After Vietnam, we had an invasion of hippies at App State in the mid 70’s. All were former military. Many were Vietnam vets. They were drawn to the weed culture of Boone, cheap land and the girls. Oddly, most of the ones I knew were Marines.
I don’t doubt that. Guys who were drafted into the Marines against their will must have felt they were in some kind of special Hell. I don’t doubt that there were a higher percentage of them who went the other way once they got out.
Free from that strict yoke.
I should clarify though-I very much disliked hippies, what they stood for, and everything else back then. I was a very strait laced kid even until I was nearly out of the military myself, though I drank like a fish.
But now...I only feel that extreme dislike and even repulsion towards Leftist, militant hippies. Especially the young ones, who deliberately want to look like those people from the Seventies, even wearing the same clothes and such.
Other hippies? The ones who seem apolitical and flaky? I get along okay with those. They aren’t hippie “wannabes”...they seem mentally like real hippies, and in today’s world, I can kind of understand it and am more tolerant of them.
My sister and her now-passed husband were a case in point. I see those types as generally harmless.