Explain why there were such different reactions in theUSA to the country's involvement in the conflict in Vietnam in the 1960's

The influence of the media was a problem because at the start of the war, they were reporting and talking about how communism was the enemy, but as it went on the media started to spread the message that there were things going on that were in the wrong. An example of this was the my lai massacre which took so many innocent lives for the recovery of two weapons. The reason this was made even worse was because the government had kept it from the public for a year after it had happened, so the people felt their trust was neglected. They tried to show people what was happening, taking pictures of children running from napalm attacks, innocent people being held prisoner or murdered. Because of this, the American public thought this was happening all the time and went against the war. The impact of all of the media coverage showing the bad part of the war was devastating, and people changed their minds about the war.

The draft laws caused a lot of problems as most of the people did not want to be forced into the war. The draft was the calling up of men to go and fight in Vietnam, it started at three thousand, but as time and the war went on it rose to eleven times that. Most called up were young and their mothers did not want to send them off to be killed. Protests were occurring against the draft laws, people were setting fire to their call up papers and holding them up in the streets. As a result of the draft, ways of getting around it were becoming available, they fled to Canada or Europe, got married, went back to college and some even brought fake doctor certificates to say they couldn't go. As a result of all of these people getting out of going to war, the only people let to fight were the poor and black people.

Initially, young men were eager to join the army. They wanted to go and fight in Vietnam as they saw it as a chance to be heroes and fight for their country, but as the media was informing the country of the way it was really being conducted reactions were different. As the death toll of the American army rose, many thought it was futile and pointless to go to Vietnam to die. Because so many young men died, I think the public thought that to many had died, and the war should end.

In the late 60's, the social change was affecting the way people looked at the war. This was the time of hippies and "make love not war" ,which influenced lots of people, especially the young who were against any form of violence. As this took flight, it was strongly against the war in Vietnam.