The Freedom Rides, Vietnam, and social activism among young Americans left the 1960s with a very profound effect on our society. Without a doubt, the decade of the 1960s was one of the most controversial in American history. Throughout this period of social unrest, anti-war attitudes gained dominance in a peace-loving subculture, and individuals began to question aspects of government policy and authority. It was a decade of peace and war, optimism and despair, cultural turbulence and frustration. Vietnam Arguably, no conflict of this era more profoundly affected the American societal structure than the Vietnam War. While the average mission in Vietnam lasted only about a year, the physical, economic and psychological effects of the war proved so phenomenal that they will forever be etched in the minds of the American soldiers who fought and all Americans of military age. feared they would then leave. During the Vietnam War, more than twenty-six million men came of age to be eligible for the draft, 2.15 million of whom were sent to Vietnam. The army assembled for the Vietnam War was significantly younger than any other American army, with the average age of soldiers ranging from seventeen to twenty-one years old. There were many feelings of animosity towards the war and conscription, particularly from the soldiers themselves. Corpsman Douglas Anderson represented popular feelings of animosity toward war, particularly toward the youngest soldier fighting when he reportedly said, "If your parents signed certain kinds of papers, you could go there and die at seventeen. » As evidenced in his words, it wasn't just a matter of going there at seventeen to fight for his country. Rather, it was about leaving the safety and security of home that you were accustomed to, with little hope of returning. At a time when these “kids” should have benefited, they were overwhelmed by the apprehension of being drafted. Those who had not been chosen by the draft to fight overseas were left to fight on the home front in an effort to bring American soldiers home. Students played an important role in the anti-war movement because the soldiers fighting in the war were their peers to whom they could tell first-hand accounts of their struggles. During this time, many colleges closed their doors completely as students and faculty voiced their opinions..