For those who were alive for the Vietnam War please help me understand

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

How doe the anti-war movement from that war compare to the movement for this war? Was the climate very different? Has the internet helped expose more of the lies justifying the wars?

[bamademo]

1. The Internet has helped immensely

The press was free back then. There was much more journalistic integrity. Vietnam dripped along for a few years and around 67 or 68 people really began to take notice as more and more body bags filled the TV screens on the evening news. Protester's patriotism was questioned then as now and the confrontations were nasty. The 68 Democratic Convention, Kent State and the riots when MLK was assassinated.

With this war, it was predicted to be another Vietnam before it began.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

2. so do you feel that we got a head start?

Do you think the opposition can do something about our dying troops in less time, what with the information we have?

[rogerashton]

6. The press was free?

I was living in Northwestern Washington where we got most of our TV from Vancouver, B. C. The war looked VERY different from the Canadian perspective.

Frankly, the haze of marijuana smoke affected the view, too.

[Minstrel Boy]

9. The Internet helps those who already know enough to seek out the news.

But Americans who passively depend upon broadcast media to keep them informed - and that's the overwhelming majority - are unlikely to know enough to be outraged.

[Kanary]

30. In time there were also underground newspapers

The papers were a great source of information, and brought people together, too, partly because they were hawked on the street, and discussed in many places. I think I still have some of them around. :)

Also, there were "teach-ins" at various universities and other schools, which did a lot to educate people in-depth, rather than in quickie sound-bites.

It's definitely true that the internet has done a lot to speed up the process of organizing, especially special events, like the upcoming March 20th rallies and protests. However, there has also been a corresponding loss of interpersonal connection that is so necessary to bring about actual change.

One important example of that is that we would have meetings to discuss the goals of each action, and after the event we would all gather together and "process" what we thought happened, how we felt about it, and what we wanted to see happen differently, etc. Often these processing gatherings were revolutionary in themselves, as people shared emotions and bonded together. We seem to think that we are too sophisticated for that now, but I know from experience that it makes a huge difference.

'Course, wadda I know.... I'm just a dirtyhippiepinkocommiebum........ :)

Kanary

[T Bone]

56. Yes, teach-ins and moratoriums were the internet of the time

That is where you learned what was really going on in Nam. How the war had been technologozed and was just a more efficient way of mass murder of innocents. I still remember going to hear Rennie Davis, one of the Chicago 7 speak at a University about 15 miles from where I lived. As he spoke, people in the audience would occasionally rise, be given the floor, and speak a truth they knew about the war and its' prosecution. It was a real learning experience.

[Kanary]

67. Rennie Davis!

I haven't thought of that name in *ages*!

As I read your experience, I'm thinking.... we really were living democracy, weren't we? "people would occasionally rise, be given the floor....." And my experience of the processing of events and actions. I think that's what I've been missing the most.

And, in all that, all the stress we were under, and all the deaths and assassinations that brought us to our knees, what I *don't* remember, is any of us yelling at each other, calling names or trying to win power by intimidation. Mostly, we were *there* for each other. We knew how much we needed and depended upon each other. I miss that comraderie. I miss that mutual respect.

I miss the *Community*.

Kanary, tripping down memory lane........

[tinanator]

43. If you can ever get ahold of late 60's newspapers

It will BLOW YOUR MIND what journalism used to look like. Facts, figures, information, depth... aw, I gotta go cry a river...

[randr]

3. I am not so sure

Without the internet we had to meet up in person. Messages posted on campus, head shops, and underground radio stations let us know when and where. It seems the media had a greater interest.

[zanana]

20. Reminds me of a Richard Lewis joke.

"When I was young, we didn't have MTV. We had to take drugs and go to concerts." Not far from wrong!

[ThomWV]

4. Oh .... I Dunno ....

I went into the Army in 1966, and at that time an anti-war protester was a pretty rare thing. I lived in Maryland at the time and in the Summer of '66 I saw my first protester in front of the White House. Might have been 25 or 50 of them. In 1967 I went to Viet Nam, as one of the first replacements for the 4th Infantry Division, which had arrived a year earlier. I spent 3 tours in Viet Nam, comming home between each. In 68 protesters were much more visable than when I had left the country, and the increase was about the same when I was home in '69. My last year in Viet Nam began in the fall of '69 and the mood of the nation seemed to be more of shock than near universal protest. I got home, which was now Miami, Florida, at the very beginning of December of 1970. The mood of the nation had changed. White men in suits were protesting, and when that happens the end had to be in sight. I saw it but personally I had not stomach for any of it, not support and not protest either. I simply did not want to have anything at all to do with it. That came as a great suprise to my Step Father (WW-II, Air Force, domestic duty, no action) or my Father (WW-II, Marine, Pacific, much action). My military experience was very much like my father's but our attitude about it was as different as water and ice.

So that's my memory of the time. Others will differ of course.

Thom

[rogerashton]

8. Remember, "the sixties" really extended

well into the seventies. What we think of as "the sixties" really is more nearly the period 1963 (J. F. Kennedy assassination) to 1973 (Watergate).

[SidDithers]

63. Good Post, thanks. nt.

Sid

[Bandit]

5. There was a draft then and middleclass Americans were seeing their sons

getting killed. It made a huge difference and then the Pentagon Papers came out and showed how it was all based on lies. The Media also was not totally corrupt back then.

[Nay]

24. Agreed. The draft made a huge difference, and

the Pentagon Papers were a BOMBSHELL. The P. papers were taken apart in all the news media and discussed in detail over weeks and weeks, something you do not see today at all.

This is why us old folks can't understand what the hell is going on today -- shit, we've got enough material to hang ten presidents, and that oaf Bush is mincing through his State of the Union speech. It's disgusting.

[PaDUer]

28. You're right..

and WE, the people, have become the laughing stock of the world for allowing a RESIDENT of the WH do this and get away with it, to us, WE the people of the US.

[tom_paine]

32. It's going on because the checks and balances of the Old Republic

have failed.

Also, to be quite honest (and I am 37, thus one of the ones to blame) the generations that followed you have been less and less deserving of freedom because they/we didn't really understand or care about what it takes to keep it.

To me, given the current state of the Imperial Subjects of Amerika, it is wholly unremarkable that they/we are having our freedom, our livelihood, our national wealth, our international respect stolen from us by the very first cabal that had the will to shamelessly take it from us in broad daylight, like a grown man stealing a lollipop from a child.

[freesqueeze]

35. Just What I Was Thinking - Draft is the Big Difference

You wouldn't believe how the prospect of getting your own ass sent off to SE Asia motivated us. So involvement was more intense but we were called commies and un-American.

I remember we had two papers in Dallas then. The Times Herald would actually cover the anti-war protests. The Dallas Morning News (which survives) had a problem finding space for these stories.

Also, now this may be because of my circle of friends, it was harder to find a young Republican those days. The war and the draft pushed them all to the Democratic camp.

[ramapo]

7. Much more widespread back then

The antiwar movement was everywhere back then. Hugh demonstrations. A lot of political pressure from all facets of society. Of course this wasn't until the body bags were coming home en masse ('67 onward). The media covered the war on its own. They didn't slack off and just fall for the embedded reporter. Then you had the Pentagon Papers expose.

The internet is a great communication device for those who are listening but it's not like the lies are showing up at cnn.com.

[kclown]

18. It was also presented as part of the Cold War

The domino theory held that capitalist America and Communist
Russia were in a competition to dominate the rest of the
world's governments, by military means if necessary.  If a
nation "went" Communist, neighboring nations were
likely to follow.  Therefore, it was necessary for America to
take a stand almost anywhere to oppose governments of national
liberation, which were frequently aided by the Communists for
the reason that the liberation they desired was from the
colonial domination of the Capitalists, e.g. France, Holland,
and Britain.

History has pretty well debunked the domino theory, but it
makes a simplistic kind of sense.  * was sorry to see it go.

[bobbieinok]

10. I was in grad school in CA from 61-68.

Anti-war protests started at the college level with teach-ins.

But several things happened before then to make it possible for people to question the govt.

The primary thing was the civil rights movement. Beginning (for me) in 1954 with the supreme court decision against school segregation, there was a growing local and national debate over the treatment of 'Negroes' in the US.

Many young people (jr hi and hi school and college)learned that the US had NOT always acted honorably and justly and even right then you could not always trust what the govt officials said.

In the Civil Rights movement you had people coming together in large numbers and peacefully protesting the actions of local and state elected officials.

So people discovered that the govt is not always 'right and honorable' and it's ok to protest.

Then in CA in 62, I knew grad students who protested in San Francisco about the US actions in the Cuban Missle Crisis. I was mainly wondering how to 'get out' once the bombs started falling. I had learned that it was ok to question and protest govt domestic actions, but in international affairs??

So for me and for many people (mostly young), we already lived in an emotional and psychological climate in which you don't accept everything your govt tells you and it's ok to protest.

It took a VERY LONG TIME from the early teachins and 'Vietnam Summer' (1965) to when many Americans, not just young people, were opposed to the war.

Many people think that nitely TV coverage of death and the 68 Tet Offensive were the turning points.

I thought at the time and still think that it was when the US corporations decided there was no more money to be made in VN that pressure was put on the govt to pull out.

One of the earliest CEOs to speak out against the war was the head of the Dreyfuss Fund. (I think that's the right firm.)

NOTE: one of the big contractors in VN was the TX firm Brown and Root, now part of Halliburton. They had some legal problems over some of their business transactions in VN.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

11. Does the fact that we're banned from seing caskets come home

change things? Would there be more outrage if we could see that?

[texastoast]

26. Oh, yessss

The TV image I recall really turning the tide against the war was of a little Vietnamese girl running across a field on fire from napalm from a U.S. plane.

[NoPasaran]

33. That was picture from Spring 1972

Vietnamization had taken place and there were few US combat troops on the ground by then. The air force was still heavily involved.

[Columbia]

39. Actually

It was from a South Vietnamese bombing and she was not on fire just naked.

[SoCalDem]

68. Her skin had been burned off from napalm..here's the pic

I saw her as an adult not long ago, and she showed some of the scars.. She gives talks here and there, about the stupidity of war..

http://www.geogr.uni-goettingen.de/kus/personen/vn/vn-1972-napalm.htm



On June 8, 1972, children and their families fled the village of Trang Bang down Route-1, their bodies seared by napalm. The young girl screaming, in particular, was etched onto the world's mind by the photograph of Huynh Cong 'Nick' Ut, an AP photographer.

The girl was Phan Thi Kim Phuc.

The photograph showing excruciating pain and death has become a photographic icon, an antiwar rallying point and a symbol of hope. The photograph rightly stands among a few honorable and memorable images of the last 150 years of photojournalism.

The picture taken near the village of Trang Bang in South Vietnam on June 8, 1972, thrust the burned, screaming youngster into photographic history. The London "Observer" Sunday paper calls the photograph "the most haunting image of the horror of war since Goya" in their review of the exhibit (by science writer Deyan Sudjic).

Kim went on to survive although it took 14 months of painful rehabilitation to treat the third degree burns that was over more than half of her body.

Kim is now a Canadian citizen and shares her thoughts on survival and inspiration. She has traveled all over the world, meeting and talking with people about peace. She is now a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).


here she is in 2000

[Maeve]

69. Thanks for posting the whole story--she is inspiring

:hi:
I was just under the age of the "young involved" back then, but I do remember my brother and his friends gathering for a "draft lottery" party--they watched the lottery on tv to see what their chances of being drafted were. First they drew a birthdate, then the number assigned to it. My brother's birthday was chosen fairly early and he drew a number in the 300's--he was relieved and drunk the rest of the night! Fortunately, his friends either drew "safe" numbers, too, or got deferments. I mourn for those who weren't so lucky.

Our little country high school planted two trees out front in memory of two we lost to the war.

[comradebillyboy]

12. for one we had big violent anti war riots

at various times. the anti viet nam protests were much more aggressive and were covered by the press as the major events tehy were

hey hey lbj
how many kids
did you
kill today

enlisted men fragging unpopular officers

the tide really turned when student deferments were eliminated. thats what caused shrub to get daddy to get him into the air national guard. in the late 60's and early 70's we had 500000 men fighting in viet nam. and the reporters fimed and broadcast real firefights.

the pictures of american soldiers burning down villages did not help either.

much more hostility then than now. viet nam really tore the nation apart.

[htuttle]

76. I saw a really interesting map once...

It was a 'battle map' of the incidents described in the 'War at Home' movie about Madison during the Vietnam War. I think Zoltan Grossman created it.

I live here, and *I* was even surprised at how many arsons, riots, bombings, etc... happened during that time. I knew about the 'New Years Gang', of course (actually, I've worked with several of them in recent years -- they own a sandwich shop now), but there was far more than just Sterling Hall that blew up over the course of a few years.

[kcwayne]

13. There is no question that the Internet has helped

expose the lies. In 1969/1970 news was obtained from one of 3 news programs, newspapers, or word of mouth. I lived in a very conservative part of Central Illinois, and the paper was idiotically stupid. You could barely get the news of what was happening, let alone the anti-war point of view. You could find out who was getting a divorce, and what the prognosis for the corn crop was.

The key difference between then and now is that the war affected us directly, because we knew we could be drafted and forced to go against our will. I think that fact alone made the war far more personal.

In addition, with the rioting (both racial and anti-war) that was going on all over the country, and the killing at Kent State, there was a very real sense that the government was very much the enemy of freedom, and utterly corrupt.

I am surprised by the young people today that I see that so willingly swallow the right wing propaganda. There were similar groups back then, but it seems to me the numbers are much higher today. They will change once they start getting drafted to fight in the endless wars the PNAC wants to conduct. They might even start wearing their hair long, smoking dope, and have peace ins. Scratch that. I don't have a clue what they will do when faced with dying a meaningless death while supporting an oppressive regime in Washington. I hope they have not been dumbed down to the point that they won't recognize how they are being used.

[ThomWV]

14. Let Me Suggest This

Let me make this comment, once again as a Viet Nam Vet who spent virtually all of three years on the ground, in the bush so to speak.

I never saw a single reporter But I could have. What is more important is that if a reporter had wanted to see me he could have. The military gave briefings, and they were certainly skewed, but the military did not control report's access to the war. They were free to roam about anywher they wanted to, if they wanted to.

The person that came up with imbedded reports as a genious, and as close to satan as a man could come in his relationship to a free press. On its face it seems like such a good idea, reporters right there with the troops, for good or for bad, whatever comes up. But in truth is gave the military complete control over what news could and could not find its way to the public. More important it is natural for the reporters who actually were imbedded to feel comradship with the troops they were living with, there is just no way around that. And so if anyone, and I mean absolutyly anyone, trys to tell me that the imbedded press was not influenced towards more favorable comments than otherwise would have been the case, I have to respond with a simple "Hogwash". Much of our right to unbiased news was lost with imbedded reporting and absolutly no one but the Military, and by extension the Administration, was served by it.

Thom

[BigBigBear]

22. Thom

Thanks for your insights, and your service.

Having done 3 tours in the bush (where we lost ALOT of men), and making some comparisons between the culture then and now, do you think the current anti-war vibe has learned from their Vietnam predeccesors, and was there any sense in 68-70 amongst the grunts in the field that the protesters sincerely wanted to bring them home, rather than simply save their own butts from having to dodge shrapnel themselves? (An element that (without the draft) is missing from the Iraq anti-war movement....)

I was a kid during the Vietnam era - both my older brothers drew high numbers in the NY lottery and didn't get called, but both lost school friends over there.

[ThomWV]

27. My Perspective

Please keep in mind that my perspective was really limited. I didn't get to see war protests for the most part until after I was out. By the time I really didn't care about them. No kidding, I had absolutly no interest in the war at all other than I generally thought that we should just lay down our guns and go home. That wasn't out of some great idealic notion that I had. It just seemed to me that we were wasting our time, blood, and money and that even if we won there wasn't anything worth winning. It was like buying a one-dollar lottery ticket for a fifty-cent payout in every way I could think of.

About the intensity, well it was certainly greater in the early 70's than it is now, if you only consider this country. Remember, it was the rest of the world that was up in arms with protest against our actions, not so much the people in this country. So I think that in a global sense there is more resistance to this war than there was though half of the Viet Nam war but when it comes to domestic resistance to Bush's war, well, by comparison to the anti-war mood during Viet Nam this is absoluty noting. Nothing at all. And the reason? In my opnion its because almost no one at home has anything to loose. Afterall, less people have sons and daughters in Iraq than there are in virtually any small sized city in the country, say Omaha or somewhere. Our young people aren't worried about having to serve, and die, and neither are their parents. So what is there to get all fired up over? Now days I think its a moral issue of course but my son's (who is in his 20's) not threatened, and neither are those childhood friends of his that I have grown close to over the years. So what is there to get all fired up over? I'm told every day that the cost of the war is not doing anyting to harm the economy, so what is there to get all fired up over? The nation isn't threatened with invasion and spys are not lurking in or Secret labs (or are they?) so, what is there to get all fired up over?

This seems to me to be the mood of the country in general.

[Kanary]

34. "It was like buying a one-dollar lottery ticket for a fifty-cent payout in

every way I could think of."

Beautifully put!

And, you're so right about young people and their parents, for the most part, not being involved in the issue becase they think it doesn't affect them. Over 500 dead, and hardly a notice from their peers. Something is badly, desperately wrong.

Thank you for your service, and thank you sooo much for speaking up and sharing your insights with us!

Kanary

[Bandit]

77. Yours is an interesting question

I have considered it before and have come to the conclusion that in the beginning it was kids trying to save their own asses. After a while it gained the support of parents of young men of draft age and then Cassius Clay (Mohammed Ali) refused to go and no-one could call him a coward. He was the Champion of the world. Then came the Pentagon Papers and it became "Political". By 1970 almost half the nation was opposed to the war and wanted us out yesterday. Nixon won because he had a "Secret Strategy" for getting us out. So I guess to answer your question yes and no. The coward tag has stuck and will probably stay because people are ignorant. I also spent my time "humping the boonies" and never saw any problems while in the Nam.

[Cleita]

15. I just wrote on another post that the counter-revolution

was unexpected. Up until then, Americans were docile and predictable. No one expected marches, draft card burning and other civil disobediences that occurred. You need to go back to the drawing board and start creating civil disobediences that will catch them off guard. They expect the protest marches so they herd you guys away from the main event, so they win. It's time to start developing guerilla warfare tactics where you hit them unexpectedly and catch them with their pants down.

I want to unequivocally state that I am not advocating violence but creative dissent by being unpredictable. This is why the counter-culture of the sixties was so effective. No one knew it was coming or what was coming.

[onethatcares]

17. the elected spoke out as well.

But the main motivation came from the young, the college age, the people that saw thru the lie and questioned, WHY?. We saw our friends go away, and either not come back, or come back different. Once the govt got into body counts, you could see it go downhill. We watched tv as the national guard killed protesting students, we watched tv as Robert Kennedy was assasinated, we watched tv when Martin Luther King was killed and many decided enough was enough. Why aren't we seeing the bloodshed on tv now? As a person of that generation I can look back and now think, We've had enough killing, let's be what we are supposed to be in the world. Let's start to make the world a better place for our children and theirs, it all starts with one.

[buckeye1]

16. Vietnam war.

The first big protests were in 1967. the war ended in 1975. the protests did not end the war.
What did:
drugs(pure heroin)
racial strife
fragging,mutany

[HereSince1628]

19. Maybe maybe not I think Kent State broke America's will to continue

but I also think the reaction of "the establishment" to most of the protests was to just dig in.

[ieoeja]

21. You're going to hear a lot about the media here.

And that is where the "liberal media" mantra originates. By definition a liberal media is going to provide equitable treatment to all sides of an issue. People were okay with this concerning domestic issues, even demanded it in that day. Back then even conservatives would have (publicly) said there was no place for Fox News in the political discourse.

Korea was an immensely unpopular war with conservatives in this country. But you didn't hear conservatives calling the United States "evil" or our soldiers "baby killers". They argued that it was a waste of time, money and lives that did nothing to enhance our security. In other words, they argued against the war from an American perspective.

During Vietnam the opposition too often argued against the war from the enemy's perspective. Conservatives, moderates and most Liberals felt the media gave this view too much positive exposure.

So the original complaint about the media being too liberal was a complaint about the media being too unbiased by airing our enemy's propaganda. It didn't take long for small "l" liberal media to morph into big "L" Liberal Media. The former was fairly true; the latter not even close.

Even today the little "l" and big "L" causes problems. Speculating on the likelihood of someone getting their hands on the audio of that animal rights guy and his girlfriend getting killed by a bear a couple months back someone used this as an attack on the "Liberal Media". At first I was confused until I realized his statement was true if you use a small "l". But he segued into the large "L". Of course, he was a bit of a moron so no amount of explaining the difference was going to get through to him. I even tried pointing out that the ACLU defends the KKK's right to free speech, but noone accuses Liberals of agreeing with the KKK. He couldn't see the relationship.

[ieoeja]

23. Also, Vietnam was just a sideshow.

The anti-war movement to some extent grew out of the Civil Rights movement.

P.S. Calling Vietnam a sideshow is a very good way to piss off a Vietnam veteran. So I don't recommend the use of that line to anyone not willing to get physical. I'm sure there are better of ways of phrasing that.

[diamond14]

38. there were NO TV's on college campuses, no radios allowed in

my dormatories on U of M's campus....in Detroit, there were ONLY FOUR TV stations (TV totally controlled by 4 corporations)....mostly showing 'leave it to beaver, howdy doody, and other great hits....not the Vietnam war....many people objected when a FEW war photos were shown on TV...and throughout most of the war, there was little on TV...the war continued every single day, in the background of most Americans' lives, quietly killing our YOUNG, just like today's Iraq war...Iraq war rages on everyday, but is basically ignored in America...

most news out of Vietnam took weeks to get back to America....photos had to be filmed and then developed and shipped back...there were no digital phones, no digital cameras, no answering machines, no fax machines, no satillite instant communication.....

in my dorm rooms, there were NO phones, just ONE pay phone in the lobby for over 1000 students.....all that communication stuff was considered detrimental to the learning environment...you are supposed to mostly spend your time studying in college, not watching TV or listening to radio...


there was very little media coverage of Vietnam, but what did get out was dramatic...the photos of the guy being shot in the head, the little girl running after being napalmed, mai lai.....few movies, mostly just a few dramatic photos....

it seems that there are many many many photos and videos covering the Iraq war....you can find most of it here on the internet....

it was much easier for government military to LIE...because nobody could remember 'exactly' what they said...and if they got confronted, words could easily be denied....no internet videos, no recordings and transmitting of EVERYTHING...no instant searching of documents and rummy briefings on-line....so a lot of stuff just went under the radar, totally in DC, and only for government eyes...the government refused to release documents, and refused to count the DEAD soldiers....


today's YOUNG have so much more tools to stop the war....seems that the draftable YOUNG don't care too much about the war, and do NOT want to utilizing their vast communication devices to stop the war....sad, really sad...

[damnraddem]

25. The biggest difference: the draft.

Thousands of young men were being drafted and sent to Vietnam. This was a real engine producing activism against the war. We didn't have the internet, cell phones, PCs, or other such aids; but we did have TV news, which would and did report on protests, show footage from Vietnam, and show pictures of flag-draped coffins returning to the US. Now we have all sorts of electronic aids; but the media is largely controlled by those who don't want our side to get out constantly to the American viewing audience -- err, people.

Today's peace movement is just not as large or active most of the time as was the movement then -- even though the protests against the invasion last year were the largest ever. At the same time, today's peace movement has the advice of veterans of movements against: the Vietnam War, US support of a repressive/murdering government in El Salvador, US opposition to the Sandanistas and support of the Contras in Nicaragua, and so on. This is often good, because some mistakes of those movements are largely avoided; but it may also detract, because some of those mistakes emerged from true passion that today's movement sometimes (but not at all always) lacks.

[candy331]

29. Here's one who lived through it all too

From the assassination of Pres Kennedy to killing of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. I can never forget the murders of the Kent State students. Schools over the South started bussed integrations, some relatively peaceful some ugly. Hubby did 2 tours in Nam one in 68 and the other in 71. He came back subdued and never has been willing to discuss what happened over there to any lengthy extent. He did tell me how a couple of his buddies were killed and one died in his arms.

His 1st cousin was shot up very bad over there and a classmate was brought back to Tallahassee to be buried. Hubby came back physically okay and mentally ok outward, but inward I think he still struggles, but thank goodness he has been able to lead a productive life.

Those were turbulent times, yet changing times, people were proactive, there was a movement in this country at the time that could not be stopped. The news media still had integrity for the most part and people still trusted the news to tell the truth. People saw news persons such as Walter Cronkite as people of honor and integrity and somewhat a heroes. Even people in general were basically honest and upright persons who sought the best in each other. As I look back over those years I echo the words that "much has changed but much still has remained the same".

[diamond14]

31. BIG efforts to stop the war...burning the ROTC buildings (pics)

Kent State ROTC Building goes up in flames....
(ROTC = Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps)

at my alma mater, the University of Michigan, and many other colleges/universities...students did not want military recruitment on their campuses, and when the military refused to leave, the students burned their buildings right to the ground...and the military did not come back to U of M for many years...sadly, today, military have been allowed by students to return...which will make it so much easier for shrub's draft implementation...

Today, there are very few YOUNG draft-age people at the anti-war protests...this has been written about by many newspapers, and I have observed it myself at 7 major BIG city anti-war protests this past year....few young people....

today's protests have many middle-aged parents trying to protect their YOUNG from bush*...all the while, bush* is making progress toward grinding up our YOUNG into his cannon fodder for Iraq...but YOUNG people don't seem to care....their parents do, though....

primarily because of the lack of interest by YOUNG people, there are very few new protest songs, music, artwork, theatre, poems and other art....for Vietnam, a whole big universe of music and artwork (still being admired and used today) gushed out of YOUNG protestors...there is little of that today...just old people, and old songs, and old artwork....

this is the MAIN reason, that bush* continues so arrogantly...today's young are already going like sheep to the slaughter...making little effort to stop the bush* war machine, which will very soon, suck them all up in BIG numbers....especially because the YOUNG have been encouraged to maintain their Kerry against Dean struggle and are actually flinging the election to bush* and their own deaths...any smart YOUNG person would enthusiastically embrace Kerry RIGHT NOW, but I don't see that happening...

for Vietnam, protestors did not apply for protest permits....today, with permits, the police can have a plan and block you in and attack you....for Vietnam, the element of surprise was important to the success of the protest....

and the protests were SERIOUS...not parades, like today...pouring blood on draft board files, burning down ROTC buildings, attacking draft boards and burning them....SERIOUS stuff...IMO, the Vietnam protesters saved many young lives....the war collapsed of it's own weight, hastened by the protests....today's protests are more like a parade, with all kinds of permits and the proper number of toilets, and polite pre-notification of authorities, so they can send out THUGS in force to spray you with mace and hit you with clubs....

[DrWeird]

41. Now THAT's civil disobedience.

Did they ever go after draft offices?

[diamond14]

47. yes, the Berrigan brothers walked in draft boards and poured

buckets of animal blood on the draft board records (which were paper files in filing cabinets, making the draftees info impossible to read (plus it stinks after a few days)....some draft boards got the cheap-and-easy Molotov cocktail treatment, and were burned to the ground....

to shut down the military machine takes a lot of effort...there were major efforts to disrupt supply lines, like the transport of military equipment and weapons across America to ports...people lay down on the tracks in front of the trains...chained themselves to locked gates on military complexes...bombed Rail Road tracks...

the military killing machine came under siege all over America...the killers could not move any ammo or war machines by rail, roads, trucks because hundreds lay down in front of them, could not recruit because college students would not allow it, burning their buildings right to the ground, could not draft when the draft boards were burned or bloodied...

there was plenty of civil disobedience....SERIOUS civil disobedience, not like todays parade-like protests, hemmed in by police, pre-alerted by permits, proper number of toilets...

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

48. see post 46 please

[NNadir]

36. Most of the protesters in those days were younger (as was I.)

One way of looking at it is to recognize that the Baby Boomer crowd, of which I am a member, constituted the most self-absorbed generation in American history. They were adamnant about opposing war when they were being forced to participate in one, but as soon as the war became the responsibility of others, they became fond of war. This explains Cheney, Bush, and, yes, Bill Clinton.

Some baby boomers however, retained their abhorrence of war. Some of those people, certainly a minority, could be found at the war protests against Iraq. The protests in New York, I am happy to say, were cross generational, but Baby Boomers were underrepresented.

[ewagner]

37. A lot of things are different

I didn't get really active until 1966 and stayed that way until I got drafted in '70

Among the things that are different.:

Reporters were free to go where they wanted on the battlefield. No "embeds"

A lot of the anti-war message was carried through music....folk was just dying out but folk/rock still carried the messages to campuses.

There was, of course, the draft. That meant that there were no non-combatants...

The civil rights movement was still happening and struggling, it was natural that the anti-war and civil rights movements piggy-backed.

I think what happened to me was that after Kennedy was shot, we didn't trust anybody or anything. I personally began to question authority by asking simple questions, like: WHY? and most of the time, the answers were unacceptable.

If the draft comes back, look for a replay of 1968 ....violent protests...etc., because nobody will get involved if they don't have something at stake.

just my 2 cents worth.

[diamond14]

40. many women protested Vietnam, and could not be drafted, and

therefore, had nothing at stake...women were totally 'non-combatants'

it was simply a matter of conscience.....


BTW, did you meet any reporters out there on the battlefield?

[ewagner]

62. a belated apology

I was speaking from my (male) perspective and totally spaced out about female activists. For that, I apologize.

I ended up on Gaum....manning a desk.....guilt still remains.

[mlawson]

42. One huge difference is the climate on college campuses.

Back then, any student who was not informed on the current issues and politics, was considered to be a 'no-mind', and was not treated with much respect, to say the least. Nowadays, it's very different.

Imagine being in a social science class of some sort. The prof has a lesson plan, but the students are so busy vociferously arguing (not discussing, but arguing) politics, which inevitably leads to the War, that he/she finally gives up and lets them take over the class. 95% or more of the students are in on it, and anyone who is not, is considered 'stupid'. That is what it was like, in 1968. And yes, it was intimidating as hell!!!

[LeahMira]

44. This is how I remember...

Well, protests against this war started before the actual invasion. The internet helped immensely, both to inform and organize those folks who objected but who otherwise might have been a group of one and also to inform the general internet public about the facts they weren't hearing in the other media. The result was worldwide protest, all on the same day, in nearly all the major cities of the northern hemisphere. That wouldn't have been possible without internet networks and cooperative planning.

But during the Vietnam era we had a draft. Now, our military is a fighting force of mercenaries... not in the sense that the soldiers are only in it for the money, but in the sense that they are all in the military because, for one reason or another, they want to be. During the Vietnam War young men and women were in the military because it was a matter or do your two years or go to jail. They were sent off to battle whether they were willing to go or not. And, of course, there were some who managed to evade the draft and they weren't all the children of the wealthy either. There were actually young men who did damage to themselves rather than go.

It seems now, from a distance, that there was a lot more ambiguity about Vietnam. A real fear of communism was prevalent, and people felt that the U.S. was really fighting to save our democracy because one country after another was "going communist." Still, I think that there were more objections to war that were based on the immorality of wars in general than the fact of the lies, like those we are being told now. I found Gen. Clark's comment about an "elective war" strange in a way because I suppose I'm more used to the idea that, elective or not, war is just wrong. I think that mindset comes from living through the Vietnam War.

[Woodstock]

45. The living room was a scary place

I was still a kid during the 60's, but remember our living room was a scary place around 6 PM - that's when my parents watched the news on our big color TV. Blood and guts every night - pictures of young American men after being blown apart. We were afraid my friend's brother would be next. If we had that sort of coverage now during the Iraq war - with all the deaths and severe wounds - Bush's approval ratings would be in the teens. Now it's all Bush's little secret.

[BigBigBear]

49. My friend's brother

was shot down over Da Nang in 1969. I remember my friend crying bitterly for his brother at my house a few weeks afterward. I never knew his brother.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

46. So as someone who was born in 1975

came of age under Reagan and Bush 1 and the waging of war after lessons learned from Vietnam. What can the young generation do to get some of that fire back into the anti war movement?

[diamond14]

50. it has to come from the 'belly of the beast', from the YOUNG people

themselves....

us OLD people have now been fighting against 'bush* perpetual wars' for TWO years...to a certain extent, our protests have prevented Iraq from being much worse, and limited the total force of OUR military, and contained the wars....but we are with the same old war songs, and same old war poems...and mostly because we are OLD, we have applied for the protest permits and expressed great humbrage when we were shoved by police, and maced and beat...and now, we are gasping for our last 'permitted' protests....we are not scared, just OLD and tired....and we realize that it is a lost cause, unless YOUNG draft-age people decide to put some real big SERIOUS effort into the anti-war movement....


it's all about non-acceptance of the whole war...the entire war in every single facet of it....non-acceptance of trucks and trains transporting military weapons and machines through YOUR neighborhoods...non-acceptance of military recruiters and ROTC operating on YOUR college campuses and thereby having access to students records...non-acceptance of military rolling along in football parades...non-acceptance of recruiting in YOUR town....refusing to work for any aspect of military, including contractors.....what's so sad today, is that the YOUNG draft-able people have laid down and accepted the whole program with hardly a peep....and when it snaps shut, it will be way too late....the time to act in NOW...rumsfeld described the Vietnam draft as young men "sucked into the intake"....

resistance can take many forms...and I simply do not know what could come from the YOUNG, 'the belly of the beast', who are the most advanced communication and computer-savvy people ever....the YOUNG draftable people could disrupt a lot of military NOW, if they wanted...but it must come from the YOUNG, the strong, the draftable, and in their own way, for their own lives...at some point, there must be leaders...but where are they???? sadly, bush* THUGS are trying to instill their THUG leaders and alter perceptions....but where are the REAL leaders?? at U of M, leaders would just stand up in the center of campus, and give a speech...while they were speaking, students would gather and listen...it's worked that way for many years, in many town squares...we might have done it differently if we had internet and computers and cell phones...

[ewagner]

61. Thanks amen

I think you expressed things far more eloquently than I did.

Sadly, it's true. We're older now. During those years we weren't married and didn't have any responsibilities. We married, had families, tried to secure our own, personal piece of the American pie and in the process grew old.

The spirit is still there. I still rant at Bush* everytime he opens his mouth and I wonder how the hell he gets away with the lies, the false christainity, the false patriotism. If it gets worse, who know. I may end up with a bullhorn in my hands again. But I'd really like to see the new generation pick up the torch (or bullhorn) and stand up for democracy like so many of us did.

...a slight glimmer of hope...my son is in college about 1200 mioles away. I got a call from him one night last Spring and he told me he had just come in from an anti-war rally on his college campus. Maybe the fruit doesn't fall too far from the tree after all.......

[Kanary]

53. I'm afraid, CSTT, it's going to take personal involvement

In other words, for most young people, it will have to touch them personally in some way. That's why I'm not hugely opposed to the draft. Until young people KNOW it could be *them* on the front line, they'll just look at it as another movie, and go back to their music.

We had a saying during the war protest years, "It's time to bring the war home". I'm afraid that will have to happen in some way in order to motivate *most* (definitely not all!) young people. It takes a great force to overcome that typical youthful sense of immortality, and "It can't happen to me".

Thank you for asking the questions, and for being conscious of what is going on around you!

Kanary

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

70. ###################!!!!!!THANK YOU ALL!!!!!#########################

Thank you for your stories, for taking the time to speak about your experiences. Thank you for serving and fighting for my (and our) freedom to rant on these boards and challenge our system in a way that people in few other countries can.

I was at the protest February 15th 2003 in NYC. It was my first protest. Despite the bitter cold, despite being penned in, despite armored police trucks and helicopters and a veritable army of riot gear armored police, despite the horses knocking kids down in front of me and the lines buses barricading us from taking over a block on 51st st and from marching to times square - despite all that it was the day I felt most human and most alive and most empowered. Little did I know TENS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WORLDWIDE were marching in solidarity elsewhere. I only hope we can double that and double it again should the war cloud shift as the PNAC definitely will have it shift.

I sincerely hope the DUers of my generation will read these posts and get fired up. The powers that be want to erase the histories that you have all shared with me so that we can't have the empowerment and the political impact that your era's protesters had. They don't want our nation to explode. But this nation was built on dissent fueled by good conscience and passionate caring.

I'll do my part!

:toast:

[Cheswick2.0]

75. You start being brave

what that means is up to you

[nomatrix]

51. We had excellent music

since that has not been mentioned.
FM stations were listened to because it was worth tuning in to. DJ's actually promoted concerts. There's nothing like (good) music to bring out emotions and people together. You'd meet up and find out someone you knew (school, neighbor, family)was there or died in the war and it became personal. Random lottery picking innocence. It would make you scream, no more! Maybe at college you didn't see it on TV, but at my dinner table it was on everyday. Choppers with wounded/dead, bloody faces in agony. No way. What also was going on as the "Terra" aka cat and mouse game of the Cold War, with submarines & real nuclear weapons.
I asked someone who just retired military what was going on after September 11th. He said count the new military bases. The New Cold War.
The protests I participated in were not violent. They did not involve spitting on soldiers because quite a few were vets. We wanted it to end. period.
As to comparison. You can't. The only similarity I can find. We did not belong in either place killing their people. Neither nation had threatened us. No amount of justification can be placed on the lives of those slaughtered. It also cannot be compared with any other conflict, so please don't bother because one does not beget the other.

Ask yourself this. If Sept 11 was in fact the work of Osama bin Laden, and his beef was that we remove US troop's from Saudi Arabia, why did we?

Also, how different are the Dem/Rep "tribes" than the tribes that live in Iraq? We can't even get democracy here with the Republican tribe holding a choreographic stronghold on this free nation. Bugsby Berkley had nothing on the SOTU! (he made all those musicals with chorus girls all in step, not one out of line)
You need to get your friends out to vote and be vocal because you are the generation that pays for this. We were the generation that paid for that.

[TreasonousBastard]

52. Reading this brought a lot back.

I got drafted in '67, just when things were heating up over there, but spent all my time in Germany, and lived there for a couple of years after I got out. My memories, then, have a slightly different perspective.

Kennedy was shot, most of the people running the world were WWII veterans and considered themselves heroes and good guys, the height of the Cold War, King was battling for civil rights, the environmental movement was starting, the Beatles and Timothy Leary were tellng us to stay stoned, Abbie Hoffman, the Weathermen, Black Panthers, Berrigans, Dylan, Woodstock, Haight-Ashbury...

And Kent State, where for the first time in many people's memories American troops (the Guard, actually under state orders) actually shot at American citizens.

Unlike now, there were open and bitter, occasionally violent, divides between various segments, and it wasn't just verbal. Civil rights protestors were being killed, and many assumed the government was behind it. Many on all sides saw real revolution coming.

Depending on what side you were on, there was genuine fear or joy at the thought of the fabric of America unravelling.

Viet Nam was an enormous, festering carbuncle in the middle of all this, and became a focus for many on just what was wrong with the country.

The protests were serious, but never got to the point of organization or numbers to threaten an actual civil revolt, but the spirit was there in some quarters.

There was full press coverage, with pictures, of Bull Connor sending the dogs after civil rights marchers, and pictures of the dead and dying in Viet Nam were at least a weekly feature. Self-immolating Buddhist monks were always front page news. The press didn't seem to take sides much, except on the editorial pages, but they covered everything, and weren't afraid to show us the blood. War is hell, and they let us know it. The black and white back then of newspapers and TV made the pictures starker, and the color in Life and Look stood out even more.

Somehow, as always, fellow travellers on all sides were able to communicate. Underground newspapers and magazines, meetings and cells... everyone had them. The internet is faster, but much less secure, and any revolutionaries, doing their planning on the net or in email are just plain stupid. Back then, everyone knew anout COINTELPRO and acted like they were in the French Resistance. Even if no one was really plotting anything outrageous, it was fun to be paranoid. And some people had good reason to be paranoid.

The military itself was full of draftees who hated the war and did what they could to slow things down. In some cases, it became an ideal network for seditious thought. It wasn't difficult to get people on military airlifts for the most interesting reasons if you knew the right people. You have no idea how easy it was to get phony orders cut back then. At least in Germany.

During my years in Europe back then, I sensed Europeans were far more interested in rebuilding their countries from years of war and devastation than being interested in the Cold War, or even Viet Nam. they were curious about it, but didn't really consider it any of their business.

Being an American, I had very few bad experiences back then, and most Europeans seemed to actually appreciate us for helping to lift them from under the boot of the Nazis. The war was still very real to many of them, and somewhere I may still have pictures of the bulletholes in the church down the street from me that they decided not to patch. A small memorial of sorts.

My favorite restaurant was a small gasthaus owned by Rommel's personal cook. Rommel ate very well, let me tell you. Talk of the war was off limits, but it seemed his greatest regret was losing his home in the Eastern sector, and not losing the war to us.

I took a trip to Paris one weekend with one of his waitresses, and I cannot describe the feelings as we passed the cemetary at Verdun. An hour or two of complete silence after that one.

I miss those days. Maybe it's because I was younger then, but life had meaning, and the future was exciting.

Or, maybe it's because life did have more meaning back then, and the future was more exciting.

[arewethereyet]

54. there is no comparison

then
-more war dead than in any war since like the Civil War,
everyone knew someone who had died, often several
-kids drafted and expected to fight without voting rights,
old enough to kill and be killed, too young to vote against it
-no obvious intent to win the war, take a hill, give a hill back
go take same hill again and pick up dead boys on each trip

I could go on

now
-it is unusual to know a casualty personally
-everyone agreed to this job going in
-winning was planned and assured

Dead boys in any number are terrible. But to suggest that there is any comparison is just foolish.

It was enough to get people like me to fight however we could and fight well. We got Vote 18 and we stopped the war.

Thats reward enough but when kids have refused to use that vote we won for them it hurts. In a way I'm glad that there is nothing so terrible that makes them feel the need to get responsible. Kids should have the chance to be kids, the real world will come along soon enough. But on the other hand, there is nothing wrong with being responsible enough to vote. Its once a year, its not that hard.

[rtassi]

55. Please help me understand

I'll Try. I was raised and lived in San Francisco then. Young people, students, were the back bone of the peace movement. All rolled in with different ethnic backgrounds and neighborhoods. Music amplified the thoughts , hopes and dreams of a generation who sought world peace, no matter how naive it sounds now. We struggled to break free from the dogma of our parents. We rebelled openly, with drink, smoke, or whatever. We had leadership whom were loved and admired.

We were involved personally, we were either drafted, or we resisted. Either choice brought about dire consequences. We had to be involved physically to express our outrage, we hadn't the access nor the anonymity brought about by the chat room or message board. We marched, wrote letters, boycotted, and circulated petitions. We prayed. We were shot at, jailed, and convicted of crimes both federal and state. Students were killed on campuses by the very military who swore oath's to protect them.

We knew LBJ murdered his boss, and then launched us head first into Vietnam, and didn't quit until over 50.000 Americans were dead. Two American Presidents whimpered away from their posts in disgrace. The media even then, complied with the cover ups.

Our leaders, men and women of vision and passion were all killed, excommunicated, or discredited. Portrayed as lunatics or drug addicts, homo's, or commies.

It had a great beginning though, San Francisco was alive with optimism and hope and diversity. We wore long hair, ragged clothing, drove VW's and loved anyone who came to help. It ended badly, people died, gave up hope, scummed to drugs, and got old before there time. We thought we new everything, we didn't. We made lots of mistakes, indulged in aberrant behaviors, and underestimated the resolve, strength and reach of the opposition. It was the big lie then, it is the big lie now....Sorry for the rant.

[Cleita]

57. I'm sorry it didn't work for you.

There were many of us who didn't buy into the drugs, sex and rock n' roll. We went to work everyday and then worked for change on our days off and put ourselves on the line and we did change a lot of things for the better. This administration is trying to take us back to the homophobic, mysoginist, elitist, anti-environmentalism and perpetual war that we fought.

[rtassi]

59. Actually I survived relatively unharmed

My post, was more of a retrospective of what I observed happening to others, rather than a personal account of despair. I haven't lost all hope, but the path seems a little less clear. I agree with your earlier post about tactics and surprise.

[UTUSN]

58. There Was More "Conformist"

Today, it is flat out ridiculous how "scared" we are.

[arko]

60. It was a completely different time

It wasn't just a protest against the war it was against everything. It was long hair, hip hugging bell bottoms. Flower power, sex drugs and rock and roll.

People gathered just to be together. It was better than the internet, to see the faces, hear the voices, the music. It seem unreal now to imagine how things were. Look up Woodstock. I wasn't there but it pretty much summed up the late 60's.

[UTUSN]

64. And We're STILL Alive? Shucks on Us n/t

[diamond14]

65. for Iraq...I've learned about war-profiteering, which I knew nothing

about during the Vietnam War.....

I also knew little about the Pentagon and the Washington DC detached attitude toward those who are KILLED...today, I live very close to the Pentagon and understand that this is the real core of the madness and the drive to war....we used to call it rather naively: "Old men make wars, young men fight wars"...today, I ride the Metro Train with Pentagon military officers who talk about the KILLING like some kind of paper exercise in a math class...gives me the chills...

but both wars seem quite similar to me...except for the time-frames.....same war-profiteering motives, same young soldiers killed, same detached insane old men at the Pentagon with their same 'stinking thinking' about the world and foreign affairs and solving problems by KILLING people...

Iraq is Vietnam IN A MICROWAVE....
Iraq is Vietnam without the trees...

[Beam Me Up]

66. See the documentary BERKELEY IN THE SIXTIES

I recommend this documentary to anyone under 30. It does a good job of recreating a lot of the feel of the time. You can rent the DVD from netflix: http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?trkid=73&movieid=60025099

The Sixties were a very different time than today. All in all, it was a much more optimistic time--a time of change on many different levels and on many different fronts. Indeed, the anti war movement grew out of the anti-segregation movement. Many of us believed that we could create a better world--that we had the insight, knowledge, vision and technology to do so. We weren't exactly wrong. However, things have not turned out as we hoped and dreamed at the time. In hind sight, we underestimated the opposition. It was a "revolutionary" social situation but it was not a "revolutionary" POLITICAL situation. The current POLITICAL situation COULD BECOME a REVOLUTIONARY situation as more and more people wake up to what is actually going on. (I'm not holding my breath, just stating what I believe to be the case.)

The anti Iraq war protests here in the SF Bay area were HUGE--especially given they were before the war. I was pleased to see a broad cross section of society (young, middle aged and old). One of the reasons the establishment is reluctant to start a draft is they are concerned that it will once again bring about significant decent from those Americans who don't ordinarily oppose their agenda. They would prefer to have an all 'volunteer' force made up largely of the economically and socially disinfranchised.

In any case, I do recommend the documentary.

[G_j]

71. great documentary!

There is no other like it, a must-see for sure.

I also just saw a 'fictional' film called "The Year That Trembled" that did a pretty good job of depicting what it was like to be draft age and was centered around the Kent State demonstrations.

[Matilda]

73. The Australian experience echoed the American one ...

we had the draft, the campus rebellions, the baton-wielding police.
And because most of our culture was imported, we had Dylan, and Baez,
and Arlo Guthrie. And we read about the Berrigan Brothers and Abbie
Hoffman.

The "revolution" started with the young, I think, because it was the
young who were being drafted. My friends were being called up (they
didn't all go), but many of our parents generation at first seemed
to think that because they'd fought in a war, it was the turn of
their sons, can you believe. My objections initially were simply
against conscription, only later did I begin to see what a horrible
mistake it was, what a crime against humanity, and I think that was
pretty general. By around '69-70, our parents were beginning to see
it that way too - I think Kent State turned a lot of them around,
we saw it all here, and it was a dreadful shock.

I think what's missing today is the cleverness and creativity of the
Berrigans (priests raiding government offices and burning draft cards, that was really something back then) and Hoffman, who got
about 8,000 followers to surround the Pentagon and chant to levitate
it. Great publicity! And there was the music - Dylan's anti-war
songs put him right at the top of the pile, and Arlo Guthrie's
"Alice's Restaurant" was hilarious, in a black way, and we all
played it to death.

But there's one other thing missing today - media coverage. It
made a huge difference that everyone could read and see what was
happening, and think about it. Today, the biggest marches are
relegated to back pages, and most other events or speeches are not
reported at all. It's so dishonest, such a dismal failure of
responsibility to the public, and sadly, most people aren't going
to sit in front of a computer to find out for themselves, and so
the lies and the cover-ups can continue. That's one way in which
the politicians have learned the lessons of Vietnam - don't take
it into people's living rooms - they mightn't like it.

[ewagner]

74. Great post...great insights

It occurs to me that if any meaningul change is to take place now, we have to start with the young people who will eventually inheirit the mess that bush* and company are getting us into.

We have to bypass the media to do this.

I think I'm going to ask to speak to the local college Young Democrats. Shake them up and wake them up. Maybe we can start a new generation of politically aware young people.

Just a thought

[laruemtt]

72. we didn't have so much

cultural fluff coming at us from the media. not that i recall, but admittedly i spent a good deal of the late 60s early 70s "forgetting" :hippie: i recall a lot more intellectual courage and curiosity than now. i recall a much more emotionally honest time. but that's just me. i miss it.