quagmire

Thinking of the Vietnam War and what it meant, remembered someone I know saying recently, "We fought in Vietnam but they didn't appreciate it!"
(He did two or three tours, I think.)
Naturally I said, "Yes they did."
I never knew anyone personally who showed any kind of disrespect toward American fighting forces in Vietnam. And it seemed I knew very few people (maybe none) who were enthusiastic about that war.

I think the generation that fought WWII -- they certainly were not "anti-military" but they didn't necessarily see the point of -- well the Vietnam effort didn't have the definite list of objectives, and goal / end-point that Second World War had (which everyone Understood).
And I think there was a sense of -- they fought to make the world safe for democracy, and now we WON -- and then, along comes this action in Korea which went on several years, and
THEN
Johnson - Nixon - whatever wants our KIDS slogging through swamps on the other side of the world fighting deadly invisible snipers in the f-----g jungle and think there must have been an overwhelming sense, among the "middle-aged" people who for the most part were Not carrying signs or protesting Anything, but I think there must have been somewhat of a sense of -- DO WE HAVE TO BE "AT WAR" ALL THE
TIME??!!

A friend of mine who survived being a POW of the Japanese during WWII was on the draft board in the 60s and, he said, "Not everybody had to go. And that wasn't fair."

And some people questioned: is the Vietnam War being dragged out and going on seemingly forever because big military contractors are making millions?

"There's plenty of good money to be made
Supplying the army with the tools of the trade"
-- Country Joe McDonald

"Now the rovin' gambler he was very bored
Trying to create a next world war,
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor
He said I never engaged in this kind of thing before
But yes I think it can be very easily done --
We'll just put some bleachers out in the sun
and have it out on Highway 61...
-- Bob Dylan

Besides -- and before -- Bob Dylan and Country Joe and the Fish, President Dwight Eisenhower warned, in a speech before he left office, of the military-industrial complex -- the idea that a mutually profitable situation, Pentagon - business, could evolve into an entity that would protect and perpetuate itself, bureaucracy-like.

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