How did the Vietnam War influence the 60s and 70s?

The Vietnam War had many effects on the ‘60s and ‘70s.  It affected America’s politics and our society.

Of course, a major impact that it had on these decades was that it led to the deaths of many American soldiers.  It also led to many soldiers being wounded, imprisoned, and/or psychologically traumatized.  These soldiers and their families bore the greatest impact of the Vietnam War in the US.

The Vietnam War helped to make the ‘60s a decade of protest.  Many young Americans (though by no means all) hated the war.  Their hatred of the war helped to create the Counterculture, which engaged in many protests against the war and against various other aspects of American society.

The war also helped to make the ‘70s a time of political change.  Because of the war, many American leaders were less willing to try to exert American influence in the world.  For example, we could say that the war helped bring about President Jimmy Carter’s less vigorous foreign policy.  By the end of the decade, this change had led to a backlash from conservatives who thought that the US was becoming too timid.  This helped lead to the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980.  Thus, the war helped bring about swings in politics (particularly in foreign policy) where we went from aggressive to timid and back.

These are a few of the more important ways in which the Vietnam War affected the US in the 1960s and 1970s.

How did the Vietnam War impact the 1960s counterculture's social structure and lifestyles?

The Vietnam Conflict (was it ever a declared war?!?) may have been the catalyst that altered social structures, lifestyles, and created the counterculture, but the root causes for the massive changes are deeper.  As earlier posts suggested, the 1960's hippie movement originated from the 1950's beatnik movement, and here we have to draw an historical line.  The reason the 1960's were so turbulent was due to the turbulence of the 1940's -- namely, the Second World War.

For those who grew up before the war, certain social values and structures were in place, which by the 1960's were considered conservative.  The 1960's showed the emergence of that first post-war generation -- those who knew nothing of how life had been before the war (since that's when most of them had been born) and questioned every aspect of the established culture. Furthermore, these first baby-boomers, all near the same age, made their points by their sheer numbers.  This explains the more narrow beatnik movement compared to the widespread hippie movement. Had the baby boom not happened after World War II, the "flower power" generation would not have been as unified and as forceful.  Additionally, had Vietnam not served as the focus for all they found wrong with the culture, the hippie movement and its impact would have been much less.

Since the U.S.'s involvement in Vietnam was a part of the Cold War struggle, (namely Capitalism vs. Communism), the effect it had was initially ideological. Just like the war today, the social effect was a polarization with the counterculture emerging primarily on the left and the "silent majority" on the right. Reasons that the counterculture seems more prominent during the Vietnam war as opposed to anti-war movements now: there was a draft, the war coincided with the Civil Rights movement, and Vietnam was the first war that was immensely televised, so this was the first time U.S. citizens really saw images of war as they were happening.

With the large death toll of U.S. soldiers as well as the much larger toll of Vietnamese (including massacres of innocent civilians), the outrage against the war intensified. The anti-war movement was a statement against what was seen as U.S. imperial/ideological expansion. The counterculture, already militantly engaged in civil rights and peace movements, found the anti-war movement to be philosophically, politically and ethically in sync with what they were already doing.

In addition to the very good points made above, I would like to add just one.

The Vietnam War helped to push the counterculture farther toward a hatred of authority.  This had already been happening to some extent as a reaction to what the counterculture people felt was the overbearing authority of their parents.  But it grew as a response to the war.  The people of the counterculture felt that the war was an example of how blind obedience to authority was ruining our civilization.

It was in reaction to this perceived excess of authority that the hippies tried to form communes and other social structures that lacked any authority figures.  (Of course, that didn't always work so well as some people fleeing authority ended up under the authority of people like Charles Manson...)

One of the most cultural important influences of the Vietnam War was to inspire the spirit of rebellion and protest that became such an integral part of the 1960s.  The growth of the counterculture movement and the spirit of free expression found a home in the opposition to the war.  As the conflict escalated, individuals who were a part of the counterculture sought the forum to voice their dislike for the conflict.  The social structure of the family also saw a level of change as the war became perceived as engineered by the old against the "flower of the youth," as most of the soldiers sent to fight and die were young.  This helped expand the counterculture movement to be a generational one.  In terms of lifestyle, the Vietnam war was seen as an example of conservative American values.  The counterculture sought to define themselves in opposition.  Short haircuts and "acceptable" dress was challenged with long hair and exploration of different fashion statements.  Drug use became embraced as a part of the questioning and exploration that was antithetical to the conservative values of the time.  Some of the most enduring music of the time period were either the protest songs of the counter culture or the music inspired by the exploration of this culture.  Woodstock became the ultimate statement of counter culture, setting itself in stark opposition to what more "traditional" values would have espoused.