The American Homefront during Vietnam

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The American Homefront During Vietnam 🎙️
Today we’re not heading into the jungles of Vietnam: We’re staying home. During the Vietnam War, there wasn’t just a battle going on overseas. There were arguments and conflicts about the wars in American neighborhoods, on college campuses, and even in people’s living rooms.
Let’s start with the draft.
We’ve already talked about how some people avoided it — college deferments, medical exemptions, even leaving the country. But not everyone had that option. And if you notice, college and medical care are easier to access if you’re rich or middle class. That leaves the poor – who were drafted at higher rates. The war was also especially harsh for African Americans, who were about twice as likely to die in Vietnam as other groups. Why? Because they were less likely to be officers or in skilled specializations – making them more likely to serve in combat roles. And as a side note, think about what was going on with civil rights at home in the late 1960s.
The United States was built on the proposition that “all men are created equal,” and they knew that the draft wasn’t impacting Americans equally. And so they instituted a change: the draft lottery. Instead of local draft boards deciding who went, birthdays were randomly drawn. If your birthday was pulled early, you were likely headed to Vietnam. The idea was to make the system feel fairer and less biased. Whether it actually felt fair is another question — but that’s why they instituted it, and that’s how it worked.
People back home didn’t just criticize the draft. They started to criticize the war itself. Why? Because they were watching on television. Journalists were embedded with the soldiers, and they broadcast images from Vietnam back home. They called it the “living room war,” because people could watch it in their living rooms. They saw graphic footage, including body counts and burning villages. Families sat on couches eating dinner while watching the fighting unfold.
Remember how I told you that most Americans supported the war at the beginning of it? As the war dragged on, more Americans began turning against it – because they saw it unfolding. They had thought that stopping communism was necessary. But as casualties rose and victory seemed unclear, that support faded.
A huge part of that opposition came from the 1960s counterculture movement — especially the Hippies. This group rejected traditional values. They promoted peace, love, music festivals, and hallucinogenic substances (lots of substances). They protested the war. Long hair, tie-dye, anti-war marches — the Hippies became the largest and most visible Vietnam-era counterculture movement.
Meanwhile, American prisoners of war — or P.O.W.s — were captured U.S. soldiers held by North Vietnam. A prisoner of war is a soldier captured by the enemy during conflict. Many American P.O.W.s were held for years under harsh conditions, including isolation and abuse. Their treatment became another emotional issue back home – another reason an increasing number of people began opposing the war.
These tensions exploded on college campuses. In 1968, student strikes spread across about 1,200 colleges. Protests sometimes turned destructive. When property began being destroyed, the National Guard was called in. Here’s the problem: They were never trained to deal with civilians. They were trained to fight.
This all came to a head at Kent State University in Ohio. National Guardsmen opened fire on student protesters. Four students were killed.
The nation was stunned. Suddenly, the arguments for and against the war divided the country to the point that there were casualties at home.
To make things worse, 1968 also brought something called the Tet Offensive. North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces launched a massive surprise attack across South Vietnam. U.S. forces eventually pushed them back and claimed victory. But Americans watching on TV didn’t feel like they were winning. They felt instead like the government was lying to them about how the war was going. That created what became known as a “credibility gap,” the growing distance between what the government said and what people believed was actually happening.
That credibility gap meant that Americans stopped trusting their government. The war had a profound impact on the American political landscape.
President Lyndon B. Johnson decided not to run for reelection. He was facing near-constant chants of “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” Without a reelection, the democratic party held the primary elections as usual. But once the primaries were done, it didn’t stay “usual” at all.
At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, protesters clashed with police in the streets. The violence spilled toward – and then into! - the convention hall. It was all televised. Many Americans began to see the Democrats as divided and out of control.
And so, in the 1968 election, the republican candidate had an advantage. It was a man named Richard Nixon - who ran on a platform of “law and order.” He promised stability and an end to chaos. In a country tired of protests, riots, and uncertainty, that message resonated. Nixon won. We’ll talk more about him later.
But before we wrap up, there was one more major change in this era: the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, passed in 1971. Its message was simple: “Old enough to fight; old enough to vote.” If 18-year-olds could be drafted and sent into combat, people argued they should have the right to vote. The Twenty-Sixth amendment lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.
As a sidenote, you should know that this period was the time Utah became a solidly Republican state. Before that, they tended to vote for Democrats. But Utah didn’t support the Hippies, or the democrats, any longer. It’s interesting that the results of this division continue today.
And so the Vietnam War didn’t just divide North and South Vietnam. It divided the United States.
And that division changed American politics, voting rights, trust in government, and the relationship between citizens and war — forever.