The Anti-War Movement In The 1970's

In the 1960s and early 70s, the United States fought a fruitless war against the vietnamese. But while a war was being waged in the far east, another war raged on the home front. From when the U.S. joined the war in 1965 to when they retreated in 1974, thousands of young people from all over the country all rejected and protested the war. For speaking their mind against what they thought was injustice, these “hippies” were shunned, denied medical care, beaten, arrested, and some were even killed for peacefully protesting. This was the Anti-war Movement, a time when America went against the judgement of its people, and punished them for having freedom of speech. In 1970, four Kent State University students were killed for peacefully
destroyers guarding the South Vietnamese fleet in the Gulf of Tonkin, sparking war. In February 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced to the public about America’s involvement in regular bombings of North Vietnam. This new war was marketed as “fighting communism,” even though the U.S. was afraid of attacking the two biggest communist global powers, the USSR and China. U.S. citizens first thought that a “Ultra wealthy superpower would have few problems defeating a Third World nation.” By 1967, the U.S. had 500,000 soldiers stationed in Vietnam, and the casualty number was 15,058. In 1968, 562 U.S. soldiers were killed in just one week. With soldiers coming home from the war came along stories of massacres committed by American troops. The most infamous was the My Lai Massacre, where U.S. soldiers killed unarmed northern Vietnamese villagers suspected of being enemy soldiers. This completely showed the stress that the U.S. troops were dealing with. There are other stories of American pilots napalm bombing unguarded villagers and killing children. One Anti-War cry especially affected President Johnson, “Hey! Hey! LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?” The successful Tet offensive lowered morale on both the front line and at home. After continuous losses over the next few years, it was finally realized that this war could not be won, and the last American troops pulled out of Vietnam in early
Hippies were regularly harassed for simply expressing themselves. Almost anybody who had long hair and wore peasant clothing and jeans was discriminated against. They were thought of as dirty, shaggy-looking, and smelly. This created a wall between generations, with the older being “square” and “mainstream.” The Vietnam War further divided these generations, as the older supported the war effort and the younger protesting it. This was the first televised war, so the younger generation saw on TV how the soldiers were being killed and evacuated, and thought that this was immoral. It was especially scary to many young men because they knew that they could be drafted into the war at anytime. Not only did the sight of war spark an immense feeling of truth in the new idealism of “Peace, Love, and Joy,” it caused many people to “drop out” of society. These hippies lived in communes with no address so that the government couldn’t sent draft papers to them. It was a form of protest to live in a commune, with the biggest being in San Francisco. Hippies also protested by wearing old clothing, taking psychedelic drugs, having sex in public, participating in “Love-Ins”, and of course, peaceful