This Friday at midnight, instead of getting ID’ed at Rulloff’s, I’ll be boarding a bus at Baker Flagpole. Along with over 100 students and community members, I will be spending my weekend protesting in Washington.

Hundreds of thousands from across the country will make the journey to D.C. to voice their opposition to the Iraq War in a national march on Washington this Saturday, Jan. 27. Many other cities — including Seattle, Austin, San Francisco and Los Angeles — will be hosting similar demonstrations.

Many students, however, are unconvinced of the effectiveness of protest for affecting government policies. To some, it seems like an idea stuck in the past. “Protest was what our parents did in the ’60s against Vietnam,” they think. “We have different ways of making our voices heard now.”

While much has changed in the world since our parents’ generation, one glaring similarity remains. Now, as then, we are embroiled in an increasingly unpopular war being fought halfway across the world, where the prospect of “winning” seems dimmer by the day.

The Iraq-Vietnam comparisons are impossible to ignore. And they should give hope to those of us that oppose the current war. Although it took eight long years, the United States did end the war in Vietnam. So, as we fight to end this current occupation, we must examine how the Vietnam War was brought to a close.

When the Vietnam War began in 1965, the Johnson administration claimed the war was necessary to prevent a “Communist takeover” in South Vietnam, a rationale that most of the American public accepted.

Despite overall support for the war, there were groups that opposed it from the start. Students for a Democratic Society, with 40 chapters across the country at the beginning of the war, made a name for itself by calling the first national march against the war in March 1965.

SDS studied the successful tactics of the civil rights movement, especially those of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee. It was from SNCC that SDS adopted a variety of tactics, including a commitment to activism and grassroots democracy over electoral work and lobbying, as well as an openness to radical politics.

In addition to national demonstrations, student chapters of SDS took local actions against the war, such as targeting their own universities for maintaining weapons research facilities and turning over student lists to the government to help the draft.

The antiwar segment of the U.S. population grew quickly after a few years in Vietnam. By the spring of 1967, almost 500,000 demonstrated in New York City and San Francisco. They voiced their opposition to the war, calling for immediate withdrawal of all troops from Vietnam.

Unsurprisingly, President Johnson acted publicly like the substantial war opposition had no effect on his policies. It is clear, however, that he was disturbed by the mass antiwar sentiment. Johnson rejected a proposal based on computer calculations to add 200,000 more troops. “I have one question to ask your computers,” he said. “How long [will it] take 500,000 angry Americans to climb the White House wall out there and lynch their president if he does something like that?”

Students alone could not end the war. The efforts of SDS and other antiwar groups made the war increasingly unpopular, but they needed the help of others to force the U.S. to withdraw.

While students protested throughout the country, soldier resistance skyrocketed both at home and abroad. Troops in Vietnam were starting to desert in increasing numbers, and patrols were beginning to avoid interactions with the Vietnamese resistance, trying to survive the war rather than to win it. Additionally, troops were returning to the United States and continuing their protests here. Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), which launched John Kerry into the national spotlight, was created to provide a forum for soldiers to voice their opposition to the war.

The Vietnamese resistance proved far more difficult than originally expected, with the Tet Offensive in 1968 proving how difficult victory would be for the U.S. The death toll continued to climb for U.S. troops as well as Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians.

In 1973, due to the resistance of students, workers and soldiers, President Nixon was forced to sign the Paris Peace Accords and withdraw troops from Vietnam.

Right now, we can see the beginnings of a successful resistance to the war in Iraq. A recent poll found that more than three-quarters of Americans think the war in Iraq is going poorly. Most are questioning the very reasons that we entered Iraq in the first place. Weapons of mass destruction were never found, and all purported links between Saddam and al-Qaida have been debunked.

This resistance is also beginning to organize itself into a movement. The Campus Anti-war Network has organized student chapters around the county to oppose the war, using many of the successful tactics of SDS. Iraq Veterans Against the War has also been participating actively in the antiwar movement and providing support to those soldiers who oppose the war. IVAW has been coordinating with many of the same activists in VVAW through Veterans for Peace.

As in Vietnam, one protest will not bring the war to an end. But with the efforts of motivated citizens, principled soldiers and the Iraqi people, we can bring all the troops home. The march on Washington this Saturday is a step in that direction. We must go to D.C. to voice our opposition en masse, then return to Cornell to continue our resistance.

Laura Taylor is a senior in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She can be contacted at lat34@cornell.edu. Kind of a Big Deal appears Tuesdays.