NET Journal; Homefront 1967

ha plaza is at work little boys play war even in peacetime but one grownups joining the game in places like vietnam the world of battles and bulletins trickles down to children in all its simplicity and all its confusion i that kind of shot that is why you get well i think it's very good because it can turn into a wall would have to go to the war isn't it

at journal examines the impact of the vietnam war an american community in place from nineteen sixty seven in the hills above charlottesville virginia stands jefferson's march in order to ward off at war and jefferson's words belong to the past of the vietnam war belongs to the president and to charlottesville the time with the men in the service with defense work and with the university full of draft age men that are not typical but certainly representative of america a town in which you can see that this

war is different in nineteen forty one no one in charlottesville protests at the draft then enlisted without waiting to be called the university of virginia campus was crowded with drilling rifleman support for the war was proud invisible in the windows of thousands of american homes with men in the service the times you're always use without irony and soldiers and sailors were welcomed everywhere the word home front was taken seriously because the folks on main street we're fighting two there was no credibility gap and everyone knew who and what the enemy were the home front was wherever you were and your job was what ever sacrifice you could make to achieve victory for our side today you could walk through charlottesville and see no evidence that there is a war it's not just that the home front looks smaller rather it seems nonexistent throughout the nation there is conflict as well as concerned about

vietnam how does an american community feel about it this is the question we set out to answer in charlottesville we asked radio station owner don heiney to describe the town's attitude toward the war theres no discussion in the community a lot of the daily progress editorials by gilbert hale have supported the war mikhail believes that charlottesville of those two eighth christian support we're going to ask you something or none of the

town's leaders attributed any single viewpoint of the town on vietnam we were told that most people were apathetic or less directly involved one classic view of wars argues that old men start them knowing young men must fight them even in this age of conflicts in police actions young men's lives are still disrupted sometimes lost lane high school wednesday morning this despite those class in government and civics you only use it when they come on saturdays in san francisco and they had about five thousand and they are doing a week an intern on weekends they joined by teenagers now the group's just come in and eventually thousand and they wear was closing line here and they have on their own philosophy of life lane high school is one of two in

town and probably has a slightly higher proportion of the upper middle class youths and its sister school early on many of the boys in this despite else class or college bound and probably will not have to face the drug for years if ever nevertheless mr spight oh it wasn't easy for over thirty years finds these young people more concerned about the issues in this war and their parents ever were in some it has created a feeling of profound doubt in others profound anger and frustration the students in this class are encouraged to bring in newspaper articles on any subject that they find interesting on an average day the stories range from hippies to hockey players but according to most just by adele the subject of vietnam comes up regularly many in the class feel strongly about it nice job it is

you have something that mom and i and this is the lesson is near its devotees probes and then going on and i go and sell things that's the scene for one what they were talking about their time now confusion have gained people to get together to discuss of these things because they get they get like clergymen and low people really in the lower echelons of the us diplomatic service to try to work out to places where they can talk and things they can talk about things and since we know that this particular synod is religion whereas it's great communications work that ought to be done with really high officials please trying trying to get these new law as to the president

and how he felt about well they have a really great efforts towards peace and he said that we can start bombing was this the yellow star's doing something that they're going to make sense to me because it's like sluts and i say and how i lived and i've noticed when i've been saying well if you took a knife and his policies have anything else so it i mean we see promises we get annoyed washington everything is important on the same alliance with pope said or done since a piece of

what we can expect you can expect us to discuss so it seems to me our sales cars were in the abdominal was before your ground law it's sad pip and it must be everybody was going to be jobs and so on we

would like to see a third story piedmont is one of several local industries thriving considerable work and prophets from military contracts and electronics but neither management nor the workers admits to feeling any vested interest in the war both groups assert that peace would bring a new kind of work and a new kind of profits the majority question expressed support for the war but many did not to vietnam veterans revealed a deep split people feel too are reading about him his time in vietnam was a meaningless waste of service in vietnam was part of the fight for freedom for ray marshal says

these kids as these souls it is to the british once built an empire with young men willing to risk their own alliance with the united states now has commitments on an imperial scale and our young men seem willing to accept the same obligation and risk the willingness to fulfill that commitment was explained by henry cooper and gary hicks

and it's anglos necessities this is beans and then we were living in a part of boston and

vietnam's been a little bit about the planters break off bombs and arms by fifteen and they do not vietnam and a lot of that view of our mission in vietnam was strikingly similar to the view expressed by these online services the difference is that these young men will probably never go there we asked them why we were in vietnam and why they were in the research well we're in vietnam all mainly to help the people are to get them back on its feet again so they themselves can take your own land we believe in the freedom of all people the right to do it all as you please within the limits the law and we are serving that purpose in vietnam hour we inevitably will serve a purpose in vietnam

thought well so i and research and jay allison and at that well small place in the army but so i just decided that i had go want to go into the life insurance business and i just couldn't do that i'm going to be on full time also i think one reason that we're in that number now with commerce i think it was made more widely over the world is now and as i've taken and to spotify to one the number of these ministries i joined the army reserves in february nineteen sixty six on what many of the other boys in the humid it gives an obligation

to film festival obligation and also to work with us civilian jobs do they but gregory reserve center is named after charlottesville soldier who died heroically of world war two some of these reservists are veterans but most are part of the growing number of young men who satisfy their military obligations by once a week training sessions and two weeks of active duty each summer camps stemmed from the draft the theory behind the reserves is that the government has fully trained units ready to call into action on short notice but in the decades since world war two views such units have never been activated and even fewer have seen combat in consequence there are waiting lists today for most reserve units there is of course nothing to prevent a reservist who believe strongly in the war in vietnam from volunteering we're active duty however most investments in charlottesville and another chance coming up for reservists but

from boy's about to be drafted enlistment in the navy or air force to better chance of at least avoiding ground combat in vietnam on february sixteenth the junior chamber of commerce met at the virginia national bank to hear an address by william c battle former ambassador to australia big distance between people but prime minister neville chamberlain would go into church the jaycees enthusiastic as they are in so many areas as vigorously support of the war effort is to battles presence is just one more gesture of that support recently they conducted a campaign to get people to send christmas cards to the boy's stationed in vietnam

you know i mean we can do to help the activities of the jaycees are not necessarily typical of those of other local organizations even a veteran's organizations have been relatively inactive in recent years we asked to the president how to explain his organization's attitude toward the war they show that twenty one to thirty five years or was that chapter of the case easier job <unk> now in vietnam and we feel it with a model of a young man of action that is our responsibility to take an active part in we're going to the players and we turn to a vietnamese while most pressing issues that we've

been comply with some degree of will be the huge piles of voters in the us a year veterans organizations are traditional supporters of the nation's military efforts at the charlottesville american legion the support was strong but the tone was moderate it is you

know thank you it is but for people like the william jordan's that's not all there is to it this is jordan has acted in community affairs her husband is a physician and world war two people like the georgians would have been leaders and home front activities today they and their friends are educated and well informed people do little to support or oppose the war probably you are the feelings of the majority of the town

it takes a personal tragedy to bring them face to face with vietnam a day a lady who worked for me as the sun edison who was killed in vietnam he was a resident of the city as shots go and play in high school college even how active in new musical and religious activities he was the best example and he was a terrier and it was his job before we are to south vietnam war north vietnam and at his playstation was killed and the outpouring of sympathy and

before this individual and typically for the mother the individual was one of the most dramatic this suspect was not because we were so disappointed that he was doing the right thing and was the bankers' country western oneness with god life no really personally involved today

the university of virginia was designed by thomas jefferson had his architecture dominates the school only slightly less than his ideas it is three thousand miles from berkeley but the distances more than geographical words like gentleman and decorum are heard frequently even from rebels professor charles baldwin is a former us ambassador to malaysia and a lecturer in government the troubled by some of her students' reactions to the vietnam war mr baldwin felt that the majority were probably behind their nation's policies to the extent that they understood them never before he felt has that been such a gap in that understanding were not conventional recess until they haven't yet been convinced one of them said quote they can't see the direct threat of minutes there was a threat against this country and jerusalem a remarkable the republican party

wayne coyne unintelligible are but i'm not sure the origin of yet succeeded him and comforting <unk> to our younger generation the reason why we're going in the sight of young men in uniform has become a familiar sight right now and most american campuses the reserve officers training corps one more way in which college educated youths inevitably enjoying a privileged position in this war he enters the military as an officer and a gentleman at uva that's important we can let's say this our house though the party was largely peaceful it's a long way from war many lenders is a big weekend and

it's understandable most of these young men are members of our royalties see one question they have different views on what the warm up to them i've been here and onetime associate with feels that the united states showing that we have known position and pulling out that there should be a minority i think you know that's right it was the right decision they're asking to stop

listening because i think of most of the notes convey our lifetimes let the resistance to it this is a government analyzes them and you know they're an analysis that may ninth season in warsaw other stores and that's what i'll do lesser amount when asked who is in their first model ending they said that surprises him and they decide this is doing that and not private insurers who survived and he said that along you want to just go in or is that it out this is why as les mots the service of vietnam as an army is to love their liaison office also has itself its own no i think it's hard to read every day in the paper that our

people and fifteen winner of the average iowans american jazz that kill only the disorderly life and whether images you me every day you know are finding themselves so as somebody you know but with the same he says in the last year the arguments are endless and sometimes

pointless but many of the young men who support the work that they do not understand or feel comfortable about it the contrast is striking in world war two fraternities like this one often enlisted in the body though the university prides itself on students who wear ties and jackets there are rebels and occasionally even a bearded one robert rosen and bruce making are not opposed to the war they are simply detached from it and you go well your license or recruiting security is something that happens to some midwestern farmer sent the next accident in wintry islands of a typical athletic but does this is so far away that i might get there and you know my mother would let them there has been little public dissent to the war from the faculty though you're sharing quarters with bob dylan for year instructor dog day

said they never discussed vietnam years ago when i was one or two federally sponsored for the liberal group that was try to help integrate the restaurants around the university i went alone very much with these people and so at the end of the problem and the restaurants were integrated various members of the student body of this group wanted me to stop that one vietnam programs and at that point i didn't know anything about the war in vietnam and not that i don't know but i'm still alive was justified in taking any position on all so i do nothing now if the opportunity arose and i'm going to do something i do have a position now i have read something that i assume it's definitely moments in evolution that one is bound to speak out but i don't think that i could do it in the classroom in and i'm taking any kind of ideological position when

i'm a teacher literature hard to do that how the students who are amped up about it showed up a cattle auditorium on the night of february fifteenth to hear mr kenneth ross and other instructors discuss vietnam university describing the students to get attention i think we should stop wasting our boys' lives in nearby finding my writing and with bbc or whatever you call them fighting there again i think we should stop having letting president johnson quite an armchair war from the white house and turned over to our generals in vietnam who not quite a war as i was i would give the generals of permission to go in there and for one to blockade huy fong so we don't have to hit all the supplies along john jungle trails lose

our men lose our aircraft or could easily blockade off the out that the port i think we should bomb hanoi i think we should just hand over to them the prerogative and the all initiative and handling the war as they see that these men are trained for fighting the war they know how to do it as far as i remember a murder mystery traditional place so adam mr ross if you're referred in history what would happen if we had given general macarthur the chance that when the korean wave of the red chinese who wouldn't have this problem right now at guantanamo

your faces the peak turn it into another allows with a coalition government and have it turn into eventually i come in as the government is that your idea why doesn't her legacy secure mr ross we have visser us perhaps you're not afraid of the communist menace up with that an old to feel like our however i am and fifty short years the calmness to start with seventeen followers enslaved forty percent of the earth's people and twenty five percenters

slash this is more than christianity can count standing after nearly two thousand and you tell us there's nothing to worry about when you stand there and saudi intelligence of the students teaching is being held by the southern students organizing committee david nolan a leader of the tammany organization is a self styled radical hundred dropouts from the university i think that the majority of the students here care primarily about keeping out of the draft but regardless of their position on the vietnam war the most vocal supporters of the war you'll find over and next building over here taking out selective service exam to make sure that there won't be serving in vietnam themselves next year i think that the most students are just confused about the war

and follow don't have a position that and the support the administration fast as long as it doesn't affect him personally and when the time comes to declassify one a ordered to report for physical we've seen several out and just crack up and they come to us and say actually get out of the draft and what is wrong the war in vietnam they asked us questions like that foley had a student here at the university who want to canada and december in the unclassified one mit's draft board and he didn't think he would qualify as a conscientious objector and he knew he didn't want to go into the army so you just act up in left file cop one one and he's in montreal mount seems to be enjoying himself there's been a good deal of talk around among people most people think that they can't possibly qualify as conscientious objectors so that so many people i've time around are making plans for going to canada are thinking about her trying to get information about what forms have to be filled out an ordinary candidate and so what i want to

suggest are few instances in which the car getting one hundred and fifty or more students to come to a moratorium on their own time to listen to speeches is no mean accomplishment but the university has over seven thousand students so there is little sign of any wave of anti war protests sweeping over the campus as yet nor is the draft evader a common campus figure for every student who heads for canada there are a thousand to stay at home and argue the issues out and if there was any danger from the teaching i was not from inflammatory speeches or rather from the fact that too much of the talk was blindly theoretical a safe distance from the realities of vietnam ecosystem in on your thesis yes because this is going to get it again it a lot and a lot of the energy states the thing is

what it is in other words they say canteens the canteens dollars a barrel a dollar is hard to come by in this charlottesville neighborhood that one party is now definitely a second front and it is often claimed that the porno it and they really resent the fact there was little sign of this resentment in charlottesville the big blue stand to lose most of the war on poverty has neglected are also those who ironically at least aware of what they stand to lose a poverty program and just gotten off the drawing board so no one would you were cut back and change those leaders who do recognize the potential threat that vietnam poses to the poverty program that typified by civil rights leader archie williams mr williams recognizes vietnam as a hard but inevitable fact of life i finished my military obligations in the korean conflict and the people in this

area as all iranians no one wants to all the gulf wars it's there isn't any gain in war whatsoever a lot of those people has their own they feel that it is a lot of money being waged abroad songs money could be used in neighborhoods like this throughout the united states the war in vietnam has had a personal impact on the man in charge of the poverty program jay warrell so well why on this point i was growing up he decided that he would be a conscientious objector and when the event is a solo farmer reporter and as a result he's now serving his alternative service in vietnam he's in a refugee sentiment contending some five thousand vietnamese people mostly women children

than there are in the jungle it more and fighting has cleared cam and it is helping them to build shelters and to build latrines in general is keeping them busy and he writes that the settlement is within earshot of the iron triangle right right my second warrior james is a sophomore in college and he's also decided to be a conscientious objector and so notified the war and i think both my boys are enforced in making these decisions how by the fact that we are so quaker's are members of the society of friends which is a traditionally a pacifist who had by the feeling that war is a our whole institution though which

we may be able to eliminate and by such means as the united nations and the world court i'm obviously not a pacifist since i enlisted in the army in nineteen forty one and to remain on active duty for twenty years however i consider the pacifist position very seriously and it was decided to enlist because the newspapers began to carry headlines about the fate of the jews in germany i don't know what i was ready to do it it would have been if they were confronted with the same circumstances same set of circumstances that i was confronted with the nineteen forty one ah but i am satisfied that they have made their decision to conscientious objector war on a well thought out basis and i'm satisfied that they have made our decisions

living in a neighborhood nearby are two young graduate students for richard muller and billy reid the war poses a decision that they hoped to avoid i guess it was a surprise i'm not sure exactly what i do but i think i can say definitely that if i were a handgun and told the coach in the emmys yet on whether the list would be to me in and watch and i don't mean to bring myself to do it i'm a graduate student and deferment comes up for renewal in october bunkers position is that the war in vietnam has just unnecessary and tomorrow ceo mr bridges on the other hand

the palm of realizing the attitude of my parents especially my father i'm certain that he would consider and the issues of mind reads his fate is nothing the charges black patriotism uncivil him and that i just hope i don't have to face in this possibility i won't have to face that i will be in school too and twenty six and then relatives fired on the political intellectual in first and i hope i don't have to make that first conversation i'm not sure what i mean i myself i think would rather live longer an oppressive regime rather than under constant bullets over my head and i don't like this project myself my own feelings on their knees

peasants can troops can see over war that would my criteria for just for i think there was a religious split allow yourself to be a part of most arguments about vietnam began over strategy and end all morality historically nations have friendly ways to war for power but america has always needed a moral justification we asked for charlottesville ministers to examine that need in relation to vietnam dr best ability of the first presbyterian church mr charles petrie of st paul's a basketball mr cowen alice of the first baptist church and from westminster presbyterian mr baba or britain i'm particularly concerned about what it is doing to the american character

what i observe is flowing indifference to suffering growing indifference to brutality of killing i was in my own children for example that they cannot tell the difference between a fictional show like the local show and the and the evening news coverage of the vietnamese there's a difficulty in distinguishing what is real and what is fictional in terms of suffering and it seems to be that suffering it's becoming something that we are accepting and not raising any new questions but the other thing about brutality you bring up writing is it that you're concerned about brutality and the effect of that to our population in this world and i never met up again a career two pieces at these sites as nice as accepting tell you that he's not a token climate of our society

with all the violence on tv nine hundred in other media long before we did that is more stark is that not a general try to it on brutality when she made a distinction between world war two and this what i do not know you knew it was a multilateral think despite the fact that the un command was under our command we didn't have the sanction of united nations in that in that in the korean conflict and we were part of an allied effort in the south vietnam's a unilateral effort the united nations is a factor here that actually coming out of this i'm really waiting for the united nations decision for the time where not a tomorrow tomorrow if united nations figures the lord and would you say that

some are war italians and asians in gaza that maybe tomorrow i'll do what do we refer to this point to determine whether or not it's mark o'mara out of all wars there goes the mri last that there is the earmark situation of killings where you have no alternative and i see no difference where this war is concerned and where other wars are concerned i believe then and in that sense of the word imo and vigorously opposed the war but i think the opposition that that we find many times that is presented on moral grounds is perhaps in some cases to disguise for the overriding fear that people had about of being involved in the war we've seen this war zone and i

see no difference conservatives were fully integrated terrible singing in this sense we all are pacifist we all the piece i am not sure that the christian church in america could be characterized that way as being basically pacifist and being all for peaceful i don't think there's any question about a nationalist and that we tend to the protestant churches in america tend to get caught and especially my church the episcopal church to pull them in saying you know whatever our country does the nation i must be right and we must back it now this war seems to be an exception and i'm grateful but i would not agree with you about it without finally we ask these gentlemen where the congregation stood on vietnam i feel that they are in different i really could not characterize their position i think they are not by and large terribly thoughtful about the war they're involved despite they are involved in other

pursuits despite the fact that they are a very well educated people there's very little thought given are at least obviously to warn its ramifications and this is distressing to me i cannot represent my church my congregation army i do have an opinion as to where my congregation standard my oh my my view would be that the vast majority of my people would share my view that essentially that what is most important is the number of persons and a growing i'm slightly about the war and a fervent almost searching out to justify what we're doing is right two two home and perhaps even friday that they can in fact trust our government to do what is right but also the

growing and nagging uncertainty that what we're doing is in fact right bailey's opinions are fun among members of our congregation all these opinions of fun among people in charlottesville the volkswagen has stood in the driveway of the jones house on oxford road for over a year now it is really driven it will have to be sold soon for its owner is not coming back anthony jones was killed in vietnam there have been less than a dozen fatalities in charlottesville so far there are only about seven thousand killed in vietnam but only seems a strange word to a family like the joneses four tony's family that further searching that the reverend ulbricht described is no abstract more exercise maria jones must live day after day with the loss of her eldest son mrs jones is a red cross worker and comes in contact with a war every day

she and her invalid husband live alone in this house except for weekends when david their youngest son his home from college to david jones like many of his generation has had misgivings about the war in vietnam but they tended to be highly theoretical until tony went there the moral issues suddenly became very real just wars and limited wars and international commitments suddenly became a very personal matter tony's death did not solve any moral problems for his family rather it crystallized them and in a very real sense kept them alive much of what this family believes about vietnam is based not on press releases but on the letters written by anthony jones we asked mrs chose to describe the events the book toni to vietnam and what he

found there yes tunneling into this had receivers march nineteen six the army in october of nineteen sixty five he arrived and yet known and we got the news of his death on december six nineteen sixty fracking as well five six weeks and i he had written quite often in the last letter that i saw was the one he wrote thanksgiving and he said as the manual and he seemed to be very very well as happy as anybody could be under the circumstances however there was a little a lighter letter that i was in new york at the time to his death and the mccain was in europe and david read it and forwarded to me but i never received it they're so

that the war was largo at the world and it but he hoped that this will be over soon and they expressed optimism that would be overseeing some of tony's letters brought the logistical problems of war down to a very simple level simple and disturbing well the thing that bothered me very much and it still doesn't i guess something's being done about it but the things that he asked for because he was tony was a very gentle person a very caring person and a very good person in an american plane anyway it never demanded anything of any back and the thing that really upset me was when that when he wrote and he asked for oh i'll for his rifle he said they send in so over his rifle sound on

insect repellent and down these are the things the only things really that work that and he wasn't complaining he was just asking for them that they had just bought a tremendously fact that we had all these boys over there that they didn't have the thing is that to me were basically absolute necessities but other than that he was optimistic as david said he never complained i guess he'd and what worries me and of course he wasn't there david's friends usually don't talk about the war in front of him either he knows some are against it his own views have changed he no longer believes in pulling out violette does so i was and last i think there's a reason that the best paid to those people united states to make up rawlings lives lost lives and i don't foresee this

happening within two years and most mysterious piece for getting out because it's a stewardess on baldwin this is such a big mess many of those killed in vietnam were career soldiers before draftees family the interruption of a life is perhaps more shocking we had a girl that we hadn't met but apparently things were serious email her list two sixth and they're a bit and i'm delighted that he had duty because he had something while he was there that he had to look for good too we've never met her and then just called her and told her when he gags she corresponded but it stopped and i'm glad because it's the essence of her rowing like shoes so that's i don't know but as far as they are teaching was his its inclination that he was that kind of a person and the money didn't making a lot of money didn't take today appealed to anyone it was to teach or do

something that time in a time when people take refuge and bird imagery and one the definition of a civilian target is discussed a solemn way and almost endlessly as the number of angels hook and then saut pan mrs jones has had to come up with her own view of the war and other people believe her son died in the war that his fall well it really doesn't upset me too much because they're people and i felt that way a long i don't believe in war as war and i hope and pray that this will be over soon because i am very close to it at the red cross we get calls all the time you can't escape any way every time you turn on the radio you're the television it's it's like there's nothing that you can sort of put aside and say i won't think about it it's brought to me and i can't help but think of that every day many times a day

i'm curious if i won't say i respect yes i guess i do with people's thinking and they have a right to believe what they believe and it doesn't make me angry it really doesn't it i dont feel anger towards anybody actually i people said tomato and this happened you feel about the economy well that's been trying to kill and maybe tony kill somebody and that's your unfortunately this this is what it does it i can have anybody baby tony coulson son just like marion jones many of us will just go on go on morning and wondering about a war that seems itself to just go on and every month in charlottesville a young man like grover how this will carry has settled down to the trailways terminal

and given a one way ticket to the adoption center of roanoke for some the last stop will be vietnam but there won't be any flags operates for these boys for in nineteen sixty seven in charlottesville and in america it's all quiet on the home front it's a quiet caused not by apathy about the fact that americans have become too well fed or well educated to fight or even to care for people in charlottesville do care they care about the anthony jones is of the essence and they stand ready to follow jefferson's admonition to replace the great evil to ward off the greater worry that many are confused and there are those in charlottesville who believe that there is no greater evil than the war itself some say are younger generation has forgotten about hitler in czechoslovakia others replied that we have a class began to remember though shalt not kill morality as in the war

before is a matter of private conscience and this war it's every man for himself at the battlefront and on the home front so thats he might've nigerian that is rising up teaching license its inclination that he was that kind of person received a teacher is a bit and i think that those opposing the best paid to those people united states to make the phones is lost lives

because china is used to meet the national educational television network it's both