Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
I can see why you'd want to forget Vietnam. Same deal as Korea - Nixon's secret plan to end the war, etc.
Viet Nam the war was effectively decided and over when Johnson announced he would not run for reelection.

Therefor, the election changed no attitudes and thus, in the sense of the political parties attitude toward our wars, Viet Nam was an aberration, By the time of the 1968 election the Democratic Party and its supporters were as opposed -- or perhaps more -- to the war as the Republican side had been.

The major difference between Viet Nam and all our other wars with respect to the 1/3 rule was the worldwide late 60s 'counterculture revolt' of the Baby Boomers which totally skewed the norm. Their mostly anti-military (anti-draft, actually) 'protests' were far different from previous or later protests about various wars. They were admittedly manipulated by North Viet Nam and US leftists. They also got undue media attention so they impacted the norms of war support or opposition.

They wanted to "change the system." They did, they became the system -- and they have almost totally screwed it up (check your daily news for details...). Maybe totally. The only thing they learned was 'don't knock the troops;' so in this war, we get "I support the troops but not the War" from a bunch of flakes that would go berserk if their son or daughter decided to be one one of those troops.

Thank you for allowing my earlier suppressed and possibly over lengthy rant to emerge.