Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Undertoad
If you think things are going to hell in a handbasket, maybe you don't remember - things are always going to hell in a handbasket. We have seen this before, and not only did we live through it, we got better.
For example, Iraq is now broadly considered another Vietnam, but Vietnam was in fact much worse. Many more soldiers died during it and those soliders were typically drafted. When you focus out on the big picture, you see things anew. As a threat to civil liberties, roving wiretaps just don't compete with people being taken off to war against their will. In these days, the civil liberties horror is that the protestors have to be in a certain special area. Back then, people were getting SHOT during protests.
|
The US first became involved in the Vietnam conflict in 1956. The first contingent of marines arrived there in 1965. My Dad did his first tour in 'Nam in 1964. At that point, military with orders for Vietnam could still sometimes bring dependents with them on their tour of duty. I remember reading the army pamplet for spouses and families on what to expect of life in Saigon. Who can say what the conflict in Iraq will turn into? Not me. I do know that the army is having great difficulty meeting recruitment targets and over on the
Army Times board, there is the strong scent of a new draft order in the air. Something is going to have to give at the current rate. We will either get out of Iraq or re-instate the draft. Certainly, young men are still being required to sign up for selective service.
As far as anti-war protestors being shot, this was not a matter of government rules or regulations. Kent State was the result of inexperienced members of the National Guard under incompetant leadership, not official policy. It is now official policy that protestors be cordoned off somewhere out of sight. This is an infringement of free speech that was never dreamed of in even the darkest days of the Vietnam era.