> I think the military men and women today are benefitting from a national guilt over how our returning soldiers were treated.
You could see that even during the build-up to, and aftermath of, Operation Desert Storm. People were ashamed and infuriated over how soldiers had been treated the last time around, and were determined to behave in a demonstrably different manner. That continues … but some of the old attitudes have tried to creep back in, as well. Much less prominently than before, fortunately.
> … my feelings changed considerably … my antiwar sentiments got even stronger as the ’60s dragged on.
My attitude was never so much wholehearted support of the war, as visceral dislike of the most strident voices opposing it. I felt a blistering contempt for the entire ‘counterculture’ (which has only sharpened as the years passed); just as the older brothers and boyfriends of my schoolmates were being sent to war, so it was ‘students’ only a few years older than me who were ranting and screaming and setting fire to things, doing every drug available and inventing new ones while chanting beatifically about peace and love and the Age of Aquarius. I despised them and still do, and didn’t like them any better when they began becoming the government leaders and college faculty they started out opposing.
> For good or ill, that war, and the reaction to it, still resonates today.
Indeed it does. I do suspect, however, that you and I might disagree somewhat regarding the underlying meanings, and lessons that should have been learned.
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Date: 2017-05-21 01:34 am (UTC)You could see that even during the build-up to, and aftermath of, Operation Desert Storm. People were ashamed and infuriated over how soldiers had been treated the last time around, and were determined to behave in a demonstrably different manner. That continues … but some of the old attitudes have tried to creep back in, as well. Much less prominently than before, fortunately.
> … my feelings changed considerably … my antiwar sentiments got even stronger as the ’60s dragged on.
My attitude was never so much wholehearted support of the war, as visceral dislike of the most strident voices opposing it. I felt a blistering contempt for the entire ‘counterculture’ (which has only sharpened as the years passed); just as the older brothers and boyfriends of my schoolmates were being sent to war, so it was ‘students’ only a few years older than me who were ranting and screaming and setting fire to things, doing every drug available and inventing new ones while chanting beatifically about peace and love and the Age of Aquarius. I despised them and still do, and didn’t like them any better when they began becoming the government leaders and college faculty they started out opposing.
> For good or ill, that war, and the reaction to it, still resonates today.
Indeed it does. I do suspect, however, that you and I might disagree somewhat regarding the underlying meanings, and lessons that should have been learned.