A generation of moms who don't remember Vietnam?

[Seabiscuit]

The other day I noted a quote from Cindy Sheehan about missing out on Vietnam. Thinking about her age, 48, I realized that she was 18 when the Vietnam war ended in 1975. So she was in high school for the last four years of the war, yet it apparently didn't make a big enough impression on her for her to feel involved.

Perhaps that's what's going on right now with a lot of moms whose sons/daughters are dying in Iraq as a result of Shrub's lies, yet who experience cognitive dissonance when confronted with a mom like Cindy who is protesting this war. These moms who criticize Cindy apparently don't want to believe their sons/daughters are suffering death/disfigurement "in vain".

These moms (as opposed to Cindy, who has learned her lesson, despite missing out on the lessons of Vietnam in the 1970's) must be of an age to be "too young" (in Cindy's words) to have felt any involvement in Vietnam or to have learned any lessons from it.

I wonder about moms who were college age (say, 18-22) during the last years of the Vietnam, 1971-1975. I would suspect that being in college might have caused them to have been more alert to the Vietnam fiasco (their awareness of Vietnam would also have benefitted from being in high school during earlier years of the war, 1967-1971).

I then must wonder about moms Cindy's age and younger, as well, with children in Iraq. That is, say, 40-48. It is perhaps moms who are 40-48 years old with children in Iraq that are experiencing cognitive dissonance right now because effectively they missed the Vietnam war.

The same goes for dads as well as moms.

At my age, 60, the Vietnam war was very vivid to me. When Johnson betrayed his pre-election promises and sent all those troops to Vietnam in early 1965 I was a sophomore in college, and the student body was outraged. My generation became anti-war protestors during the war. The cognitive dissonance I see going on with some parents of children in Iraq shocks me into realizing how much time has actually passed. Part of me still thinks of myself as young, yet so many parents who are much younger than me are behaving today the way my parents' generation did during Vietnam. It's very ironic and very tragic.

[Kerrytravelers]

1. People have not learned from Vietnam.

I have heard people, from Cindy's age to your age, who still think Vietnam was justified. They refuse to look back on what history has taught us.

No wonder we are in the mess we are today. No wonder.

[Seabiscuit]

4. Sad, but true.

There are unfortunately still many people who lived through the Vietnam war at an age when they could have and should have learned the lessons from that fiasco yet continue living with their heads in the sand.

[FloridaPat]

2. I think a lot of people learned from Vietnam. People like me that did

protests against the Vietnam War were the first to see what * is doing and got on the anti-war protests early.

The repubs have also learned from Vietnam. Don't have a draft. Keep the news media away from the action - or shoot them. Lie to the public to keep everyone thinking things are good.

[Seabiscuit]

7. I agree. People like you and I who protested Vietnam were among

the first to see the * administration's war rhetoric in its propaganda buildup before the invasion for the sham that it was - long before all the phony propaganda was irrefutably proven false.

During that time, 2002-2003, I was astounded at how many people I encountered that were thoroughly brainwashed by the MSM into falling into *'s trap.

[Mizmoon]

3. I too am too young to remember, but I'm a mom

I cannot imagine what it feels like to lose a child - even if that "child" is in their 30s or 40s. I think the only thing that would keep me alive through that kind of emotional suffering would be to take a strong stand in order to find meaning in the child's death.

For some that's a strong belief that that the war is just and right.

I do not blame them. They are tied in knots in pain beyond description. We can only try to guide them with leadership and information. That's where Cindy comes in ...

[Seabiscuit]

5. Good point - that's where Cindy comes in.

I can't imagine allowing my son to go to Iraq. If there were ever any such possibility that he'd fight in some illegal neo-con war and die for a deception, I would move him and my entire family to another country before I'd allow those bastards to kill my son.

[FightingIrish]

6. When I was a sophomore in college...

I was in Naval ROTC and outraged that my fellow students were protesting the war that I had essentially volunteered for. It wasn't until I got to Vietnam that I realized they were dead right in opposing a war that was already a disaster. When I deployed the first time, I tried to keep it a secret from my parents, but a squadron newsletter told them what we were doing. Shortly after they realized where I was, my sister's new boyfriend, an Annapolis midshipman, came to the house in his dress blues. My mom saw the uniform coming up the driveway, thought it was that dreaded bad news and fainted. Mothers bear the worst of any war.

[Seabiscuit]

9. "Mothers bear the worst of any war." You got that right. Thanks for your

input and insight.

[acmejack]

16. Which ship were you serving in?

Old STGC here, USS Robert H. McCard DD-822, USS Davidson DE-1045, USS Harold E. Holt DE-1074. Figured we might have some common acquaintances.

[FightingIrish]

18. Patrol Squadron 48 flying P-3s

[OldLeftieLawyer]

8. We're the same age, Seabiscuit,

and I spent part of last week explaining Watergate to my kids. They had a vague idea of what happened, but were kind of hazy on the details. They know about Vietnam, clearly, because we dragged them along to the marches and protests.

But, their kids are learning - believe me, they're getting it drummed into them - that the government lies, that the military will always betray the common citizen, that Republicans aren't human, and that Barry Goldwater loved his country as much as anyone. They know that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," but it's their government about whom they must be vigilant.

I love the smell of the next generation of Lefties in the morning. It smells like freedom..................

[Seabiscuit]

12. Yes, I know, OldLeftieLawyer... we meet again. :)

I love your phrase: "I love the smell of the next generation of Lefties in the morning. It smells like freedom..........."

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. I am close to her age

and I found this comment odd at first. Our entire childhood was dominated by scenes from Vietnam on the news every night. For many of those years, the Civil Rights movement also dominated our airwaves. And remember that we had no internet back then and no 24 hour cable news. We had only daily newspapers and 3 TV networks. I can remember our phone rarely rang from 5:30 to 6:30 every night - that was the news hour. The war in Vietnam began when I was 2 and ended when I was 21. So our generation was saturated with the Vietnam War.

BUT - I didn't know anyone who fought in Vietnam. I only knew one family who lost a son in that war. This really hit home with me when I went to D.C. and saw The Wall. I stood there and realized I had no names to look up on that wall, no relatives, schoolmates or friends. The reason for that (and I am assuming this is the reason Cindy said what she did) is that Vietnam was soldiered by kids who got drafted and the only kids who got drafted were the ones who didn't go to college and get a student deferment. I grew up in a middle class community where EVERY boy went to college. Our generation, in a strange way, owes its high level of education to the draft and the war in Vietnam.

So it is entirely possible to have grown up in that era and not be touched by Vietnam.

[Seabiscuit]

17. Your post made me realize something. Anyone Cindy's age or younger

never had to worry about being drafted into the Vietnam war. By the time her generation was draftable age, 18, the war was over.

My generation was *very* concerned about being drafted - drop out of college and you could be among the next shipment of body bags. I personally lost several friends and had others who lost limbs, etc. during that war. It was a very personal matter for me.

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. But I really think it was a class war as well.

I honestly knew no families who sent kids over there. No neighbors or school friends. And none of my cousins or other relatives went either. I had a roommate in college whose brother died in 72 in Vietnam. His was the first death that touched me.

I am a couple years older than Cindy. I turned 19 the year Nixon resigned. So kids close to my age were there. My husband was drafted when he quit school. He didn't go to Vietnam, but he was the only one in his boot camp group that did not go over there. He was also the only one in his group of friends who got drafted.

[Seabiscuit]

21. I never saw it as a class war.

It was more of a generational war from my point of view back then.

Sure, the majority of those who fought in Vietnam were young men who did not get college student deferments, generally from poorer families and communities. But that's true of any war that's fought while there's an active draft board. There were still tens of thousands of volunteers who went to Vietnam.

Those who were drafted were male and 18-25 years old. Once you turned 26 you were no longer eligible. Not surprising then that most of the pro-war people were 26 or older when the war began in earnest in 1965. And that the antiwar movement started with those who were 18-25 in 1965.

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. WWII and Korea

had soldiers from all social groups. Vietnam did not. My mother was 16 when WWII began. She told me that EVERY family she knew had soldiers fighting in the war, it touched literally everyone in this country. Vitenam, however, did not.

[Seabiscuit]

26. That's true. And there was a good reason for it.

There were no large organized anti-war groups demonstrating against WWII and the Korean War because Americans, virtually universally, saw those wars (and still see those wars) as legitimate. Vietnam was an exception: I would have to venture that the vast majority from my generation saw Johnson's and then Nixon's adventures in Vietnam as illegitimate from the outset as well as how the war was waged, and how both administrations lied constantly to the American people about it all.

And now we have another illegitimate war, and class appears to be an even bigger distinction, ironically, with an all volunteer army - after watching F-911, and seeing how recruiters go about misleading young kids in poor communities into the armed services during this war, it's hard to imagine any college educated people volunteering to go to Iraq, although I'm sure there exceptions here as well.

[ikojo]

11. All of my adult life (I came of age during the 1980s)

all I heard was how poorly treated the returning Viet Nam vets were. Of course this is primarily a myth created out of whole cloth. The mantra during Persian Gulf War I was SUPPORT THE TROOPS, SUPPORT THE TROOPS...even in the so called anti war movement, the TROOPS were not to be questioned (would these same folks have avoided questioning the SS?) but supported. We were encouraged not to disparage the TROOPS at all.

So, now those who were initially against the war were said not to be SUPPORTING THE TROOPS.

I think this is where people experience cognitive dissonance. Those who came of age well after the Viet Nam war associated opposing war with not supporting troops and with being "anti American." We were supposed to line up behind the president (fuhrer) and not ask any questions as long as an American was somewhere putting his/her life on the line..

When some of the troops do things such as were done at Abu Ghraib and is being done in Guantanamo, they do not deserve support. Torturers, whether American or Germans of 60 years ago, are not deserving of pity. To question these acts is not to be anti troops or anti American.

[Seabiscuit]

15. Thanks. I didn't realize all this "support the troops" garbage came from

the Gulf War.

[madrchsod]

13. i`m your age

although this generation of moms may have missed the war ,i think many had other relatives who may have fought in the war. they may be working or have other daily contacts with our generation of soldiers and dissenters. what i find fascinating about cindy is that she is so "average"...she`s just an average american mom who decided she just couldn`t take it anymore...instead of histrionics of the women of the right she retains her dignity by asking no more than to talk..

[Seabiscuit]

14. Cindy's unpretentious "average" sincerity is what makes her so appealing

I know there are countless exceptions to my speculations, but I suppose I was just trying to discern some pattern that might relate to what people were exposed to based on their age during the Vietnam war. It was Cindy's unusual comment about her own experience during that time that got me wondering.

[lildreamer316]

19. I am a young mom

and I tell you (I was born in 1973; in fact I think on the day the last troops came home; funny eh?) I have seen the effect that war had on many; probably because MY parents were of the WWII generation (both born 33 & 34). I used to be facinated with WWII and read alot about it; and saw the difference in the way both have been look on by history (as it were). Even though I was not alive I will never forget it. And I will not allow my son to forget the lessons learned there if I can help it. I'm committed to this idea.....

[Seabiscuit]

22. Good for you! I've gotten the impression since 2002 that WWII vets by and

large are appalled at Bush and the Iraq war, and vehently opposed to it.

[yardwork]

24. I was fifteen in 1975 and I remember the whole thing vividly

but then, I grew up on a college campus.

Anyway, I certainly remember what our activities in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and elsewhere did to us. It's why I cried so much in the spring of 2003.

It's why a lot of Vietnam veterans were against the invasion of Iraq.

[Pobeka]

25. A generation that doesn't know the reality of war.

The other piece of ignorance, which is just as important to our children, is how traumatic it is to lose a loved one to needless violence.

When we, as a society, fail to recognize or purposely minimize Cindy's grief for political gain, we fail to recognize the grief of 10 or 100 times the number of mothers and fathers in Iraq.

And here is another key point for those who are distressed by Cindy's determination: This kind of grief does not go away easily. This is the kind of grief that in the long term will fuel multi-generational hatred. This is what the leaders who so easily start wars fail to understand, that for every fallen soldier *and God help us innocent civilians* on the other side, there is a remembrance that cannot be placated by nice speeches and token hand-outs. We are making an enemy out of thin air, an enemy that will remember for an unknown number of generations to come. And with that outcome, we doom our own children to more violence and mayhem.

This is why you should never start a war, unless it *is* absolutely the last resort.

I was 15 in 1975...

My prayers go out to everyone around the world, who've lost a loved one because of needless violence.