Francis Foster

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But also as well, we have to say that, you know, the draft and the people who were going to war were blue collar people, blue collar men from, you know, deprived backgrounds, working class backgrounds, et cetera.

And there were plenty of people in the upper classes and middle classes who dodged the draft.

That must have caused a hell of a lot of resentment.

Because a lot of those people, like you said, they got scarred by this war.

Because they see this war, it's a place, Vietnam, most of them have never been.

Most of them, if you're gonna be honest, probably didn't quite understand what was going on.

But then they would see young men being sent away, some of them as young as 17, returning in coffins.

And eventually they would probably think to themselves, not only is this deeply unfair, but what are we getting out of it?

Why are our boys dying?

But it's also as well, there were huge figures at the time, like Muhammad Ali, who's, you know, no Viet Cong has ever called me the N-word.

You know, this huge cultural and sporting figure who refuses to draft on principle.

I mean, that's got to have a huge impact

not only on the zeitgeist, but also on the plant population as well.

Because there was a lot of talk, and it'd be good to actually delve into this, that there was a real problem with racialization, racism within the armed forces in Vietnam.

Because you had the problems within the army.

There was also problems with drug taking, wasn't there?

And you also have scandals going on.

So that had a very real impact, particularly on Americans' view of their boys.