SoloBill and other vets: Thanks for your service. The best of this country was fighting for our freedom while the worst were being degenerates at Woodstock and Haight&Ashbury. I have the utmost respect for those who not only went to war, but were there because they thought it was the right thing to do.
4 Likes
You are entitled to your opinion. But I have to contest your characterization of those who were at Woodstock and the anti-war and social revolution contingent of that era in general.
The Viet Nam conflict had NOTHING to do with “fighting for our freedom” and a many of us knew it. It was an illegal and politically motivated police action that caused the needless deaths of nearly 60,000 US troops, over 1 million North Vietnamese troops, 250,000 South Vietnamese troops and over 2 million civilians on both sides. And countless Americans returned from Viet Nam maimed physically and mentally including many people deeply dear to me.
There was NEVER any economic, military or politically defensible reason for us to be there – those of us who protested the war and fought for peace and transparency by our government were dismissed as “radicals” and “degenerates” but we were not. It was OUR generation that was subjected to the involuntary draft and sent to pointless slaughter in an un-winnable “war” that ended in defeat and a great loss of international respect and stature for the USA. It was not the fault of those who served, but certainly those who sent them there on a mission of bloody folly.
Woodstock was a remarkable gathering where close to half a million people, mostly strangers from all walks of life (including Viet Nam veterans), came together and respected and supported each other in a spontaneous, hopeful and life-affirming shared experience. Nobody was mugged or raped, and the only death was an accident (a vehicle backed over someone sleeping on the ground.)
We in the anti-war movement were the REAL supporters and respecters of the US troops, who should not have been forced to sacrifice for that military abomination. The real “degenerates” of that era were the politicians and military advisors who insisted on pouring American troops, bombs and tax dollars into a horrific lost cause, nearly destroying an entire nation and its people and scarring tens of thousands of our own citizens of my generation. My own father was a decorated veteran of World War II and a long time member of the Army Reserves and he vehemently protested against the Viet Nam war.
I humbly suggest you reconsider your perspective on the events of 1969 and examine which one represented the best attributes of the American people…
6 Likes
Agree with willowleaf entirely - but I, and certainly most of those folks at Woodstock knew and were good friends of many who served. And I believe we own them a deep debt of gratitude. Many of the folks on this board and who I now paddle with are veterans of that war - one with two Purple Hearts from two tours. (But that’s his story to tell, not mine…) I have never known anyone who was more vehemently opposed to that war than some of the veterans I knew after their return.
There was a point when I saw friends getting drafted or enlisting and knew their reasoning; we were all young, many wondering what direction our lives would take, broke, looking to gain marketable skills, earn GI bill benefits for tuition, and we were all American.
My father earned his Purple Heart serving in tanks (antifa under Patton) in the Battle of the Bulge. (Though he opposed our initial involvement in Vietnam, once the war had escalated he saw no way out but to win it.) My grandfather served in the Army medical corps in France during the first war, mostly fighting the Spanish Flu. So, considering family history and the reasoning of friends who had enlisted or been drafted, at one point I considered enlisting myself.
So I sought out the advice of the older brother of a friend of mine, recently returned from Vietnam. He told me that if he found out I had enlisted he’d shoot me before I made it to basic training. Nuff said.
3 Likes
Heard all this before, not going to bother addressing all of it. In short: war is an extension of politics and therefore politically motivated. Economic wars haven’t been a thing since colonial times in the west. People today can say that going to war in Vietnam wasn’t the best thing to do strategically, hippies can justify their opposition because the conflict cost so many lives, and even I don’t agree with the U.S.’s entry into the Indochina War. Regardless, the overall U.S. aim was to stymie the spread of communism (Don’t get me started about the current trend of embracing communism). But unless one was actively involved or did something other tell people “peace maaaan”, I don’t want to hear it. Rolling around in the mud while having an acid induced orgy to Steppenwolf isn’t protest or life affirming.
Don’t for a second think that hippies were the REAL supporters and respecters of the US troops; they weren’t. Same holds true for today’s wars and current protestors. You can protest and oppose wars, I’ve no issue with that. But to think a bunch of people in a field handing out flowers to each other while a jam band plays is doing something to stop a war is delusional narcissism. My respect goes to the people that actually tried to make a difference whether they politician, draftee or volunteer. For the dedicated few that actually signed up and knowingly fought to spread the evils of communism; my hats off to you good Sirs.
1 Like
“fought to spread the evils of communism”?? Still drinking that Kool Aid, eh? South Viet Nam was a French colony that deteriorated into a corrupt dictatorship enabled by international Big Oil. The “stop communism” trope was a phony excuse for our sustained involvement. What did the Viet Nam War accomplish in regards to “communism”? Viet Nam is now the 17th largest US trading partner and the quality of life of their citizens far exceeds what they had under the puppet French regimes that were defeated when the communist North won by attrition in 1975. Only China, Cuba, Laos and Viet Nam are nominally “communist” any more and in real terms they are more socialist and capitalist in their economic structure. It was not wasteful and divisive military actions by other countries but internal factors that collapsed the strictly communist system of the USSR (which is now an autocratic plutocracy). And it was the drive to profit in global markets that caused the remaining communist-based nations to abandon state monopolies and communal based economic operations and evolve to the private capitalism model with governmental constraints on freedom – can’t really call those 4 remaining “communist” nations really Marx-Lenin orthodoxies any more.
“Communism” is a vaporous concept any more and not really a threat. As in the current USA, the real risk to democratic values and institutions in all nations is the internal spread of right wing Fascism and the entrenched greed and power of plutocratic oligarchs. Those of us who were involved in Woodstock were already protesting that in 1969 and many of us actively continue to do so. Just because we took a break from constructive efforts to change the world for the better to party for a few days in the country doesn’t cancel out the immense contributions my activist generation made in pushing for social justice and political and environmental reforms we desperately needed.
5 Likes
It seems necessary to remind ourselves… Woodstock was a music and arts festival. People went there because they were music fans.
Music (painting with sound on a canvas of time), art in general, knows no unifying ideology and is a flowering of a healthy culture.
(“When nations grow Old, The Arts grow Cold, And Commerce settles on every Tree” - William Blake)
There were vets there and many attendees were in uniform within a very short time of Woodstock.
Both communism and capitalism are economic theories and have led to war since colonial times.
Acid doesn’t induce orgies.
Steppenwolf wasn’t at Woodstock.
Politics is the project of negotiating how best to live with one another as cities, states and nations. War is a failure of negotiation and hence of that project.
The overall U.S aim in war has always been to stymie the spread of tyranny and totalitarianism - whether colonial (as with the founding of the nation), fascist, communist, or potentially oligarchical. Tyranny of any sort does not negotiate and therefore must be opposed by any and all means, including warfare. The demand for thoughtless unconditional loyalty is the unmistakable mark of a tyrant.
Hippies were latter-day beatniks. Their orientation was artistic and, at core, apolitical. (Just as apolitical as paddling, BTW.)
Does any of the above strike anyone as untrue?
So what motivates a person to intentionally misrepresent and launch obvious straw-man arguments? Seems like an important question lately. We need to get past this. This isn’t B&B.
PS: And just out of curiosity. I’m 68. I’ve met and become acquainted with as many folks as the next guy, I suppose. From Woodstock to this day, I don’t believe I’ve ever actually met a communist. Seems like I should have at some point. I had a housemate once, a philosophy major, (and Vietnam vet, BTW) who studied Engels, Marx, Lenin and Mao as a way of “knowing the enemy.” But he was no communist. I don’t believe communists are like unicorns - there are such folks. I think they’re more like narwhals. Real, though I’ve never actually encountered one. Narwhals don’t at present worry me a great deal, though perhaps at some point in the future they might. As a Wisconsonian, McCarthyism is grounds for some embarrassment though.
3 Likes
PJC: I agree with nearly everything you said. I only submit that one should not try to take the moral high ground or claim you were making a difference while partying at a music festival.
I don’t care what drugs or bands were there or what they did. And I don’t need justify or explain the war. There are volumes written about it. It’s no surprise to me that some of the people who were at Woodstock are the same ones fighting “fascism” in America today. So. Much. Fascism.
1 Like
If the US had not supported France in its attempt to reimpose colonial rule after Vietnam’s liberation from the Japanese, there probably never would have been a Vietnam war. Our ambassador on the scene resigned over this.
Back to kayaking.
5 Likes
Amen! Paddle this week.
3 Likes
Agree! 
Two days on the AuSable this weekend. 
Viet Nam was one big mistake. I went to college and met many vets who had just returned from the war. I did not meet one person that came out unschathed. I went to the U of Maryland and the White House was less than 15 miles away. We protested all the time. We threw tear gas back at the police. I would do it again.
I had empathy for returning soldiers, but have never thought they were fighting for our freedom. The war was politically motivated, mishandled and we were never intended to try to “win it.”
The counter culture movement was an important part of American history. It was not just music and pot and long hair and a big party. It has had some lasting effects on the way our society operates. Right about now, would be a good time to revisit some of the issues we wrestled with back in those days. If you told me in 1975 that we would still be grappling with issues like systemic racism, women’s rights, Fascism, voter suppression, armed militias, in 2020 I would have told you, that you were delusional.
4 Likes
Yeah, I was on the edge of those campus protests during the Viet Nam era, looking down from a safe vantage point. I got word that the local sheriff was planning a drug raid in the midst of an ongoing protest against the military on campus. I, along with a couple of friends of like conservative persuasion made our way to the rooftop of the tallest campus building on the academic quad. We had a great view of the back entrance to the athletic field where an army of a couple of dozen police cars came roaring across the field to enter the main campus to break up a riot. Meanwhile the computer center was under attack below, It had several plate glass windows that were instantly smashed, and I witnessed a fuel doused rag being inserted into a car gas tank and torched. Wow, that was sure impressive and productive, wasn’t it, “dude”.
This “peaceful protest to the war” sure had a lot in common with what we have witnessed much more recently this past summer. I was happy to see many arrests made on the spot, although I doubt they had any more lasting teeth than what we have seen today. By the way, as soon as I graduated, I joined the Air Force as an officer. Although drugs were rampant on campus and on my dorm hall, I can proudly claim that to this very day, that I have never partaken in any of it of any kind whatsoever. My subsequent career as a high level government laboratory researcher has led to my very comfortable retirement today. I could not have done that if I had ever in my life on my record been part of the violent riots, or the drug scene in any way.
4 Likes
My job required security clearances which kept me mostly straight during those times. Besides I always had more fun with a bottle of wine…
2 Likes
Like yknpdlr , I was in ROTC at the time and thought Woodstock was a collection of kids with more money than I ever had. I also had no desire to participate in group irresponsibility.
I came to realize how destructive and wasteful that war was.
We still continue to send our young people to die in places that often make no sense to me.
I can’t help but notice when generals oppose removing troops or military aid from our allies. Those same generals have lucrative positions waiting for them with defense contractors after they retire.
1 Like
There is no limit to the value of having a high level security clearance and the clean background to obtain and maintain it.
My service and the jobs I had served me very well as a manager in civilian manufacturing.
Boy Howdy, yes.
Between the time of Woodstock and '75 a LOT of worthy and entirely necessary changes were made. Those were indeed historic days. So much progress was initiated, and with widespread support - it wasn’t just pot heads who saw these as necessary, though there were plenty of Woodstock generation folks who helped bring them to the fore.
I knew a few Vietnam era vets who came out relatively unscathed, though I knew many more who suffered (and not a few who later died) from the aftereffects of that war. (Including that older brother of my friend I mentioned earlier. He got into some shady dealings involving bad practices picked up overseas and was shot from a second story window while walking down the street.)
Perhaps it is only coincidental, but I can’t help noticing that those vets who fared best were all (with the lone exception of that philosophy major) outdoorsmen; paddlers, hikers, climbers. A few others were heavily engaged in “silent sports” of some sort, like bicycling or parachute jumping. Thoreau was on to something with that “In wilderness is the preservation of the world” quote. Individuals are preserved by it , too.
And the EPA, Clean Water and Air acts, Earth Day, even nuclear nonproliferation treaties all had their origins at that time. Acts of preservation… America is the better for it today. These were acts of profound patriotism. Yet by the look of it we must be somehow forgetting how far we have come, how much study, work, and dedication went into that progress. We must be suffering from a monumental lack of gratitude for that progress. To think that anyone at all would seek to turn back that progress now for any reason is astounding to me. I find it amazing that in the face of extinction rates that rival those of previous global mass extinction events its not even a subject of widespread public conversation. Habitat fragmentation, massive invasive species problems, pollution, oceanic plastic rafts the size of Texas, migratory route disruption, intentional rain forest destruction… Its been decades since I’ve heard a quail, years since I’ve seen a fox, even monarch butterflies are getting pretty sparse… and its all only at the farthest outer edge of public debate… Its pretty amazing really.
As an aside… I don’t get what the looters and vandals that seem to move in on protests think they are trying to accomplish - they only hurt any cause they associate with. Frankly, I think there are just some folks who simply like the sound of breaking glass and most any chaotic occasion will do as an excuse. Here in our area they recently tore down a statue of an abolitionist as part of a BLM protest. (???) Last time I saw a car burned around here it was following a victory at a college football game. There is no cause or purpose to this.
Its just crazy. One can’t understand crazy - its a definitional thing.
2 Likes
The only herion addict I ever met was a Viet Nam vet, who got addicted in Nam.
Ppine, I was at UofM during the protests. Shut down route one a number of times wihile helicopters hovered overhead. I agree with your post completely and would just add, that it was the beginning of the environmental movement as well.
1 Like