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Was the country this divided during the Vietnam war?

Posted by SplitOpenAndMelt420@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 20 comments

Not getting into politics whatsoever just curious if the pro-war and anti-war crowd in the 60s were as diametrically opposed to each other as the two political parties are today

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20 Comments

PPKA2757@reddit

More so. Everytime I think we’re more divided than ever, I ask my mom and other family members who were alive in the 60’s: There aren’t national guardsmen firing on civilians with live ammunition and cities burning. As divided as we are now, it’s not open killing in major cities.
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life_experienced@reddit

I'm glad to see you say this. The late 60s into the early 70s saw some horrific confrontations in a divided America. And the same divisions on so many issues that are front and center today existed then.
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Ok_Orchid1004@reddit

Wasn’t as big a deal back in the 60’s as everyone wants to think it was. I was there, life went on as normal. It seems much worse now IMO.
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bonir_hunter@reddit

As I understand it, people generally had much more faith in the government back then. The degree of Vietnam backlash in the popular imagination is overstated, but the people who cared were more tenacious in their opposition.
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Secure-Ad9780@reddit

I remember Nixon's Silent Majority with their headlights on, the hippies, the civil Rights folks, the anti-War folks, the Women's Rights folks, and the Gay Rights people. Everyone but the Silent Majority intermixed.
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zusia@reddit

Having lived through the 50’s & 60’s I don’t think we can compare war mentality to today, because today we’re just getting started. If we’re still engaged with Iran in a year and we’re putting boots on the ground and our carriers are getting destroyed, then you’ll see the anti-war temperature rise dramatically. Another thing to remember is the Vietnam War was fought so primitively compared with wars today. There was mostly jungle combat. Today we’re use drones and technology as the first offense. Politics plays a bigger role today due to the region, and Israel. Politics in the 60’s was very different.
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Interesting-Run-6866@reddit

I'm pretty sure most people on both sides are opposed to being in Iran.
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ClerkLonely4061@reddit

Unfortunately our head of the “Department of War” has a pastor who says we’re there for righteous causes.
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Quirky_Commission_56@reddit

My dad got drafted for Vietnam and he was pissed. He was lucky enough that his time was up just as his unit was shipping out to Vietnam so his commanding officer okayed him to be released early or I wouldn’t be here to relate the tale.
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Otney@reddit

Yep.
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peter303_@reddit

The young boomers hated the war and the president while their parents who lived through WWII were more supportive.
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Comfortable_Break387@reddit

While the war was divisive, I think it was the domestic stuff (i.e. civil rights) that people were especially divided on.
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KoalaGrunt0311@reddit

They weren't exclusive and the war exacerbated the civil rights movement as well. The military heavily forced racial integration of units, and then expected soldiers to return home to segregation.
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Comfortable_Break387@reddit

Very true as well.
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mustang6172@reddit

Nah. The war was pretty popular before the Tet Offensive.
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Silly_Somewhere1791@reddit

No. The Vietnam thing was about how the attitude toward the war changed while people were already over there, and when they got back they were treated like they agreed with the current push, not the markedly different atmosphere when they left two years prior.
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shelwood46@reddit

They very much were. Some things never change.
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StatisticianBoth3480@reddit

No. And it is batshit crazy.
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Rhomega2@reddit

No. They didn't have social media back then.
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Popular-Local8354@reddit

Worse, this has a broad anti-war consensus.
View on Reddit #84986460