Vietnam protests how would the family react?

Would Beaver think Wally went Ape?

Would June cry for her baby and what she did wrong?

Would Ward have a pained look on his face and slowly slide his den doors closed?

All that's probably close to what would happen!

"Mom, Dad... The world is changing. My soul is seeking peace...

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...and my upper lip is crying out for a return of my mustache."

June: Wally, I demand to know who that woman was waving at you when we drove by that bar back there?

Wally: She's a friend of Dad's.

"Wally is much more politically active than me. I'm gonna go pick up Mary Margaret Matthews -- you know, she looks just like that National Velvet chick Lori Martin -- and we'll go cruisin'."

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"Rollin' in my 5.0
With the ragtop down so my hair can blow..."

(Disclaimer, Leave it to Beaver is a TV show and not real life, but we can pretend).

For me the "1950's" era was from the end of WWII until the JFK assassination in Novemeber of 1963. After 1963, America changed, a lot. Leave it to Beaver's last season was the Spring of 1963.

Wally would have gone to college in the Fall of 1963 and graduated the Spring of 1967. (Wally and the actor Tony Dow were chronologically the same age, born in 1945, this means that Ward came home from WWII, or was on leave when Wally was conceived).

I dont think before 1968 or so that there were many campus demostrations about the war outside California and the Ivy League Schools and Wally would have been been rewarded his undergraduate by the Spring of 1967. In the 1980's revival show, "Still the Beaver", Wally was a lawyer, which means he went to Law School which was two more years. That would be until the Spring of 1969 (if Law School is two years).

I dont know what the laws/rules were for people of draft age in college or college graduates to be drafted into Vietnam. A quick and unoffical search said the draft age was 18-26. But I dont know if college graduates who got married but still in their early 20's were still subject to the draft or not.

Beaver on the other hand was four years younger (in the series, Wally graduated high school and Beaver was entering high school the next year after the original series ended). Some high schools in America are three years (10th-12th) and others four years (9th-12th). Using the four year school, Beaver would have been born in 1949 and graduated high school in 1967 at 18. So Beaver was at the prime age at the height of Vietnam.

Wally would have been an excellent service member. Very squared away, athletic and intelligent. Beaver would have tried hard but was dumb and would screw up a lot. Eddie Haskell would either have been 4-F or drummed out because of his mental state and attitude. But Eddie if not in battle might have liked the military because he knew how to suck up to authority and ran his scams with his peers. But then again, Eddie might have gotten the soap in the towel beating like in Full Metal Jacket.

In real life, Tony Dow was in the US National Guard (Army) from 1965-1968. Dow's Wiki page doesnt say if he went to Vietnam, but it would have if he did, so he did not. Jerry Mathers was in the Air Force National Guard from 1966-1969 and never left the United States (despite a rumor stating he was killed in Vietnam which is of course untrue). There is even a picture of Mathers in uniform on his Wiki page. Both were in the service at the height of Vietnam, but neither went.

^^^
I just watched the movie Kent State and the reason(s) that the students were protesting (Spring 70) was that the draft was going to start coming for them whereas before college students were left safely alone and also that Nixon was going to attack Cambodia.

Regarding the comment about the method of draft operation in the early 1970s, there was a lottery system that drew numbers from 1 to 366, for all possible birthdays, for everyone eligible to be in the military.

I believe that Ward would have enlightened Wally on how to dodge the front lines by becoming a Seabee, and Eddie Haskell would now be speaking Canadian.

born in 1945, this means that Ward came home from WWII, or was on leave when Wally was conceived).

Or, perhaps a third option that better explains the differences in temperament and aptitude between the two brothers?

Or, perhaps a third option that better explains the differences in temperament and aptitude between the two brothers?

I keep saying its the milkman...

I keep saying its the milkman...

Or the Bond bread man, or the doctor or vet who makes house calls, or the cleaner who delivers........

How 'bout Henry "the Grass is Always Greener" Fletcher?

Him too. Then there's the mailman, Mr. Donaldson next door, Fats the junk man...

I have said this before but Beaver was sort of slow. At best he lacked common sense and was easily duped. This continues in the 1980’s Still the Beaver show. Wally was much more intelligent than Beaver. That goes without saying.

Eddie had mental problems at least in the 1980’s show. Eddie would either have been 4-F, or if admitted, been in trouble a lot and in the brig.

I remember when actress Shelly Winters was on “The Merv Griffin Show,” and she told Merv Griffin that actor Jerry Mathers, who had portrayed that very nice, little boy, Theodore Cleaver, on “Leave it to Beaver,” had just been killed in Vietnam.

Merv Griffin looked absolutely shocked and people in the studio audience actually gasped out loud when Shelly Winters related this.

Thankfully, Ms. Winters was proven to be 100% wrong with her awful news.

As to the draft, I remember how young guys sat down in front of the tv and watched with great dread as the draft lottery numbers were selected live on television. If you didn’t get a “safe” lottery number, you had to join ROTC in college to obtain a deferment from the draft or enroll in graduate study in England like a future POTUS did to avoid being drafted.

.........or enroll in graduate study in England like a future POTUS did to avoid being drafted.
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This is what Bill Clinton did, he went to England on a Rhodes Scholarship. For all the man's horrible misdeeds (and I did vote for the guy in 1992), this was not one of them. I would not have entered military service and would have done anything to get away from it. The draft was involuntary servitude, no matter what the Supreme Court actually said on the matter.

As mentioned in my post above, both Jerry Mathers and Tony Dow were both in the service, Mathers in the Air Force and Dow in the Army National Guard. Probably did so to keep from being drafted.