How Vietnam Changed Everything

[applegrove]

https://politicalwire.com/2017/01/08/vietnam-changed-everything/

"SNIP.............



New York Times: “Vietnam changed us as a country. In many ways, for the worse: It made us cynical and distrustful of our institutions, especially of government. For many people, it eroded the notion, once nearly universal, that part of being an American was serving your country.”

..............SNIP"

[unblock]

1. can't pin it all on vietnam. watergate also had a huge effect.

certainly as far as making us "cynical and distrustful of our institutions, especially of government" goes.

interesting to note how much this falls on nixon. lbj obviously has some responsibility for vietnam, but nixon made the war his own, illegally threw a spanner in the peace talks, lied about having a plan, escalated it, spread it to cambodia, capitulated, etc.

[former9thward]

7. The most troops in Vietnam were under LBJ not Nixon.

So Nixon did not escalate it. Troop levels were 485,600 in 1967 and then 536,100 in 1968. In 1969 which was Nixon's first year it went down to 475,200 and dropped rapidly after that.

http://www.americanwarlibrary.com/vietnam/vwatl.htm

[unblock]

11. he also increased the bombing on north vietnam and invaded cambodia.

[former9thward]

12. No question.

But LBJ does get a pass on Vietnam. They both own the war.

[JonLP24]

9. Vietnam was just another in a long line of campaigns for commercial interests

It started around the McKinney administration but really took off after the 1950's with the creation of the CIA which the Eisenhower - Nixon administration was at the start for. I think LBJ and Nixon were probably equally corrupt. LBJ was one of the people he regularly had conversations with when he was President. Gerald Ford, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan were the other Presidents he had conversations with.

I agree on Watergate, I think it was child's play compared to what they do get away with I think it had a huge effect on strengthening the protection of the system, a lot of the people in Nixon's administration continued on to other jobs like Rumsfeld for example, continuing the corruption. I think it started after WW 2 has gone downhill ever since.

[HassleCat]

2. Huge disaster

It made us professionalize the military, dropping the citizen soldier concept in favor of a quasi-mercenary force. It taught us the futility of using the military to conduct nation building, but we quickly forgot that in Iraq.

[guillaumeb]

3. Serving the country is interpreted very differently.

What changed was that the media actually reported on what the US Government was doing to "make the world safe for democracy".

A lesson that the Government learned by banning free movement of reporters in every war after that.

[FarCenter]

4. It undid the exaggerated patriotism engendered by the propaganda of World War II

They are showing recruiting posters on Antiques Roadshow now.

[UTUSN]

5. David BRINKLEY, years before he came out as wingnut, said the same thing.

It was while he was still reading the news. I can't provide the quote. It was after some background footage and he ended with, "We don't believe those things any more."

[Buckeye_Democrat]

13. Was that the inspiration for this Brinkley parody by SNL?

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/88/88adebate.phtml

David Brinkley: Well, Peter, as I get older, I find I've lost faith in a good many things - country, family, religion, the love of a man for a woman.. I've reached a point where it's struggle to get up in the morning, to continue to plow to a dreary, nasty, brutal life.. of terrible desperation.. at the end of which we're all just food for maggots!

[UTUSN]

14. Wow, you really faked me out!1 I had no idea about the SNL bit. Thanks for that. n/t

[spanone]

6. and then there was bu$h & cheney

[CanonRay]

8. I think you can go back to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution

or maybe even earlier; the Warren Commission to where we ceased to trust our government

[Buckeye_Democrat]

10. Plus Operation Northwoods, which came to light later.

At least JFK didn't approve it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
Operation Northwoods was a proposed false flag operation against the Cuban government, that originated within the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) of the United States government in 1962. The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or other U.S. government operatives to commit acts of terrorism against American civilians and military targets, blaming it on the Cuban government, and using it to justify a war against Cuba. The plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities. The proposals were rejected by the Kennedy administration.

[braddy]

15. A misperception about the Vietnam war is that it was fought by draftees, while WWII was fought by

volunteers, when the fact is the opposite, Vietnam war dead were about 70% volunteers, while WWII war dead were about 70% draftees.

The Vietnam war Army was about 25% draftee, with the Marines a much smaller percentage of draftees, while in WWII the Army was 93% draftees, and the Marines had more draftees than during the Vietnam war.