Recently my husband and I have been watching the 10-part series, The Vietnam War, written by Geoffrey C. Ward and directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. Although we’ve enjoyed it immensely from a historical point of view, this series is not for the faint of heart. There’s a lot of raw, powerful imagery as well as many interviews of people who fought on all sides of the war. In spite of the intensity of the material used in the making of the series, I still highly recommend it.
Watching The Vietnam War got me thinking about the 1960’s in general and how those years affected me as a young girl. If you ask a Baby Boomer to describe the 60’s, chances are they will talk about the amazing music, free love and drugs that permeated our culture during this time. We like to think about the 60’s with nostalgia, gingerly skipping over the bad parts, because the darkness of the Vietnam years is still too painful to remember.
When John F. Kennedy took office in January of 1961 I was 7 years old. It was a golden time in America then and the Kennedy years in the White House were often referred to as “Camelot.” We adored the dashing new President and his charming First Lady; we loved their children, Caroline and John-John. The horrors of World War II were far enough behind us and Vietnam was not yet a household word. The future of our country looked so bright with the Kennedy’s at the helm!
Sadly, “Camelot” did not last long. The Kennedy administration had many serious issues to deal with such as the Cold War, the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Former President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, believed the threat of Communism in Southeast Asia was a top priority, and Kennedy increased the number of American military advisers and special forces in South Vietnam.
On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. I’ll never forget the look on my teacher’s face when she heard the news which came to our 5th grade classroom early that afternoon. We all sat there, incredulous and shocked! When Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as our 36th President later that day, we barely even noticed.
And now the 1960’s turned very dark indeed. Under the Johnson administration, the Vietnam war exploded, consuming us and becoming the beast we all hated and feared. There were nationwide protests, draft card burnings and anti-war songs on the radio. Every night we “watched” film clips of the war on TV and heard the dreaded body counts. And, somehow, when our brave boys started coming home, we began to hate and fear them, too! For many Americans, this was the cruelest aftermath of Vietnam.
When I look back at the 60’s now I see only loss – loss of our innocence, loss of our sons and brothers, loss of our great leaders. On April 4th, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot while standing on a hotel balcony in Memphis. Although rushed to surgery, he died shortly thereafter. On June 5th, Bobby Kennedy was shot in Los Angeles after winning the California presidential primary; he died the following day. My own family had suffered the loss of our father to lung cancer in February of 1967 but it was hard to embrace our very personal grief while the whole country mourned their own terrible losses!
While Richard Nixon took office in January of 1969, it wasn’t until 1973 that the war in Vietnam finally ended, bringing to a close all that defined the preceding decade. And even though 45 years have passed, the darkness of the Vietnam years will always remain with those of us who lived through it.
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