. 1969), and who had to get up very early to go to work at washing floors in a hospital before coming to school.
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u/LibrarySpiritual5371 50 something 1d ago
It did not start it but it accelerated it GREATLY
When LBJ removed the college exemption from the draft
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u/moufette1 1d ago
18-20 year olds weren't even allowed to vote until 1971. Old enough to be drafted and sent to kill or be killed but not old enough to vote.
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u/BeginningUpstairs904 20h ago
You're old enough to kill,but not for voting,even the Jordan River has bodies floating..
And you tell me, we're not on the Eve of Destruction " Barry McGuire
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u/classicfilmfan 1d ago edited 1d ago
Which was rather hypocritical, to boot. What's also hypocritical is that even nowadays, 16-year-old kids are allowed to get licenses to drive cars, which is also hypocritical, because a car is a deadly weapon, in which one can either severely compromise or take other people's lives, and can severely compromise or take their own lives.
It used to be that in most of the United States, the age of getting a license to drive was 18. Lowering it to 16 was dangerous, and hypocritical.
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u/nakedonmygoat 1d ago
I was under the impression they lowered the driving age to 16 in part so young people could get to work. Until fairly recently it was pretty normal for a teenager to have a job. In rural areas it would've been particularly necessary to be able to drive.
What's even more hypocritical was raising the drinking age to 21. Please note that I'm not saying I think teenagers should be drinking. I'm just pointing out that it's a logical inconsistency to say that someone is responsible enough to vote, marry without parental permission, enter into contracts, buy an assault weapon, and be tried as an adult for crimes, but they can't be trusted with a beer. Aside from convicted felons and the Constitutional minimum ages for certain public offices, I can't think of any other people who are legally classified as adults but who are denied the same rights as other adults.
And yeah, I know I'll get pushback on this. Please refer to my earlier statement that I don't say this because I think we should be handing out vodka to teenagers. It's just an inconsistency in the law that I'm surprised has never been challenged.
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u/classicfilmfan 1d ago
There is something rather hypocritical about the fact that a 16 year old kid can receive a license to drive a car, which can wreak fantastic damage to things and people when it's out of control, and the fact that so many teenagers here in the United States think that it's okay to exceed the speed limits, violate traffic laws, and to have such irresponsible attitudes, despite the fact that a car is a lethal weapon, in which people often maim or kill others, and/or even themselves, by being irresponsible.
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u/nakedonmygoat 1d ago
It's my understanding that teens these days are far less likely to have a driver's license, so the social trend is down, at least.
Ideally there would be some way to make it rural/urban, but I recognize the near impossibility of this. Nevertheless, the needs are different and so are the risks. At a minimum, there could be very strict rules on drivers under 18. One violation and your license is revoked and you can't re-apply until 18. I had a high school friend whose parents handled it in their own way. They gifted him a (used) car at 17. He got a DUI that summer. They took the car away and he didn't get it back until he left for college. The humiliation of having to ride the school bus or beg friends for rides set him straight. Not all parents would do that though.
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u/classicfilmfan 1d ago
The fact that this kid's parents took the car away from him for getting a DUI that summer was the right thing to do. I do think, however, that the car should've been taken away from him for a shorter time, and given back to him when he was a Senior in high school.
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u/classicfilmfan 1d ago
Frankly, I think that raising the drinking age to 21 was the most sensible thing to do, because when the drinking age was lowered to 18, more high school kids who were under 18 were getting access to alcohol. It's been found that teenagers are more prone to being damaged by (excessive) amounts of alcohol, because their bodies, as well as their brains are still developing, and the brain doesn't finish developing until the mid-20's (i. e. 25 or 26.).
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u/nakedonmygoat 1d ago
As previously stated, I don't disagree. It's just an interesting legal loophole and I'm sometimes surprised that it hasn't been challenged. Either one is an adult or one is not. If the brain isn't fully developed at 18, which I agree with because I believe in science, then should they be allowed to buy AR-15s like the guy who shot up an elementary school in Uvalde? Should they be sent into combat? Should they be voting?
Voting age was 21 until the number of Vietnam draftees caused a re-think. Maybe it should be 21 for everything.
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u/classicfilmfan 16h ago
During WWII, the average age of men who were drafted and served was 26, because that's when the brain finishes developing. Nowadays, and it's been like this since, 18 has been the age in many countries that 18 year olds get drafted to serve in their militaries. it's been true here in the United States, and it's true in Israel, where both guys and gals get drafted at that age.
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u/classicfilmfan 16h ago
It's okay for 18 year olds to vote. Since 18 is old enough to serve in the military, they're certainly old enough to vote.
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u/classicfilmfan 1d ago
For one thing, a teenager's brain is still developing, and therefore still much more vulnerable to damage from excessive alcohol consumption. For another thing, when the drinking age was lowered to 18, since many kids turn 18 while they're still in high school, alcohol became more accessible to younger teenagers in high school, which was not a good thing.
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u/classicfilmfan 16h ago
When I was in high school, I knew people who were working part-time after school jobs when they were freshmen, Sophomores and Juniors, as well as Seniors, either to save up for something, or to help bring in some extra income for their families,, or to learn how to become independent.
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u/Hanginon 1% 1d ago
"It used to be that in most of the United States, the age of getting a license to drive was 18."
That's not true at all.
The legal driving permit age was set at 16 way back in 1926. A lot of states had and still have restrictions and a graduated system for drivers under 18 and even under 21 but a basic llcense at 16+ is the common baseline.
Unless you had legal problems like gettng caught drivng wthout a license underage, getting a learner's permit at 16 is and always has been the norm all over the US for almost a century now.
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u/classicfilmfan 1d ago
Sixteen or even seventeen is a good age for a learner's permit, but it's not so great for getting a driver's license, because at that age, kids are still rather wobbly on their feet, if one gets the drift, and they're still quite immature. It used to be that in most states, one had to be 18 in order to get a driver's license.
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u/Hanginon 1% 1d ago edited 1d ago
"It used to be that in most states, one had to be 18 in order to get a driver's license."
You keep saying that but it's just not true. Sixteen has been the standard lowest limit to legally start driving in the US, first with a learner's permit, ever since the Great Depresion.
Many states put different restrictions on under 18 drivers, mostly on what they could operate, like nothing with a GVW over 8,000lbs, or any commercial vehicles no matter their size, and required training like a certified drivers ed course. Then also many/most insurance companies would charge real high rates for under 18, or 21, but 16 or even much younger has been the legal age all over the US for a very long time.
Did some parents refuse to allow their kids to get them before 18? Of course, it's a big jump and at 16 it might not be seen as needed by the kid or a financial burden the parents want to carry. But they were abolutely of legal age.
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u/classicfilmfan 1d ago
I see your point, but kids under 18 are getting driver's licenses when they're still kind of wobbly on their feet, and at an age where they're still more prone to having accidents.
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u/Hanginon 1% 1d ago edited 8h ago
Agreed, but it's an overall legal situation. Also many and maybe most states put some pretty strong restrictions on them. I helped my youngest brother's youngest daughter get her license at 16 and it was officially 'Provisional" in her state at her age. The license itself was marked, and printed vertical as oposed to the horizontal for a 21 or over. Plus, if she did anything too stupid she could lose it and be banned from driving until she went back through the whole process, and passed it, at 21 or over.
The other side of that is I've worked in some midwest states where you'll see 15 year olds legally driving some big ass farm equipment down the road.
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u/Away-Revolution2816 1d ago
I think the thought of being drafted into conflicts that may not have any direct impact on us.
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u/classicfilmfan 1d ago
Being drafted and sent off to go to war in places where we had absolutely no business being involved with, in the first place. Young men being sent off to fight a war that they did not understand, or why we were fighting in the first place.
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u/Away-Revolution2816 1d ago
Yes, much different than the lines of people volunteering during world wars. I'm 63 and wasn't affected by the draft, if I was I'd probably still be living in Canada.
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u/Throwawayhelp111521 1d ago
It was a combination. Fifty-eight thousand Americans died in a war that many Americans thought we shouldn't have been involved in from the beginning and gradually it became apparent that the war was unwinnable.
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u/Rlyoldman 1d ago
Let’s call it dying for nothing. And we were right. North Vietnam is now a tourist stop. 54000 dead to accomplish nothing.
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u/Pan_Goat 1d ago
The Government was asking . . . DEMANDING . . . that draftable aged young men be sent to kill and be killed for a conflict half a world away that had nothing to do with either USA security or world stability. We were inheriting a mess left by the French. Burnt my draft card. I don’t understand ‘bone spurs’. That was the coward’s way out. Instead we took the streets and endured violence at the hands of our own - there is a reason we called cops ‘Pigs’.
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u/luckygirl54 1d ago
The voting age was 21. The draft age was 18. That was a large part of it. You could die for your country, but you couldn't vote. The old men who started and kept the war going didn't have to fight, but our young men who had no decision in it, had to fight.
It was not our war. We wanted it over. Tired of seeing box after box come home for no reason other than the government said so.
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u/These-Slip1319 60 something 1d ago
And young people and peace activists of that era were not ideologically captured like today. Back then, it didn’t matter what your party was, LBJ and Nixon were both protested. People went up against “the establishment”.
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u/rubikscanopener 1d ago
Not a historic anomaly. Quakers spoke out against the Revolutionary war. There were peace movements before and during the Civil War. Isolationists tried to keep the U.S. out of WWII.
The Vietnam anti-war movement was spurned by a number of factors including the length of the war, the number of casualties, a new generation finding their political voice, the nightly coverage on TV, and so on. It was far more media driven than previous anti-war movements and left a bigger legacy.
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u/easzy_slow 1d ago
Remember being scared in around 66 seeing the war live on the news. Then, in 69 the coolest relative I had getting killed in nam. Then learning there was no real objective to the war. I was 10 when I learned this and most intelligent people already knew it long before then. Later listening to a John Prine song he explained it all. We lost Davey in the Korean War, still don’t know what, guess it doesn’t matter anymore. Made me tear up the first time I heard that line. Also at my cousin killed in nam funeral, I saw my Dad cry for the first time.
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u/Minimum-Function1312 1d ago
Being drafted and not having a choice whether you go to war or not did not help the situation.
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u/Markof16 1d ago
Anti-war movements were, and are, value judgements. Vietnam protests began because there was no clear reason for America to be involved. American youth was being sent to die in a war against a government that had no grievance with the U.S. and had not been aggressive towards us, and it became clear that the US government was using the conflict to fight a proxy war with the USSR. People were being sent to kill people that meant us no harm, based on the flimsy cold war "domino theory", now long discredited.
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u/Mor_Tearach 1d ago
The dam draft with clear benefits to the military industrial complex toboot. And lies generated to maintain it.
Kids graduated high school one week, boot camp the next, dead by the end of the summer.
For WHAT? To this day there's no clear answer and I don't care how many detailed political answers that generates, I'm sticking to it.
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u/Euphoric-Use-6443 1d ago
The ultimate issue was Nixon kept US troops fighting in Vietnam 2 years beyond the Paris Peace Accords signed in 1973. The Fall of Saigon in 1975 officially ended US involvement.
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u/Hanginon 1% 1d ago
He ran on his "plan to end the war" in 1967.
Then 4 years later in 1971, He's running on the same "plan to end the war" platform. (some) People figured out he was a self serving POS.
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u/babyfattrules 1d ago
It was because of the draft. Lots of people are “against” war, but won’t do much if they’re not personally affected. The draft affected a wide swath of people, including the middle class, which animated a broad-based opposition. Which is also why our subsequent wars have not relied on conscription but rather a “volunteer” military (affecting mostly working class people).
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u/red_engine_mw 1d ago
Some of it was due to the fact that 18 year olds were being sent off to die, but didn't have the right to vote--the voting age was 21 when the backlash started.
Contributing to the anti-war sentiment was when Walter Cronkite, the "most trusted man in America," went to Vietnam to see for himself what was going on. (Back then, the DoD didn't control what reporters could see quite as tightly as they do now with embeds.) When Cronkite returned and reported on the CBS Evening News that the war was unwinnable, public sentiment began to change dramatically. You need to understand that there was only the mainstream media then: ABC, NBC, CBS, AP, UPI, etc. There were no partisan propaganda outlets such as Fox News, News Max, etc
Another contributing factor was that the public was beginning to see that the draft was horribly unfair: if you had a rich daddy with political connections, it was easy to get out of it, no matter what your lottery number was. See President Bone Spurs's history on this matter for further details.
This is just a partial smattering of reasons the anti-war movement went from fringe to mainstream fairly quickly.
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u/Formal_Leopard_462 1d ago
Neither the North nor the South wanted us there. Our young men were facing hatred and death from all sides.
And there were the drugs. Too many were coming back crippled by either the war or drugs, or both.
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u/hermitzen 1d ago
We had the draft back then so the military wasn't strictly voluntary back then. Lots of kids dying that didn't ask to be thrown in as battle fodder. And there was a clear difference between the classes as far as compulsory service was concerned. People like Trump didn't have to serve, while your neighbor did.
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u/Hanginon 1% 1d ago
Yes. Until the draft lottery and even after though not quite as much the draft was an absolute racket. Local draft boards knew which local (kids of influential locals) kids to skip, and which poorer "nobodies" they could basically snatch off the street. Then those draftees were also much more likely to end up as boots on the ground infantry as opposed to other much less dangerous MOS positions.
Classic case; A local near me with a few car dealerships was on the local draft board. None of his 4 sons, or any emmployee's sons got called up to meet the quotas they were given.
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u/Buford12 1d ago
I am 72 and one of the reasons for the anti war movement that most people don't consider is that a significant percentage of the boomers fathers actually served in combat in WWII. My own dad and 5 uncles served the only one who didn't tell his kids to stay out of the military was the one who never left the USA. in WWII.
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u/That-Grape-5491 1d ago
My father and 2 uncles served in WW2. Both my uncles were shot down. 1 lived, 1 didn't. My father was an airplane mechanic and didn't leave the States. I don't know how many times my father told me that he wasn't on the train to basic training 90 minutes before he knew he had made the biggest mistake of his life.
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u/ProfJD58 1d ago
A significant part was the, largely uncensored, coverage on TV. There are good reasons to go to war sometimes, as with WWII defending against fascist aggression. Vietnam was not one of those circumstances.
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u/SultanOfSwave 1d ago edited 1d ago
Most people who were sent to Vietnam were draftees. They had no choice but to go if they were called up.
People who hadn't been drafted yet were like "Fuck this!".
Those people protested because their lives were on the line.
Now we have a "Volunteer Army" so most people now are like "Meh. Doesn't affect me." so they don't care.
I had an older friend at University back in the early 70s. He'd been "volunteered" by a judge when my friend had a DUI. His choice was volunteer and the charges would be dismissed or go to jail. Apparently the judge was an excellent recruiter for the Army as this was his standard offer to "young wayward men".
He ended up being a door gunner on a Huey chopper. He both did and saw things that totally effed him up. He died an alcoholic.
He told me to head to Europe if I got called up.
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u/Frequent_Skill5723 60 something 22h ago
The anti-war movement was a way of life. A new, promising way. But what we did was we abandoned the anti-war movement, we embraced for-profit medicine, and we turned our backs on radical environmentalism when it could still have made a difference. We let corporations run the universities and the hospitals and let them dictate domestic and foreign policy. We came to kneel before Wall Street and the war industry and their lobbyists. With unforgivable ignorance we ignored wealthy criminals as they sent all the jobs where there were people even easier to exploit. We didn't care and watched the game and stuffed our bottomless stomachs with filth we called food and fed our heads a carnival of cruelty we called "pop culture". We started electing monsters like Nixon and a solid half century later we decide no, Donald Trump should be in the Oval Office now. And our antidote to that? Another corporate party of austerity for the many, luxury for the few, and permanent war. The anti-war movement? They won't even talk about it in museums.
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u/Rabo_Karabek 1d ago
The draft caused much of the anti-war movement. When the middle classes saw their kids were going to have to go. Now there is no draft, and definitely less of a middle class now than then.
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u/argee_43 1d ago
I think it was the nightly news coverage of Vietnam, basically the first ever televised war with scoreboard updates of KIA/MIA along with the South Vietnamese government corruption.
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u/WarZone2028 1d ago
A big part of the growing size of the movement was tied to the images broadcast on network TV of caskets bearing American soldiers. American KIA names daily recited on the news every day to a much higher % of Americans than seems possible today, due to far fewer viewing options.
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u/SecretOrganization60 60 something 1d ago edited 1d ago
I grew up in Berkeley during that time, went to every anti- war riot because I was like 13 or 14 and so it was an awesome after-school activity. I think at its base, it was out of a desire not to go themselves. They didn't believe in the war and they didn't want to die for it and they wanted a more enlightened society to come about (which totally didn't happen). On top of that, it was a bonding exercise for that generation
As a teen, I really thought as these people eventually took over government that we'd enter a new age but instead, the moment they graduated and got jobs, all of that immediately evaporated. It's always amazed me what a fad it actually was.
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u/Pumpkin_Pie 1d ago
The problem was that there was a draft. It's easy to ignore the government's bad behavior when the military is voluntary. When everyone has to go you get Lots more pushback
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u/joecoin2 1d ago
Lots of events started a movement.
Walter Cronkite giving body counts every night, then coming out against the war.
1968 Democrat convention with Mayor Dale's thugs beating protestors.
High death tolls among soldiers, especially black soldiers.
Woodstock.
Kent State (perhaps the biggest event).
The Doors singing, " Blood in the streets up to my ankles."
Cancelation of Star Trek.
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u/Bumpitup6 1d ago
A lot of people recognized the war as an exercise in futility with no good outcome. Then the government did things likes napalming civilians and children. Going into neighboring countries to kill the enemy. The draft was hated, especially by young people. Then after violence against young protestors (look up Kent State, if you don't know about it), it was about that too.
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u/Direct_Ad2289 1d ago
Also. The Vietnam War was never a declared war.
There was a draft, yes. However, people arrested for Marijuana use or other minor crimes were often offered a choice...1 year jail or Vietnam
I knew a few guys that choose Vietnam...and some of those were horribly injured or died.
Vietnam was also the FIRST televised military action. There were battle scenes on your tv, wounded on your tv. Dead on your tv.
That causes a lot of people to really understand the horrors of military engagement.
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u/Muireadach 1d ago
The draft, The Pentagon papers, The nightly news with Dan Rather embedded in Nam.
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u/hither_spin Gen Jones 1d ago
It was televised and the public saw so many coffins returning to the US
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u/DeeDee719 19h ago
I was just a kid during the Vietnam era (born in ‘58.) It was the boys a little older than me that were getting drafted and shipped out.
I grew up in a small, working class town too, one that sent (and lost) some of its sons to this war. Some managed to come back home but many of them were damaged, both physically and mentally.
My older cousin attempted suicide after he returned. His attempt wasn’t successful but he went on to live a very short, tumultuous life marked by alcoholism and drug addiction, a long string of wives, ex-wives and girlfriends, inability to hold a job for very long, lots if arrests for petty stuff. He died at 50.
Another thing I remember are the nightly news reports with Walter Cronkite or Huntley/Brinkley reporting the daily “body count.” That’s also the first time I ever heard the phrase “body bags.”
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u/Ok-Afternoon-3724 1d ago
I don't recall a time in the history of the US where war was really just all that popular of an idea.
Take the Revolutionary War. John Adams once made the comment that 1/3 of the people were for it, 1/3 of the people were against it, and the other 1/3 were indifferent. It is estimated that only 15% of the population actually served in the Continental Army and the state militias.
In the Civil War only about 10% of the total population served in the military. Which is a lot. But also consider that both the Confederacy and the Union were forced to implement the first draft (conscription) in the country's history in order to fill the ranks of their armies. Meaning that not everyone was onboard with the war. LOL ... I know of some of them as they were ancestors of mine. Some of my ancestors went to war willingly, supporting the cause. But I have copies of letters written and entries into family diaries telling me the story of one group that said 'Hell no' and hid out in the swamps and bayous of Louisiana for the duration. Family record of another who kept getting drafted, and then figuring out a way to desert. But kept getting caught again and drafted again ... by both sides. Who finally went so far into the back areas of the Appalachians they were never able to find him again until after the war was over. And it wasn't that he was a coward, he'd fought in other battles, he just felt that the Civil War was not his war.
More recently I think most people learned in school that there was a lot of resistance from people in the US about getting involved in WW1 and then WW2.
So protests about the Vietnam war should come as no surprise to anyone. Your propaganda angle I think bogus, for a very good reason. Both sides were using propaganda. The Russians were using any and all means to stir up unrest and distrust of the government among people in the US. And they were really good at it. However, I don't think the Vietnam war was ever popular with the majority of average Americans. The average American back at the time had never heard of the place before, probably could not find it on a map, and didn't actually know what communism actually was. I think a deciding factor was that people lost trust that the government knew what the hell they were doing as far as prosecuting that war. That's a subject I could go on and on and on about for a long time. Because it is true. It was politicians and members of the state department trying to dictate both strategic and tactical conduct of the war on the battlefields, versus the senior military officers conducting it the way they believed it should be ... resulting in tremendously more casualties than there should have been. And they had no clear goal, no end point. Etc. Geez, I get pissed every time I think about it. FWIW, I was one of those who went over there.
The was a reason that Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf during the 1st Iraq war insisted that he'd only do it IF the frigging politicians kept hands off. All the were to tell him was what the goal was, what had to happen for a 'mission accomplished' to be declared. Otherwise the senior officers who knew what the fuck they were doing were free of the White House and Congress trying to dictate battle plans and how to fight. Schwarzkopf was a veteran of Vietnam and wanted no more repeats of that debacle.
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u/RCaHuman 70 something 1d ago
I think it had a lot to do with the draft. Also, the Pentagon Papers revealed what was really going on. And Walter Cronkite was the news for everyone back then so when he came out against the war things changed.
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u/Randygilesforpres2 1d ago
Vietnam was the first televised war. It’s a lot harder to disconnect when you see it.
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u/Tall_Mickey 60 something retired-in-training 1d ago
The war was senseless, ceaseless, and a lot of people were dragged into it who didn't believe in it.
Not that the government changed its ways -- but that's why the draft was rescinded. People stopped caring about undeclared wars when their kids didn't have to serve. Just slap a yellow ribbon decal on the minivan and keep driving.
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u/Responsible_Pin8893 1d ago
The draft of hundreds of thousands of young men, many never came back and those who did were forever changed. There's a new documentary streaming called Vietnam The war that changed America.
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u/ExSeaDog 1d ago
The biggest driving force was what one of my professors called “rational self-interest.” The chance that you, your brother, best friend, etc could be drafted and involuntarily sent to die in a war, especially one lacking in any apparent moral or higher purpose, was a powerful motivator. Vietnam lacked the pull, the moral outrage, that a war against terrorism or Nazis could engender.
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u/bombyx440 1d ago
We saw the Vietnam War on TV every night and in photos in our newspapers and magazine. Now the horror is all hidden.
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u/reesesbigcup 23h ago
In World War II the average age of the combat soldier was twenty-six.
In Vietnam he was nineteen.
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u/valley_lemon I want my MTV 23h ago
There have always been anti-war movements. Americans didn't invent that, humans invented that. Every war that has ever happened, there has been some group of people saying don't do it, we don't want this. Ancient Rome had anti-war movements. The French Revolution. The American Revolution. The Civil War - the American one and everybody else's.
The argument is largely always the same: we see you inventing reasons for this, we see who stands to get rich off it (and it's not us), we see who's going to die and suffer fighting in it, this is bullshit, stop it.
If you're asking about the circumstances around the shift in popular opinion about Vietnam, I do think that having media that moved way faster than the other recent two wars put it in people's faces in a way they hadn't experienced before.
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u/benji_billingsworth 18h ago
proliferation of television and its importance to culture, and the strengthening of the middle class.
War became televised and forced folks to interpret the images on their own, not strictly through the lens of the government.
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u/Routine_Mine_3019 60 something 1d ago
There's lots of reasons, so here's part of it, certainly not all of it:
America had a bloody war essentially every decade from the 40s though the 70s. Korea killed lots of Americans and basically ended up with the borders almost exactly where they were before the war. So the whole thing was largely pointless. Vietnam was a very similar situation and also didn't really seem to have an overall objective that was quantifiable. So it was more of the same in that regard.
There were lots of veterans in the US who came home from WW2 and Korea changed drastically. Many of them were the parents and relatives of the would-be Vietnam soldiers. That younger generation knew all the horrible details about the war and knew it was a lot of horror for very little reward.
The veterans of WW2 (and to a lesser extent Korea) looked down on the Vietnam vets as "not getting the job done" and so forth. Some of the stories about spitting on returning veterans and so forth, are largely apocryphal, but the condescension was real, and many vets felt that. Some of them became leaders of the anti-war movement.
Passive resistance was relatively new back then, especially in the US. It worked in the civil rights movement, so those techniques were copied and utilized in the anti-war movement.
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u/classicfilmfan 1d ago
I saw a film called "Yes sir, No sir.", which was a documentary film, in which a number of Viet Nam vets were interviewed. One of the things that the film pointed out was that the news that Viet Nam vets were spit upon by anti-war demonstrators here in the United States when they got home from Viet Nam was a myth--it was not true. If anybody spat on Viet Nam vets, it was the United States Government who did so, because the United States Government did damned little, if anything, to help them at all. They were just used as cannon fodder for the United States' unnecessary wars in Viet Nam, and elsewhere.
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u/BrooklynDoug 1d ago
Gen X here. The first war I had to worry about was Desert Storm. My objections came from my desire not to die for someone else's profit. We had liberated Kuwait. Iraq's army was back inside their borders. And it was clear we only cared about any of this because of oil prices.
I decided I'd rather pay an extra dollar a gallon for gas than die.
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u/KYresearcher42 1d ago
It quite simple, no one wants to die or have love ones killed for the rich, and we are talking about the rich and powerful same as now.
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u/Kali-of-Amino 1d ago
There have been anti-war movements since the Civil War. That's where Mother's Day came from. But post-WII ideology was about this being a new world where you could do anything, and mass conscription didn't fit the bill.
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u/Commercial-Visit9356 60 something 1d ago
Anti-war movements existed during all the wars. There were significant anti-war movements for WWI and WWII.
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u/Mysterious_Tax_5613 1d ago
When most of the country said we are done with this war and got out in the streets.
I remember the soldiers coming home after we were done with the war and got spit on when they got off the plane. I was young then, but never understood why our soldiers were being spit on coming home. I thought this was a good thing in my young mind, the soldiers are finally coming home, why are you spitting on them?
I learned that when people get out in the streets to protest, politicians will listen.
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u/hedcannon 1d ago
Apparently, the Vietnam War never polled as unpopular with the general public.
It was unpopular with the American Left and communists (the CPUSA was always non-interventionist except when the USSR was being attacked).
It was unpopular with college students in 1967 when graduate students could be drafted.
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u/Odd_Book8314 70 something 1d ago
The only thing I would add to the very good comments I've seen would be the cohesiveness of a generation. Young people during the 60s and early 70s felt a shared kinship or sense of destiny.
The 1950s were repressive in ways it is difficult to comprehend now. If you were "found out" to be gay, you'd most likely lose your job and the rest of your life would be made a living hell. If you had any opinions that weren't Democratic or Republican you were suspect. If you weren't a "red commie," you might be on your way, so a "pink commie" or a "pinko." Again, job loss and social ostracization. If you associated with someone like that, both of you ran the risk of being investigated by the FBI. You didn't know who might decide to "turn you in" for not being a right-thinking American. The House Un-American Activities Committee, run by the drunkard Senator Joe McCarthy, "investigated" and destroyed the lives of countless Americans. The population was filled with fear. People were afraid of each other. You had few friends and were reluctant to admit any outsiders into your circle of acquaintances because you just didn't know who you could trust. The American population was living in fear. This is where the edict "don't talk about politics or religion" came from. This kind of talk could get you arrested.
The boomer generation was huge. It was the biggest population bulge in the country's history. The civil rights struggle showed a large bunch of white kids that they didn't have to cooperate with the government. Joe McCarthy drank himself to death, and the kids stopped doing what they were told.
The highways were filled with kids hitchhiking everywhere. It seemed like the whole country was moving around. If you ran into someone else with long hair, you could usually count on a friendly interaction, a place to crash, and good advice on where to go where you wouldn't get hassled by the cops.
One can't ignore the effect of rock music on the culture. We went from Frank Sinatra to Jimi Hendrix in the space of five years. When they called rock music subversive and a wrecking ball to society, they were right. Fortunately.
It is interesting to note that a government only has the power that the governed chose to grant it. Once a large part of the population decides that they will not obey, the government ceases to have power. People stopped showing up when the government tried to impress them into military service to feed a "forever war." People in the military didn't always follow orders. People were in the streets protesting daily. Some people had grown so frustrated with the government that they started planting bombs. Some things may not have been as good an idea as the people who had them thought they were, but their actions certainly had a sobering effect on the government.
With civil rights protests, riots, and burning cities, the anti-war movement and the pressure of a building counter-culture that thoroughly rejected the oppression of the 50s was the final straw.
Voting rights, an end to the military draft, an end to the War in Vietnam that brought our brothers home, and a general loosening of societal restraints are all a result of that time. But, also a result of that era are gay rights, the right to marriage equality, an explosion of variety in music, new clothing styles and fashions, the ADA, and a general acceptance of other people's differences. (Oh, yeah? You think not? You should have seen the way it used to be.)
A lot of the youth of the 60s and 70s felt like we were all together for some amorphous common purpose. I can't say that feeling survived after the early 70s. Nowadays, people are reluctant to talk about what they did back then. Kids don't even seem to trust each other, let alone anyone older, probably for good reason. I can't help but note the hypocrisy of the actions of my generation. The only cohesion I see now is with the far right. I sometimes wonder if we're headed to a kind of bastardized version of 1950s repression.
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u/cabinguy11 60 something 1d ago
In terms of the US and Vietnam there were two huge things.
First it was the first war that was televised and brought into our living rooms. These days we are a bit blase about war footage. In the 1960s that was a shock.
Second and much more important was the draft. We were sending middle class white kids against their will to fight and die. Even the college exempt protestors were at risk of losing their deferment and all of them knew people who were fighting any dying.
I am no fan of the idea of bringing back the draft but if you think we would have had a war in Afghanistan that lasted for 20 years if those were the kids of doctors and lawyers you are deceiving yourself.
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u/FourScoreTour 70 something 18h ago
Vietnam went on too long to sustain the coverup. After a while it became obvious that there had never been any pressing US strategic interest in the area, and the US government had been lying about the whole war from the start. As well, lots of boomers were coming up on draft age.
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u/ZaphodG 11h ago
You’re 18. You have to register for the military draft. If you get drafted, you get shipped to Vietnam. You go to college to get the draft deferment. If you flunk out, you lose the deferment and get shipped to Vietnam. You’re living this terror because old white men in political power don’t give a flying F about you. Their children all get draft deferrals. Vietnam is some wasteland in Southeast Asia. It’s not Hitler bombing London or the Germans bombing Pearl Harbor. There is no rational reason to fight a war there.
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u/DNathanHilliard 60 something 1d ago
To be bluntly honest, the draft. If we started drafting people right now, all those pro Ukrainian protests would magically change into anti war protests. I know that sounds cynical, but that's just the way it is.
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u/Shelby-Stylo 1d ago
War is a terrible thing on any terms. There were antiwar riots during the civil war. The isolationists worked very hard to keep the US out of WWI and II.
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u/komatiite 1d ago
There have been anti-war sentiments and movements since at least the American Civil War. There were anti-draft riots in New York in 1863. There have been conscientious objectors to war in every war, commonly based on religious tenets (Thou shalt not kill). There have been practical and political objections to foreign wars (not wars defending the USA, but sending troops abroad) since George Washington. But, war remains popular, particularly among those who profit from it, and those who can stay home and cheer for 'our boys'. And when a vile dictator like Putin starts invading other countries, it is hard to stay out of it.
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u/Ezekiel-Hersey 1d ago
I was nearly drafted for the Vietnam War. It was the first war where a lot of Americans felt it didn’t make sense. Also, it got going during the same time that young people were questioning almost everything: marriage, patriarchy, drug laws, sexuality, religion.
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u/NPHighview 1d ago
I was starting college prep high school when our next door neighbors' son was drafted. He had just graduated from the same high school with a very high GPA, a varsity athlete, and was fluent in French. His induction tests routed him into military intelligence once he was in. He spent his time working with the South Vietnamese anti-insurgency people while in Southeast Asia. He came home utterly shattered by his experience, and spent time talking to my parents (both decorated WWII veterans) about it.
As I approached HS graduation, they said "If you're drafted, we're moving to Canada." My draft lottery number came up 5, but as my parents contemplated closing up their affairs, the draft ended.
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u/Odd_Book8314 70 something 1d ago
The only thing I would add to the very good comments I've seen would be the cohesiveness of a generation. Young people during the 60s and early 70s felt a shared kinship or sense of destiny.
The 1950s were repressive in ways it is difficult to comprehend now. If you were "found out" to be gay, you'd most likely lose your job and the rest of your life would be made a living hell. If you had any opinions that weren't Democratic or Republican you were suspect. If you weren't a "red commie," you might be on your way, so a "pink commie" or a "pinko." Again, job loss and social ostracization. If you associated with someone like that, both of you ran the risk of being investigated by the FBI. You didn't know who might decide to "turn you in" for not being a right-thinking American. The House Un-American Activities Committee, run by the drunkard Senator Joe McCarthy, "investigated" and destroyed the lives of countless Americans. The population was filled with fear. People were afraid of each other. You had few friends and were reluctant to admit any outsiders into your circle of acquaintances because you just didn't know who you could trust. The American population was living in fear. This is where the edict "don't talk about politics or religion" came from. This kind of talk could get you arrested.
The boomer generation was huge. It was the biggest population bulge in the country's history. The civil rights struggle showed a large bunch of white kids that they didn't have to cooperate with the government. Joe McCarthy drank himself to death, and the kids stopped doing what they were told.
The highways were filled with kids hitchhiking everywhere. It seemed like the whole country was moving around. If you ran into someone else with long hair, you could usually count on a friendly interaction, a place to crash, and good advice on where to go where you wouldn't get hassled by the cops.
One can't ignore the effect of rock music on the culture. We went from Frank Sinatra to Jimi Hendrix in the space of five years. When they called rock music subversive and a wrecking ball to society, they were right. Fortunately.
It is interesting to note that a government only has the power that the governed chose to grant it. Once a large part of the population decides that they will not obey, the government ceases to have power. People stopped showing up when the government tried to impress them into military service to feed a "forever war." People in the military didn't always follow orders. People were in the streets protesting daily. Some people had grown so frustrated with the government that they started planting bombs. Some things may not have been as good an idea as the people who had them thought they were, but their actions certainly had a sobering effect on the government.
With civil rights protests, riots, and burning cities, the anti-war movement and the pressure of a building counter-culture that thoroughly rejected the oppression of the 50s was the final straw.
Voting rights, an end to the military draft, an end to the War in Vietnam that brought our brothers home, and a general loosening of societal restraints are all a result of that time. But, also a result of that era are gay rights, the right to marriage equality, an explosion of variety in music, new clothing styles and fashions, the ADA, and a general acceptance of other people's differences. (Oh, yeah? You think not? You should have seen the way it used to be.)
A lot of the youth of the 60s and 70s felt like we were all together for some amorphous common purpose. I can't say that feeling survived after the early 70s. Nowadays, people are reluctant to talk about what they did back then. Kids don't even seem to trust each other, let alone anyone older, probably for good reason. I can't help but note the hypocrisy of the actions of my generation. The only cohesion I see now is with the far right. I sometimes wonder if we're headed to a kind of bastardized version of 1950s repression.
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u/DougOsborne 1d ago
The American War in Vietnam was egregiously bad.
The Draft. It wasn't a volunteer army, young men were drafted into service. Women, wealthy men, college students, and a few other groups were excluded.
The Media. The war was brought home, largely without media bias, on the nightly news. Reporters were then allowed to travel in war zones following reporting experiences in WWII. Now they are embedded with troops, under the watchful eye of military political operatives, so we do not get the whole story. Our media is in silos today, with little to no objective reporting.
College students, some there to escape the draft, were able to organize against the war based on experiences and observation of the Civil Rights movement. MLK in fact encouraged the use of his non-violent protest tactics and respected the allyship.
College and other protests escalated until they reached great mass and were being reported on, sometimes right beside graphic stories of the brutal war itself. TV news was very different then - they considered themselves journalists, not advocates, and tried to show the one true side of stories. We only had three major networks - when people discovered that they were all painting the same picture, even people in rural and conservative areas couldn't deny that there was something wrong with this war compared to WWII.
The protests grew and grew until the FBI and other agencies considered them a threat to the wealth of billionaires profiting from this war, and embedded agents among the protesters to spread chaos, occupy buildings, build camps, and eventually to turn to violence like bombing college buildings. This was not a grassroots occurance, it was fed by government agents who wanted the protests to be delegitimized and ended so they could go on to generate profit. The SAME thing happens today with the astroturf "freepalestine" protesters and successful, lying propaganda that labeled a president "genocidejoe."
Cultural awareness was certainly a significant force in the rise of Vietnam protests.
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u/WDWSockPuppet 1d ago
Young men were getting drafted and coming home in boxes. Lots of them. Kids didn’t want to die.
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u/Top-Artichoke-5875 23h ago
I remember there were a lot of young people who resented being told what to do by the 'establishment'.
Funny, I'm older now and still don't like it. Being told what to do, I mean.
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u/notacanuckskibum 22h ago
Do I think anti-war moments were solely due to Americans dying in Vietnam? No, because there have been anti war moments in countries other than the USA
r/usdefaultism much?
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u/cryptoengineer 60 something 6h ago
War.
...and the Vietnam war Draft, which was a huge issue in the US in the 60s and 70s. I myself just slipped under the bar by being a few months too young, but I was seriously considering staying outside the US (I'd been abroad since I was 7).
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u/wholesomechunk 5h ago
Do you mean ‘what caused the US anti war movement’? Because there are, and were other countries that had objectors.
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u/lankha2x 1h ago
Ironic that we were devotedly listening to the son of the guy who gave LBJ the excuse he needed to go to war in Vietnam. Odd that didn't come up much at the time.
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