The Vietnam War was a time of great turbulence. Many, many people including even some of our own congressional representatives questioned whether were should have been in Vietnam or not. It was the youth of America, the soldiers who were fighting in Vietnam and also the kids back in the US, who first questioned why we had such a large presence there. Once the draft started, college students and many other youths started organizing protests against the war.
As the number of our soldiers dying went up, so did the resistance against the war. Hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in New York and San Francisco, and there were urban riots in Detroit. President Johnson was quickly losing support all over the US, and there was a backlash at everything having to do with the military. Soldiers who returned home after fighting were scorned and people tried to dodge the draft by hiding or fleeing to Canada. Wisely, Johnson did not seek re-election at the end of his term. There were 50,000 Americans killed, and many veterans suffer from psychological and physical wounds. They were cast out of society and many are now homeless. That was a time that we would never forget.