A Myth of Vietnam

The process of creating history about events in which I've been a (small) part is somewhat disorienting and rather disturbing.  It makes you wonder about the accuracy of history generally.

For example, Vietnam.

In season 3, episode 7 of Mad Men, which is set in 1963 Don Draper picks up a hitchhiking couple who are trying to evade the draft for fear the man will be sent to Vietnam.  Baloney.   We didn't have many troops in Vietnam then.   As advisors, very few draftees would have been included.  Through 1964 only 1 percent of the troops who were killed were draftees.  There were 200 deaths in 1955-63, and another 216 in 1964.

The first draft cards were burned in the summer of 1964, and Joan Baez leading an anti-war demonstration of 600 people in San Francisco is the earliest noted in Wikipedia.

While Vietnam attracted a lot of press attention in the early 60's, I don't remember it as having much impact on the general public.  Apparently Gallup didn't start polling until August 65, when 61 percent of the public said Vietnam troops wasn't a mistake.

Now comes the Coen Brothers with a new film: Inside Llewin Davies, in which they create a funny song: Please Mr. Kennedy from the kernel of a real song, which supposedly in 1961 asked JFK not to draft the singer and send him to Vietnam.   Hitflix has a piece on it, including links to relevant songs.  The 1962 song does not refer at all to Vietnam; it's just a potential draftee asking not to be drafted because Peggy Sue loves him, he hopes. 

Because the 60's ended with Vietnam being a seemingly all-absorbing topic, people today are assuming it was a big deal all the way through the decade.  It wasn't.

I write the above as someone who had a student deferment while in college, but who was drafted in 1965 and did some time in Vietnam (REMF).

"Mr. Custer" was a 1960 Larry Verne ditty written by Al DeLory about a soldier's plea to General George Armstrong Custer in the Battle of Little Big Horn not to send him off into battle. It was parodied one year later by Jim Nesbitt with "Please Mr. Kennedy," about blue collar America reaching out to the President for a helping hand. Then there was Mickey Woods' 1962 Motown track, also called "Please Mr. Kennedy" about a Vietnam draftee pleading with the President not to ship him away until his girlfriend marries him (because he's convinced she'll run off with another man while he's away).
Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/how-please-mr-kennedy-was-born-and-why-its-not-eligible-for-oscar-consideration#eOsbjo8XKUFF0cZp.99

"Mr. Custer" was a 1960 Larry Verne ditty written by Al DeLory about a soldier's plea to General George Armstrong Custer in the Battle of Little Big Horn not to send him off into battle. It was parodied one year later by Jim Nesbitt with "Please Mr. Kennedy," about blue collar America reaching out to the President for a helping hand. Then there was Mickey Woods' 1962 Motown track, also called "Please Mr. Kennedy" about a Vietnam draftee pleading with the President not to ship him away until his girlfriend marries him (because he's convinced she'll run off with another man while he's away).
Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/how-please-mr-kennedy-was-born-and-why-its-not-eligible-for-oscar-consideration#eOsbjo8XKUFF0cZp.99

"Mr. Custer" was a 1960 Larry Verne ditty written by Al DeLory about a soldier's plea to General George Armstrong Custer in the Battle of Little Big Horn not to send him off into battle. It was parodied one year later by Jim Nesbitt with "Please Mr. Kennedy," about blue collar America reaching out to the President for a helping hand. Then there was Mickey Woods' 1962 Motown track, also called "Please Mr. Kennedy" about a Vietnam draftee pleading with the President not to ship him away until his girlfriend marries him (because he's convinced she'll run off with another man while he's away).
Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/how-please-mr-kennedy-was-born-and-why-its-not-eligible-for-oscar-consideration#eOsbjo8XKUFF0cZp.99

"Mr. Custer" was a 1960 Larry Verne ditty written by Al DeLory about a soldier's plea to General George Armstrong Custer in the Battle of Little Big Horn not to send him off into battle. It was parodied one year later by Jim Nesbitt with "Please Mr. Kennedy," about blue collar America reaching out to the President for a helping hand. Then there was Mickey Woods' 1962 Motown track, also called "Please Mr. Kennedy" about a Vietnam draftee pleading with the President not to ship him away until his girlfriend marries him (because he's convinced she'll run off with another man while he's away).
Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/how-please-mr-kennedy-was-born-and-why-its-not-eligible-for-oscar-consideration#eOsbjo8XKUFF0cZp.99