My culturally conservative Catholic Dad was in the USAF from '56-'63. Voted for Goldwater in '64, voted for McGovern in '72. Hated hippies (like the peace bead wearing, pot smoking Son of a Navy Admiral that lived four houses down the street) but, by '68 saw that the US should get out of 'Nam.Military families we knew then all turned against the war. Military Families Speak Out, now is doing great work organizing against the war.
http://www.revolutionintheair.com/histstrategy/gulf1.html Elbaum>...MILITARY FAMILIES SPEAK OUT Families of people in the military -- as well as military personnel and veterans of previous wars -- were right at the forefront. National attention was drawn to this phenomenon when an "open letter" to Bush from Alex Molnar, a professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, was published on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times on August 23. Entitled "If My Marine Son Is Killed" the letter declared: "Now that we face the prospect of war I intend to support my son and his fellow soldiers by doing everything I can to oppose any offensive American military action in the Persian Gulf. The troops I met deserve far better than the politicians and policies that hold them hostage." Molnar and others established the Military Families Support Network, which quickly grew to over 3,000 members united in opposition to launching a war. At the local level, people with family members in the military, as well as veterans, joined antiwar protests and organizations and were prominent speakers at rallies and educational events. The class-biased and racist nature of an "all volunteer" military whose ranks were filled by victims of the poverty draft was underscored time and again in antiwar agitation. Simultaneously, resistance took shape right within the military as several dozen men and women declared themselves conscientious objectors and/or refused to be mobilized to the Gulf. Refusals accelerated after Bush's major callup of reserve units in November.
All this established a different dynamic than the anti-Vietnam War movement had in regard to military personnel. A lot of misinformation has been promoted about the 1960s movement being anti-soldier. Overwhelmingly, the anti-Vietnam War movement was sympathetic to the average GI, made extensive efforts to organize and defend the rights of servicepeople, and offered far more support to returning veterans than mainstream institutions or the general population. Those emphasizing condemnation of GIs as such were always a distinct minority, and by 1969 were far outnumbered by soldiers -- including GIs in Vietnam itself -- who were acting against the war. It is true, however, that the movement against the Gulf War was far more aggressive about linking opposition to Bush's policy with explicit support for people in the military, and gave far more attention to reaching the mainstream with this message. This approach enabled the movement to gain an extremely broad hearing during the buildup to hostilities. -- Michael Pugliese