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shallowfocus's avatar

Exactly. In the college deferment era, there was actually more support for the war among the boomer generation (then in their teens and twenties) than among their parents. The moment college deferments no longer existed, and middle class white boys were finally expected to fight and die in Vietnam, support for the war magically evaporated.

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Candis's avatar

Truth

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Atma's avatar

@shallowfocus

Certainly not in any World I have ever visited. Teenagers don't, in general *Care about war, *any war, until it looks like they are about to be drafted *into one. By their twenties, back then, they have already *been taken by Uncle Sugar if they are going to be.

I think it would *really shock a lot of you who just read books about Vietnam to get the *slightest clue regarding just how *many Active Duty Troops and even Officers were *also fully against the War, especially following the Tet offensive in January of '68. Tet was not really "such a much" militarily, but it *totally "gave the lie" to Johnson's assurances that the War was even then in the process of "winding down". Right ! ;-D

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HBI's avatar

I think it destroyed confidence in the ultimate victory, which people had believed in because they were told so up to that point.

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Atma's avatar

HBI

Just so, yes. The Americans at home had finally had enough of "we've got 'em on the *run, yes we do !"

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HBI's avatar

Tet had something to do with it too.

The relationship between educational achievement and support for Vietnam was an interesting effect. In summary, the higher your completed educational level, the more likely you were to support the government Vietnam policy.

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Atma's avatar

HBI

Wow, Dude ! Can I recommend some *footage of the riots on the college campuses during that era ?

There was NO ONE cheering *either Johnson or Nixon in ALL that time !

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HBI's avatar

You said you'd read Loewen's "Lies My Teacher Told Me". Towards the back of the book he pulls out a Gallup poll which indicates what I am saying. It is counterintuitive until you think about what college really means: government indoctrination to create bureaucrats.

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Atma's avatar

HBI

I have my own copy all warmed up for research tomorrow. Gotta get up for an appointment in the a.m. But, yeah ..... counterintuitive in the VERY least ! I went to college in Oregon on the G.I. Bill, and they didn't even dare touch THAT stuff with a ten foot POLE at the time. Maybe Loewen meant colleges in TEXAS ! ;-D

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HBI's avatar

Maybe, but I think the Gallup poll was nationwide.

Remember that "silent majority" crap, a lot of people who held those points of view kept their mouths shut.

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Atma's avatar

@HBI

The absolute *CLASSIC support for the war was among the working class collectively called "The Hard Hats" who were wetting down their leg over a handful of Hippies in Golden Gate Park.

You can *still get Right wingers to hyperventilate just in the *mention of Hippies ! ;-D That's a mysterious source of terror, there, over a "nothingburger" that is now over Fifty years old !

The only "educated" people in favor of that war were most of our *Parents who did not know enough about the Vietnam War to comprehend that it was NOT just WWII Redux. That little "misunderstanding" was not called "The Generation Gap" for nothing. ;-D

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HBI's avatar

My grandfather was a cop in Hoboken, Irish dude actually named Gilligan. Anyway, he was pro-war to the end. He looked at it as no different than his WWII service and thought people that thought differently were "pussies" and "pinkos". He was a fairly bright guy, btw. It was just what he believed.

He never talked about it but I was told about his actions in preventing the riots that overcame Jersey City in 1968 from proceeding into Hoboken. My mom has his nightstick under her bed, filled with lead and covered with old blood spatters and dents from where he'd tap on cast iron fences as he walked his beat.

That said, Loewen had a point about the educated being more pro-war than the working class. Not everyone was like my grandfather.

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Atma's avatar

HBI

Again, only if we are talking about the educated "of a certain age", again I say,

like my own parents. Thank gawd my Dad did not "fight me" on the subject, but, similar to your Grandfather, he did feel that "fighting for your country" was just your "duty". Back to "My Country - Right or Wrong. My Country - Love it or Leave it"

To his credit, however, the more Dad *researched Vietnam, the more he understood that it was an INVASION of a country under false pretenses. He had a strong sense of "fair", and he, like me, could not see where all those people in the "Black pajamas" had *ever given US a cause to invade their country. The rest of the adults Dad's age fully "swallowed" the Domino Theory that da 'gub'mint was pushing at the time.

Why do we even CARE if a country six thousand miles away goes communist ? It happenend anyway, and the world did NOT end, AFTER all !

And we could have kept those 58,000 American men; and they their 2.5 Million Dead Asians, many of whom,

(Cambodians) were never even at war with us.

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HBI's avatar

Our Vietnam policy was dumb. I have a hard time picturing the Democratic administrations of the 1960s doing something different. They always had the specter of being 'weak on Communism' hanging over them.

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Atma's avatar

HBI

Yeah true DAT ! ;-D

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HBI's avatar

I always wonder what he (my grandfather) would have made of "Fire in the Lake". He might have read it if I had asked him to. I was too young to know about it and get it for him, found it after he died in 1985.

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Readersaurus's avatar

Do you mean that you found it among your grandfather's books after he died or that _you_ finally obtained the book after his death?

"Fire in the Lake" was THE REQUIRED READING of the time. In my parents' home, it stuck out on the bookcase as no other volume and was for months on the bedside table of the parents' bedroom. "Bright and Shining Lie" was also in the household library.

I took it up and started reading it after they'd finished it.

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HBI's avatar

I related elsewhere I was the first person in my family to do college. I don't think there was anyone in my suburban neighborhood in the 70s who had read the book. Seriously. I had a friend who was a newspaper editor and had worked at the NYT in the 60s and 70s. He liked me a lot, got me into political debates and let me write software for his polling efforts with an early autodialer. In retrospect, I understand why he liked me; so few people were actually interested in this stuff.

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Readersaurus's avatar

That's right, you did. I remember reading it now that you remind me.

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HBI's avatar

I found both books myself. He was a diabetic like me, had had his leg amputated in 1973 or so. He was also a drunk before that, fifth of scotch a day. He hated being a cop, boring as hell to him, so he drank his days away until the amputation, then he became a teetotaller. He didn't shop for his own books with that wooden leg; my aunt did that for him. She was no dummy and knew what he wanted: mostly secondary works of history from the 20th century. She would never have picked "Fire in the Lake" for him for that reason. Remember, no Amazon or whatever.

She'd pick him up things like Liddell Hart's WWII history or there was this Ballantine History of the Violent Century series that was pretty good, I still have a few dozen of very battered copies of those books.

He would have been receptive to a lot more than he saw.

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Atma's avatar

HBI

Hey ! I have never heard of it either ! Good, something to look up for a potential read !

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HBI's avatar

It was written by a New Yorker contributor about the Vietnam experience - not about soldiers, but mostly about their culture and why we were doomed to lose. It dates from the early 70s. Worth a read, you may not agree with everything in it but it's illuminating on quite a few details.

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Atma's avatar

HBI

Oh, thanks, man ! I do not require a book that "echos" my own thoughts. I already *KNOW what I think, I want a book that either entertains me, or TEACHES me something, preferable BOTH in the same read. No, other people's experiences, by definition, will NOT be the same as *my experience. I'm a big boy. ;-D

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HBI's avatar

And if you haven't read it, the book "A Bright Shining Lie" about John Paul Vann is enlightening for sort of a counterpoint. It's like watching Schindler's List and Downfall in the same day. Two sides of the same coin.

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Atma's avatar

HBI

Tres COOL ! I will check them all.

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Readersaurus's avatar

Wow. What do they teach about U.S.-Vietnam histories in (HS, university) school?

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Atma's avatar

@Readersaurus

I got my experience in Vietnam by *being there, not by reading some effete book about it.

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Atma's avatar

@Readersaurus

My apologies ! In an effort to be a *bit less of a crabby old bastard, I really *do recognize that *most of the population is too young ever to have been to Vietnam. I greatly admire the intellectual curiosity, and the autodidactic inclination to access history the only way that most people are now able to do. Via books & video. For every person old enough to have been in Vietnam, and for every writer basing a book on their experience in Vietnam, there will be *that many different perspectives on the place. Next time I will have my coffee before I unthoughtfully unleash the logorrhea.

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Notyours's avatar

When I went in the 80's, I only had one class about it and it focused on what happened just outside the classroom rather than overseas. Had I not been at Kent State, I suspect I'd have been taught nothing about it.

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HBI's avatar

Considering what I have been hearing lately about an FBI CI firing shots with a pistol that probably confused the guardsmen into thinking they were under fire...maybe it's better we don't explore it any deeper.

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HBI's avatar

When I was in high school, they skipped over Vietnam in the curriculum.

I had to figure stuff out for myself. I had some good sources though, and the better books mostly came out as I was exiting school.

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HBI's avatar

Also, my parents used to make me go to bed before Cronkite would start talking about body counts. I would sneak out and watch where they couldn't see me. Got caught rarely. Couldn't have been older than 2 or 3 at the time.

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Atma's avatar

HBI

Of course, there is *always that contribution to Global Population Control !

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HBI's avatar

Most of the people I have seen in albums and the like who died in Vietnam would have been perhaps preferable to those who survived. There's no making lemonade out of those lemons. Family photos of my wife's family where two of her father's brothers didn't make it back. We took a trip to the wall when she moved out East with me. Shes from MN originally. Did the tracing of the wall thing. I didn't know the family members of course but it was shitty nonetheless.

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Atma's avatar

HBI

Well, I have a perspective that includes reincarnation, karma, etc. et al, and that helps me *tremendously in understanding the insanity that it is even to *be human.

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HBI's avatar

She does too. I believe we snuff entirely at death. It's a very uncomforting viewpoint, but I can't find a lot of rational evidence for anything else. I would like to see my dad again though.

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Atma's avatar

HBI

OH, I *fought the concept of reincarnation tooth and NAIL ! I was NOT coming back here, no *WAY, no *HOW ! Buy then I finally began Spiritual practices that visually PROVED my past lives to me, who I had "been with before" (All of your family members THIS time for certain.)

Under the eventual *weight of all that PROOF I finally DID discover a way to stop *FIGHTING the idea of rebirth, but it was a Heavy Lift !

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