Reply #83: So Lydia - as one boomer to another - does that translate into a sense [View All]

[RichM]

that what we were told while growing up was basically true, or basically greatly exaggerated?

When you write, "The U.S. did similar things in Vietnam..." -- the USSR never did anything that killed 3 million or so people, during their crackdowns in Hungary & Czechoslovakia. Vietnam involved dropping napalm etc & chemically poisoning a large part of an entire country. The Russians, while no angels, never did anything remotely like that. Vietnam was violence on a whole different scale.

I'm interested to know how you think of this. We're about the same age, you've long been one of my favorite DU posters (& we both lived in New Haven during Vietnam, IIRC). When I was in college, I generally thought the Vietnam war was wrong, but it's only in recent years that I've begun to understand how terrible a thing it really was. When I look back on it, I see that my view in college was still terribly naive, & unconsciously influenced by some underlying conviction that "our leaders must have their reasons."