Did calling the soldiers of Vietnam "Baby Killers" have impact?

[Bandit]

It got much Media attention and that seems to be the key. Did the protests groups addressing the soldiers as "Baby Killers" have an impact upon the general population? The mood went from support for the war to overwhelming non-support by the general population. Was some of that based on the effect it was having on our troops. Would it have any effect in this current war?

[skygazer]

1. It was wrong

Blaming the people at the lowest end of the responsibility chain is wrong. Yeah, it had an affect! Those guys are still dealing with the trauma of it today.

Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it. This war is a mistake, like Vietnam was. But let's not make the same mistake protesting it that we did last time, by blaming the men who fought it. Blame the people who sent them there.

[Kanary]

6. "Blame the people who sent them there"

Of course...... I think we're doing that.

On the other hand, it's also important to recognize the atrocities that are being committed in our name. You can be sure there are some troops who are getting their jollies out of committing sadistic acts. Pretending it doesn't happen also doesn't make it right.

Kanary

[Eloriel]

30. Beautifully put

Fortunately, "don't blame the troops" seems to be the ONLY lesson we actually learned from Vietnam. I've been so heartened to note that there's very little character assassination leveled at the troops themselves.

True, as Kanary says, there are some very bad apples, but even at that I have to counsel weighing that against the extraordinary pressures of being at constant risk in an unjust war, with incompetent and sociopathic leadership all the way up the chain of command, a demonized "sub-human" so-called "enemy" -- an enemy which is indistinguishable from non-combatants of the same race just like in Vietnam thus heightening both the fear and frustration, etc., etc. etc.

[tridim]

2. Did the war protesters actually say soldiers were "baby killers"?

I've always wondered if that phrase was taken from one sign, or one protester's mouth and blown out of proportion, the same way things are done today. Look at Kerry, who praised the Cheneys for having a lesbian daughter. The media echo chamber, prompted by Dick and Lynn is quickly turning his compliment into a slam.

[Kanary]

5. I was there. In Berkeley. It wasn't as common as we're now led to believe

Certainly it wasn't productive. However, most of what was said was the same as now, "Bring The Troops Home."

The RW manages to make it sound like the returning troops were all called names and spit on, and that's the usual RW lies.

Interestingly, the RW didn't focus much on the atrocities committed (except My Lai), and the vets who protested the war.

Some things don't change very much.

Kanary

[TahitiNut]

13. It was far more common after the 'anti-war' attitude became fashionable.

Yes, I use the word 'fashionable.' Every political movement that succeeds (and some that don't) goes through a phase where people affiliate merely because they see it as fashionable. In this case, those people rarely had any real comprehension of the issues. For them, it appeals to their 'mob mentality' - and they focus on a convenient minority. In this case, it was anyone unfortunate enough to have served in Vietnam. It was particularly 'convenient' for those who didn't want to be drafted to be 'anti-war.' (Gee ... could it be possible that self-interest was a greater motivator than principle?)

It's fallacious to ascribe identical motivations to self-proclaimed members of any group. (After all, Zell calls himself a Democrat, right?)

One of the most frequent laments of guys in Vietnam was that their friends and girlfriends who were 'having fun marching' to "bring our boys home" didn't seem to be matching their actions to their words - they stopped sending "care packages" and letters. Most of us, while over there, found ourselves with diminishing indications of personal support from those same friends and family. If people really cared, why did they stop telling us so? That left a very sour taste in many guys mouths, including my own, who sure as hell would have rather been back in the states marching with the pretty girls in a era of "free love."

This was not and is not an era where our comprehension benefits from broad brushes. I continue to be astounded by the number of people who had no direct personal experience in this who proclaim themselves experts. Hell, most of us who were there can't even bring ourselves to say that!

[Karenina]

25. Tahiti, there's something rattling in my brain

about this "30 year old" (since the inception of war) issue. It is fact that many babies were killed in Vietnam. It is also fact that there have been suicides reported among the freshly returned troops from Iraq who could not live with the atrocities they were ordered to commit. This includes killing babies.
Could the emotional reaction to the invective be tied to the level of denial required to survive the situation while hanging on to one's sanity? I hope you catch my drift here... I'm having trouble trying to find an appropriate words to pose the question.

[TahitiNut]

29. The vast majority of 'babies' killed were by the Air Force ...

... from 30,000 feet.

I never saw anything like this happen myself, or recall talking to anyone who saw it first-hand, but I wasn't out doing LRPs or village patrols. I was 'lucky' to spend almost all my time at our largest in-country post: Long Binh Post.

Insofar as (literally) infants actually being shot and killed deliberately by ground troops, I don't believe that happened with any kind of frequency. At the same time, I'm pretty sure it wasn't just a few. While My Lai wasn't the only time it happened, it probably wasn't common as far as I know. Indeed, the ARVN forces probably did so far more than US troops. (Female infanticide is not uncommon in Asia.) I'd risk the guess there might be about (on the order of) 1,000 Vietnam Veterans (out of 2.6 million who served) who have first-hand experience with this - either doing it or seeing it done.

Let's try to realize what the military command structure meant by "free fire zone." They literally meant that we could/should shoot to kill anything that moved. Anything. They meant that there were no 'friendlies' in that area. Only the 'enemy.' Now, take a bunch of scared troops. (Yes, we spent a lot of time scared.) Put them in a place where they're told they're alone. Try telling me they won't shoot. Here's a dirty little secret: Guys that went on patrol more often tried to avoid the 'enemy' than to find them. ("Oh, Charlie's that way? OK, we'll go this way.")

I rather doubt that anyone was ever ordered to shoot and kill an infant. It just doesn't happen that way - despite the Michael J. Fox movie. Some bizarre one-time incident? Maybe. Even then I kinda doubt it.

There's probably not much question that women, children, and infants got killed as 'collateral damage' in fire fights. That's what happens in ANY war. It's absolutely insane and impossible to describe to anyone who hasn't experienced it.

I would imagine that far, far more infants were treated and their lives saved by medics and US hospitals and medical detachments than were killed. (And we spent a lot of time volunteering at orphanages.)

Now ... if 'babies' means someone up to 8 or 10 years old, then that happened. ('Regular' Viet Cong and NVA fighters were often in their early- to mid-teens.) Again, I never saw it first-hand, but this was one of the horrors we had to live with there. The reports of children carrying satchel charges and being used as suicide bombers were regarded as truthful. That was part of our Vietnam in-country training. We were warned of this before getting there and as soon as we arrived.

Every guy had to come to grips with this. Everyone spent time guarding the perimeter of various posts and facilities. Every guy had to figure out what he'd do if a kid came running toward him carrying a satchel charge. (That's when you get religion - realizing that.) My own "decision" was that I'd not shoot. I didn't think I could live with it, so dying was the marginally better option. Thank God I never had to live (or die) up to that decision.

The only "denial" I'm familiar with is the refusal of Vietnam Veterans to discuss their experience with state-side civilians who never got within a thousand miles of having a clue about how it was in Vietnam. It just wasn't worth it. (Maybe it still isn't.)

It's my own belief that the hardest adjustment Vietnam Veterans had to make was coming home. It's amazing to me how adaptive we were to surviving the insanity - adapting to "sanity" wasn't as easy. By far, the largest part of surviving a tour in Vietnam was counting on getting "home" to whatever support group was there: family, wife, girlfriend, friends, co-workers, whatever. We counted every day. We had "short-timers" calendars. Most of us counted how many hours we had left in-country.

"The world" was the pot of gold at the end of the shit-rainbow. It was what we thought about during those many hours of boredom between moments of stark terror.

When we got there, it was gone.

Whatever baggage we were carrying -- well, for most of us, there was nobody available to let us check that baggage.

For some, the baggage was heavier than for others. But it was more about the sense of betrayal - not the guilt.

At least that's my take on it.


Let's also try to remember that there've "only" been about 4,000 Vietnam Veteran suicides ... out of 2.6 million. I came close (whatever that means) to being one.



Just as a point of context, we should recall that Seymour Hirsch broke the story about the My Lai massacre on November 12. 1969. That's when it became 'big news' in the US. I returned from Vietnam on November 14, 1969. That's when I was spat at in SFO and called a 'baby killer.' Maybe that helps people put this in better perspective.

[Karenina]

34. Honeycomb of truth...

:loveya:

[TahitiNut]

37. I think one other point needs to be emphasized.

In 1966, the Democratic party had a 155-seat majority in the House and 36-seat majority in the Senate. That degree of majority has never since been recovered, in either house.

In the 1966 mid-term elections, the Democrats lost 47 seats in the House and 4 seats in the Senate.

In the 1968 General Election, the Democrats lost the Presidency, 5 more seats in the House and 7 more seats in the Senate.

The issues were Vietnam and domestic civil unrest.

Nixon promised to "bring them home." He also promised "law and order."

The "anti-war" advocates were both Republicans and Democrats.

The "pro-war" crowd was also split two ways. One split was between those who wanted to "stay the course" and those who advocated invading and conquering North Vietnam. The other split was between parties: they were both Republicans and Democrats.

So it's an utter fallacy to assume that all or most Democrats were anti-war. It's just NOT true. It's also an utter fallacy to assume that all or most Republicans were pro-war. It's just NOT true.

Many/most 'liberals' were in favor of the war! The feeling that we were helping people keep themselves free was alive and well in the aftermath of World War II. We didn't invade' supposedly because that would have been a war of aggression - hardly liberal.

"Liberals" were split many ways in those days. It's partisan myopia in the extreme to simplistically revise the history of those days and make the "anti-war" people exclusively liberal or exclusively Democratic!

Furthermore, it's an utter fallacy to assume that all or most "anti-war activists" were Democrats. It's just not true. While the protests at the 1968 Democratic Convention sure got press coverage, there's nothing to say that the protesters (outside of the organizers) were all or even mostly "Democrats." The administration in power is the one that gets the protests! The mainstream press has NEVER been "liberal." (Think about which party benefited from the press coverage. Does anyone really think it was "fair and balanced"?)


Subsequent years have resulted in a massive realignment of the political parties - as the entire country has lurched to the far right. It is ignorant in the extreme to take today's alignments and assume the same was the case prior to 1980 or so.

The "far left" in this country has been all but wiped out. What now passes for "far left" is the equivalent of the mainstream liberal wing of the Democratic Party in 1964-66. What now passes for "liberal" in the Democratic party is indistinguishable from liberal Republicans of the 50's and 60's.

[Eloriel]

32. What I notice among some gung-ho pro-war Vietnam vets

(and probably Iraq war vets too) in the realm of denial is that they have to fight like hell to avoid "knowing" that what they went through (suffering they endured and suffering they imposed on others) was all for naught -- based on lies and an unjust war. They cannot allow themselves to know that, thus someone like Kerry -- even after all these years -- is to them a traitor of the highest order.


TahitNut said: Let's also try to remember that there've "only" been about 4,000 Vietnam Veteran suicides ... out of 2.6 million.

You forget the slow suicides -- the utterly wasted (destroyed) lives -- due to substance abuse and alcoholism used to self-medicate against the PTSD.

[TahitiNut]

33. It's only "for naught" if people don't learn.

Just like then, people just don't listen. For many "thirty-somethings," it's ancient history and not worth the effort to understand. Too many think it's just not relevant. And if the (horror of horrors!) draft never comes back, it'll remain irrelevant.

Contrary to popular opinion, Vietnam Veterans were not really more likely to become homeless or self-medicated than their non-Veteran peers.

At the same time, Vietnam Veterans were probably in slightly better physical condition and far more experienced, on average, than those peers. That any combat veteran goes homeless is a crime. That any combat veteran goes unemployed is a crime.

[Kanary]

28. Excuse me.....? I "*HAD* direct experience".

Also, I never "proclaimed myself expert". I spoke from the background of having been in Berkeley at that time, and very involved.

I'm sorry for your experience, but I don't care to have war declared on *me*.

Kanary

[TahitiNut]

31. I was replying TO you -- not ABOUT you, luv,

Once upon a time, in the 80s, I dated (for a short time) a gal who was one of the "Girls Who Say Yes To Guys Who Say No" at Berzerkley. (I sure wish I'd gone there!) She lived in Hillsborough on the peninsula. (Those who know the area might get my point.)

When she found out I was a Vietnam Veteran and draftee, she became an instant expert on what I thought - no matter what I'd say. She just knew I was complcit in war-crimes and supported baby-killers. Needless to say, the relationship deteriorated rather rapidly. Sad. She was otherwise quite attractive to me - smart, liberal, assertive, opinionated, energetic, adventurous, and (yes) sexy.

I still have the vase in which the roses were held that she sent me after the last time I saw her. :shrug: That was nice of her.

[Kanary]

44. Then, I suggest you say that.

Actually, what you said *was* directed to me, and you said nothing about it being another person.

To repeat what I said....... sorry about the hurt your suffered, but I didn't cause it. ONe person does not a crowd of insensitive jerks make.

Kanary

[noonwitch]

3. I don't know, but I do think it had an effect on the soldiers

Can you imagine being drafted, sent to some hellhole country on the other side of the globe and witnessing and participating in the violence of war, while serving your country. After all this, you come home to have people accuse you of being a "baby killer"? Some protetstors took it a little too far when they blamed the soldiers for what happened in Vietnam. They should have stuck with blaming the politicians and welcomed the soldiers back from their ordeal when they returned. I was a little kid during Vietnam, but my dad is a Korean Vet (he did border/sniper patrol right after the war ended). He supported the Vietnam War to a certain extent, and explained it to us that the US had an obligation to help other countries fight off communism. He also said that a lot of people thought the war was wrong and that was their right, but they are wrong to blame the soldiers for it, who are just doing their job.

I'm glad that those of us who oppose this war (and those who opposed the Gulf War) have learned from those mistakes, and don't blame the soldiers for what Bush has ordered them to do.

[TahitiNut]

14. Yeah. I can imagine it.

:eyes:

[AlCzervik]

4. My Dad and my brother in law are both Nam vets

they have both told me they were never called names or spat on when returning home, my dad thinks it's more of an urban legend.

[July]

8. I make a point of asking Vietnam vets about this.

So far, I haven't met one who was called a babykiller or spat upon.

As I remember it, people of my generation (I'm 50) knew plenty of guys who went to Vietnam and plenty who tried to get out of it. The attitude (among young people) where I lived was respect for both sides, concern for those going into combat, admiration for those willing to protest, understanding for those who tried to avoid it.

I'm sure there were a some fools who called soldiers names, but the troops were viewed as victims of our government by most of us, and were treated like human beings.

[TahitiNut]

15. Well, come to Michigan and meet me.

Then you won't have to say that.

[July]

17. I believe you.

As I mentioned, I'm sure there were FOOLS who said these stupid things.

But my little research project has told me that it wasn't nearly as widespread as some people want us to believe -- at least not among the people I've lived among/spoken with.

Sorry you were disrespected that way.

[TahitiNut]

18. Well, I don't know how "widespread" it had to be to actually exist.

From my own estimates, and I've known about 50-100 vets well enough over the years to know, it occurred to 1-4% of us or so. I wasn't "allowed" to talk about it for about 15 years. (I'm still not really allowed to talk about it but I do. Finally.) It wasn't the kind of talk that turned on the girls - at least not the ones I was interested in. It wasn't the kind of talk likely to impress my co-workers. It wasn't the kind of talk my family thought was "polite." And on some of the few occasions I did, I was told (in so many words) that I deserved it, or I should've "expected" it.

I learned to shut up.

Pretty soon, I'll probably "learn" again to shut up on DU.

So, how many did it have to happen to to "really" have happened? 9/11 happened to less than 0.0002% of our adult population. Less than 0.3% of our population has needed an abortion. Less than 0.5% of our population is in prison.

Maybe it's like child abuse? Even though it happens to more than 10% of children, we really don't think of it as that much.


Then again, we tend to ignore things we don't think we can do much about. Heaven forbid we don't let folks to keep on ignoring it. That's sure to result in some social opprobrium - even loss of job or acceptance in "polite society."
:shrug:

[July]

21. It matters regardless of how widespread it was.

I'm sure it was painful for you and those you know who experienced it.

I do have a problem with people who try to paint those who disagreed with the Vietnam war -- as a group -- as people who spat on soldiers and didn't appreciate their service. (As I'm sure you're aware, the right does this quite a bit in order to delegitimize criticism of war.) But within that group, I believe there were misguided, thoughtless, malicious people who were unbelievably unfair to you and other veterans. Whether it was widespread or not (and, as I mentioned, I have asked a number of vets about this, but they are a small sample compared to the whole group), it is significant to anyone who had to deal with it, and the rest of us should be telling the big mouths to STFU.

Why don't you tell your story, and how you feel about it? Does your experience affect how you feel about those who protest war? I think you must have some useful words for all of us -- especially those of us who get too carried away in the heat of passion.

There are plenty of idiots on this earth. You didn't deserve being mocked or criticized. Again, I'm sorry you went through this.

Thanks for serving.

[tibbiit]

27. Yes Urban ledgend started by the "Freepers" of the time

and they were there just as mouthy then as they are now.
and they were just as full of shit.
People were the same, the issues were the same, the battle was the same... the difference is we didnt have an internet.
There is no telling what they got by with before the internet.
tib

[mulsh]

7. no one in my circle called soldiers baby killers

I was one of the youngest member of the SDS, started its only grammar school chapter, I was a moderator, at the age of 12 in the first large moratorium marchs in SF, I rode my bike to lots of anti war protests at the Oakland, Ca induction center on Clay street and in Berkeley. All of us guys, older and my age looked as soldiers as " that could be us."
I thought this story had been relegated to urban legend status. I never knew of any one who felt this way about the soldiers. now our fearless leaders, that's another story.

[Mountainman]

9. From all the other threads on DU about what happened after soldiers

came home from Vietnam, I think that this thread will be made up of opinions based on how you feel today about things that happened over 30 years ago.

Many people see and feel things differently. The truth is what the truth is to you. I think that we have taken reality and colored it with our personal prejudices and the winner will be the ones who shalt the loudest and longest.

[TahitiNut]

39. Ubetcha, brother.

One of the fallacies that too many DUers seem to buy into is the idea that the (pretend?) anti-war types in those days who engaged in name-calling and spitting (however many there were) were the same as liberals of today. It just ain't true.

I personally believe that the guys who did that to me at SFO are probably hanging around at FreeRepublic today. I don't believe they were liberals, no matter wht they may have called themselves. Pretentiously 'anti-war' in those days was a very convenient self-interested, conservative, isolationist disguise (and a good way to get chicks).

I personally believe that the only thing mythical about the "spitting hippie" was that it was a (liberal) "hippie." Thus, it seems to me that the disinformation folks on the right have been successful in taking something they may have done themselves and revising history and blaming it on today's left. In doing so, they delude both today's military (alienating them from the left) and entrap today's liberals into working hard to deny that it even happened. (That's a revisionist history tarbaby.)


Maybe it's easier for me to see. I've always eschewed partisan politics, adhering instead to the best principles I could comprehend. Thus, I've never felt a need to play the game of "my party, right or wrong."

[annabanana]

10. At NYU in the 60's

I remember chanting "Hey Hey LBJ How many kids did you kill today?" But I remember "kids" was theirs AND ours. I did not know anyone who put any more blame on the soldiers beyond "What if they gave a war, and nobody came"........no babykiller stuff at all.........

[mmonk]

11. negative impact on the peace movement

[proud patriot]

12. I was born in 69 to Hippie parents , My Uncle is a Vietnam Veteran

I studied the 50s and 60s in great depth in my
life . I had always wished I'd been around in the
60s to march and participate , not knowing the
world would need me now .

IMHO , mistakes were made during the anti-war
movement . Lots of them which led to the fracturing
of the movement .

calling our soldiers "baby killers" was one of those
mistakes .

I hope we can learn from mistakes so we do not repeat them .
The Movement must not be allowed to fracture this time .

just my 2 cents

[TahitiNut]

16. It's inevitable, luv.

Any political movement will attract those with motives that aren't "pure" and behavior that wasn't "appropriate" - including agitprop types. A "movement" doesn't have an admissions test and doesn't hand out membership cards. Yet there will always be those who paint the entire 'movement' with the behavior of a minority (which can be more than a trivial few), and those who frantically deny that anyone in that 'movement' ever did anything wrong.

Both are deluded.

[Kanary]

Absolutely, mistakes were made! That's why......

That is exactly why I keep trying to get it through to DUers that we ALL have to also look inside ourselves, and look at those parts of OURSELVES that don't fit in with the world we are trying to build.

We ALL carry the baggage from the society in which we grow up, and a lot of it we don't even see, because it's part of the landscape, just as it was during Vietnam.

And, I'm pretty depressed about it, because no matter how much I try to bring this to light, in whatever way, and whatever words, it goes nowhere. As a matter of fact, I doubt that THESE words will be read. :)

Carrying forward the sexism, the critical slams, and lack of interest in actually taking action rather than griping is already carring the seeds of further "mistakes".

What to do?

Hell, I dunno.....

:shrug:

Kanary

[TahitiNut]

43. "What to do?"

Would a :hug: help?

(I always read your words. They're worth it.)

[Love Bug]

19. My sister used to date a guy that happened to

He was called a "baby killer" by one person after he came back from 'Nam. He was also in Cambodia for Christmas the same time Kerry was, BTW.

It is no more fair to condemn all protestors for this behavior than it is to condemn all soldiers for the few who were baby killers.

[SidDithers]

20. I think it was the television coverage that was responsible for the ...

overwhelming non-support. I'm not speaking from experience, I was too young, and I would certainly defer to the DU vets like TahitiNut, Mountainman and saigon68, who obviously know the situation much more intimately than most of us here.

Having the war brought home into the living room. Seeing the death and destruction while eating dinner every night. Seeing the caskets returning to Dover AFB. I think it was images like those that really personalized the Vietnam war to the average American family.

And I believe that is why we've seen such tight control and manipulation of the stories and images of conflicts since then, culminating with the "embedding" of reporters during last spring's invasion.

Sid

[MsAnthropy]

22. That's an urban myth

I wish I could remember where I read that but it was a created story that the media just picked up and ran with and there was no truth to it (like how the Clinton staff trashed the White House before they left and the many, many others the pukes have manufactured). I think the vets suffered more from neglect than abuse when they returned--the suicide rate of returning vets was more than the total number of casualties in only a few years.

[11 Bravo]

24. I beg to differ.

It happened to me personally in the San Francisco Airport the first day I set foot back on American soil. Had it been a guy, there would have been a real problem. I was two weeks removed from the bush and barely fucking human. Instead it was a beautiful young hippie chick so I just said, "Yeah, that's me", and kept on walking. Was it widespread? Not to my knowledge. A majority of the vets I know say that it never happened to them, but it did happen to some of us and it is no fucking myth!

[TahitiNut]

40. Yup. (Welcome home, bro.)

:hi:

[Pig_Latin_Lover]

23. John Kerry never did it, did he?

I have a friend who has a dad who was in Vietnam and his dad says John Kerry called all Vietnam Veterans "babykillers." I, myself, have never found such a quote, and I have always thought it was just a Nixon smear campaign against him.

Kerry never said anything like that, did he? Even if he didn't, people still link him to Jane Fonda when all accounts I have ever read said they only met once (very briefly) and that Kerry didn't approve of most of her rhetoric.

[sangh0]

26. That's right!! Remember, the 59,000 deaths had NOTHING to do with it

Historical revisionism

[The Straight Story]

35. For a minute there I thought this was an abortion thread

And if you think that is an ugly comment, imagine how things would play out today if people started calling the soldiers baby killers - the right would throw back "why do you care, americans legally kill more babies a year than what you have seen in iraq" and so and so forth.

From a tactical point of view, I don't think doing that today would accomplish anything (and for that matter, how many kids are abused and killed in the US by the general population, including kiddie porn, beatings, etc and so on? It would be akin to going out and protesting yourself because others in America do bad things).

Calling vietnam vets baby killers was wrong IMHO - it is labeling a whole group for the actions of some.

[Eloriel]

36. I've had an epiphany on this thread

Of course, some alluded to it downthread (upthread from here)...

I believe that both calling vets "babykillers" and spitting on them was NOT an urban legend -- too many vets here at DU have validated that the experience happened to them.

However, I don't think I've ever seen so many DU vets say, "but it wasn't that widespread..."

And then it occurred to me: of COURSE the right (including our government) would promote these as a common and widespread occurrences to serve their purposes: to help deligetimize and discredit the protest movement, to foment more support for the right (and the war, of course).

You just can't believe a word they say -- it's never been more true than now, but it's quite a revelation to realize how much more true it was then than I realized.

Thanks, all. Thanks especially to my brothers, DU's very own Vietnam vets. I love you all, and thank you for your service, from the bottom of my heart. Who knew we'd all find ourselves in this grotesque deja vu 30+ years later? Our joint experience (esp. yours -- I just sat and waited as a war wife), dare I say our joint wisdom, are needed now after all these years. And this new generation of war vets will need our love and support, as you all know.

[TahitiNut]

41. ..

:hug: :yourock:

[annabanana]

38. This is a very valuable and insightful thread.....thank you

especially Tahiti Nut. Your recounting of your experience sounds much as I (stateside hippie) had imagnined it to be at the time. I remember the sorrow I always felt for those that were subjected to the horror first hand.

[TahitiNut]

42. ..

:loveya:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

45. More of an urban myth than reality.

I was in many demonstrations from '67 on. I rarely saw demonstrations of contempt for the troops. Of course, I was a vet in fatigues, so many of the folks might have held back. But, any notion that they weren't killing "babies" (as if a baby's life is any more precious than someone who is 5 or 20 or 80) is naive beyond repair. What does anyone think those B-52s were doing? Dropping Hershey bars?