David Rogers: A generational shift
On July 20, 1965, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara warned President Lyndon Johnson that U.S. deaths in Vietnam could soon come at the rate of 500 a month, the equivalent of 6,000 a year.
Ten days later, Johnson — still pursuing his Great Society dreams — signed a landmark Medicare-Medicaid bill to provide health care for the nation’s elderly and poor.
It’s all ancient history in today’s Washington, which has leapt ahead to the first president of the post-Vietnam generation. But McNamara’s death last week was a reminder of this past, and there are lessons to be learned, if only to see how much the nation has changed — and, in some cases, lost.
Here in another July, decades later, war and health care are again front and center for a new president, Barack Obama.
This week alone, a House Appropriations panel will mark up a $636 billion defense budget including $128 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the same time, Democrats are pursuing a $1 trillion health care plan that seeks to build on the Johnson legacy of Medicare and Medicaid.
Always the community organizer, Obama must re-create the sense of shared sacrifice and common purpose that many Americans identify with the Great Depression and the Second World War. But that social contract was torn apart by Vietnam and its aftermath, the self-indulgence of the ’80s. And the great question is whether Obama can sew the pieces back together at a time of real generational change in Washington and the nation.
McNamara’s World War II generation is passing. The Vietnam generation is going into retirement. Obama, too young for the turmoil of the ’60s, represents a fresh start if he can keep his footing in the face of rising unemployment and a staggering debt, which no other president has had to face.
McNamara, like many architects of U.S. policy in Vietnam, served in World War II, and with the draft still at his disposal, he showed an acceptance of American casualties that would be impossible in today’s Pentagon.
Draftees felt the same history, and those who went to Vietnam often did so because they had relatives who had served in World War II or Korea. Going into a war seemed almost part of growing up for many in the ’60s, and the whole system was its own social contract resting on a mix of duty and guilt: If you didn’t go, someone else from the neighborhood would have to go in your place. ...
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Ten days later, Johnson — still pursuing his Great Society dreams — signed a landmark Medicare-Medicaid bill to provide health care for the nation’s elderly and poor.
It’s all ancient history in today’s Washington, which has leapt ahead to the first president of the post-Vietnam generation. But McNamara’s death last week was a reminder of this past, and there are lessons to be learned, if only to see how much the nation has changed — and, in some cases, lost.
Here in another July, decades later, war and health care are again front and center for a new president, Barack Obama.
This week alone, a House Appropriations panel will mark up a $636 billion defense budget including $128 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the same time, Democrats are pursuing a $1 trillion health care plan that seeks to build on the Johnson legacy of Medicare and Medicaid.
Always the community organizer, Obama must re-create the sense of shared sacrifice and common purpose that many Americans identify with the Great Depression and the Second World War. But that social contract was torn apart by Vietnam and its aftermath, the self-indulgence of the ’80s. And the great question is whether Obama can sew the pieces back together at a time of real generational change in Washington and the nation.
McNamara’s World War II generation is passing. The Vietnam generation is going into retirement. Obama, too young for the turmoil of the ’60s, represents a fresh start if he can keep his footing in the face of rising unemployment and a staggering debt, which no other president has had to face.
McNamara, like many architects of U.S. policy in Vietnam, served in World War II, and with the draft still at his disposal, he showed an acceptance of American casualties that would be impossible in today’s Pentagon.
Draftees felt the same history, and those who went to Vietnam often did so because they had relatives who had served in World War II or Korea. Going into a war seemed almost part of growing up for many in the ’60s, and the whole system was its own social contract resting on a mix of duty and guilt: If you didn’t go, someone else from the neighborhood would have to go in your place. ...