" It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor- both black and white-through the Poverty Program. Then came the build up in Vietnam, and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war."
- Martin Luther King Jr
The Vietnam War did not just effect all of those directly effected by the military draft or military service. The families of the young men lost some, of the most important people in their lives, but America itself did not only lose citizens it lost a sense of hope. During the 1960s, the US should have been focusing on their internal affairs. I feel that even today War is viewed as more important then the needs of the country and that specific time. I do believe that if we are fighting a war such as the first and second WW, that it does require a lot more attention but In Vietnam, the people at home were angry, upset, disappointed and demanded answers. They had lost trust in their president Johnson, and saw his ideas of social reform go out and the window. Now faced with an internal war of race taking place, and poverty and other things being left in the dark the people were on their own. I never really thought about the War in that kind of sense. I find it almost unreal that they could turn their backs on their own people's needs but ship every kind of product into a foreign country. They tried to pacify and please the South Vietnamese people, why not do the same for their own? The government knew what they had to do or try to do to win the people over in another country, but forgot about their own country and the needs that they needed addressed.