They have been ignored, as soldiers and as veterans. Unlike the returning servicemen of earlier wars, they have not been celebrated in film or song; there are no more victory parades. Born at a time of rapid political, social, and technological change, reflecting both the hopes and anxieties of the post-World War II years in which they came to adulthood, these young men left military service filled with doubts about the kind of war they were forced to fight, about their country’s leaders, and about the sanctity of their America.
Regardless of their convictions about the war, practically every veteran I spoke with indicated in a variety of ways his suspicion that he had been manipulated; the government was nothing but a faceless ‘them.’ Since little will be done until the war ends, the case for peace now is even greater, and the appeal for eventual amnesty much more valid, especially when one remembers what these new ‘criminals’ did not do. They did not rebel against their country, they did not commit treason or openly take up arms. Their sole offense, if it is an offense, was in cherishing freedom so highly that they refused to submit to a draft or military service in a war their morality and their ethics would not let them accept.