What an interesting discussion this turned out to be!
Timber - Just to add my cent's worth - I think that you are confusing actual demonstrations AGAINST returning troops with not supporting them - if you see what I mean.
To illustrate - I was a high school student during Vietnam, and later a just-begun-university student. Many young men of the generation just above mine were being conscripted. Some went - many resisted the draft - and at my university we actively practiced passive resistance techniques against any authorities who might come on campus to arrest such resisters. (Odd logic to the language, there!)
I knew boys who went and who resisted. I came to agree with the resisters. My attitude to those who went was understanding and pity and awed horror at what they endured and plain horror at some of what some of them did - it remains that way.
I most certainly could not have gone out and shown support of their mission when they paraded the streets - to have done so would have seemed to me utter hypocrisy. I most certainly would not have gone out and harassed them, either - though silent vigils indicating opposition to the WAR when they embarked would have seemed to me entirely appropriate.
I would most certainly not have supported harassment of returning soldiers , either, and I think it terribly sad that such things occurred. (I might add that during those times a lot of aggression was shown BY soldiers towards those they could identify as being anti-war, too - which was equally regrettable.)
To equate not actively supporting troops with actively harassing them is a logical fallacy. I am not denying that this occurred, and I thought, and think it entirely regrettable - just as I would never think of harassing the hordes of newly shaven-headed Iraqi boys whose images saddened the front page of the paper this morning, on their way to die for Saddam Hussein's ego.
I hope we HAVE learned that lesson from Vietnam, but I saved my active support for those brave enough to swim against the early tide of support for that war, too. There is no way I could go and pretend to support this one, either - and I would consider myself as so doing if I demonstrated support for embarking troops.
I am very happy to welcome the survivors home - people who have been through horror deserve all the support they can get. Interestingly, a number of troops, interviewed as they embarked, said they did not support this war, either - but that they would obey orders.
