On the Viet Nam war and the Anti-War Movement
I was born in 1971, so none of this is from personal experience. I don't
think most of the protesters were motivated by cowardice, as making yourself a
visible target is not the best protective strategy...no, I'm thinking the
cowards of that time were probably keeping fairly quiet on the issue, just
making sure that they flunked their physicals and had their college deferments
(not that anyone who flunked or went to college was a coward, just that the
cowards wanted to fall within these groups for their own protection). I
believe in the early phase of the Anti-War Movement, when the slogans were,
"Bring the Boys home," that these people were honestly concerned and
expressing their feelings about what American policy should be. I have no
problem with that. When the Anti-War Movement mutated into, "Bring the War
home," is what I found reprehensible. At that point, the Movement began to
revile their nation and the soldiers who fought for it as somehow Evil, and
further, by their actions they gave aid and comfort to our adversaries. No,
this wasn't cowardice; it was traitorous. Take for example the famous case of
Jane Fonda; as a woman, she was not in danger of being drafted. On the
contrary, she voluntarily placed herself in harm's way by visiting North Viet
Nam. And by doing so in from of the media, she handed our adversary some
great propaganda. In my opinion, the best thing to do would have kept the
"Bring the Boys Home" motto and been true to it. Unless of course you
believed the war was the right action, in which case I would have taken the
kids gloves off and occupied North Viet Nam. One or the other, but instead we
had limbo.
Glen Finney