GOP has it right. The question here is %. I'm afraid that there was indeed a very vocal large minority of that generation who were not only shirkers, but detestors....openly despising the military and those in it.
We realize that those who fought Nam were the same generation, and many existed who had no problem w/it, but there was an *awful* lot of "protest" from the same. Unlike anything before certainly, and not really since, either.
So that's why the appellations "anti-war" and other stereotypes like "hippie" and "drug-ridden self-indulgent" generation.
I don't disagree with you on much of what you say, but and it's a big but, institute a draft and watch how eager the current generation is to go to war. Remember there were more Americans in Vietnam then there are in the United States Army today. Don't ascribe the patriotism of the men and women in the armed forces to their entire generation until that generation is called on as a group to answer the call. Thus far they haven't been called.