The+Protest

The Protest:

Since Vietnam was such a highly televised war, people knew about it, and what was happening. Soldiers returning home were treated as cold blooded murderers, not warriors as they should have been. The general public, however, still felt patriotic about the war, and felt that we were the better, more advanced nation - and the Vietnamese needed to be dealt with. The protesters knew about the war, and felt they needed to demonstrate that they were against the war and draft. It was a violent protest. On campus, there was a reserve officers’ training corps – it looked like an armory type building. It had a big stone fence around it, which was torn down by protesters. The city police soon realized that they would be unable to quell the violence, so the National guard and Military police arrived. While there was no major violence including them, they were there to serve as more of a threat, than to physically harm the protesters. In a very basic sense, these protests were similar to the ones in My Revolutions, in the form that there were of course protests and destruction, but also the feeling and idea of anarchy. It was however, not nearly as violent. it was similar to some of the earlier protests in the book however, when they marched on the embassy for example. While there was considerable damage done at the University, it was peaceful compared to some other protests that happened around the same time; yet it was also an incredibly important protest, as it was one of the big pushes of the 60's.



Author: Max Brown