Iraq, Vietnam and public perception

DadsDream said

There's no comparison. They're exact opposites in fact.

Reb called it correctly - the draft was a huge issue.

Back then, the National Guard was viewed as a dodge by Hawks and a sellout to The Man by Doves. To Hawks, real patriots signed up for active duty service. To Doves, real people of conscious went to Canada rather than serve in any way.

Today, thanks to mission changes and realignments in the 1970s and 1980s, the National Guard is on the frontlines, with entire units rotating to Iraq for a year at a time.

And that's another huge difference...Johnson's policy of individual tours of duty was a disaster for unit cohesion and Pentagon planners vowed that would never happen again. So, for Iraq we have unit rotations.

Overall, the impact of Iraq has far less emotional impact. During high school in the Vietnam era, you could count the boys in your class and know with certainty that some would be drafted and some would die in Southeast Asia.

Click to expand...

I didn't quite say it was "just the opposite." I think it bears no resemblency on the war's impact on the domestic front--there's plenty of parallels as Iraq being an abject failure from a military/foreign policy perspective. So no, there are valid comparisions, depending on the context. From a military foreign policy context--lots of parallels. From a domestic/homefront perspective--no real comparision. I think it's important to make this distinction.

But the draft and the casualty rates in Vietnam, along with the other things going on at the time makes it a weak comparsion. HOWEVER, from a military and foreign policy perspective, there are striking parallels on many levels, namely, the open-ended commitment, nation-building efforts, and how the war is sold through an endless parade of "turning points" and calls for "more patience" etc.

There is one domestic comparision though--the war is incredibly unpopular with most of the American people--and there's really no end in sight.

:shrug: