Although the Vietnam conflict brought riots and protests to NIU in the late 1960s, few NIU students are ready to picket the U.S. involvement in the Middle East.

Sean Shesgreen, an NIU English professor who taught here during Vietnam, said college students fighting the government 20 years ago might have done so because the troop build-up in Vietnam lead to the draft, forcing young people to face battle.

Students who were asked to fight “felt it in the gut,” Shesgreen said.

owever, U.S. troops being sent to Iraq overnight eliminated the chance for those feelings, he said.

“The mood of the campus has been fairly conservative the past eight to 10 years. We may see widespread support among students and the general public” for President George Bush’s policies, he said.

Also, the media have not looked at the issue very critically, he said. Instead, they seem to be using the conflict as a way to get ratings, calling it the “showdown in the gulf,” he said.

“There has been more popular support from the beginning,” than during Vietnam, said George Boyle, a former University Police officer who now works in NIU’s media services. Boyle also was at NIU during Vietnam.

During Vietnam, students were generally more concerned with being educated and not with getting jobs, Boyle said. Many interest groups then came together to protest the war.

Boyle said times are different now at NIU because more students are just going about their business in the hopes of beginning a career and getting a job.

owever, he said there still are a lot of groups on campus that might pull together if U.S. citizens start dying in Iraq.

Students and the whole population will begin to react when people are shipped home in body bags, Shesgreen said. “When coffins start coming in, it will be less romantic,” he said.

After soldiers die, people will have one of two reactions, he said. They might say “these people shall not die in vain, let’s send more.” Or, they might ask if it is worth their children’s lives that we have enough oil for motorscooters and gas-guzzling cars, he said.

Just because protesters aren’t lining the streets doesn’t mean students aren’t aware of the Middle East crisis. NIU’s Forum for Marxist Humanist Thought is planning an 8:30 p.m. Wednesday meeting about the issue in DuSable 202B.

So far, most NIU student political groups have taken no formal position.

College Republicans President Jodie English said if the group was forced to take a stand, the CRs would support Bush’s actions.

Unlike in Vietnam, the American public knows why troops are involved in Iraq, English said.

Young Democrats Chairman Brad Strauss said the YDs have taken no stand as a group on the issue.