Those were the days, my friend: Vietnam and Iraq protests, protesters, and nostalgia
A succinct headline in the Washington Times summed it up nicely: “Anti-war protesters echo Vietnam.” The accent is on the word “echo”—as in “a distant, fainter, repetition.”
The anti-Iraq War demonstrations in DC over this weekend were self-consciously and purposefully designed to mimic the protests of yesteryear. But like all retro fashions, they didn’t quite resemble the originals.
Approximately forty years ago, on October 21, 1967, before Tet and before Nixon, the first mammoth Vietnam antiwar demonstration was held. Participation was estimated at 100,000 plus, and clashes with police resulted in 600 arrested.
I wasn’t at that one—and I wasn’t at Woodstock either, although most people my age claim they were. But I was there for the next big one, on the cold clear day of November 15, 1969, along with what are estimated to have been between 250,000 and 500,000 of my peers.
It was a group event all the way; I drove down from Boston with a carful of housemates and their boyfriends, including mine. I recall the sky in DC that day as being a deep and startlingly clear blue–almost as blue as the bluest sky I’ve ever seen, on a certain sad day in September almost thirty-two years later.
Back in DC in 1969, the crowd was very calm:
…the government had figured out how to handle the huge crowds, monitoring the demonstration with 3,000 police officers, 9,000 Army troops (who were kept out of sight in reserve), 200 lawyers and 75 clergymen. The New Mobe [the group organizing the event] had recruited thousands of its own armband-wearing “parade marshals” to help keep order.
By November of 1969 major US involvement in the Vietnam War had gone on for about five years and caused approximately 22,000 US deaths. The draft was still very much in operation, and it’s no coincidence that the demonstrators were mostly of college age; the immediacy of the draft fueled the size of the protests.
What did we expect as a result of our efforts? Demonstrations always have an element of self-indulgent theater, it’s true. But I believe many of us did think we’d actually make a difference. Our own template may have been the Martin Luther King Civil Rights march of 1963, which predated the passage of the historic Civil Rights legislation of the mid-60s, even though there was no simple one-on-one cause and effect involved.
I’ve already written at length about the 60s, Vietnam, and my own small participation in the antiwar effort, in the multi-part Section 4 (it starts here) of my “A mind is a difficult thing to change” series. So I’m not going to go into depth about that right now. Suffice to say I’ve rethought the entire era and come to different conclusions.
Some, of course, have not. And some have, but have moved in a different direction. An example is good old Ramsey Clark, who was at this weekend’s festivities, fresh from his failed attempt to save Saddam Hussein from the noose. It’s been almost forty years since that 1967 march, an event Clark feels was the turning point in rallying sentiment against the Vietnam War. Clark, of course, was on the other side of the barricades back then (literally) as Lyndon Johnson’s Attorney General, engaged in some of the administration’s preparations to deal with the march.
But it just ain’t like it used to be. You can’t go home again, according to Clark. “I can’t tell you that we have the depth of passion or breadth of commitment today that we had then,” he said (although the “we” back then to whom Clark refers remains a bit obscure, given his position at the time).
The numbers this past weekend? Estimated at between 10,000 and 20,000, with counterprotesters—many of them, interestingly enough, Vietnam vets—numbering “in the thousands,” as well. The Vietnam vets were on both sides of this demonstration, of course, as would be expected.
Differences are vast between these two wars. There is no draft now, for one thing. For another, the number of US casualties in this war is significantly less. I can’t speak for everyone, of course, but to us back in 1967-1969 a US win in Vietnam seemed (rightly or wrongly) to be of more marginal importance, the consequences of withdrawal less grave. And remember, we did not have the example of what happened in 1975 and afterwards in South Vietnam before our eyes; it hadn’t happened yet (see this and this for my more recent thoughts on the end of the Vietnam War and its aftermath).
This is not true of today’s protesters, who should at least be aware of that history, however they may interpret it. Some of them, such as 36-year-old Maggie Johnson, show an astounding inability to understand differences in scale when making historical comparisons. This quote from her referring to World War II is a good example:
We’ve been in Iraq longer than we were in World War II and we’ve accomplished a heck of a lot less. It’s time we wrap it up.
Does this woman understand how many men fought in World War II? How many died to achieve what was accomplished then? Would she for a single moment have stood for such numbers?
Here are the figures: the estimates are that between thirteen and sixteen million Americans fought in that war. About 311,000 were killed. Many millions more died all over the world; here are some figures to ponder. The numbers are staggering, and these are just the military deaths, although during WWII civilians in Europe and Asia suffered and died almost as readily.
Ms. Johnson is making some other errors of comparison. Because the length of World War II to which she refers was the length of the “hot” war, the one that in Iraq lasted a matter of mere weeks. World War II was followed by lengthy occupations and rebuildings of both Germany and Japan before it was over and its “accomplishments” solidified.
Apparently, people were more patient then. Here’s a quote on the subject from General Abizaid, due to retire soon as Centcom commander:
How do you win a “long war” against Islamic extremism if your country has a short attention span? That’s an overarching concern for Abizaid in a conflict where time — not troops, not tactics — is the true strategic resource. “The biggest problem we’ve got is lack of patience,” he says. “When we take upon ourselves the task of rebuilding shattered societies, we need not to be in a hurry. We need to be patient, but our patience is limited. That makes it difficult to accomplish our purposes.”
The protesters are nostalgic for the heady days of the 60s, when hundreds of thousands could be mobilized for the street theater of the time. They may forget that, when the draft ended, so did most of the protests. Or perhaps they don’t; maybe that’s what’s behind the call by some of them to resume the draft.
Ah, nostalgia; ain’t it wonderful? They’re nostalgic for the good old days of the mega-demonstrations. I’m nostalgic for the days when the American public had more patience for the fight against an evil that they seemed to see more clearly, and the endurance for the long hard slog of rebuilding a broken country afterwards.
“Approximately twenty years ago, on October 21, 1967, before Tet and…”
No. That was some forty years ago.
Nostalgia just ain’t what it used to be.
Wonderful post. Personally I think Americans have the patience to fight evil if they are told the truth about the fight. Unfortunately, the main stream media doesn’t do that. They only sell the bad side and if you hear enough of that even the strongest person wants to give up after awhile.
I went to my first protest on Saturday, I was a little busy in the 60’s what with serving my country and stuff. I can assure you that those standing around the wall and the Lincoln mem. know exactly what happened during and after the vietnam war, and many place the blame on the same culprits (congress & MSM) that are underminning our efforts today in the WOT. There were 54000 reasons to serve again and I am glad I went.
I was at the one in ’67. I was one of the soldiers who cleared the steps. I’d like to clear some of the hype from the the Jeff Leen article.
I saw no bayonets but there are pictures of some MPs with sheathed bayonets.
That the Pentagon steps were “splattered with blood” is a foolish statement. The names of the injured would now be legend had that been so. A violent group broke through the line of MPs to reach the Pentagon doors. Some came to sport some noggin knots from the MPs or the US Marshals. A company of Combat Engineers then emerged from the Pentagon to rout the violent group. They weren’t harmed but overpowered.
There was later one tear gas event reported but that was in a different spot.
I remember protesting in the fall of 1970. We were trying to get ROTC off campus. The most notable thing about the protests that when the draft ended, so did the protests. In retrospect I would say we weren’t interested in the Vietnamese people so much as our own skins.
Shades of personal deja vu all over again. March in SF, Berkeley, and then to the very apex…interviewing Jane Fonda herself in Santa Barbara, she, recently returned from North Viet Nam.
Best experience I ever had, politically speaking. I watched, listened and came away stunned, thinking that it is possible that, in my opinion, I may never have been within arm’s length of a bigger phony and opportunist.
And thus with this epiphany I began my long march from the religion of screwy, “wishful thinking” darkness of political leftwing nonsense, back into the light of conservatism — and reality. Thank-you, Jane…I am forever in your debt!
Right you are Billhedrick! Let’s celebrate by painting some of the current protestors in psychedelic patterns and driving them over the Canadian border in a bus.
Oops, thanks George. Slip of the fingers–meant forty and wrote twenty. I guess I’m in denial about time’s passage. I’ll fix it right now.
D Anghelone: why doesn’t it surprise me that the reportage of the event wasn’t quite correct?
Let’s see. I was in junior high and high school in Casper, Wyoming during those years. Saw it all on the nightly news though. And in Forrest Gump.
I do like that song: Those were the days, my friend. I thought they’d never end . . .
We’ve been in Iraq longer than we were in World War II…
Of course, WWII had been going on for over two years before “we were in” it — ten years if you date if from the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
Apparently, people were more patient then.
I disagree. People were just as impatient back then as they are now. But what they didn’t have, was the technology that we have now, that “compresses” time and work.
It is not that people back then were anymore patient than people now, it is that people back then had different expectations.
It is not even that this country has a short attention span, that is the problem. Although the SAS does exist. The problem is that the media propaganda produces something called apathy amongst Americans, as it is designed to do. And that is the problem. The media makes people not care about the war, by filling their psyches with images of death and loss for no gain. They want it to stop, the people want it to stop because they cannot withstand and take the psychological torture of the media and images they see. Civilians were never trained for this kind of warfare, Neo.
Remember, while the Nazis and the Japanese had their own propaganda networks, they were still fighting a hot war. And when they lost, after a lot of fighting, dieing, and killing, their propaganda was disproven. That didn’t happen in Iraq. Some of it did, like the Iraqi guy who kept saying they would beat our arses and that we wouldn’t take Baghdad Airport. But that was short, too short, to make much of an impression upon anyone’s psyche. The enemy propaganda after May 2003, however, had enough time to sink in and do its work. So America never really become immune, like the WWII generation was. They never had to deal with the propaganda, and now they are, inadequately.
So what I think is more important is not patience, but expectations. If you can get the right expectations, at all the right times, patience will come naturally.
WWII was a continuation of WWI. Which actually, if you included the Cold War (Stalin being an early ally of Hitler), this would make it the SECOND hundred years war of Europe. As opposed to their first 100 years war.
billhedrick:
“The most notable thing about the protests that when the draft ended, so did the protests. In retrospect I would say we weren’t interested in the Vietnamese people so much as our own skins.”
I think its even shallower today. No draft, far fewer combat deaths and an enemy that would certainly be more brutal towards the Iraqi’s we left behind. All to win a victory against Bush. All so the great unwashed can feel personally validated and one day tell their grand children of how they stood for peace and justice. The irony is amazing.
And the music today is no where near as good. (IMHO).
“All to win a victory against Bush.”
Actually, I am convinced that the reason the Democrat Congress betrayed the Cambodian and Vietnamese people by denying them the funds and air support promised to them by Treaty when they were under attack, was largely to deny a victory to Nixon’s legacy. They have so much blood on their hands already, but it apparently isn’t enough!
Their betrayal was the beginning of the end of my affiliation with the Democrat party.
Well, yes, here’s a cynical point of view. How does marching thousands of miles away from a war zone.. marching in complete safety, full of food, drink, music, and comradeship.. translate into moral good of any kind? What breadth, –actually lack– of understanding of the issues does putting one foot in front of the other exhibit? How does it translate into rational debate of any sort?
So, Q: One may grant that, in US history, marching in the streets has had its value, as in the civil rights’ movement. But in general, in republics, or representative democracies, what ends do street marches accomplish? How can a mob vote, which is the essence of democratic rule?
Do they not become substitutes for the true will of the people, beasts for any demagogue to hang his shrill imprecations upon?
Carriers of any sort of foul agenda or cause.. It seems to me the Democratic party must answer yes to the latter. Those mobs of the 68 convention were the Democrats’ death warrant. Their nihilistic surge would envelop the Party, and lead it down the path of irrationality, dis service, and finally abrogation of actual responsibility to the American electorate.
For what do the anti war marchers of March 17, 2007, offer America? Who are they? Who cares? Their lack of thinking should shame us all, even the media. They remain anti-anti-anti. They are a danger in a real world that requires real answers. That is likewise true for the Democratic party.
I am reminded of the old Tom Lehrer ditty, Folk Song Army. In his introduction to the song, Lehrer says, “It takes a certain amount of courage to get up in a coffee-house or a college auditorium and come out in favor of the things that everybody else in the audience is against like peace and justice and brotherhood and so on. The nicest thing about a protest song is that it makes you feel so good.
“I have a song here which I realise should be accompanied on a folk instrument in which category the piano does not alas qualify so imagine if you will that I am playing an 88 string guitar. ”
And then…
We are the Folk Song Army.
Everyone of us cares.
We all hate poverty, war, and injustice,
Unlike the rest of you squares.
There are innocuous folk songs.
Yeah, but we regard ’em with scorn.
The folks who sing ’em have no social conscience.
Why they don’t even care if Jimmy Crack Corn.
If you feel dissatisfaction,
Strum your frustrations away.
Some people may prefer action,
But give me a folk song any old day.
The tune don’t have to be clever,
And it don’t matter if you put a coupla extra syllables into a line.
It sounds more ethnic if it ain’t good English,
And it don’t even gotta rhyme–excuse me–rhyne.
Remember the war against Franco?
That’s the kind where each of us belongs.
Though he may have won all the battles,
We had all the good songs.
So join in the Folk Song Army,
Guitars are the weapons we bring
To the fight against poverty, war, and injustice.
Ready! Aim! Sing!
************************************************
I’m new to this website. Its great to see so many reformed leftists in one place. I too went to many protests primarily for the shallow reason of meeting girls. Yes, the music was better then.
Of course the other benefit from protesting back in the day was that the hippy chicks were pretty easy.
billhedrick.
Yeah, but no cuter than now, which means….
In 1997, my wife and I chaperoned some kids to Spain–she being a Spanish teacher. The other chaperones said they’d watch the kids one evening if my wife and I wanted to go out.
We got to a little bar, authentic as hell, with a couple of singers and guitar backup. No rock.
So I asked for a couple of songs I knew, Spanish folk songs. Actually, there are a lot of Spanish folk songs and they’re probably better than “The Battle at Gandessa”. But I didn’t know them. Forgot that the losers got the songs and the winners had the secret police around the bars. Franco died a year or two later.
Limelighters. Early album.
Well said – about 5,000 were KIA on day one of the liberation of Europe alone. I hear some Che posters were to be seen……
I was mildly attractive then. I do miss that part.
Yeah, assistant. That sort of thing was important.
I looked around and decided to join a community center outreach program run by Panhellenic Council–sororities.
Beat hanging around with guys all the time.
Crap. Spain. Franco. 1977. Not 1997.
Found a picture of the group recently. Those kids are all in their fifties.
Damn
Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party, Civil War draft riots, Hoovervilles – Americans have taken to the streets since basically forever and for lots of different reasons. We may find the current crop of acters-out repugnant, but their activities are more or less an American tradition. I’d only worry about them if they found a charismatic leader and/or if they adopted violent confrontation as a purposeful tactic. Otherwise, I’m afraid they’re just freaky fellow-citizens.
I’m new to this website. Its great to see so many reformed leftists in one place. I too went to many protests primarily for the shallow reason of meeting girls.
Truly, your defection was a great loss for the Cause.
/end sarcasm
Crap2.
Madrid, Franco. 1973. In 1975, we took the kids to Mexico.
Look, I understand the need to blame protesters and the media for the consistent failures of hawkish conservative foreign policy. ‘Tis much simpler to blame bogeymen than to admit that one’s own geo-political prescriptions have been demonstrably misbegotten, especially when overseen by venal morons with no clue about what going to war often entails. And, to be sure, the Dolchstosslegende has had its political utility over the years. So, it’s understandable, albeit rather pathetic.
What I can’t countenance is imputing base motives to people who participated in the finest tradition of American expression based upon a simple, obvious error. The Paris Peace Accords were signed in January 1973. By March of ’73, the bulk of our forces were on the way out of Vietnam. It was only later in the year of 1973, as the Section 20 cases worked their way through the courts, that conscription ended. So isn’t the end of the war the more likely reason for the protests to have ended by then? I mean, you were there, right, Neo?
I’ve found myself slowly but surely leaving the fold and becoming that dread thing: a neocon.
Barbara Amiel Black (Conrad Black’s current wife) used to claim all the time that she was a “former leftist” until a gaggle of her old university cohorts banded together and testified to the fact that she had always been a rightwinger.
You have always been a neo-con because you probably never were all that grounded in reality to begin with.
You appear to live in a dreamworld. There is no such thing as the liberalism you rail against. What, seriously, do you think you’re talking about?
You have always been a neo-con because you probably never were all that grounded in reality to begin with.
(from Foreigner) (surely an appropriate label by the way)
A: Or to the contrary, neo was and YOU aren’t.
May I point out that the U.S. invasion of Vietnam was illegal, not a matter of defending the territory or jurisdiction of the U.S. The U.S. aggression in Vietnam was also unnecessary and harmful to the interests of America. And similar to the Iraq war, it was also horribly cruel and unjust, killing many hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Morris’ article neglects to mention this essential context, leaving the reader to assume the U.S. role was legitimate, and that some valuable thing was somehow lost in Vietnam. It wasn’t. America awoke from its crime, its murderous project, and has tried since then to regain our peace of mind. Until this latest crime in Iraq we were healing.
May I point out that the U.S. invasion of Vietnam was illegal,… U.S. agression … horribly cruel and unjust … its crime, its murderous project … Until this latest crime in Iraq we were healing.
And 9/11? What, just a hiccup? And anyway, we had it coming, right?
Doncha just love the lefties? Imaginary “healing” from fantasy “crimes”, seeing-no-evil-but-America, drifting ever deeper into their own little paranoid, hate-fueled never-never land, and all the while preaching to anyone who’ll listen — namely, themselves — how “reality-based” they all are. But in reality, they’re just striking illustrations of what happens to its adherents when an ideology contracts rigor mortis.
And 9/11? What, just a hiccup? And anyway, we had it coming, right?
And 9/11 has what to do with Iraq, pray tell? Last time I checked, it was a bunch of Saudis who flew those planes into the Twin Towers, not Iraqis.
Last time I checked, it was a bunch of Saudis who flew those planes into the Twin Towers, not Iraqis.
And when was the last time you checked, Nicky? If you ever really checked you should have noticed that country of origin has precious little to do with the matter. What does have to do with islamist terrorism, however, is state support for it, whether active or passive — and in that context Iraq was at the focus of a number of such players, which included (and still does include) Syria and Iran. All in good time.
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And when was the last time you checked, Nicky? If you ever really checked you should have noticed that country of origin has precious little to do with the matter. What does have to do with islamist terrorism, however, is state support for it, whether active or passive – and in that context Iraq was at the focus of a number of such players, which included (and still does include) Syria and Iran. All in good time.
Sounds good. When will you and your fellow College Republicans be signing up for the front lines?
I’ll sign up if they’ll take an HIV infected dope smoking hippie, or if Nick J’s wishful thinking frees Tibet. Maybe you could get the ball rolling for us in Darfur; or, if you really feel the Saudis are our enemies, maybe you could start a covert war against them. But, no; you’ll sit around like a coward and say it’s everyone else whose too afraid to fight for their ideals.
Boy, that Nick J is so “brave” to post annonymous comments on the internet against all opposition. If only YOU had been at Thermopolaye. We’d all be speaking Farsi now.
I’ll sign up if they’ll take an HIV infected dope smoking hippie, or if Nick J’s wishful thinking frees Tibet. Maybe you could get the ball rolling for us in Darfur; or, if you really feel the Saudis are our enemies, maybe you could start a covert war against them. But, no; you’ll sit around like a coward and say it’s everyone else whose too afraid to fight for their ideals.
I don’t support the war in Iraq, hence why I don’t fight in it. You do support it, and yet you don’t fight in it, or volunteer to go over there and help in some other fashion. Hypocrisy is as hypocrisy does.
I’ll sign up if they’ll take an HIV infected dope smoking hippie
Also, if you are a hippie, then I’m the frakking Queen of England.
Well, get ready for your coronation, Queenie boy(Nick J). Hair’s currently in a pony-tail half-way down my back. Smoking a bowl as I type. But, no, I don’t live on a commune. Waddya think, Q.E.III?
What are you, Nicky boy, a freaking suit?
You(Nick J) don’t fight in Iraq, fine. But every other cause or enemy you list that “we” should be fighting instead isn’t cause enough for you, either. If you think the Saudis are our enemies, go fight them. So, I’m a hypocrite if I don’t fight in a war I support, what does that make you? It makes you a hypocrite who won’t fight in a war you support.
I,m F-4, you just don’t “believe” in it. How does that make you morally superior to me, exactly?
Well, get ready for your coronation, Queenie boy(Nick J). Hair’s currently in a pony-tail half-way down my back. Smoking a bowl as I type. But, no, I don’t live on a commune.
Oh, you have long hair and you’re a druggie. Sorry, that doesn’t automatically make you a hippie. If it did, every pot head Libertarian would be on a commune by now.
You(Nick J) don’t fight in Iraq, fine. But every other cause or enemy you list that “we” should be fighting instead isn’t cause enough for you, either. If you think the Saudis are our enemies, go fight them. So, I’m a hypocrite if I don’t fight in a war I support, what does that make you? It makes you a hypocrite who won’t fight in a war you support.
When did I ever say we should be fighting the Saudis? I simply said that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, and that none of them were Iraqis. Which was in response to Miss Sally’s implication that 9/11 was somehow connected to Iraq, which it wasn’t.
But Queen Nicky, Al Qaeda WAS and IS connected to Iraq. It’s like saying “Mussolini had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor”. Richard Cohen says so, Richard Clark says so, the 9\11 Commission says so. You’re either with us or against us. Iraq chose “against”. Iraq supported terrorists who attacked us. Iraq’s “direct” connection to 9\11 is irrelevant. And you’ve just been bested by a hippie on drugs, loser. At least TC the resident nazi makes it challenging.
“Tune in; turn on; drop out”, man.
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Geez, I was never a neocon…I guess I’ve always been a common conservative and common man.
I volunteered for the Army and volunteered for Nam. ‘Spent 9 months there before I was medivaced back.
It didn’t change my mind about how I felt about my country then.
I was one of those, who were literally spit on and called a baby killer. It broke my heart…but it didn’t change how I felt about my country.
Years of college and then, many more, chasing broken dreams and ambitions to no end.
The body breaks down and your beard turns grey. The broken dreams remain…the goals unchanged.
I see today, what I’ve endured back then. The same decievers and haters are practicing their arts again…My heart still pains. Not just for me and mine, so many years ago, but for the brave young soldiers this morning, that do what soldiers always do. Love their nation and offer service and sacrifice, without reserve and refrain.
I don’t want them to feel the pain I felt… Not the wounds I suffered over there, but a deeper, more searing scar I recieved, when I came home.
But it hasn’t changed my mind. I still love my country…I alway’s will. I feel they do too. Those who paid the ultimate price, and those who are still paying in ways most of you will never know…The currency is love for our country, and the recepient is you.
God Bless America
Don in Tulsa
You know, that “If you support the war, why don’t you sign up” is SO 2004.
There are tones of good legitimate reasons for a 18-28 year old not to sign up for the military even if he supports the war. If you can’t acknowledge that, you are showing both obtuseness and intolerance.
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