Why did people protest the vietnam war?
“People” did not protest; some part of the baby boom generation that was in college during the late ’60s – early 70’s did. By no means a majority of their age group, the students most actively involved turned out in many cases to be “red diaper babies” whose parents where old leftists, who did much of the planning and leading of the “movement.” This portion of the age cohort did so because they feared the draft would result in their military service in Vietnam. It was also the time of the counter-culture, hippies, and sex, drug, and rock n.roll–all that was great fun and incitement to “do your own thing” regardless. The end of the draft was announced in ’71, because the draft wasn’t needed and Vietnam combat was ending. Vietnam was never the issue; that’s why everyone wanted to forget about the wars that went on and on in Indochina. The number of enlisted soldiers serving in Vietnam always outnumbered the size of any staged protest rally against the war. There were more young Marines
