The biggest difference was that there was a draft to be dealt with. It impacted personal decisions of many people, for there were deferments from the draft for marriage, for college, for teaching, and perhaps other occupations. Many sought to join the Reserves and National Guard to draft-proof themselves.
Up until about 1968 the media handled it as a fact of life for years, with nightly news stories including the infamous body counts. With the policy of "escalation" it became routine for the US forces to lose over a hundred men a week, and yet there was no huge rebellion at these numbers. Popular support for the war was steady but there was little enthusiasm. Things really went south when the antiwar and civil rights movements merged, and the media followed. Even at that, Nixon was able to campaign successfully to the "Great Silent Majority." For a long time the news was dominated by rounds of "Peace Talks" in Paris, which had about as much to do with peace as the Middleeast peace process does today. Yet people were hopeful that when the adversaries finally agreed on the shape of the negotiating table(Really) perhaps progress would be made.
All in all it was a bizarre epoch and hard to capture in snapshots because it kept changing.
I'm just a typical American boy from a typical American town
I believe in God and Senator Dodd and keeping old Castro down
And when it came my time to serve I knew better dead than red
But when I got to my old draft board, buddy, this is what I said:
CHORUS:
Sarge, I'm only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen, and I always carry a purse
I got eyes like a bat, my feet are flat, and my asthma's getting worse
O think of my career, my sweetheart dear, and my poor old invalid aunt
Besides, I ain't no fool, I'm a goin' to school, and I'm working in a defense plant
I've got a dislocated disc and a racked up back, I'm allergic to flowers and bugs
And when the bombshell hits, I get epileptic fits, and I'm addicted to a thousand drugs
I got the weakness woes, and I can't touch my toes, I can hardly reach my knees
And if the enemy came close to me, I'd probably start to sneeze
CHORUS:
Sarge, I'm only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen, and I always carry a purse
I got eyes like a bat, my feet are flat, and my asthma's getting worse
O think of my career, my sweetheart dear, and my poor old invalid aunt
Besides, I ain't no fool, I'm a goin' to school, and I'm working in a defense plant
I hate Chou En Lai, and I hope he dies, but one thing you gotta see
That someone's gotta go over there, and that someone isn't me
So I wish you well, Sarge, give 'em Hell, Yeah, Kill me a thousand or so
And if you ever get a war without blood and gore, Well I'll be the first to go