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Orangeafroman:
Why would someone mistreat a drafted solider returning from war?  Did people just not understand that the soldiers are the pawns?  The entire Vietnam War seems like a big WTF form every angle and aspect.

Because the people who spit on Vietnam vets when they came home didn't care whether they were draftees or volunteers.  They knew from their own experience that if one were "smart" (or if daddy had money) he could avoid service, so these yahoos coming back must have wanted to go over there and kill babies.
Here's a passage about the 1967 March on the Pentagon from James Webb's A Country Such as This that may be enlightening.

“The students, the people of books and pep clubs and prom committees, who had from their childhood feared the simple power and brutality of the blue collar kids. . . now found their scourges trapped. . . .  The boys whose sense of danger and action had lured them into the Army instead of college wore their uniforms as straightjackets, becoming quiet, enduring objects, repositories for the insults of those they could have squashed in a microsecond if the odds were fair.

“So the students unloaded on the soldiers, cursing them, daring them, under the accepted guise of hating Army, Pentagon, and War.  The insults issued, and the soldiers did not move.  Tomatoes and bottles smacked into them, and the soldiers did not move.  Girls undid their blouses, dangling firm, inviting breasts over tightly gripped rifles, and the soldiers did not move.  Students spat on them, grew more hateful, megaphones telling them they were dupes, fools, fuckheads, that their war was sinful, immoral, genocidal, and the soldiers did not move.”

A good part of the early Baby Boomers organized their lives around opposition to the Vietnam War.  By the end of the 1970s, they had taken over academia, and as they have retired they have handed over their endowed professorships to their former students whom they had taught to think the same way.

No, there was widespread support for the war and the military in WW 2, and the austerity measures mandated.  

Folks were out protesting and rioting over the war.  Protests. OK, but riots?  Why cause violence?  Why spit on soldiers?  They were told not to wear their uniforms in the States.  ROTC students didn't wear them on campus.  These were interesting times.  The whole country seemed to be coming apart, and on the side we landed on the moon.

"People" don't change, but obviously the environment does.  1968 was a crazy year.  And we all thought the Russkis were going to blow us up at any moment as well.

I think a lot of those people who were terrible to soldiers in the Vietnam era grew up and realized that maybe that wasn't such a good idea (possibly because more than a few of them had kids who became soldiers), so the pendulum has swung the other way since, which is good.

Politically I've had a lot of issues with American foreign policy, but I recognize that the guys who sign up are putting their lives on the line for whatever their government asks them to do, and once they sign on that line they can't refuse [within reason] what is asked of them. They do that while I sit here in the lap of luxury and safety.

So I've always been cognizant of the difference... I may disagree vociferously with some of the things our servicemen and women are asked to do. But I respect and appreciate them for being willing to do it; because it's not something I've ever been asked to do and I don't know if I could.

Soldiers are never to blame, because they're wed to the concept of chain-of-command.  

This is an MNC Alabama claims for some reason, perhaps the most dubious of the lot.  The world in 1941 was becoming a very troubled place obviously.  Germany had overrun France in May 1940 and then much of the rest of Europe.

http://www.tiptop25.com/champ1941.html

Duquesne also finished 8-0, including a big 16-0 win over SEC champion Mississippi State (8-1-1, #12 in fixed AP poll), but their schedule was otherwise bereft of competition, and they struggled to win against Villanova and St. Vincent's (Pennsylvania). They are ranked #6 in the fixed AP poll, and they are not a contender for the MNC.

Alabama actually claims an MNC for this season, despite the fact that they were 9-2, ranked #20 in the AP poll (they rise to #13 in the fixed poll), and they finished tied for 5th in the SEC with 8-2 Vanderbilt, who beat them. This has to be the worst MNC claim of all time, utterly senseless. The claim is based on Alabama finishing #1 in the relatively obscure Houlgate math formula, and it is the only MNC claim a school has made based on Houlgate (Sagarin is far more respected, and no school claims an MNC based on Sagarin). No school has ever rescinded an MNC claim, so I suppose Alabama is stuck with this one, but it seems to me that it would be much less embarrassing for Alabama to rescind the claim than to continue with their ridiculous "1941 national champions" charade.

Agreed, but Houlgate had a reason for his ranking. He included Bowl results when no other ranking services did so. Bama's win over aTm in the Cotton Bowl was most impressive because aTm had lost only two games in three years.