If you lived through the Vietnam era, what is your impression, looking back at the period? If you don't personally recollect the time, what impression have you formed of it? Was the era truly different?

If you lived through the Vietnam era (roughly 1964 – 1975), what is your impression, looking back at the period? If you don't personally recollect the period, what impression have you formed reading about it or listening to others?

Do you think the era was truly different in some way, and if so, how?

I lived through the Vietnam era. There was so much unrest and anger! However, that also lead to questioning and an awakening of options. I did see people using drugs to escape life, which they still do. However, common drug use was just beginning at that time.
I've left many comments on that time in my other answers.

I did and it was different. Boundaries were tested that had not been tested before. We no longer just accepted the decisions the government made. We challenged. And we partied. Casual sex, pot and music shaped many. Some did well with the newfound freedom of "sex, drugs and rock n roll" and some never recovered. Throw into that the senseless murders of Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King and it became time for revolution.

I graduated high school in 1968 - the year MLK and Bobbie Kennedy was assassinated. The year of the TET offensive which Cronkite lied about and said we suffered a major loss. But then our government had been lying to us all along as well so it was hard to know what to believe - much like today.

Like others who posted,I lived through that era. It was chaotic, angry and loud, but it was also exhilarating. All rules were questioned and tested. Some rules, we found, made sense, and others needed tossing. When I got my first apartment, I had to get a co-signer on my phone account since I was a single woman. On interviews I was asked about plans for marriage and children. My era was very different from my parents,but I see this generation’s life just as different and chaotic

I lived through that era, and was older than Kanigel. My generation was called “The Silent Generation”, so to me, the 60’s were incredibly important for making us realize we had agency, we could speak up and not be silent, protest, work for change. It was high time for that! Like mceacd above, I was asked about marriage and parenthood when I was interviewing for a teaching job. (I was very single at the time.) A married friend of mine was asked the same question about getting pregnant and said she wasn’t planning a family for quite some time. And the principal said, “Honey, if you keep reaching into the cookie jar, sooner or later you’re going to pull out a cookie.” Those were different times and they definitely needed changing!

I graduated high school in 1972 - too young to be drafted, but old enough to witness nightly the chaos that reigned throughout the US and the war in Vietnam. The assinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK had a profound impact on me. Growing up in a small Midwest town watching the war protests, Kent State Massacre, Woodstock, etc. it all seemed like another world.

I am a contemporary of Kanigel's so this period I can vividly remember. I graduated from college in 1968 - just a few days before Bobby Kennedy was assassinated; that day ripped my soul apart and I truly felt I lost my innocence. Martin Luther King's assassination months before Bobby was another terrible moment in our history from which we are still recovering. And, the Vietnam War was so totally unnecessary; the lies the government told help to erode the confidence many people today have in our government. I think until I read this book I had wanted to keep all those memories of this time period buried. Now I realize I need to explore this period more historically to understand myself better in relation to it.

Oh, I remember Vietnam. My brother was a Navy Seal. He was sent to Vietnam and served with the Marines on the Riverine Boats (aka Swift Boats); we worried about him constantly. I had classmates who joined the military and served in Vietnam. Some never made it back and others came home physically and mentally damaged from the experience. This was happening on a national level. I also remember the nightly newscast of the number of casualties; the reels showing the caskets arriving and the families grieving. All of which led to a whole generation questioning the government and protesting to end what we came to believe was an unnecessary war. This was the beginning of erosion of public confidence in the government.
We were willing to question everything; break the rules and establish new mores. We also lived through chaos, MLK assassinated, JFK assassinated; Woodstock; emerging push for women's rights; civil rights marches, etc., etc.
It was also the era of the Beachboys and Mustangs, Mary Quant, the Beatles, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, psychedelic colors, available birth control...........so, so many things!

I was in my early-mid teens during the end of the Vietnam era. I was old enough to see the chaos, confusion, and rebellions taking place across the country. Several of my parents friends lost their sons to war or suicide after returning home. These were young men that I knew growing up. My recollection is of both an extremely sad period for families torn between duty/honor and lots of mistrust of the government along with a rebellious period for many young adults trying to make their way.

I was in my early-mid teens during the end of the Vietnam era. I was old enough to see the chaos, confusion, and rebellions taking place across the country. Several of my parents friends lost their sons to war or suicide after returning home. These were young men that I knew growing up. My recollection is of both an extremely sad period for families torn between duty/honor and lots of mistrust of the government along with a rebellious period for many young adults trying to make their way.