USA late 1960s - questions about Drugs, Self Harm, Suicide, Vietnam War

[scully_208]

I have three different scenarios in the one story, set in 1968.

I've tried googling a few things about drafting/enlistment in the Vietnam war, the history of cocaine in the 1960s, and the stigmas around self harm in the 1960s, and I've also looked through the tags on this forum but I haven't really found the answers I'm looking for.

The story is

Comments

[dulcineah1]

Depending on whether the elder brother went to college, and when, he might have gotten a student deferment and avoided the draft for a few years that way. My father graduated from college in 1968 and intended to go to graduate school at that point, but the deferments for grad school were revoked that year and he had to go to Vietnam instead. If he wanted to enlist, he could have done so at any point after his eighteenth birthday, otherwise, if he went to college first and the war after he could have been around twenty-two or something. Was he an officer, or just a regular soldier?

The war in Vietnam didn't start to escalate until 1965 or so, after Lyndon Johnson had been elected. Prior to that, the US sent advisers over to the South Vietnamese government, but there weren't many American troops there until the Johnson administration. Also, US public opinion didn't turn against the war until around the beginning 1968--up till that point, the American public thought that the war was almost won, but the Tet offensive made a lot of people question how long it was going to drag on and they became less and less supportive as a result. So if your character came home in 1968, he might not have faced as much hostility about being a soldier as he would have if he'd served a few years later.

I don't know so much about the military, but I've studied a fair bit about the Vietnam war and am actually living in Saigon now, so feel free to ask questions if you want! :)

[scully_208]

Could he graduate college in '66 (aged maybe 22/23), go to war for two years and come home after amputation (age 25)?

[dulcineah1]

He should be able to do that, yeah. Part of that time would likely be basic training, etc, that he'd do in the US before being sent off to Vietnam. If he has a college degree, the Army might want to make him an officer--that was what happened with my dad, but he turned them down since officers had a higher fatality rate.