We are even less prepared for our boys to come home in a box now that the Pentagon has stopped barring the public from watching the arrival of coffins at Dover Air Force base. It had become a staple of the nightly news during Vietnam, turning the public just a little more against the war with every showing.

Like now, it produced shouting: “America, love it or leave it.” Jane Fonda in Hanoi. Unlike now, the resentment spilled over into anger against troops for some. At least that is not likely to be repeated today. The Army is made up of volunteers, not draftees in an era when some burned draft cards in protest.

I still remember when the flood of bodies began. It caught me unawares.

I was away at college when my Colorado girlfriend wrote me a letter about the Gulf of Tonkin incident - that it was used to get Americans more committed to the war; that the incident was a fraud.

I thought my girlfriend herself was getting herself in too deep and that our military and defense department could be trusted.

Years later, it would be proven that she was right. It turned out there was only one attack, and it had occurred after several U.S. attacks on North Vietnamese territory.

But at the time, the Lyndon Johnson Administration had gotten the authorization it wanted to step up the war. It said the North Vietnamese navy had twice attacked us. Only two senators opposed the Tonkin Resolution.

Initially, the protests against the war came from folk singers like Peter, Paul & Mary, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. But the movement spread quickly.

This week, when singer Mary Travers died of leukemia at 72, former Sen. Fritz Hollings of South Carolina remembered her trio’s rhetorical “When will they ever learn?”

Hollings visited Vietnam in 1966 and heard the constantly escalating request for more troops. Just a few thousand more. He remains a skeptic about winning the hearts and minds of a country that is proud of its history, if not the best candidate for Western democracy. “Now in Afghanistan, we’re trying to secure a country of 31 million with 64,500 troops and think that 20,000 more will do the job. It’s the same strategy of build and destroy and body count, with GIs expendable. After eight years, we’re now going to be more careful to kill less civilians. In short, GIs are expendable so long as long as we kill less civilians," he wrote recently.

In fact that has meant the enemy covers more Afghan territory and U.S. casualties have risen. It is debatable whether it has attained the goal of minimizing civilian casualties. Certainly there has been no My Lai, a mass massacre reminiscent of the U.S. in the Indian West.

The music may have been the only good thing to come out of the war, since our politicians refuse to learn. And there were dozens if not hundreds of popular anti-war songs. In fact, no war is likely to have produced as much. After six student protestors, it seemed like protests slowed down.

The other day someone talked on the Web about research showing that inevitably when making decisions people play down the negative outcomes.

I have asked myself how the war was allowed to continue. My friend says she didn’t want to get hit on the head for protesting.

I wonder how many know that the peace finally came as a secret deal Henry Kissinger made with the North Vietnamese betraying the South Vietnamese. It earned him a Nobel Peace Prize, along with Lee Duc Tho of North Vietnamese. The war could have ended years earlier at that price. Assuming our honor is for sale.

It didn't take any more to convince to dodge the draft. I made a try at the "Greetings," paradigm by pitching that playing on the college tennis team had made unable to throw hand grenades. When that didn't work I went to college non-stop, even the summer, to catch up a missed and retain my draft exemption.

I now have an 18-year-old son. He doesn't have to fear the draft, but might be persuaded to risk his life. One of my grandsons has enlisted. Our lives at home are not at stake.

--

Image: Peter, Paul & Mary back in the day/courtesy Mary Travers