In the huge political struggle then taking place in the United States, veterans had a special advantage that set them apart from typical antiwar protestors: they had actually "been there" and could speak about U.S. policy in Vietnam from dramatic, personal experience. During the national VVAW demonstration in Washington from 19 April to 23 April 1971, a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution commented that their demonstration eroded troop morale, whereupon a veteran responded, "Lady, we are the troops." Mary McGrory, writing of the veterans' demonstration for the Washington Evening Star, observed that "the veterans looked like hippies. But these were hippies with combat infantry badges pinned below the knees of their blue jeans, and Purple Hearts swinging from their headbands. The Administration saw them differently, as a new and dangerous animal--anti-military, anti-war veterans who swapped atrocity stories and griped, not about the first sergeant, but about the commander in chief. . . . Middle America saw at once that this was not the usual hippie-authority clash."
source This is an excerpt from a compilation called, "Give Peace a Chance: Exploring the Vietnam Antiwar Movement" published by Syracuse University Press in 1992