This certainly did happen, but we have to realize that it is wrong to think in generalized terms. Not all WWII veterans had a disdain for Vietnam veterans, some of whom were their own sons.

After returning to Vietnam, many veterans felt a detachment from their old reality and routines. Their families showed no interest nor understanding of their experiences in war and the men felt alienated by this lack of understanding. The natural reaction to this is to seek out those who had been in similar conditions and that would lead men to their colleagues but also to other veterans. Organizations such as Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion were dominated by WWII veterans at the time and it was these sort of places were these newly arrived veterans turned to for support and sympathy.

This was not always the case. Christian G. Appy, in his book Working-Class War argues that it was more than just a different kind of war that separated Vietnam veterans from WWII veterans. The Vietnam veterans were young men who naturally had very different opinions, views and interests than these older men and were, in the words of Appy, "not especially eager to conform to the traditional ways of conservative organizations." The view of the war in the minds of WWII veterans certainly did not help the alienation some Vietnam veterans felt. The war had been lost by these men, a dark spot in the military record of the United States according to the WWII veterans. The Vietnam veterans felt and thought that the older veterans had a very low opinion of them - both as soldiers and human beings. Having to constantly hear about WWII veterans being in "real wars" and how their war had been nothing but a "small skirmish" that could have been over and done with had they just dropped a few atomic bombs did not create a healthy environment for Vietnam veterans.

This sometimes even extended into ones personal life. Appy quotes Vietnam veteran Todd Dasher whose father had told him that, "You guys ain't really veterans, you didn't win the war. You didn't win your war." Todd's father, Appy goes on to write, did not even acknowledge the veteran status of his own son. Events such as these only alienated some veterans even further but also brought some veterans, the 'insiders' as opposed to the 'outsiders, together where they found sympathy with each other.