I am of the mind that there are many parallels between the 60’s/70’s time period and now. I am hoping that ‘Elders’ on this site will write their rememberences of those years with an eye to comparing then to the present time.
What about those years led you to the political and world view you have now? How did those years profoundly change you? What effect did Vietnam have on your life?
I was 18 in 1961 when I graduated from high school, married my first husband and was pregnant with my first child.
I guess the first big tragedy to befall this country during the 60’s was the assassination of President Kennedy. All of us younger folks at the time were very excited about this president and this man who would now lead the country. We liked that he was young, we could relate to him, we could be excited about this country as we entered into our adulthood, we had hope for our future..
But alas that hope and excitement was short lived, this nation went into deep morning over his death and it seemed like our darkest hour was at hand.
Vietnam was on to make it even darker, and shortly there would be a draft,then the draft lottery, which was like spin the wheel and see who will be sent to die in Vietnam. My husband and I worried about his being drafted, but then they added if you were married and had one child, exempt, then later on I think it was changed to 2 children. Still we worried, things were getting worse over there, hopeless, and no one was trying to stop it. Later on they did, but it took awhile for people to get disgusted and fed up enough to get active and take to the streets.
At the same time there were dire warning about the economy, the end times, the Late GreatPlanet Earth, by Hal Linsey, was a big seller. We worried about gas prices and then later on in the 70’s we worried about getting gas at all as we sat in the long lines at service stations across this country.
We worried about global warming, dependence on fossil fuel, advancing work on solar power, wind power, etc.. We worried most of all that the powers that be in Washington were never going to get it together and do something to stop the abomination that was Vietnam.
In 1972 I married my second husband who was a Vietnam Vet, just out and back to US after 1 year over there.
It’s looking a lot like the same issue are present today as then.
Well enough about my story (I’ll add some more later), tell us yours, tell us what you remember, what you felt, how those years changed you. If you are too young to remember those years, what impact did it have on you through your parents and the stories you have read or any other way?
