This Isn’t Your Father’s Anti-War Movement: Comparing the Political Mobilization of Vietnam and Iraq Veterans

The mobilization of veterans can be a powerful force for any political cause, especially when that cause is concerned with ending a war. Vietnam veterans’ voices were a prominent feature of the Vietnam antiwar movement, and, by 2007, antiwar Iraq veterans groups were playing an important role in the public debate on the merits of continued U.S. military involvement in Iraq. By comparison, however, these two episodes of veteran antiwar mobilization looked very different. Changes in the social, technological, and political environment had reshaped the prevailing political opportunity structure in important ways. This paper examines those changes and the way in which select veterans organizations adapted to them. While a traditional antiwar movement did emerge to trade in more conventional protest activities, veterans’ opposition to the Iraq War also signaled the beginning of a political action committee-based approach to veterans’ politics that is likely to remain with us for the foreseeable future.