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Originally Posted by JManc
It's a different world and not necessarily a better one. Millenials didn't grow up in a hyper-politicized world that Z'ers did. Even as polarizing the Bush era was, politics didn't dominate all facets of life they way it does now.
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If you think this world is "hyper-politicized" take another look at tapes of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. When was the last time a student was shot by the National Guard on a college campus (as at Kent State)? Assassinations of the most prominent black leader (King) and a prominent political challenger for the Presidency (Bobby Kennedy)?
I just shake my head at those who think politics today is angry and "polarized". Many times in American history things were a lot worse, from the very beginning (the American Revolution was not universally popular with the colonists) forward.
And the Bush era--a time of peace and prosperity with the single exception of the WTC attack. That was bad but it was something that happened and then it was over and if you didn't live in Manhattan you could have ignored it. It didn't go on for years and years (or it needn't have) like the nightmare in Vietnam. And unlike Vietnam, there was no draft to disturb the lives of the young. Some small fraction of them voluntarily participated in the unnecessary Iraq adventure and the slightly more justified Afghanistan one, but most didn't.
To make clear where I'm coming from, I entered the military in 1973 as a result of a thing called the Berry Plan:
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The Berry Plan was a Vietnam War-era program in the United States that allowed physicians to defer obligatory military service until they had completed medical school and residency training. More than 42,000 physicians and surgeons were affected by the Berry Plan, named after Dr. Frank B. Berry, who served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health and Medical Affairs from 1954–1961.
The Plan, enacted in 1954, arose out of a proposed "Doctor's Draft," originally met with objections from the American Medical Association, The Association of American Medical Colleges, and the American Hospital Association, who felt the draft would deprive them of a pool of young men who would staff their hospitals. The Berry Plan offered draftees three choices: entry into the Armed Forces after completing a medical internship, after completing one year of residency and returning to their residencies after completion of service, and after completion of a full residency program.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry_Plan
Had I not taken advantage of this plan, I would have been drafted in 1971, probably into the Army (the Berry Plan also gave people who signed up the opportunity to pick their branch of service). I was lucky in that the war was largely over--although it technically continued until 1975--by the time I arrived in the far east and I stayed on Okinawa assigned to a Marine regiment. Since I wasn't exposed to combat, I think it fair to say I enjoyed the travel and other aspects of military service enough that I stayed for a career. But had I not been involuntarily brought into the service, I'm fairly sure I wouldn't have joined and my life would probably have been very different.
From the late 70's onward, this sort of life-altering interaction with the federal government just hasn't been an issue for young people so from my perspective, most of them really have nothing to complain about.