A lot of the veterans that returned from Vietnam received less than respectful treatment. Most veterans believe that they were not rewarded; in fact they were snubbed by the very government that asked them to fight. The lingering bitterness that still resides in a lot of veterans is either toward the government that betrayed them or the anti-war effort that portrayed them in such a negative light.

This anti-war movement started in the final hours of the 1960’s. Support for the war was becoming unpopular. This was partly a result of the graphic images that the news media portrayed. The propaganda machine was put into use. Propaganda was not something new it is used in either a positive or a negative manner in almost every war. Another element that triggered the massive anti-war element was the persistence of those that had been against the war all along.

One of these early protestors was Paul Rosenburg. He tells us, “I was against the war from 1963, when I was 13…” (Rosenburg). He firmly believed that the U.S. involvement in Vietnam was wrong from the start. He defends his protesting by firmly stating that he was not angry with the veterans themselves. He recalls, “I never spit on anyone who went to Vietnam, I did everything I could to stop them from going in the first place. To stop them from being killed, to stop them from killing, to stop them from fighting against everything our country I SUPPOSED to stand for.”

Another citizen relates a similar experience. He believes that he was just as patriotic by protesting, as the veterans were that fought. He emphatically writes, “I stood up to screaming patriots, and burned by draft card. I protested and marched, screamed and cried, told my generation to stop, don’t go, this was wrong. I ended up a C.O. (conscientious objector) doing 2 years of bedpans, not smoking dope in Canada. I think that I , and those like me, are the true patriots, the true dissenters, who tried to stop 50, 000 of our generation from coming home in bags.”( Spatz). Another anti-war member also recalls, “Being a member of the “other side” I can honestly say we HOPED we were doing the right thing, as did you…We NEVER hated the vets. We were simply frustrated that they seemingly gave-in so readily, to authoritarianism!” (Bozyk).

The opinion of many veterans is extremely different from the account of these men. One veteran Ricky Vandal believes that the U.S. might have won the war if it had not been for the anti-war movement. It is a sobering, thought provoking story. He tells us, “In the book How We Won the War written by Giap, the military leader of the Viet Cong, he says that the VC was pretty much defeated on the battle field and was about to implode when the protests in the United States against the war started to give the VC the idea that they could win the war after all. On the political front. All they had to do is help the anti-war protesters win the argument. How did they do that? By killing as many Americans as they could. These body bags were then used by the anti-war crowds as reasons to cut and run.” (Vandal).

If this was indeed the strategy that the Viet Cong employed it worked. The anti-war movement grew by leaps and bounds. The once peaceful protesters now resembled an ugly mob. As Paul Rosenburg explains, “…the Anti-War movement got so big, and so diverse that there were bound to be some who were out of control, along with the government agents who intentionally did things to make us look bad, and to get us fighting amongst ourselves” (Rosenburg).

Not all veterans supported the war however. Some returning veterans like former presidential candidate John Kerry returned to the U.S. firmly against the war. According to one citizen Kerry had the right and privilege to protest the war because he had been there. He states, “I also respected Kerry’s decision to protest the war. In fact, I think that returning vets had more right to do so than anyone” (holdfast). Many of his fellow veterans, including the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, did not agree with his protests.

The main reason many citizens and returning veterans did not like the protest of Kerry was because of how he went about it. “Holdfast” continues, “The way in which Kerry chose to protest however was despicable. Lying to Congress and slandering his fellow vets in the process was about as low as you can get.” One veteran who refers to himself as “Rick” relates, “I was serving in the Air Force at the time Sen. Kerry launched his political career with his widely-publicized Senate testimony in 1971. My reactioni at the time is the same as my gut feeling today. He cynically slandered an entire generation of veterans – almost single handedly created the “baby-killer” meme that dogs us to this day…” (Rick).

One of Kerry’s fellow veterans Richard O’Meara reacted in a similar manner. He recalls, “In 1971 when John Kerry spoke out to America, labeling all Vietnam veterans as thugs and murderers, I was shocked and almost brought to my knees, because even though I had served at the same time and in the same unit, I had never witnessed or participated in any of the events that the Senator had accused us of.” (O’ Meara).

Not all veterans protested the war in the same manner that Kerry did. Paul Rosenburg believes that the reason the war finally ended was because so many veterans, depressed and sick of the endless pointless fighting finally joined the anti-war effort. He recalls, “The Army and Marines, and even, finally, the Air Force joined the anti-war movement…The enlisted men went AWOL, deserted, refused to go into combat, wore peace sighs, black armbands on Moratorium day – and even fragged their officers on occasion. THEY were the reason the War finally ended” (Rosenburg).

There were also portions of the anti-war crowd that did what they could to help the returning veterans. According to Arthur Rosenburg, “The first rap groups that allowed vets to get together and deal with their pain, the trauma of loss, their own feelings, and the difficulty – often impossibility of communicating with others -- they were formed by anti-war psychologists and ordinary vets” (Rosenburg).

Regardless, the remarks that Senator Kerry and others made have had a lasting effect on the veterans of the Vietnam War. I believe that there were probably a lot of protestors that peacefully protested the war for good reasons. Outbursts like his however, have clouded their noble purpose forever labeling the anti-war movement as being cruel heartless ignorant men and women who slapped the worthy veterans of the Vietnam War in the face after they courageously and heroically fought for the freedom of the world.