There was no foreign affair that had a more profound effect on my life than the Vietnam War. I began to question the US involvement in that war in 1965, just as I was about to enter my university years. Living in the very conservative, Bible-belted, Southern Indiana, it was a very unpopular position to take, but I was so convinced of the stupidity of the war, and horrific humanitarian suffering it was causing to both Americans and Vietnamese, that I couldn’t keep my opinions to myself, so I sported a lot of buttons to show how I felt.
Lyndon Johnson was the main instigator of the war and I hated what he was doing and had many buttons about him. I supported Eugene McCarthy, and later George McGovern, presidential candidates, who ran against him. Their disastrous election losses were instrumental in my immigrating to Canada. I felt I could no longer trust my future to the American people.
Now after all these decades, it is obvious that the Vietnam War was a terrible disaster. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed and maimed, for nothing. Citizens in the US, blindly followed President Johnson, and then Nixon, even though it was pretty evident that the US involvement in the war was built on lies. Back in those days there were some actual Republicans who bravely stood for truth and against the Republican president and the disastrous War.
View my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
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