SCN: What America can expect in a war against terrorists.

[Joe Mabel]

[SNIP]
> American soldiers who
> marched to war cheered on by flag waving Americans in 1965
> were reviled and spat upon less than three years later when
> they returned.
I'd love to know the history of this cliche of the anti-war movement spitting at
returning soldiers. I was very active in the movement against the Vietnam War. I
never witnessed a single incident of ths sort. Plenty of ex-soldiers were active
against the war (surely the existence of VVAW is a lot better documented than
anyone spitting at anyone).

I don't doubt for a moment that somewhere in the chaos of those years some
misguided, ill-informed pseudo-radicals spat at soldiers, but the overwhelming
attitude of the anti-war movement was to see soldiers as potential allies
against a war whose horror they knew far better than the rest of us did.

People who opposed the war have been key in organizations to support its
veterans, ranging from the fight to get benefits for victims of Agent Orange to
the fight to get some sort of GI Bill in the wake of the war.

Are there soldiers who did some blameworthy things in the war? Damn straight.
But I think nearly all of us opposed to the war understood that the war was one
big atrocity driven by the high command and that the soldiers (mostly draftees)
who fought in the war were not the people to blame for that.

Joe Mabel

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