What can be learned

        The American population and government stumbled through the 1960's and 1970's, making several mistakes and disagreeing on several subjects. This cause much violence and chaos. There was so much conflict within the American population that the country began to tear it self apart. This chaos subsided before too much damage could be done, but there were still many wounds to heal after it was done. There were many lessons to be learned from this time period about war, presidency, and society.

        The war in Vietnam raged on from 1962 to 1975 and was fought by American troops who didn't even know what they were fighting for. There were several hundreds of thousands of American casualties from this war. The American military could not effectively fight their enemy because they did not know the area well, they did not know the enemy well, and they didn't know what the enemy was capable of. Going in, American military greatly underestimated the fighting power of the Vietnamese. This underestimation of the enemy caused the loss of many lives. Which makes the first lesson to be learned from this war never underestimate your enemy. If the military had not underestimated the Vietnamese, then the lives of thousands of soldiers would have been saved. Also because the military did not know the land and the enemy very well, they were unable to have the troops fight effectively. The U.S. military tactic for fighting the Vietnamese was to send a squad of soldiers in blind and hope that the soldiers would win the fight when the enemy was found. But, if the soldiers did not win the fight, there would be an airstrike on the area, and the military would have to assume that the enemy soldiers were killed. If the American Military had taken a little time to survey the land and spent more time observing Vietnamese then the troops would have been able to fight the enemy more effectively and would have prevented more deaths. The lack of information on this enemy was a very large contributor to the amount of deaths from this war.

        Nixon, during his presidency, preformed several secretive operations that went against what he promised the American population. Nixon told the American population that he planned on taking the troops from Vietnam, when in truth he was secretly bombing Vietnam to keep the war going. During the Watergate scandal, he illegally tapped the the office of the D.N.C. and also made himself seem more desirable when running for president. This series of secretive actions by Nixon lost the trust in the government for the American people. The people learned that they can not always trust the government and Congress learned that they need to limit the power of the president even more. If the people had been more distrusting of the government in the first place, Nixon may not have done what he did in office and lived up to what he promised the American population. The same would have been if Congress had kept a closer watch on the president. All this happened because no one was keeping a very close watch on the president; the people trusted him too much. I'm not saying that everyone should be skeptical of every action made by the government, rather the people should just make sure the government is not up to something suspicious.

        The government did not react quickly or well to the anti-culture movement. The government was not approving of the protests held by the students and felt uncomfortable with the music and culture the students had adopted. The students were protesting to get their right to free speech back, and for the equal treatment of African Americans. The police responded to these protests violently. The president could not relate to this culture and they would attack him for it. The conflict between the anti-culture and the president was extreme and their unending assault on the presidents actions caused a great conflict on how to react within Congress. The peaceful protests often ended in violence, placing the government in a bad light for the younger crowd. If government had made it clear that they were considering the students requests, and kept the students updated with the progress being made in these matters then the younger crowd most likely wouldn't have been so disruptive. Also if the police were kept in check, then the students wouldn't have any more reasons to stand against the government.

        These lessons can be learned from the experiences of the 60's and 70's and should be taken into account when a new decision is being made today. The government should be mindful how all crowds would react to whatever the government is about to do,  keep a closer eye on the president, and make sure that the most possible information is received before fighting an enemy. These lessons, based off of mistakes from the past can stop America from suffering the same fate that it did in the 60's.