postvietnamsociety

Introduction
        The post Vietnam War era held many sentiments of anger and distrust. For the first time in many American’s lives the U.S. was unsuccessful. Veterans were no longer praised for their bravery and valor, but instead looked down upon as being tools to a distrustful and poor government.    The Vietnam conflict changed everything, the way many saw the government and the U.S. as a world power, the role of war, and how trust worthy our leaders are. Not only did the Vietnam era also contain movement in civil rights and women’s rights, but also it was the first time when young students protested and made considerably large efforts in achieving what they wanted. This was a time period of change, which altered the mentality in the United States forever.

The Long Haired, Rock and Roll loving Revolutionaries
       The generation that grew up in the in the 1950s experencied the last of traditional patriotism. These people respected and looked up to their government and their leaders as positive role models that rarely made mistakes. In a short story by Sam Brown entitled The Legacy of Choices; he describes how he viewed America when he was young. “When I was growing up it never occurred to me that America could be wrong. The pattern of my upbringing and the texture of my day-to-day existence were solidly Midwestern and Republican; Dad belonged to Rotary and everyone in the family went to church on Sunday” (Brown, 183). By the time Mr. Brown started attending college in 1962 he became skeptical on the American policies he once had so much faith in. He began to question whether America was a free country if they banned all communist speakers? By the time the war had escalated in Vietnam Mr. Brown felt that withdrawal of U.S. intervention must be stopped. He describes the anti-war struggle to be not only an exciting movement filled with young men and women who listened to rock and roll music and wore their hair long, but also purposeful. They were fighting for ideals they once believed America had embodied when they were younger. These young men were fighting for freedom and peace. “We were young, smart, intellectual (so we thought) and committed to a moral cause. We believed ourselves patriots defending America’s ideals” (Brown, 184). Even as the war had ended Mr. Brown felt that the Vietnam War still had played a role in the way he lived his life afterwards. He described his experience almost similar to the military. Petitions had to be signed, certain politicians had to get into office, and one must take certain risks. “And, like the military, those who actively dissented developed a sense of camaraderie that grew from shared risks, values and experiences” (Brown, 185). Those who had opposed the war, and those who had supported it had created a certain unity, the nation was torn. These “kids” were taking control over important situations. They had a voice, and surprisingly it was a large voice. This generation has set an example to the generations that have come after them.
       “For the diehards, there was a post-Viet Nam syndrome in its own debilitating as that suffered by the people who fought there-a sense of emptiness rather than exhilaration, a paradoxical desire to hold onto and breathe life back into the experience that had been their for so many years” (Collier and Horowitz, Major Problems in American History Since 1945, 335). As the movement came to a close and troops moved out of Vietnam suddenly these once so driven radicals had very little drive. It was almost as if they had lost their purpose, their cause, of course this is not the case for all radicals, but many felt cheated. These crazy kids fighting for the withdrawal of the U.S. troops overseas soon became what their parents had hoped they would grow into businessmen, layers, sales men, and bankers. The days of liberal radicalism and fighting for equality and peace were turned into the days where their schedules were filled with power lunches, business meetings, and car shopping for a new Mercedes Benz. It almost seemed as if the college days for a lot of these retired radicals were the time when they “experimented” with liberal views on politics, drugs, music, and art. For four years out of their lives they could do and be what ever they wished. Could dress like a rock and roll star, experiment with political views, read literature, and what made it even better is that this generation had an excuse: the Vietnam War. It has like in the decades that have followed the Vietnam War College became a place where young men and women were allowed and encouraged to experiment. Though liberalism has become more popular in the last four decades have these revolutionaries really made a difference? What was once the loud and noticeable voice of the young has turned into what it had dreaded the most; the voice of an older more conservative, business savvy, and materialistic society.
       Now a day’s college is a place where students develop their own opinions on politics, government, and values. A place where authority is meant to be challenged and questioned, where petitions are signed and in many cases things are changed. For my generation it is a given that if you feel that an institution is being run poorly or corrupt you can try to change that, and though we may not be able to change these injustices we are still taught to challenge them. The Anti-War movement taught Americans a lot. It was the age-old struggle between the values of the young versus the values of the old, and although no one had won, it had seemed like the young had the upper hand. A triumph for the baby boomers.

The Death of the Political Role Model
      Many people who have grown up in the post Vietnam War era have had the idea that America is wrong and corrupt. Many of us have witnessed this mentality. We all watch Saturday Night Live as they poke fun of the stupidity or sexual drive of our political leaders. I am sure that most of us have made negative remarks on our government and political leaders. In the post Vietnam War era politicians are there to be destroyed. Politicians create wars between one another, who can uncover more scandals about one another, who can gain more votes. My generation has grown up with very few to no political role models. We view politicians as conniving and self-serving. In a short biography about one man’s experience on growing up in the post Vietnam War era he spoke about his feelings towards the U.S. government. “Naturally this attitude on my part logically extended itself, so that I also believed, as did my friends, that America could do nothing right; that it was a force of evil in our world; that therefore, the country’s leadership was also stupid and venal” (Lemann, 210). Vietnam War had seemed like the beginning of this mentality. It was the national recognition that our country had made a mistake, and that in this case America was wrong. The Vietnam War era had two presidents that had lied to the public. President Johnson refused to admit that there was a chance that the U.S. may not be successful in Vietnam, and continued to send men to overseas. President Nixon had promised to end the war and withdrew many men from Vietnam, but proceeded to excessively bomb Cambodia and Vietnam. “Nixon ordered the secret bombing of North Vietnamese bases and supply trails in neighboring Cambodia. By April 1970, B-52s had dumped 110,000 tons of bombs on the tiny country” (Boyer, 314). Not to mention the discovery of the Watergate scandal which ended the Nixon presidency with national disgrace. Due to the behavior of our leaders and the complication of our situation overseas, U.S. politics suffered. Americans began to distrust politicians. It was the beginning of a time where everything had to be brought into question, and everyone had to be skeptical, these feelings are still present today as much as they were during the Vietnam War.

The Unsung Heroes
        “They Did Not Even Know The Simple Things: A sense of victory, or satisfaction, or necessary sacrifice. They did not know the feeling of taking a place and keeping it, securing a village and then raising the flag and calling it a victory. No sense of order or momentum. No front, no rear, no trenches laid out in neat parallels…They did not know how to feel. Whether, when seeing a dead Vietnamese, to be happy or sad or relieved; whether to engage the enemy or elude him. They did not know how to feel when they saw villages burning. Revenge? Loss? Peace of mind or anguish? They did not know” (O’Brien, excerpt from Going After Cacciato).
       There is a stereo type when it comes veterans. We have the idea that they sit in their small house or trailer on the wrong side of the tracks where they live a lonely sad life, smoke too much pot, and drink too much whiskey. The thought when put down on paper seems a bit humorous, but many feel that Vietnam veterans are still psychologically ruined by the affects of the war. Many do fulfill this stereotype, but many have just picked up their lives where they had left off when they went to Vietnam. Many have started families, made money, drive nice luxury sedans, and live in a nice big house in the expensive section of town. They have learned to forget Vietnam, the hardships of war, the loss of innocence, and I suppose for many of them that is a goal achieved. The Vietnam War had no heroes like the wars of the past. The soldiers of Vietnam War were fighting for no cause. “In our pursuit of peaceful, ordinary lives, too many of us have lost touch with the horror of the war. Too many have forgotten-misplaced, repressed, chosen to ignore-the anguish that once dominated our lives. The guilt, the fear, the painful urgencies have faded” (O’Brien, We’ve adjusted Too Well). For many of us the idea of forgetting the horrific memories of war is relieving, but is it? Men that fought in the Vietnam War were viewed as tools to a government that was making horrible decisions. They were looked down upon by many of the people in their same age group. Their participation in Vietnam was something to be ashamed of rather than admired. Many of these men do not talk about their experience, tend to hide it somewhere in their memory. Vietnam War was a mistake, but the truth is it was the mistake of the government. Perhaps, the veterans of the Vietnam War are the bravest of all veterans. They were fighting a fight that most of them had very little faith in, they were looked down upon by many at home, they had to go to a foreign land filled with foreign ideas and rituals, and they were not getting the respect that they deserved. They were faced with moralistic choices every time they went into combat.

The Survival of The Fittest
      For the most part the men that went to Vietnam were from lower class families with no college education. Normally the college educated men from middle to upper class families found ways to escape service. This created a class war. A class war that has wounded generations that has followed. During the draft many college students avoided service by one way or another. They felt that they were not supposed to go to war, even students who felt that the Vietnam War must be won. They all created a ways to get out of it. Some ran for the Canadian boarders, some lost an exceptional amount of weight, and some even cut of their fingers. Most of these college-educated men were against draft, and were against the war in Vietnam. They wanted peace. In a memoir of the Vietnam draft the author James Fallow recalls his experience of avoiding being sent to Vietnam. He was a student at Harvard at the time and purposely ate very little so that he was underweight for service in the military. As him and his friends from Harvard found some way or another to avoid the service and all were allowed to be free and finish their education in the safety of America’s east coast. The Chelsea boys were just arriving they were the ones that would be sent to Vietnam. The Chelsea boys lived in the poor section Boston. They were strong and big, and were not lucky enough to have alternatives to getting out of the war nor the education that these men were lucky enough to receive. Fallows describes this event as an example of the type of class wars that went on during this time period. “We have not, however, learned the lesson of the day at the Navy Yard, or the thousands of similar scenes all across the country through all the years of the war. Two questions have yet to be faced, let alone answered. The first is why, when so many of the bright young college men opposed the war, so few were willing to resist the draft, rather than simply evade it. The second is why all the well-educated men presumably humane young men, whether they opposed the war or were thinking fondly of the A-bombs on Hanoi, so willingly took advantage of this most brutal form of class discrimination-what it signifies that we let the boys from Chelsea be sent off to die” (Fallows, 9). Like the Creedance Clearwater song “Fortunate Son” proclaims the struggle of the working class man.
. “It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no millionaire’s son, no.
It ain’t me, it ain’t me; I ain’t no fortunate one, no.
Some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
Ohh, they send you down to war, Lord,
And I ask them, “How much should we give?”
Ooh, they only answer More! More! More! Yoh,”
                             Creedance Clearwater Revival, Fortunate Son
Though the guilt may still plague the men that were lucky enough to avoid Vietnam, what is worse is that this class war was accepted by those who could be the only ones to stop it. The voices of the young who represented the under dogs that did not have a voice. They did nothing to try to save the Chelsea Boys. They were the fortunate ones. This scar of the Vietnam War is brought up very rarely. Like how the veterans try to forget the war, the Harvard Boys try to forget the Chelsea Boys. We rarely hear about the class war that took place only a few decades ago. Many of us have grown up being the sons and daughters of either a Chelsea Boy or a Harvard Boy, and perhaps some of them never even noticed the class war, but it was there. It is still here and if many were drafted tomorrow to fight in a war with a lost cause this class war would still exist. Many have this naïve view that America is place filled with equality and freedom, but as you see in the story of the Chelsea Boys and the Harvard Boys it still is as it always will be the survival of the fittest.

Conclusion
      The Vietnam War has taught the American people a lot. The lessons were not ones that were optimistic and hopeful, but it was almost the complete opposite. We made realizations about our society and about national sentiment towards our government. The Post Vietnam War era has lost its innocence along with many of its heroes. We have become a very cynical society. No longer do we have faith in things because we are so used to being put down. We never take anything for granted and we will always be skeptics and critics. We are generation X.