A Time to Question
I recall one young man from my district. . . . In November 1967 he was killed in
Vietnam. His parents came for the funeral, and I met them in the stark basement of the
chapel at Arlington. The mother walked up to me and just collapsed, crying in my arms. The
father wrapped his arms around her and began to sob too. . . . I wanted to find the words
to justify what had happened, but there weren't any. (U.S. Senator
Donald Riegle)
Basically the issue in Vietnam is one of ideology. Do our people believe in the
choice of independence and freedom or the use of force and subversion to gain an end? The
Communists cannot hope to gain success by peaceful means. They resort to a campaign of
assassination, kidnapping, and wanton violence to achieve their aims. . . . Our basic goal
is international peace and security. The current situation in Vietnam is a threat to the
whole free world community. (Lieutenant Colonial Clayton C. [Bud]
Fenton, 1967)
In the 1960s, many people were political activists.
Some people fought for civil rights. Some challenged traditional values and
American participation in the Vietnam War. Those who challenged the status quo (the way
things were done in the past) usually were known as "hippies." The people who
supported the status quo were called "the establishment." Even those who wanted
change often disagreed on how to make it happen.
 A Michigan high school student made
this green minidress. Many adults criticized such clothes, sexual freedom, music and drug
use among the younger generation. A new term, "the generation gap," was used to
explain the difference between adults and young people.
College campuses became centers of protest with marches and political activities. The
protests focused on rights for minorities and opposition to the Vietnam War. Some
demonstrations were violent. Some young men evaded military service in Vietnam by moving
to Canada. Others became conscientious objectors. The first antiwar teach-in took place at
the University of Michigan on March 24, 1965. Teach-ins spread to colleges throughout the
nation.
 Many soldiers who had
first-hand experiences in the battlefields of Vietnam were bitter about the antiwar
protests. First Lieutenant Andrew Ladak was one such soldier. A photograph of him kneeling
outside a schoolhouse with several children on a small island off the coast of Chulai
appears in this gallery. He expressed his views in a letter to his sisters in Detroit from
Vietnam in 1970 directing his message toward the "bearded, long-haired, pot-smoking
peace lovers":
Don't talk to me about love, because I've had it. Don't talk to me about killing,
because I've had to do it. . . . Don't yell at me about war, because I've seen it. And
don't preach to me about freedom because, baby, I helped to buy it. . . . Combat . . . is
99% boredom and 1% sheer terror. Like most sayings, it's not quite true, but I did have
plenty of quiet moments in Vietnam, and I spent some of them (often in the jungle) drawing
crude cartoons on letter paper. The cartoons generally reflected shared experiences,
concerns, fears. Humor is a great tension reliever—especially in stressful situations.
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