54 years ago today 2 million Americans marched to end the war in Vietnam. It was the second of two big events marking resistance to an unjust war.
The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam was a massive demonstration and teach-in across the United States against the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. It took place on October 15, 1969,[1] followed a month later, on November 15, 1969, by a large Moratorium March in Washington, D.C.
Fred Halstead writes that it was "the first time [the anti-war movement] reached the level of a full-fledged mass movement."[2]
Tricky Dick still wasn’t listening and trashed the protesters. The public mostly supported him, but the protesters persisted.
In early November 1969, two disclosures put the wind back into the sails of the antiwar movement. Colonel Robert Rheault of the U.S. Army Special Forces was charged with ordering the murder of a South Vietnamese official suspected of being a Viet Cong spy, which was described euphemistically in an Army report as "termination with extreme prejudice".[11] More shockingly to the American people, on November 12, 1969 journalist Seymour Hersh revealed the My Lai Massacre which had occurred on March 16, 1968, which led to Lieutenant William Calley being charged with murder.[12] The My Lai massacre become a symbol to the anti-war movement of the brutality of the Vietnam war, and much of the success of the second Moratorium march was due to the revelation of the My Lai massacre.[11] Karnow described the United States by the fall of 1969 as being very much a polarized and divided nation with about roughly half of the nation supporting Nixon's policies in Vietnam and the other half opposed.[12]
It took another three years to finally end it.
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