I could have gone and been the last unit sacrificed to the Imperial ambitions in Nam.
I did not have to leave the country or claim anal cysts like some did.
In my opinion the whole "action" was about the BCF gaining control over the SE Asian ground routs for heroin.
The lessons need to be learned.

guy who went. Within my own family we had pro and against the fight. It was so hard to hear at home. My dad was a 22 yr lifer who had been to VN right before the build up and he got out because he said he was getting to old to go to war. He did support the troops. On the other hand my mother didn't. She came from europe and had bombs dropped on her community and was so against the war. I had a brother who was eligible at the time but he was in college. When they put the draft in his number was very high so they never called him. My father-in-law was a trainer in VN. He was there at the beginning and said that the people weren't going to win the war because they didn't have the fire in the belly. They had the French there before and they left. He said people were poor and all they wanted was to live in peace. It was ashamed our leaders never listened to the grunts that were there. They could have told them that. But really the higher ups lie to the president and I don't think they give him the right story. My mother-in-law told he it was time to retire or she would leave him. She was afraid they were going to send him again. So he finally retired and right after he put the papers in orders came down to go back. Lucky he didn't have to. He said it was a terrible ordeal. Even worse than WWII and Korea. Then the one real thing for me was my best friend's boyfriend was wound and lost his leg and he cut off the relationship. She never got over that. War is hell. I never agreed with the war but I always had respect for the troops. I never spit in a soldiers face.

had a harder time of it. I think the soldiers got a very raw deal. After all these soldiers didn't ask to go in the first place. I remember visiting hospitals with wounded soldiers. My goodness I don't think americans really understood what they went through. It is alot like the soldiers of the wars of today. Americans have no clue. My husband was in the army for 21 yrs. People just don't understand what families who are left behind feel like. We should all praise soldiers and make sure to thank a soldier when you see one. Wheter you believe in the war or not. Don't get me started on the black soldier. When I hear a racist same something I sure let them know to shut up and thank a black soldier who protects your ass while you sit at home watching your football game.

I was one of the fortunate returning Vets that was pretty much mentally ok. Many friends and relatives did not come back whole. It affected whole families and communites in some cases. (my cousin committed a horrific murder that, the gentle boy that went to Nam would never have considered.)

I volunteer here locally and the number Viet Vets w/ booze and drug problems never cease to make me feel terrible, yet grateful at the same time....and we're talking 45+ years later.

Families are the greatest victims of collateral damage in these fiascos.

The terrible thing is they never get the help they really need. It's good you help where you can especially since you can relate to the soldier. Keep up the good work.

reliably sourced and documented). The whole "spit in the face of returning VN vets" is a tired right-wing meme or urban myth that basically takes the old 'stab in the back' trope used against German Jews in Weimar Germany and transposes it onto the 60s and 70s counterculture.

See also, "the media lost the VN War," another tired out RW meme that is belied by all objective studies of media during the time. To wit, what scholarship there is on the subject demonstrates that the media for the most part continued to support the war long after support for it among the American public had begun to decline.

I was 21, (born in '50) married with a kid on the way. My college deferment had kept me safe for 4 years, but I was within 2 months of graduation, and had I passed my physical I would have have been inducted. Two people I new had the same birthday, and they were inducted. It turned out that I am legally blind in one eye and never knew how bad it was, since my other eye was very good. I participated in a couple of the big march's in DC, and was active in the anti-war movement at College. I voted for George McGovern in 1972 and Joe Biden for Senator as well. The only time I haven't voted for a Democrat for President was in 1980 when I voted for John Anderson. I have never even considered voting 3rd party since then.

Most were just your average college students who say what was coming and said "Hell no, we won't go!"

Then came the "lottery" for the draft which was supposed to make it "fair" because people like Dick Cheney and Next Gingrich had gamed the system. I suspect that the lottery took the steam out of the protest movement because those who got high numbers and were exempted from the draft lost interest in protesting...they were safe. But by then, most Americans were tired of the war and mounting casualties and the bullshit reports from the generals about how they were going to win it next year.

The war was over in a few years after that.

He had to register for the draft, of course.

We were very much opposed to the war, for many of the same reasons people oppose wars today.

He got deferred due to his graduate student work, and then again when we married and had a child. He could still have been drafted, but as he entered his late 20's, that got more and more remote.

And then he went to work for an essential industry, and that was pretty much it. I don't recall now if we ever had the "what to do if" conversation. And then it never happened anyway. He never got drafted.

It was different for my brother. He was a lot younger than my husband, and I think he felt it was inevitable he would be drafted. He dodged it by signing up. And he did go to Vietnam, as a point man.

It was a long scary year while he was gone, but he never got hurt. He came home and resumed his life: went to graduate school, met and married, had his family.

I think it's important to talk about. History has lessons to teach us, if we're open to seeing them, and learning from them...

that, future historians will profit from his recording of his memoirs, either in written form or as oral history.

I don't know if he's done any memoirs of any sort.

I do agree that it would be a good thing if he did.

The intensity of that period is reflected in its ongoing and disastrous ripple effect: the culture war. For me, born in '51, in the draft of '69, and in full antiwar resistance from '67 onwards, it defined my life, my political outlook, and my understanding of how the world works.


"Communes" (Communities of Sustainable Living) not any definition I ever used but perhaps close enough. Communes were and are shared 'collective' living arrangements, similar to the kibbutz movement in israel. While over-indulgence in drugs was a feature, it was not a requirement, and the ones that survived tended to stay away from or evolve past drug culture.

In the way the OWS today provides a place for revolution to happen, the 60s (and the 70's) counter culture provided a place - many places, places in every city of even modest size, where one could go and live for very little, could hook up with communes, could disappear from the draft. It was that sustained environment - the escape from the dictated life-plan of the 1950's Leave It To Beaver nightmare, that was the gem of the era.

Of course I was never in danger of being drafted, and my kid brother had a metal pin in him from an auto accident that kept him out. There were HS classmates of mine who went. Two died and a few came back damaged in the way described upthread.

I was at NYU in the Village from 67-72 and it was . . well, words will never capture the feeling.

Thanks for picking up on that part that I said. I hoped someone would get it that the Past" is often the "Future."

that is rarely discussed is, not just the effect it had on the people who served, but on their families.

My spouse was a ptsd/agent orange vet, with all that that implied for our lives. As I used to observe, the man I gave them was not the man they sent back to me. I woke up twice with hands around my throat--but I was lucky, because I did, in fact, wake up. I dealt with the anger issues, the bad dreams, the tempers, and the damage done by agent orange to a formerly healthy person.

I counselled at vets' centers, so I got to see the damage on a very large scale (and prayed i would never have to do so again) Many of our friends were vets, so I got to see it up close and personal at home as well. Luckily, we did not have children, so the destruction of agent orange was not passed on, nor were there children to witness, and be affected by, less-than-optimally functioning parents.

The families of those service members are just as much collateral damage as the civilians in Vietnam, and with even less attention paid.

Is it important to talk about it? As long as this country's government keeps sending our people to be wounded or die in wars of lies and occupation, we cannot lose the lessons of that war.

I'll make this short.

Because of the threat of the draft (among other things) I joined the Air National Guard.

The program I signed up for got me a commission as a 2nd Lt. (after jumping through multiple intellectual and physical hoops) with NO boot camp and a slot in a USAF pilot training class.

Learning to fly eventually led me to my career as an airline pilot.

There you have it.

I had hopes.

bastid

My lottery number that year was 24 if I recall correctly, but of course Nixon had already stopped the draft. I marched in the antiwar protests of the early 70s, and was aware of what was going on-- we lived in the DC area-- but really, I was young and politically naive. Truthfully, Watergate had much more of an impact on the evolution of my political thinking than the war did.

by Daniel Ellsberg and various historians of the period. The Watergate plumbers got their name because their original purpose was to counter leaks about Vietnam like the Pentagon Papers.

I married a guy who was already in the Air Force, stationed in Germany. Fortunately, he never was assigned to Vietnam. I was outspoken in my opposition to the war which caused problems with his family. His grandfather, who lost a leg in WW I, never spoke to me again.

My mother and brother were also anti-war (my sister was only 9 at the time). When my brother registered for the draft, he registered as a conscientious objector. He was denied because we were atheists. At that time, only 2 religions were recognized as CO's. Apparently the government believed atheists don't have a conscience. He appealed the ruling. His appeal was neither rejected nor approved, just ignored. My mother, brother and sister moved to Australia. According to the rules of his appeal, he had to notify the draft board every 30 days of his whereabouts. He did so. He then received a draft notice. His attorney advised the draft board that according to their own rules, he couldn't be drafted because he had an appeal pending. Still no ruling on his appeal. When the draft lottery was instituted, his number ensured he would never be called up. There never was a ruling on his appeal. They still live in Australia.

I think that did it for me. I watched the number run up to nearly 65K by the time we called it quits.

on the order of 54K, not 65K. Of course, when Southeast Asian combat fatalities are counted or considered, the number may reach into the millions. The U.S. media seldom report on Vietnamese fatalities, except for faux sentimental bios of soldiers from South Vietnam.

DoD maintains a casualty database, and names are added to it, even today, for VN veterans who die as a result of combat injuries sustained in the war. The database and the total above include both combat and non-combat deaths; however, additions since the war are for deaths attributable to combat only.

And that was some years ago.

related to someone of draft age, had their lives changed by the fact of the war and the draft.

No matter what choices you made, or especially if you felt you had no choices, it was a defining factor of life at that time. This was true for men and women. The women were not subject to the draft, but every man in your life, friend, relative, lover, partner, was.

This is one of the reasons the endless wars of the current time seem to strange to someone of our generation. They seem to go on almost invisibly for much of the population. I have no doubt that it was the desire to conduct wars without the wide public visibility that was the reason for the end of the draft.

Just like the war that was waged in Afghanistan -- how in the hell did that happen again?

I ducked the war like that bastard Mitt Romney.

Difference: I also protested it, and I never never never cheer-led it.

I'd love to ask Mitt what we gained over there in exchange for the lives of our friends.

Here's a picture of him protesting during the war:


He's at the far right holding the sign. All the while knowing he didn't have to worry about being drafted...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2083002/Mitt-Romney-19-demonstrated-favour-Vietnam-War-draft.html

he beleived that saving the french from wine by converting them to his religeon was more important for him to be doing - but he could have loved to be in vietnam cheering everyone on

-as long as someone else did the dying.

N***er, or poor white trash.

fucking despicable demagogues with their false patriotism (really nationalism cloaked in the symbolism of la patrie, but that's material for another rant).

He NEVER was one of them.

Last edited Mon Feb 20, 2012, 09:09 PM - Edit history (1)

1965 is the first year i can remember

life in midwestern small town USA seemed like the greatest time and place of all time, even the music was totally upbeat 'surfin USA' and mildly patriotic. Older people listen to stuff like herb alpert, and that's just as cool

new cars were really cool, and you couldnt wait to grow up and be a teenager, even though being a little kid was a blast, hanging out at the pool with your friends listening to 2-3 minute long pop/1 hit wonder songs from AM radio over the speaker. (hard to beleive 4 year old kids could run around unsupervised like that badk then, but it was great)

within less than 3 years, you've got 2 (more) assasinations (i had been too young to remember or be told about JFK), a president too demoralized to enen 'seek or accept' his party's nomination, and the teenager you couldnt wait to become growing their hair long, going from 'Mod' to 'Hippie' and protesting that they were going a long way to die or be maimed in a war for war machine profits. The music went from happy and upbeat (Monkees were the last gasp of the era) into dark lyrics in drugged out voices to what sounded like a lot of distortion

after a primary where a member of the nation's favorite family and most likely winner had his campaign vetoe'd with a bulllet, you have a new president (who you didnt know is from the past), who everyone seems to hate immediatly.

for what seems like 15 minutes, in 1969, the astronauts go to the moon and back, and it feels like 1965 again. but the feeling doesnt last. they go to the moon and back 3 months later, and it's like nobody even notices

the war seems to get worse and worse, a couple of years later in 1970 you hear about soldiers shooting college kids on a campus, prices keep going up and up, you hear about a wage price freeze, and they you learn about these missiles that will kill everyone and that you will probably die in a nuclear war, and in the slim chance that doesnt happen we will poisen ourselves with polution. you keep hearing about a 'cold war' but nobody can seem to explain what it is or why it is, just that everyone will die because of it

but for whatever reason, this president everyone hates and makes fun of gets relected in a landslide. but you start hearing about 'watergate'. not long after, this war that tore the country apart begins to end, but people are so caught up in watergate that nobody even notices. then there's energy shortages and you begin to wonder if there will be any gas the day you turn 16 and can drive

finally, they firce the president to resign - everyone wanted to get him, they did get him, but everyone feels like crap

anyway, that's my recollection of national American life 1965-1974. National sustainability and avoidence of all *unnecessary* wars are the values I take from that period that define me today

I simply did not understand how anyone could not have anticipated the problems of the iraq war - i was really depressed watching the country be propagandized into the slide into another stupid war - just like we are doing another 10 years later with Iran

I know this question was intended for those who were draft age, and it's a little presumptious for someone who was a kid to answer, but it changed me in that i have never had any illusions about how bad war could be even if i didnt see it firsthand, and only saw it on the news

and YOUR VIEW is so important.

Thanks!

My memory goes back a couple of years farther, to 1963, and I remember JFK's assassination and watching the funeral on TV and seeing John Jr., and hearing the commentators talking in solemn, hushed tones.

My memory of Vietnam probably dates from around 1966, which was a pivotal year for me, as I was starting to become politically aware by watching the Sunday political talk shows (Meet the Press, Issues and Answers, and Face the Nation) with my grandfather. One broadcast of Meet the Press was particularly memorable as the guest was one of my state's senators, J. William Fulbright, who by that time had become opposed to the Vietnam War. There was a lot of talk about "doves" and "hawks" and he had become a "dove" (much to the consternation of my grandfather).

The nightly news programs in those days (we mostly watched the Huntley-Brinkley Report, which later became the NBC Nightly News) featured a lot of news from Vietnam, with daily body counts which showed us and our South Vietnamese allies kicking the crap out of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong (it always seemed like NV/VC casualties were 10 times higher than ours).

Like me, most of my classmates were fairly removed from the events in Vietnam, but I did have two friends who had much older brothers who were over there. One friend's brother was killed, the other friend's brother survived but never came back to the US.

As the war dragged on, my mother started saying that she was going to send me to Canada if it came to that, especially after the revelations about My Lai came out. We watched the draft lotteries on TV and were a bit relieved to find that my birthday was around #240. As it turned out, we never had to worry about that anyway, as American involvement, and subsequently the draft, ended before I reached draft age.

"but for whatever reason, this president everyone hates and makes fun of gets relected "

(except W didn't get elected in a landslide.

Great post.

Nixon, in comparrison to Bush, was a prince

Nixon, although he should have gotten us out of the war sooner, didnt start it. The EPA was created during his administration. Unlike the history re-writers who say only Reagan could have ended the cold war, Nixon engaged in Detante. I dont excuse Nixon for Vietnam, but the tragedy of Nixon is that by 1973, he was actually setting us on a course that could have done a lot of good. He was percieved by the soviets as a protoge of Eisenhower, whom they greatly respected and once viewed as an ally. He 'played the China card' and thawed relations with them. The cold war could have actually been starting to end in 1973 (as a kid, i had a little bit of awareness of this stuff at the time, but no where near sensed it's importance, which was totally overshadowed by watergate)
but Nixon's stumbles ushered in the Goldwater wing of the republicans, in the form of Reagan, who was in the pocket of the 'military industrial complex' that Eisenhower warned us about, who heated up the cold war, and plunged is into the beginning of today's nation debt nightmare to do it, and nearly got us blown up in 1983


From wikipedia

The most important treaties were not developed until the advent of the Nixon Administration, which came into office in 1969. The Political Consultative Committee of the Warsaw Pact sent an offer to the West, urging to hold a summit on "security and cooperation in Europe". The West agreed and talks began towards actual limits in the nuclear capabilities of the two superpowers. This ultimately led to the signing of the SALT I treaty in 1972. This treaty limited each power's nuclear arsenals, though it was quickly rendered out-of-date as a result of the development of MIRVs. In the same year that SALT I was signed, the Biological Weapons Convention and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty were also concluded. Talks on SALT II also began in 1972.
photo caption
Leonid Brezhnev (left) and Richard Nixon (right) during Brezhnev's June 1973 visit to Washington; this was a high-water mark in détente between the United States and the Soviet Union.

I can recall his statements comparing what he did in WWII to what we had at home. But the funny thing is, the whole time he was scared I would get drafted. He didnt like the GD draft dodgers, as he called them. I could see why they did not wish to fight.

One day when the news was on, he came home from work. Vietnam was on, he was quiet about it for a change. Then he said, 'If your drafted, youre going to Canada, no ifs, ands buts about it. You understand?'
I said , sure dad.

No more arguments after that, or discusses about it either.

if I had to go. We were a family of far left lib dems/doves even way back then.

I remember sit ins and walk outs in Junior and High school protesting the war. I remember marching against it. My father who was retired AF at first supported it but later turned against it. Most of my parents friends were ex military and all turned against it. I caught the last part of the hippie movement and most of what that entailed. The whole time was intense and stressful in a way and at the same time exhilarating and full of hope that we were going to change the world for the better.
It made me intensely aware of politics. The same for the woman's movement occurring around the same time. I credit growing up at that point in time to my political activism and my distrust of power . I also credit it for giving me a desire to contribute to making the world a better place.

You saw every evening on tv footage of war and numbers killed on each side. With the wars we have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, watching the news you would hardly know that we are actively fighting a war.

I burned my draft card on a college campus. My father (retired major) and I didn't speak for over a year. He refused to help pay my tuition so I transferred to a state school and got a construction job. After my mother and grandmother intervened, he decided to continue helping with my college, but refused to attend my graduation.

My father and I never repaired those disagreements.

occurred far from the battlefields.

changed my life.

If I had been a man, I would have 100% gone to Viet Nam....

I think about that often...the boys (men) born the same day went to the war....

The first day number drawn was 257 (September 14), so all registrants with that birthday were assigned lottery number 1. All men of draft age (born 1944 to 1950) who shared a birthdate would be called to serve at once. In fact the first 195 birthdates were later called to serve in order 1 to 195. The last one called was September 24 (lottery number 195).

One will never leave me. My landlord had a beautiful son - four years old. One bright summer's day he and his cousins were playing - laughing and screaming in their backyard when a neighbor clearly suffering from PTSD showered him with acid. How he lived I don't know but his entire faced was destroyed - he was blind in both eyes and doctors had to drill holes for him to breath to replace his nose.
I cried for days cursing both Nixon and the neighbor. The kid's parents were anti-war liberals. They never blamed the neighbor. The neighbor said he couldn't bear to hear children screaming because he remembered what they did in Vietnam.
Poor Josh died a few years later - didn't see his eighth birthday.
There isn't a summer I don't remember lil Josh.

many of the casualties of war occurred far from the battlefieds of that same war.

This one brought a few tears to my eyes.

but imagine what it did to Josh's parents.
First I see a happy beautiful child and then I see a war victim in his own home far away.

At 18, I volunteered for the draft (I called up my draft board and asked them to draft me; they said okay and sent me an induction letter). That way, if I didn't like the military I could get out in 2 years.

After Basic Training, Leadership School, and Advanced Infantry training I went to Infantry Officer Candidate School. After 6 months of that training the Army made me a Second Lieutenant at 19, and at 20 I was leading an Infantry platoon in the jungles of I Corps, mostly doing search-and-destroy operations from Phu Bai out into the A Shau Valley.

My war ended when I was wounded by AK fire in the face and shoulder. I was Medevac'd and, after 18 months in the hospital, I was retired for partial disability.

At least, I thought my war ended. I suppressed the experience for 16 years before discovering how profoundly I'd been affected psychologically.

That war will always be with me. Hell, my avatar is the Vietnam Service Medal and my username is the last radio callsign I had in-country, lol!

and all those on this board who served

But that phrase for some is an irritant.

For some, it sounds like a Fox News phrase when they began interviewing the troops in and near Iraq to promote the first Iraq war.

Fox News used it as a patronizing phrase for those who wanted a few minutes of face time on TV. Tell me when Bill O'Reilly served. Tell me when O'Reilly ever had the right to use those who were serving and use them as props for his show.

No one ever got spit on in airports when returning from Viet Nam. Although Sly Stallone (who did not serve) claimed in one of his Rambo movies to have been the recipient of such spit in his make-believe world, just think about it. It would have simply been too dangerous to spit on someone in uniform who could might have PTSD and could easily get a pissed-off attitude. No one was ever spit upon at an airport, but many have been thanked for their service.

Consider trying this. Ask a vet whether they think that vets want to be thanked for their service. Then, I guess, if you really want to thank them, then thank them. Never ask them whether they are heroes. If you are courious at all, ask them who they have known who are heroes. If you really want to thank them, don't patronize them with thank you's.

... when I protested the Iraq War was not an irritant.

It said "Support our troops -- bring them home!"

Because of hearing about Vietnam from my mother, I never wanted people to forget that it wasn't just Iraqi civilians who were in danger from our government's rush to war, but our soldiers. I didn't want the protesters of my generation forgetting that war damages the warriors, and that I, at least, was protesting to protect them.

didn't surface till the Reagan era, oddly enough. Then the media suddenly started acting as if there were spitting brigades of hippies at SFO there to met all the returning vets.

There were enough hawks during the sixties that they would have raised a fuss if such incidents had occurred.

As one Vietnam vet remarked, "If there had been hippies spitting on returning vets, there would have been a lot of hippies with broken teeth."

I say the same thing to returning troops today.

I know a lot of vets, and all of them accept such thanks graciously, in the well-meaning spirit in which it's intended.

I served in the 101st Airborne Division in 1969-70.

I recall him being pro war, while another cousin of ours and I were against the war, we were all at his moms place. He might have been in earlier, but could have been in as long as when you started.

I came from a family of vets. My Grandfather was Army in WWI and my Dad was Navy in WWII so I thought we needed an Air Force guy and that would be me. I did not care to much to be crawling around the jungle so I went to the Air Force. My Mom said no way would she allow me to go into the service with the war going on. I was 18 and kindly told her that she had no say. My dad said so long son see you when you get back.
I almost went to Viet Nam anyway but my orders were canceled at the last minute. I ended up in Europe and served out my term there. I did not see any disrespect for the GI`s coming home other than a girl from high school asked why would I go into the service with a distained look on her face. Oh well I guess she did not understand. My life didn`t change but I knew friends whose lives were changed. I lost a friend years after the war to some steel from a land mine got into his heart. Thank you to all my brothers and sisters who served during the war. In country or not, Welcome home to all!

From 6/66 to 6/70,in country for 13 months. Yes it changed me pretty much, without getting into the gritty details, lets just say I was pretty ****ed up for a few years.

By way of background, I'm a 12th generation American whose ancestors have fought in every war that we've had in or for this continent. This includes the Pequot War in 1636 that one of my ancestors, John Endecott, was credited with starting. If you name any American war, my ancestors or their relatives fought in it.

As examples, my grandfather, father, and uncle were Marines in WW I, WW II, and Korea, respectively. It was a family tradition to join, and I did. This doesn't necessarily mean that we were grunts. One of my cousins was in charge of the Seventh Fleet for a portion of the time during Viet Nam.

I never signed up for the draft. I just never registered. I didn't want others to be drafted and had no feelings one way or another with respect to those who wanted to avoid being drafted or those who simply went along with the program. I never considered it to be my miltary duty to support the draft.

We were skeptical about Westmoreland's numbers, as were other Marines. Our skepticism was ultimately verified with the Tet Offensive. If you want to talk about a wake-up call, that was it.

I didn't go in for a military career but was simply going to do what I considered to be my duty. I could have stayed in, and was even offered a chance to fly, but Tet changed that. I had enough of the lies and one tour was enough.

When I got out, I bought some property in the Bay Area and joined the ACLU of Northern California. They have some of the best people that I ever met. Intellectual, compassionate people who believe strongly in the right of free speech. Since that early time period, I relocated to the Mid-West and ultimately retired. I never received any injuries, but each of my three brothers has.

Viet Nam changed the military tradition for us. None of my sons and none of my grandsons will ever be in the military. I didn't have to impose my will upon them, so there was never anything for them to rebel against with respect to the military tradition. All we ever had to do was talk. Please don't get me started on chicken-hawks.

Now, from time to time, I post a few comments just to keep some juices flowing. Sometimes mine. Sometimes others'. I try to encourage more liberalism while realizing that some people, most people, are going to think and do what they want anyway. What we post often doesn't have any effect on anything.

book of the same title) has a clip of Westmoreland landing at Tan Son Nhut in (I think) November of 1967 and saying with a completely straight face that he (and 'we') is\are beginning to see "the light at the end of the tunnel."

Seriously, you can't make that shit up.

between careerist Army officers and Marine officers. The causation is due to a number of factors. One of which is that, at least in '67 and '68, most Army officers tended to be college trained while approximately 85% of Marine officers came up through the ranks. (The percentage in more recent years may have changed.)

This difference is part of a culture which creates a different mind-set. Some may misinterpret and discount this observation as being due to nostalgic pride, but it's not and such views do not change the reality. If you are familiar with Korean War history, you can verify the different mind-set by comparing the actions of the Army officers under Army General MacArthur with the officers under Marine General Smith (short bio at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_P._Smith).

Experiences of different people vary, but I found that Army officers tended to readily agree with whatever the higher-ups wanted while Marine officers were encouraged to speak the truth to one another and even be skeptical. There is a difference between being skeptical and pessimistic, which in the Marine ethos are good and bad, respectively.

Army officers, including those who were trained in college to go-along-to-get-along and repeat the orthodoxy of their professors to get approval, seemed to be less skeptical. Even in the build-up for the Viet Nam war, there were well-respected Marine officers who rejected the optimistic view that we could successfully invade and hold that portion of Asia. One was General Shoup who resigned in 1963 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Shoup) and thereafter wrote in opposition to the war.

Westmoreland is not solely at fault for the bogus numbers and the intelligence leading to his "light at the end of the tunnel" comments. He was dealing with an Army culture that was already in place and which he could not change if he wanted to.

Our risk, as a country, is that we will now have too many yes-men in the military who will not speak truth to power. They will squander our resources for foreign adventures until there are no more resouces to squander.

as a female, I was not subject to the draft, but it impacted all of us of age or soon to come of age at the time. How well I remember the young men claiming to be gay, getting stoned so as to fail physicals. The young men who went to Canada, those who went into the Army or some other service. I never called anyone a baby killer but I wouldn't go out with anyone who was in the military either.

I was part of the transition generation. We were not quite Boomers. Consider who was in that generation, Dylan, Baez, John to name a few. Some of our earliest memories were of the Nuremberg Trials, and we were old enough to have watched the Eichmann trial live on TV, and had some understanding of what went on. Given what we grew up with it's no wonder we questioned the Vietnam war and the participation of our soldiers in it.

There was the silence when meeting someone who was in Vietnam. What could one say? If they went into the Army or they didn't, it caused a great deal of pain and wounds for a whole generation.

Joining the military was a rite of passage until the Vietnam war. I had friend,s and cousins who were older than me who were in the military who went to various places, saw the world and learned some new skills. When Vietnam happened everything changed. Also, I think the consciousness brought about by the Eichmann trial changed a lot of minds.

The VietNam War, like the Civil War, led to major, major family stress. We have yet to heal that part of Nam'. And probably never will.

a generation that I know of. It was awhile before there were even a couple of hard hitting movies about Vietnam that even showed what the troops went through. But, nothing I know of about the families and the cost in dollars of that war along with the toll on a generation.

They wouldn't go to Vietnam. He went to Japan. He had the job of that guy like in mash who drove a jeep and did errands for the hospital. He said when the helicopters came everyone would run, they were the closest hospital to Vietnam so he saw the worst. He said it was almost worse than being there seeing what he saw.

He had made up his mind if they changed their mind and were giving to send him there he was going to go to Canada.

I was younger in jr and sr high during the war. I wore a angle bracket of name of Mia for years.

My parents were strong dems and against the war. my brother just missed it as he was younger.

So after that my husband is angry so mad he hates America and politics. Doesn't trust any of them. Unlike me he won't get involved in any of it nor does he want me to talk about it, which is why I am on blogs. He had a slight amount of hope for Obama, but again was angry and felt he lost his chance at the beginning.

Her husband enlisted in the Air Force because he felt it was the safer option, he would be less likely to be deployed into a combat zone, being enlisted in the AF rather than an officer or in another branch. As they joked in my family, the Air Force sends their officers to fight and their enlisted stay home and patch up the planes -- the reverse of most of the other branches. His scariest moment was dropping a wrench down a nuclear silo -- he never deployed outside the US. Possibly because of the nature of the AF, possibly because he had a baby daughter, my sister.... possibly because his skills were needed at home.

She often talked about friends who didn't come back, and friends who came back so damaged they wished, in their darker hours, that they hadn't made it. Many were drafted, others enlisted because they felt they would get better placement than if they were drafted.... many others enlisted because they felt they could save their brothers (both biological and the others of their generation in general) from being drafted if they went instead.

It made me feel strongly about an all-volunteer armed forces. There are some people who are not made for combat. Those who can handle it better than the rest of us, who have chosen to enlist, save the ones who are not psychologically able to serve from being drafted, and I admire them for it. Yes, they have to answer the question for themselves if they feel what they are fighting for is just and right... but it's a hell of a lot better than pulling J. Random Guy off the street with no regard for psychological fitness for duty.

and, thanks to you all. I didn't think there was anyone here on DU-3..who still remembered Vietnam and it's consequences.

Reading these posts adds to my memories...and makes me more firm in opinion that we SHOULD NOT FORGET! We need to keep ourselves educated and the experiences of posters who have replied here are worth every read. Every Read of their individual experience.

We should never forget...

I would invite you to ask this in the veteran's group as well.

Great idea, denbot.

I enlisted in the Air Force rather than get drafted.

We were all terrified who was gonna come home in a box next. I was torn between supporting my friends who came home fucked up and getting gassed at anti war demonstrations. It was a bad bad time as well as a time of joining together to end the war.

I had a college deferment, but felt it was my duty to serve. All the men in my parents' generation had served in WWII. My brother, four years younger than me, saw it very differently. We were estranged as a result of that. I recall coming home on leave once and having a fist fight with him.

We reconciled decades ago and have been close since then, but I regret that period very much. Our mother worked hard to get us back together. Fortunately she saw that happen.

I was in high school ,knowing the only way for me to attend college was with the GI bill...I held off as long as I could while my friends were recieving their draft papers on a daily basis,I picked up our local paper one evening and read that LBJ had double the number of the fighting force....Two days later I enlisted and 2 short months after boot camp I was on a ship off the coast of Vietnam..
At first I really felt we were there for a purpose....One day I picked up the stars and stripes news and in the casualty list were the names of two of my childhood friends..The one friend I had talked to the evening before I went to the recruiters office trying to persuade him to join with me..he decided to wait it out and hope he didnt get the brown envelope...
Oh..incidentally I was in boot camp for two weeks and a letter from home informed me I had gotten my draft papers...

* As my hero Charlie RANGEL said, MINORITIES go into the military because of deprivation (not "patriotism" AT FIRST)

* My parents (Dems, minimum wage, FDR/Adlai-adorers) paid 2 yrs college, I felt GUILTY after that.

* I forget what the question is

* LBJ was a GREAT MAN.


(O.K., I'll be back when the inevitable comments make me.)

by that, I would think that every eligible person in my county got drafted that year.
I had a skill, in electronics, and was assigned duty at Ft. Monmouth NJ as an instructor of basic computer technology. I was concious of my incredible good fortune as a draftee at that time. During the next 2 years, I traveled from NJ to TX and back a number of times and frequently picked up hitchers during that time and had friends among the "heads" around Red Bank, Asbury Park etc. I was never treated with anything other than respect and occasionally sympathy by the people in the peace movement.
I have told people many times that I miss the unity among young people that existed then.

My father was not terribly political, except for being anti-war in general, but my mother, who was half Latvian, was angry at Roosevelt and Truman for what she saw as the abandonment of the Baltic states, so she always voted Republican until Goldwater seemed just too crazy for her.

Then the Vietnam War started, and she began to wonder why this war was so important when Eastern Europe had not been. This feeling intensified when my brothers reached draft age.

At the same time, I was starting college and was exposed to other views. I began to question all the things that I had been told about politics. By my junior year, I was taking part in anti-war protests.

Neither of my brothers had to go to into the military, and oddly enough, none of my 225 high school classmates were killed in Vietnam. But one of my college friends married a Vietnam vet, and during their engagement, she talked about how he angrily refused to discuss his experiences and got a bit scary when she pressed him on it.

He was from a military family so he may have enlisted. I know he served more than one tour in Southeast Asia, but he never talks about his time there - not a word in the forty years I've known him.

The life changing events came after he got back. He went to college with his GI benefits and while there, he was a pro-war representative at some of the public debates. My sister was an anti-war representative at a lot of the debates. They ended up meeting after debates to discuss things, then dated, lived together, and got married.

Talk about life changing - he is one of the most radical progressive people I know! He and my sister have been political activists in their community continuously for longer than I've been able to vote. They volunteer regularly, use their political saavy to fight against corporations such as Walmart, and have been penned up in "free speech" enclosures while protesting more than one GOP politician.

This is a guy who was super conservative and pro-military and is now super liberal and anti-war to the extreme.

We had been married 6 months or so when he was drafted. We were young
and hadn't yet amassed anything. He had nearly a year at Boeing when he was drafted
and he did not have that job when his time in the Army was finished, big layoffs
by the time he tried to reinstate.

We did receive money from the GI Bill which he used right away. Our first home
was purchased with a Veterans loan .

There is no way he would have gone in voluntarily but he did answer his
draft call and I am proud of how we handled the draft situation.


Tikki

here's what I remember:

1. It was a part of our existence every day in every way, whether protesting the war or (for my male friends) trying not to get drafted, by any means possible (see below).

2. I remember a friend asking me to drive up to Toronto with him for a weekend, to visit a family friend. On the way back, we were stopped at the border, the car was torn apart, and we were sent to separate offices for questioning and total, invasive frisking. Turns out my friend, unbeknownst to me, had brought back literature on emigrating to Canada (which they'd found), just in case he needed to escape the draft. He was dead serious and prepared to do it.

3. Even though we were in college and thus obviously had student deferments, the fear was always there (for males) of getting drafted: either because you might flunk out or because they might drop deferments. I knew guys who got fake psychiatric or medical letters to have on hand. I knew one guy who was being called up for his physical who was contemplating cutting off his toe. Oddly, I don't remember whether he did it. We all knew that we were privileged because we were students, and that the draft was massively unfair: racist and classist.

4. I remember missing classes many times for bomb scares, where the university's buildings would be shut down. This was after the bombing of Cambodia.

5. I remember going over to take over a building to demand the university drop its contracts with the military-industrial complex. It turned out they had already canceled all research contracts with the military, so I went home to study. I also remember how scary it was to be in protests with horse-mounted police and tear gas. This was in New York City, and the protests were big and the horses bigger.

6. I remember when my brother got his Conscientious Objector status. I was very proud of him. My father (a World War II veteran) was not so pleased--until later, when he too realized how wrong the war was and was proud.

7. My (future) husband (I met him right after I'd graduated) had a low number and so was never drafted. Nearly forty years later, I asked him suddenly one night if he was sorry he'd never gone. He said hell no.

Flunked draft physical.
Sorry about duplicates. Damn phone keyboard too small

I Graduated HS in '66, went to college that summer to move out of the house. I had some uncles who had been in the Navy, and another who was a lifer in the Air Force. I dropped a class or didn't get a class, about March of '67 so I no longer had a draft deferment. I decided to join the Navy. Luck or an Angel got me into an Aviation Squadron rather than a ship out of boot camp, and I ended up home ported at Moffett Field, just North of San Jose and I could drive to San Francisco and party. I rented an apartment in Mt. View so I didn't have to deal with the drunks in the barracks. My biggest regret was not driving some friends to the Monterey Pop Festival. (Someone in our Squadron had gone to HS with Janis Joplin.) But I was young and gay and there was too much of a good time in SF and I wanted to get as much as I could find available. Now I feel very fortunate to just have survived through that. I did three tours overseas, Philippines, Okinawa and Japan. Went in and out of CamRanh Bay, but never saw combat. Did start to smoke the herb, but didn't do the acid, though folks in the Navy with me did, and I would drive them around and see that they didn't get in trouble and bring them back to the base. Got out Dec. '70 three months early to go back to college. The GI bill paid for that, and it sure made college easier to deal with. I joined a gay students union and was out to my straight roommates in the house we had. That was a great time for me. (San Luis Obispo, Ca.) In a history class I had after having been in country, I learned three oil companies had negotiated with the French for the rights to drill off the coast, and that was the real reason a "Cooperative Government" was wanted by ours over there. While in country I worked in Communications and was the only person in my squadron with my watch, so I had it 24/7. My desk, bed and files were in one room off the duty officers station. I lived there, slept there, could leave to eat and get a shower, but had to be there for every scheduled plane arrival and departure, and if I did leave, I had to let the duty officer know where I was in case I was needed and the duty driver could get me. While there I read a book by a British Journalist who had been in country with the French. He told all about the lies of the American Gov. and the shipping in of arms in white boxes with red crosses on them, creating the war machine, trying to put in a US friendly administration. Reading that book is what changed me more than anything. I also read about an incident in a SF paper, the Stars and Stripes and in our Classified Messages. The three reports were very different, and I realized they were written for different audiences. I went to several of the protest marches before the shrub sent the troops off based on lies. I was able to catch the film "Sir, No Sir!" but missed that type of protest stuff going on while in the service. I see the local Veterans for Peace is having a showing of "Hidden Battles!" next month, and I noted it on my calendar and hope I can get there to see it.
Grateful for the Many Blessings bestowed upon me,
seeking the path to be a blessing myself.
ADW

Spent 2 years in the Army. Got lucky with an assignment in the States. Terrible times, but I think what's happening now with the repukes and their insanity might turn out even worse.

graduated high school 1967 and college 1971 so right in the thick of it all. Living through and coming of age in the 1960s and the Vietnam era in the USA was a totally life-changing and omnipresent force, the effects of which shaped me and remain with me to this day. Not just Vietnam, which tended to overshadow all else, but the multiple assassinations, the violence of the civil rights movement, and so much more turbulence, all of which belied and disturbed the post-WWII Eisenhower era, supposed dream of comfortable, middle-class Americana. My dad was a WWII vet who actually had a glamorous and exciting term of service (he was in the Glenn Miller Army Airforce Band) so I (and others) grew up with an inculcation of a “just” and righteous, anti-Nazi war (they were truly fighting Evil). That concept at first carried over into Vietnam --- many Americans assumed we would only be involved in and on the “side of right” in “just” wars. Propaganda against “godless Communists” was constant and prevalent and the line between Nazis and Communists was thin for a lot of people. The dawning hypocrisy, lies we were told and the harsh reality Vietnam unleashed on the public psyche, particularly in contrast to WWII, was epochal. It is impossible today to describe the influence and ominous omnipresence of “the draft” to those who never lived through it. It was a life-changing element with the power of the guillotine suspended over your head. I was fortunate and received a high lottery number. Unlike many of my contemporaries I never went to Vietnam. Instead I did what I could at home. Protests. More protests. Marches to Washington, D.C. and elsewhere. I was literally spat on by some American “patriots” whose visible hatred and contempt for young, protesting Americans (we were all “dirty hippies” even if we were clean and crew-cut) was deep, disturbing and dangerous. It seems that the great social upheavals and protests of the 1960s went into a decades-long period of dormancy while the country (including both parties) shifted ever rightward over these last decades. I am thrilled and encouraged to see at long last an echo and reminiscence or some sort of rebirth or renaissance of public protest, particularly by young people, in the birth of the Occupy Movement. I hope it will be sustained but seriously fear the Country has drifted way too far to the right and our electoral system and media is now so corrupt that it all may be too late.

"I am thrilled and encouraged to see at long last an echo and reminiscence or some sort of rebirth or renaissance of public protest, particularly by young people, in the birth of the Occupy Movement. I hope it will be sustained but seriously fear the Country has drifted way too far to the right and our electoral system and media is now so corrupt that it all may be too late."

Thought that needed to be repeated.

How do we make sure we have paper ballots, and they are checked by hand counting. Electronic Voting and Counting can be rigged. So, software for computing should be simple and easily verified when used. (Making it private only gives the opportunity to make it corrupt.)

Unlike today's interventions which barely make the the front page or lead the news, Vietnam was never far from our thoughts.

I remember the tension surrounding the lottery when they drew birth dates that would determine who would be drafted. The general assumption was that the first third would be drafted, the second might be drafted, and the third were much less likely to go.

It was surreal. They drew dates like lottery numbers. However, instead of a payout of millions of dollars, you got a 'free' ride with the DoD.

Another difference was the role of the press. They weren't controlled like they are today. They reported from everywhere with unfettered observations. They saw a lot of the worst of it. That is one reason that they are so closely monitored today.

My draft number was 23, although I had already been to a pre induction physical so it didn't really matter much at that point.
My initial position on the war changed several times but to explain that would take much more time than I currently have available.
I ended up in the Navy from 1969-1972. I lost many friends to the war both in and out of uniform. I would like to think that I came away from the experience with mostly positive experiences, not all, but most. The vast majority of guys I met during the course of my service were of a similar circumstance in that they would much rather be doing almost anything else.

Born in '54 so just past draft age.

It defined everything else that was happening. Either you were against it and really against or you were uninformed.

If you were from a conservative family it provided a permanent schism in the family. I was active in progressive Republican politics (in those days the Republican Party Washington State had a wing that was more progressive than the hawkish Dem establishment that wass run by Scoop Jackson) and as a teenager was publicly identified as communist and national security threat while I worked for the Governor.

I worked with the Friends Education Service and conducted teach ins. You stopped normal teenage stuff like dances and proms and read a lot.

It defined who your friends were and ultimately you either persuaded them to join you in the demonstrations or the friendship ended.

I ended up meeting a lot of Asians at college and married an exchange student from Thailand. In the middle of graduate school she wanted to go back for her Masters so we took a break and while in Thailand I talked my way into a UN agency. I ended up spending 10 years resettling refugees and another 10 years in Thailand.

One of the things that happens if you spend extended periods in third world countries is that you are not building up a retirement in the US ( going to qualify for SS this year) with no 401k or pension I will not be able to retire here, and will work as long as I can and then leave to retire in Thailand.

So for some of us it defined everything, family, friends, work and even retirement. It was a wild ride - when I went to Vietnam in '78 I was one of the first Americans to go back in. I ended up converting to Buddhism and most of our family and friends are Thais.

It defined many of us, I cannot imagine what life would have been like if there had not been the Vietnam war. For all I know I could have become a Republican Congressman. If you were from a conservative family/community it absolutely changed everything if you were actively against it.

Two siblings of draft age went into the Peace Corps at the time, which changed their lives completely and ours at home. One even brought home a bride, a welcome addition to our family.

I agree, there is no way to have lived through the era without it affecting you in some way.

She'd been in college, going to nursing school, concentrating on her studies.

"You could NOT have been unaffected," I told her.

"Well," she said, "when you took me to the Wall that time, I made a rubbing of the name of the first boy who ever kissed me--and I sent it to his mother."

She made my point more elegantly than I could...

I was born in Feb of '56, and so technically I was required to register for the draft in Feb of '74. But it was well-known that the draft was going to be terminated in September of '74, so I decided not to register to avoid the wild chance of being drafted in one of the last groups.

Had the war still been going on, I would probably have enlisted -- I was terribly gung-ho as a teenaged brat, although not so much so as one of my brother's friends, who couldn't wait to get to Vietnam and "Kill twenty Cong a day." (I've always wondered what happened to him) Bless me, I even wanted to volunteer for the Infantry, not because I was eager for glory in combat (even then, I knew the only glory in war is surviving), but because I wanted to do my duty. **sigh**

Serving in the military during peacetime, however, was not high on my list of ambitions (ranking a little above root canal), so I was determined that since they didn't need me to fight a war for them, they weren't going to have the chance to own my young ass. Admittedly, not the most coherent reasoning, but if 18 year-olds were rational, the old men would have to get someone else to fight their wars for them.

-- Mal

Got 30 days of mess duty for my refusal to kill people I didn't know, had nothing against, and may even have liked. I expressed my opinions about the Marine Crotch and LBJ.

Ultimately it wasn't necessary because our local draft board didn't end up actually calling up anyone that last year. But, yeah, it had an impact on my life. But did it influence how I look at the world or did the way I look at the world influence how I looked at the war? Probably a two-way street.

Can't vouch for its statistical or methodological validity, but the results don't seem particularly surprising.

http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2009/04/08/the_vietnam_draft_lottery_and/

and yes there were destroyers off the coast of Viet Nam at that time - he was on one. They carried over exfolliants and he contracted a disease from handling the stuff (he was enlisted and worked in the boiler room). So, I grew up with a dad who was increasingly more disabled as the years passed. When I was in high school he reached 15 years seniority at his factory (at the end simply driving a forklift - he couldn't do much else), and retired so the doctors could start operating on him. I'm sure kids of veterans from other time periods have gone through this as well. I have the same outrage over the current wars that I had regarding Viet Nam - it is personal for me and I resent our government's insistence on policing the world in order to secure resources for our corporations.

I'm so sorry about your dad.

My father-in-law witness the Atomic bomb test explosion at Bikini Atol from a fireship in the Pacific during WWII. He died at age 68 from colon cancer. Two of his sons felt sure it was from being so close to that explosion. Colon cancer runs in the family ...so who knows. But, hands on contact like your father and probably thousands of others had or are having now with chemicals and (who knows what else that's toxic) are probably going to have lasting effects on their bodies.

And what we are leaving behind in these countries plus polluting whole world's atmosphere with depleted uranium and other toxins is the disgusting consequence of these bombings and air attacks with our "sophisticated weapons of mass destruction." And, the maimed bodies of soldiers and civilians and the torn apart facilities in these countries that somehow don't always get rebuilt.



Thanks for posting you dad's experience because many here might not realize the consequences.

All were unarmed electronic-counter-warfare missions. Later, I made a career of flying (corporate and airlines). My military flight training served me well. I was - indeed - one of the lucky ones, coming out of the whole Viet Nam fiasco intact.

But now, I'll stick to my fire lookout tower job!

When do you head back to the tower?

(Nice pic, btw!)

and I wonder if you think the "pain of Vietnam" will ever go away with us?

I'm Old DU like You...but, I never really knew if you support the "Interventions" (that pose for WAR) like we have today as opposed to the Draft where young folks were "inscripted because of a lottery number" and it hit people of all incomes.

I've probably missed you posting on some of this because you and I hung out on different places on DU since we both joined around 2001.

But, given your life changes since then....I'd love to see what YOU FEEL about how Vietnam changed you from what you Would Have Been and if you have regrets about Could Have Been if Vietnam had not been such a huge factor in your life.

What you've done with your life the past few years with your Fire Tower efforts and posts about it here on DU has made me think that you've undergone an incredible revolution in your soul...and a coming to grips that has made you seek some new thrills as you grow older.

Am, I wrong in thinking that you have always been a thrill seeker (a good thing...not a bad thing) but that knocks along the way taught you lessons you might be willing to share with other DU'ers who might be younger..who could benefit from what you've seen in your own life experience?

Also...did you ever have any feeling of PTSD from your flight missions in Vietnam. I've always wondered if you'd ever talk about that.

Peace Mac...(I've loved your FireTower Series on Old DU).....and I know that we've not crossed paths much on Old DU....in years past...although both of us were here in different places on that site.

Can you post something in answer to my question that might help those younger, coming up to understand some part of Vietnam war that they are missing pieces of?

It colored my life. I went to every anti war protest I could from the time I was 14.. To me it is very important, and I will never get over it. I abhor any war and any president who sends our young people to die in their fucking wars. My opinion is if they want war, they need to go to war at the front lines, and not come back till it's over.

my sister was born a year and one day later, and according to my mother, this gave him another draft deferral.

Timing is everything, I guess.

I wasn't born until '75 but I disagreed with my own father that Vietnam was a huge mistake. He was in the army at the time. He didn't end up having to go over there, he was one of the lucky ones. He is also a conservative though that came later in life.
I remember in high school talking about Vietnam and none of our teachers and no one my own age thought it seemed like a great war. Many of the students in my 11th grade history class (this was 1993) thought it was extremely hard on young people to chose between having to have to go to a war they didn't believe in or to make a run for it to Mexico or Canada. I certainly never thought these were dirty hippies. I was hugely influenced by the Door's song Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (my brother and I were really into the Doors as teens). To me, the draft was horrifying.

Or, did you mean something else?