In 1942, with a population of 135 million people, we had more than 16 million in the armed services. All told, more than 400,000 Americans died in World War II.

Tough times call for tough people.

During the Vietnam War, 1965-1973, we had about 200 million people and suffered more than 58,000 killed.

World War II was a good war. Just about everybody participated. Vietnam was a “dirty little war” one no one wanted.

For most of the Great Depression and then World War II, we had popular leadership in Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. During the Vietnam War, we had Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, none a great war president.

After the Tet Offensive in 1968, our men went on dangerous night patrols while their girlfriends marched on campus against the war. Future President Bill Clinton evaded the military. The Vietnam War was not cool. But almost 70 million baby boomers stepped up, me included.

It was easy to object to the war, burn your draft card and score a date at a protest rally. It was harder to fight for your country.

In the spring of 1968 President Johnson stopped bombing in Vietnam and announced he would not seek re-election. Dr. Martin Luther King was shot in Memphis and major American cities were set ablaze.

That did it for me. I joined the army May 13, 1968. All that upheaval 50 years ago and I jumped into the middle of it.

The Greatest Generation really was great. Look what they did. We baby boomers did it because Vietnam was our war. Our leaders may failed, but the boomers knew that in a republic where we elect people to make decisions for us, we have to back those decisions or we don’t have a country.