It is important to note that the generation that was first raised on TV dinners gave up 57,000 of its finest during the Vietnam War. The irony is not lost on the underlying fact that we were taught to trust. The hoax that the “TV Dinner” was nutritious and a excellent replacement for the home cooked meal was perpetuated by an advertising agency. Trust the teacher, the priest, the policeman, the President of the United States and your parents to mention a few. Our parents had been raised, by and large, with one President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, during two of the worst times in American history. FDR was elected at the beginning of the Great Depression and died at the end of World War II. His message during his four terms in office was always the same, trust me. So they did, and they passed that trust on to the man that had won WW II as the Commanding Officer, Dwight D. Eisenhower, when he was elected at the beginning of the Fifties. After all, he was elderly and statesman like and he seemed to know what he was doing.
It was in this atmosphere of trust that our parents began to have children. They trusted so we trusted. Ever so often that trust was breached by an errant educator or crooked cop but we were raised to believe that there is good in everyone and inherently our role models were doing the right thing. Then along comes Elvis Presley and all bets were off. Not one parent in America thought that he was trustworthy. Whether he deserved that distrust is up for debate, but no parent anywhere trusted him around their daughter. Those same daughters would give anything for just a look in their direction from the Memphis musician. And so the cultural chasm begins. The parents don’t trust Elvis and the teenage children don’t know why. As he began to become a cultural icon there is evidence that he was aware of his influence and he made some P.R. moves in the media. It was not effective, the kids , especially the girls were already not trusting their parents opinions about other things. This was especially true when it came to the use of cosmetic make up and hairstyles. For them more was better, the polar opposite of most conservative, depression raised, parents. The seeds of distrust had been sown, and were beginning to take root in many places in sixties culture.
The plain truth was that we were no longer taking our parents attitude of trust at face value. It had long been a rite of passage, when children become teenagers, to question parental values. But mostly, they trusted their opinions and defaulted to their experience. Then along comes the Beatles and an entire generation put parental opinion and experience on a slow boat to China. Music would never again be the same, nor would men’s hairstyles, or clothing fashions for either sex. Most parents didn’t go down with out a fight. They had the power of the pocketbook. Allowances were terminated and record purchases were restricted, but to no avail.
The horse was out of the barn, never to return. Trusting parents with blind obedience was no longer the norm. It was just a short hop to civil disobedience and this created a split in the generational chasm. Some teenagers developed an inherent distrust of all authority, while others tried to pick and choose where their trust should lie.
Then the Vietnam War appeared on the horizon and the stakes were now life and death. When the war began in August of 1964, the so called “baby boomers” were graduating their first high school class. The draft was a reality and most young men considered it their duty, as did their fathers and grandfathers. When the chips were down the teenagers trusted their government to do the right thing. In reality, they had little choice. It was the law and to avoid it meant time in jail. So off we went, trusting our government to protect us. In the end, when it was all on the line, we trusted our government to do their best by us. That old inner voice rose up within and our parental training won out over fear. We answered the draft call and went to Vietnam. 57,000 men died in Vietnam and countless others are walking dead because of it. Our instincts were right. We should not have trusted our government and we never will again. Our entire generation learned a our lesson, trust is not something that we will ever take for granted again.
