In 1968, if you were "for" the war, you were a "hawk;" if you were anti-war, you were a "dove." These terms were meant to characterize politicians for the most part, but because everyone was taking sides by then, they also applied to ordinary people. When I was a kid I got bullied a lot, and thus I got the idea that violence in general was a bad idea; I certainly had no problems being against the war, not as much because I objected to what the US was doing in Vietnam (although I did object, to the extent I knew much about it) but the way the Army treated its own soldiers in boot camp -- the institutionalized hazing, screaming, and bullying of the drill instructors was way too much like the childhood I was already living through. So, yeah, I was a "dove."
So I was somewhat stunned when DC Comics released a new series about a pair of brothers, one who favored violence to solve problems, the other who shrank from violence. The strange thing about the book was that neither character came off well; the Hawk was depicted as an antagonistic bully, the Dove was depicted to be a cowering wimp. It was like the writers and artists were telling you that growing up meant choosing between these equally disgusting caricatures.
As Wikipedia suggests, this was not an audience-pleasing strategy. The book lasted only six issues. According to the entry, they keep bringing the pairing back in various incarnations*, but the terms Hawk and Dove no longer have the same resonance, even though the U.S. is again in the middle of another quagmire.
* WTF:
Another Hawk (Sasha Martens) and Dove (Wiley Wolverman), appeared in a six-issue mini-series in 1997, written by Mike Baron. In this version... the duo's conflicting personalities manifested as "military brat" and "slacker dude," respectively. They gained large bird wings and a telepathic link by receiving experimental medical treatments as children.
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