THE VIETNAM GENERATION (published 09/26/2005)

            A generation, usually regarded as approximately 30 years, is the period in which children grow up and become adults. 

For people born from about 1935 to 1955 that generational period was permeated by our country’s involvement in Vietnam.

            The French colonized Vietnam for 100 years until driven out by the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

            Under the Geneva Accords, elections were held in Vietnam in 1956.  Our government was not comfortable with the outcome as the Communist candidates won.  Thereafter, America provided sub rosa support for an insurgency against the elected government.

            President Eisenhower and his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, sent Central Intelligence Agents to help the Vietnamese we supported.  This began in 1956.

            President Kennedy sent military advisors to aid military operations by the insurgents.  These advisors were sent over in 1961 and 1962.

            President Johnson used a confusing attack on an American naval ship in the Tonkin Gulf in 1964 to ask Congress to pass what amounted to a “blank check” War Resolution. 

            President Nixon presided over the escalation and “Vietnamization” of the War from 1969 until our military officially left Vietnam in March, 1973.

            Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese in 1975 while President Ford was in office. 

            America’s involvement began out of fear of Communism and the possibility of nuclear war with what we then called “Red China” and the Soviet Union.

            People born between 1935 and 1955 spent our childhood and young adult years being exhorted to compete with the Communists in the Space Race.  Sputnik and bomb shelters were formative things in our lives.  We listened to our leaders’ pronouncements without questioning.  They led and we followed.

            Then, as the Vietnam War dragged on, the Civil Rights and Women’s Rights Movements became our reaction to our loss of confidence in the established order.  These were intertwined with the Anti-War Movement which gained momentum in 1968 and fed off of what was perceived as misinformation from our leaders.

            Of course, each generation can claim at least one war as a significant moment.  Usually America has had wars with a defined beginning such as the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 07, 1941 and a defined ending such as the total surrender of Germany and Japan in 1945.

            We normally have known why we were fighting and who the real enemy was.

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