Why didn't World War 2 Veterans support the Vietnam war?

Answer 1

WW2 men fought an all out total declared war against formidable foes armed with battleships, aircraft carriers, fighter planes, bombers, submarines, paratroopers, and fully equipped and organized fighting men. In the BEGINNING (early 1960's), the Viet Cong (not the North Vietnamese Army/NVA); the VC were largely un-uniformed, used captured small arms (rifles, pistols, machine guns, explosives, etc.) and did not deploy any of the large hardware used by the enemy in WW2. In addition, Vietnam was an un-declared war (as was the US Civil War and Korea); and the US was not willing INVADE North Vietnam and use the ATOMIC BOMB to WIN the war. WW2 veterans WANTED the US to use the atomic bomb and invade North Vietnam; WW2 veterans wanted FIGHT to WIN! WW2 veterans had fought to win WW2; and they only believed in that type of warfare. Consequently, WW2 veterans turned against the Vietnam War and the men that fought it. They believed it was wrong to fight a limited war instead of a total war (total war=using any weapon available/including nuclear weapons). Ultimately, Vietnam did escalate into the massive use of heavy WW2 type weapons, such as the Battleship (USS New Jersey), B-52 Stratofortress SAC bombers, jet fighters, and tanks...but the North was never invaded, as WW2 veterans wanted. WW2 vets could not accept or possibly could not understand, that "their" war (WW2) had been fought (in 1941) before nuclear weapons existed. And that to do so now, (the cold war) could only result in "mutually assured destruction" (since the USSR/Red China also had the "A-Bomb"). WW2 vets, in addition, either forgot history, or didn't care...that when we invaded North Korea during the Korean War, Red China had entered the war, because of that invasion. The US did not wish to repeat that portion of history in the Vietnam War.