BS: Parental reaction to Viet Nam protests

Subject: BS: Parental reaction to Viet Nam protests
From: dianavan
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 02:59 AM

Another thread got me thinking...

During the time I was marching for civil rights and to end the war in Viet Nam, I was definitely on the 'outs' with my parents. My mom believed the government always did what was best for us and my dad was a loyal vet of World War II. They were all-American and I was considered to be some kind of traitor to my country. I was definitely rocking the boat and had to go. I found refuge in Canada.

What were your parents reaction to your involvement in Peace marches and civil protests?

Subject: RE: BS: Parental reaction to Viet Nam protests
From: JennyO
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 08:56 AM

My parents - fine upstandin' law abiding citizens that they were - disapproved of EVERYTHING I did around that time. As far as they were concerned I was on a fast track to hell, and was already a lost cause. I was pretty much disowned, because I was 22 and actually had OPINIONS!

My brother, although he was favoured because of other achievements, also got very involved in the marches and protests. He was lucky he didn't have to go to Vietnam in fact, because all the 20 year olds had their birthdays put into a hat, and those drawn out were called up for National Service. His birthday was drawn out, but he was excused on medical grounds. Just as well, because he would have refused to go. My parents were none too impressed with his involvement in the protest marches, but tolerated it because he was number one son and no doubt they were glad he didn't have to go.

Subject: RE: BS: Parental reaction to Viet Nam protests
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 09:11 AM

My mother thought that I'd gotten screwed on my National Guard enlistment (I still think so!) and kept trying to get me out. I helped a friend get CO status after I finally did get out and she applauded that. She never said much about Vietnam, but I suspect that since her three sons were in the service within 24 hours of each other (my brother and me activated with our National Guard company and my youngest brother off to Air Force basic training the next day) she wasn't very happy with any of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Parental reaction to Viet Nam protests
From: Scoville
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 11:35 AM

I don't know that my mother ever went to a protest--she had two brothers in the Navy during Vietnam and conservative parents, and I'm sure there would have been an uproar. Her brothers and father were pro-war. Her mother was less pro-war than trusting; she didn't want to see young men die but was convinced that the government wouldn't drag us into something that wasn't just (which was probably the public mindset that let it drag on for so long). I know Mom tried to convince her otherwise but it didn't happen.

Dad had become a pacifist of his own volition (his family leaned left and anti-war but were not dead set against it; one of my uncles joined the Navy as an act of rebellion) during college. He went into the Army after college but his training in geology meant that he spent the time in Hawaii analyzing aerial photographs.

They've both protested every war since then.

Subject: RE: BS: Parental reaction to Viet Nam protests
From: Barry Finn
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 04:10 PM

My Step dad never mentioned the war but had no trust in government thought it was the flip side to the Mafia. My mother hated the war with a passion, my older brother was a seal. My sister & I both marched & proteseted & my mother approved. My Father was a decorated vet & was badly wounded at Guadacanal, he was also dead aganst the war & oftenmy sister would meet up with him at different rallies & marches. Today, our family still feels as strongly as we did back then (those of us that are still alive). My brother can back from Viet Nam but was never right (I believe survivors guilt & he's still out on survivor's leave) but he returned with a hate for that war & that government that sent him into Cambodia & Laos & hates that government that would send his kids to another.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Parental reaction to Viet Nam protests
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 04:23 PM

My mother was bitterly opposed to USA involvement in Vietnam (or anywhere else). My father was somewhat opposed to it as well, but he thought about his business 99% of the time, so the political issues were on his back burner, so to speak.

What my parents tended to object to, mainly, was my long hair (and my general alienated attitude). ;-) I was not a very happy adolescent, to say the least.

Subject: RE: BS: Parental reaction to Viet Nam protests
From: Cruiser
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 04:52 PM

My father was career military, my Mother was just a mom who loved her children whatever they did, and I was a young man who, after college and turning down a student deferment to attend graduate school, volunteered because it was the right thing to do for his country.

My father, who taught ROTC at a university, could not understand why I did not want to make a career out of the military as he and as my older brother was likely to do. My Type-A father died of a heart attack, my older Green Beret officer brother was killed in Laos and I served 3 years during the Viet Nam era. I signed a waiver to go to Nam because I was the only surviving son. I just missed my Port Call for Viet Nam because Nixon started reducing troops being sent to war.

So, my dad was a staunch career soldier and supported the war, my brother died serving his country while assisting helpless Laotian mountain people, and I served my country during a war I strongly opposed. My Mother still has not recovered from the devastation of my brother's death 34 years ago. However, she never once expressed her thoughts about Viet Nam. Mothers are special that way.

Subject: RE: BS: Parental reaction to Viet Nam protests
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 05:00 PM

My brother, the one who was called up with me, has Type II diabetes from Agent Orange, shrapnel in the back of his legs, and COPD. I have hearing loss (and will probably get a disability for it) due to an accident in training when a grenade simulator went off about a meter from my left ear, and my Type II diabetes might have been caused by AO use in Korea (yes, they used it there too). My younger brother, who was Airborne Voice Intercept, still has dreams but because of his job back then (airborne intelligence, among other things) he can't talk about it very much even now.

Subject: RE: BS: Parental reaction to Viet Nam protests
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 05:01 PM

And my mother prayed night and day for her sons...she'd seen her husband, two out of three brothers, and three brothers-in-law and one sister-in-law off to WW2.

Subject: RE: BS: Parental reaction to Viet Nam protests
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 05:22 PM

My father served in WWII, in the Commonwealth forces. He drove a tank and fought the German army till V-E Day. The experience resulted in him holding the lifelong opinion that war is the stupidest and most wasteful of all human activities. Accordingly, I have never known him to be in favour of any war since that one.

Subject: RE: BS: Parental reaction to Viet Nam protests
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 06:07 PM

It's way too long to quote here, but try Christine de Pizan's The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry (Penn State Press, 1999) discussion of war -- Part I, chapter II ff. in my copy (Sumner Willard translation -- I can't read 15th Century French!). Even in 1410 a distinction was made between fighting in defense of yourself and your country and wars of aggression.

Subject: RE: BS: Parental reaction to Viet Nam protests
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 07:21 PM

Anyone has the right to defend his own ground.

Subject: RE: BS: Parental reaction to Viet Nam protests
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 08:37 PM

Of course sometimes the problem is people have disagreements about what is their "home ground", and that's at the root of most of the conflicts around the world today.
...................

The only thing my mother was concerned about when I was on protests was that I might get hurt in some way. Isn't that the bottom line for all mothers?

Subject: RE: BS: Parental reaction to Viet Nam protests
From: wysiwyg
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 10:29 PM

What were your parents reaction to your involvement in Peace marches and civil protests?

I can't really separate out my mom's attitudes about our protest activities from her general style of parenting, which IMO was pretty cool and which I KNOW was unusual among our peers' families.

My mom (single parent by then) always took the position that kids needed space to grow up, and a chance to use our own brains. That meant, also, that if we got into trouble of any kind, we were expected, when asking for her help, to have a plan for what she'd do and what we'd do. Her tacit support for us was always present as long as we showed some sign of having thought about what we proposed to do-- from bringing kids home who'd been thrown out of their house, to staying all night at a cast party in high school, to going to anti-war activities. As long as we told her what we were doing, and listened if she had concerns/ghuidance, we pretty much had not only her OK but the use of the one family car to do it, and precious gas bucks from her tiny budget to get there and back. As a result of this forward-thinking attitude, my mom always got the truth from us, unlike so many of our friends who regularly lied to parents to keep the flak down.

As far as war positions, I really don't know what her own position was. She'd grown up in a middle-class, professional family, but now that I think of it, her own mother was ahead of her time as a career woman in business. That must have been a big source for my mom's independent-thinking streak, and I think she votes Libertarian nowadays. I think she always thought gummint was pretty stupid and untrustworthy, as a starting point, but then I remember her feeling that way about anything that took itself too seriously. I also remember that finding silly thinking hilarious was a family tradition.

She didn't ever say much about her politics-- it was her business, and I don't recall her ever forcing her own ideas about anything down our throats.

But then, we really were pretty tame, and like I said, she is pretty neat.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Parental reaction to Viet Nam protests
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 12:16 PM

Excellent. You were fortunate to have such a mother.

Subject: RE: BS: Parental reaction to Viet Nam protests
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 12:52 PM

I was a little too young for that trauma, but this thread has just caused me to realize that in the fifty years I've known my father, he has never spoken a single word against a national politician, US or Canadian, until the arrival of George W. Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: Parental reaction to Viet Nam protests
From: dianavan
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 02:27 PM

Same with my mom, heric.

Like I said, she always thought the government always did what was best for us but when the U.S. invaded Iraq she just shook her head and said, "Can you imagine being a soldier with Bush as your Commander in Chief?" She feels nothing but disdain for Bush.