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The War at Home
It was 1964 and I was coming of age during the height of the Vietnam War. In August, Congress had passed the…
It was 1964 and I was coming of age during the height of the Vietnam War. In August, Congress had passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving then President Lyndon Johnson broad authority to step up American military presence. He promptly deployed combat units for the first time and increased troop levels to more than 180,00. It would be more than two years before the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara would express his doubt as to whether or not we could emerge victorious in this controversial conflict. McNamara was one of the architects and encouraged Johnson to use military strikes, ground forces, and a large-scale, strategic bombing campaign in order to maintain our position.
For a child still in grade school, and without a father or other male figure at home I had little idea of what was at stake when it came to war. My mother never discussed this or any other serious topics with me. But every day when I came home from school the television was turned on and we watched what I thought of as “The War Show.”
Walter Cronkite was the anchorman on the CBS Evening News, the first nightly half-hour news program. Dubbed “the most trusted man in America,” it was Cronkite who first told the world that President Kennedy had been shot in 1963. He held us…
