In the early stages of the Vietnam War people were all for it, until they started to see through the media that their country men and women were not fighting for what they expected and saw that their fathers, sons, and brothers were dieing for a pointless cause.
From these images and stories seen through the media people back home in Australia were soon realising that this had to stop and stop now!.
It seemed the more the media showed the more the Australian public wanted the war to stop and their soldier's home.
In 1970: Anti-Vietnam Moratorium Campaign Begun In May the first of three moratoriums was held to protest against Australia's continuing participation in the Vietnam War and against conscription. The May moratorium was followed by one in September 1970 and another in June 1971. The Moratorium campaigns were different from other anti-Vietnam and peace movements of the years between 1965 and 1970. The moratoriums were nationwide and involved a high degree of organisation and coordination; even cabinet ministers were involved.
They were non-violent protests and there were people participating from all walks of life.
Soldiers in Vietnam thought that the protestors only consisted of uni students and hippies, but they were very wrong. There were protestors young and old, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and children (people who would normally never challenge the government) all came to these moratoriums holding their signs and wearing their costumes and face paints, mostly coloured black and white (the colours of mourning).
From these protests grew a group of mainly females that started another campaign called S.O.S. Which stood for Save Our Sons.
Some more reasons why people wanted the troops home were.
- It was costing a lot of money.
- It was costing lots of lives.
- It was the longest War in Australian history.
- It was a civil war and we had nothing to do with it.
- People were just getting sick and tired of the bloodshed occurring and the ever-lasting death that was sweeping the lands of North and South Vietnam.
