In 1970 the Vietnam War was winding down, and opposition to it and the draft were at a peak. The war fervor that had fed the military in the mid-60s was long gone.
I remember vividly John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address, when he called for national service with his famous "Ask not what you country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country".
This had run head long into the realities of the Vietnam War, where national objectives became more muddled by the day, a war of National Liberation and anti-colonialism was depicted as containment of Communism, with disastrous results.
"Freedom is Not Free" was sneered at by many of the Army recruits as we passed under the "welcoming sign".
Unfortunately, for many, they never forgot that experience. It didn't matter if one served in Vietnam or stateside, the Army began to literally fall apart in the late sixties. Morale plummeted as the war dragged on, nobody wanted to be the last man to die for a war that was looking more wrong by the day.
The by-product of this was a deep seated hostility to the federal government, both from those of conservative and of liberal persuasion. Conservative soldiers hated the government for taking away their individual liberty, for the Army's bureaucracy. The amazing organization that had humbled the Nazis and Japanese war machines, was seen as an evil empire. FTA was a common phrase and openly written on helmets. Liberals reacted to what they perceived as the Army as a right wing monolith, fascist in makeup, repressive of freedoms.
Regular army soldiers, who had given the military their professional lives, reacted harshly to these attitudes, enforced punishment drills, and worse, in a desperate attempt to restore order to an army in open revolt.
The effect on the non-soldier population was dramatic. Citizens of draft age opposed the war and the government automatically, never looking into how the United States got into the mess. The United States was wrong, the government was oppressive, so "tune out, drop out, turn on".
I can remember what I just started teaching, having at least served in the military in a non-combat role, I was taken aback by high school students who declared openly they were going to Canada to avoid the draft (which was phased out soon after). There was no draft, and they were mindlessly declaring they would renounce their citizenship and flee the country, rather than serve.
Conservatives have made a political movement out of hating the government. Many prominent conservative leaders (Vice President Cheney comes to mind), made no secret out of dodging the draft during the 60s.
President Clinton was elected with his dodging the draft an open subject. Pictures taken in the 60s depict a hippy like young man, with his future bride Hillary, looking the role of anti-government rebels who resist government.
So both sides of today's political movements, grew from beginning of opposition to the Vietnam War and a deep seated cynicism toward government.
But Freedom is Not Free. That slogan is actually true. Freedom requires governmental structures to protect it, to nurture it through a robust democratic system, and to teach it to new generations.
Today, the "Baby Boomers" are running the country, and politically still have the Vietnam, hate government, look out for number one, mentality. Narcissism is at an all time high. Political parties have seemingly forgotten to work together, politics has deteriorated into a "winner take all" game, with no quarter expected or offered.
But Freedom requires work, it does require doing something for your country and not just for yourself. The proper thing to do during the hated Vietnam War was to work with political opposites, within the system, to end the involvement (and that actually ended the war according to most historians)..
Richard Nixon, a Cold Warrior of the first stripe, had a secret plan, which was to pull out as soon as possible, and treat the "Communist Menace" in a realistic manner, not with the dogma of the Red Scare 50s. Democrats, whose party was ripped apart by the war, cooperated with Nixon, even pushing for a quicker departure, which was a dramatic shift from the hawkish position that had started the "Vietnam Conflict" in the first place.
But the troops did not forget. Either because they had seen their buddies killed and maimed for nothing, or had resisted and opposed the war, going to jail rather than serve, young Americans who are now aging Americans grew to hate the government that just a few short years before had literally save the world during WWII.
Today we live with that legacy. The baby boomers who fought the war, or against the war, have passed down to their children a distrust of government that is toxic and destructive to freedom in the end.
This is dangerous to our freedom, because it really is not free.
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