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I notice you spell that Southeast Asian nation the way it used to be. I don't know where the name went from two words to one.

My parents were involved in politics, so I did hear about Viet Nam, but from a hawk's perspective. I come from a long line of bluenose Republicans. Which may be why I am a screaming liberal independent.

We also had family members and friends in the military, at that time. I seem to remember boys my age talking about having to register for the draft. But it wasn't until I was in college that it hit me. During those years, I lost classmates and the young man I thought I was going to marry. I became as dovish as they come. And am basically the same today. War is stupid.

Knowing guys that were killed and shot up really turned me against the war. In the dorm we cheered when Johnson delcared he would not run again. Then it was good times when Humphrey was defeated. Everyone thought Nixon would get us out of the war. Little did we know .....

My senior year in college I was lucky to pull a high draft lottery number. When Life magazine published the pictures of 242 men killed during one week of the war it left an empty pit in my stomach. I rate it up there with Walter Cronkite saying the war could not be won as moments that turned the public against the war.

I believe you are correct in your assessment. I remember the shock wave that went through me when Uncle Walter made that observation. It was in the late '60s, 1968 or '69, and I seem to remember it was during or after the Tet offensive. I watched him on a regular basis and thoroughly trusted him.

Paul was killed not long after that (he had been in country fewer than 72 hours; he was a 2nd Lt.), and my cousin Ted (a Marine lance corporal, in VN about a week) was so badly wounded he could not be moved from a field hospital for a while. It was many months before he was back on American soil -- from that MASH unit to a hospital in Saigon, then to South Korea for a long time. Eventually, he was moved to Honolulu, where he finished most of his recovery. He was sent to the naval base in San Francisco, where he was mustered out and continued getting care.

He was so badly damaged psychologically and emotionally that he returned to the East Coast, and family, only twice since then -- when each of his parents died. For many years, he lived where he could in Marin County, Calif., got really good at Dumpster diving and worked the occasional odd job. Today, he is a well-respected artisan who does wood turning and lives in the hills of Sausalito.

I am really glad so many of our young men did NOT sacrifice their lives for a losing proposition, fueled by irrational fears and male hubris. But here we are again.

I started working at a VA hospital in '66, it was mostly old WW I and WW II guys. War stories didn't really have much of an impact on me. Then we started getting in guys my age from Vietnam - that's what got to me. We were mostly a psychiatric hospital and a lot of the older personnel had an attitude of "war is war" and didn't buy in to PTSD. I was part of a "youth committee" to try to recruit younger people to work there, but we didn't really have much impact because most of the ones in charge were old "seniority" types. I left in '73. Hopefully things are better there today.

We didn't hear much about the physiological effects of guys coming back. Once in a while something was said about someone having a tough time after they came back.

I worked for many years with two combat veterans of the war. One was a hawk and the other a dove. I was friends with both of them but very seldom talked about the war. After the dove retired he talked to students about his war experience. I was at many of the sessions. It seemed as the years went on he revealed more of what happened in combat. He read names at the dedication of The Wall in Washington D.C. For years afterwards he would tear up when we talked about the dedication ceremony.

The hawk was chosen to lead the pledge of allegiance at the dedication of a new school. He was barely able to make it through the pledge before breaking down.

Both love their country and respect the sacrifice soldiers make in defending the US.

I don't remember anything about it in High School. In 1966 my then boyfriend joined the Navy and did 2 13mo tours. Most of what I heard was anti-war. The soldiers weren't supported at all. At least that has changed with this war.

Yes, Bluedahlia77, the fighting men and women of that war often (but not always) were blamed for it, when all those young people did was serve their country. That rage was most definitely misdirected; I never understood it. The anger should have targeted the politicians and industrialists who started it and then kept it going. I am really happy that Americans seem to have figured that out -- or at least have learned not to scapegoat the soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and Coast Guardsmen to show their displeasure at U.S. war actions.

The difference is that it is now an all volunteer army. I wonder what the mood of the nation would be if young men were being drafted and sent into combat. A friend still talks about returning from combat in Viet Nam and being confronted by protesters.

One would think volunteering for military service would make those young men and women more "culpable," as twisted as that sounds. I never understood the hostility of Americans back then against those returning soldiers, especially given that they were in fact drafted -- they had no choice. I think the mood today would turn pretty ugly pretty fast if the draft were reinstituted. But the anger would be focused on the government, not on our kids. I think we learned that lesson, at least.