For people of the sixties what was your opinion on the war and on the hippie movement?

Question

Would like to know stories, whether you were a hippie and were protesting or if you were for the war.

Answer 1

I run away from home at 17 and joined the Army, went on to become an Army Ranger, and Airborne. Went to 'Nam in '66 for training troops up North in the Highlands with the Hmongs.
We were under fire all the time, morning, noon and night. We eventually, after a year, left and fought our way back to the South, blowing bridges and roads where we could, fighting all the way. I was hit twice.
I was there for two tours and, although I thought the war was needed at the time, I did change my mind years later.

The worst was coming home and being called names. I broke a few noses and knocked out a few teeth. I fought and lost many friends that were dying for a cause we thought was just. I fight these battles every time I close my eyes. Any time someone calls me a "baby killer" ? I remember carrying childern, about thirty, out of a burning school the VC had set on fire, after locking the kids in, to slow us down.
One of our greatest fears was being captured, they took no prisoners, the VC, they were without a heart or conscious.
I can't tell you how we found our men when they were captured, the condition they were in. They were only kids, like myself, 19 at the time. I just started shaving. War is hell.

I have a neice that was a drug poping hippie that had all kinds of reasons that we shouldn't have been in 'Nam but were all twisted with drugs. We haven't spoken a word since that day I came home. She saw me in my unifore and walked away, I haven't spoken to her since.
By the way, she raises pot somewhere in Northern California with a bunch of former hippies. She'll be the only 70 year old pot smoker to go to jail when they catch her

Answer 2

The chances of having a nuclear response to the Cuban Missile Crisis would have been a reality. It nearly was anyhow and with Nixon in the White House he wouldn't have had the courage nor the skills to negotiate with Khrushchev nor the power to control the Pentagon. I think we still would have gotten involved in Vietnam and remember LBJ escalated the Vietnam War not Kennedy. All Kennedy did was send military advisers to Vietnam to help the South Vietnamese develop their own arm forces so they could defend themselves. I doubt if Kennedy would have committed our troops to a "no win" situation. Nixon probably would have ordered an air strike over Cuba during the Bay of Pigs which would have been a disaster as the USSR would have retaliated. I don't feel that Nixon would have supported NASA and space exploration on the same level that Kennedy did. Nixon would have thought of it as strictly a military opportunity to use against the Soviet Union. Because Nixon would have essentially continued the Eisenhower administration, I think that socially we would have merely continued the conservative 1950's for 4 to 8 years. Kennedy was a progressive, liberal, intellectual and he changed the mood and climate of, not only the U.S., but of Europe and South American. He got people (young people especially) excited about changing the world and making it a better place with the development of the Peace Corp, Vista, and ending segregation, etc. He showed us all that we could make a difference.

Answer 3

I was a kid and daddy was for the war(not sure why) but he worked for the military industrial complex that was being blamed for the war. It was bad because we had only three channels on TV and the news came on all three channels at the same time. They went into depth with the reporting and everyday there was the death count. 20 Americans dead today, 200 Vietnamese. If they had killed all they reported, there would be no one alive there today. I can't describe the hippie thing, love, peace, beads, drugs, and the Beatles.