In high school, that is. And my family all drove to D.C. for a huge rally. And even though my father was a college professor and every one of his six children was either already in or within years of attending the best colleges and universities in the nation, not one of us had contempt for the veterans of Vietnam. As an adult, I voted for every single proposition that provided benefits to veterans. I had a cousin who, thankfully, came back from combat in one piece, but I saw news reports of the numbers of dead people, including the people of Vietnam, and I saw how many soldiers returned without arms, legs, eyesight or sanity, and I was appalled by that.
I do not think I was alone in feeling the way I did. I was never smug about it. I knew the protesting was not about being cool or doing the "in" thing. I knew it was about the horror of war and stopping the killing. Unfortunately it would appear that Obama is using this as a way to pander.
I was not attacking anyone personally, and experiences vary. I was a college student at the time also, with a father who had served 4 years in the army in WWII and who was both antiwar and sympathetic to the men going over there. Many kids were. But more, in my experience, blindly ignored the guys doing the fighting or were contemptuous towards them, and their problems and it never occurred to them that the rights and difficulties of these vets meant anything at all. You had a good family and a realistic outlook, but many of the protestors did not share that.
It also did not occur to these kids that if it had been a war they approved of, someone would have had to go fight it.
I'm just giving my own experience. Yes, I read reports that some veterans were being treated badly but I honestly didn't see it around me at all.
I'm not a big fan of the military because it tends to be a conservative institution and supports people like Reagan. But I do try to separate that out from the individuals and what they go through.
My college-professor dad also served at the tail end of WW2, though not in combat because combat had ended by the time he went in.
