The early baby boomers who were in college in the late 1960s are usually portrayed as war protesters and hippies. It's a lazy, easy act to find some provocative photos to represent an entire, very complex generation that way. But while war protesters and hippies did come from our generation, we were a minority of that generation.
In sheer numbers, we were impressive. We could fill the Pentagon parking lot and Golden Gate Park. But as a proportion of our generation, we were small. It's just that the baby boom was so big, even a small percentage meant large numbers.
So at Knox there were students who protested the Vietnam war, and many more who did not. There were students who actively or passively supported the war, and there were students who may or may not have supported the war but felt a responsibility to serve in the armed forces, either as volunteers or draftees. I mean no disrespect to them in what I relate about my own feelings, conclusions and commitments then or now.
It's been 50 years since that tumultuous year. But whether all wounds have healed, or are beyond being reopened, is a question to which I do not know the answer.
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| Maxine Hong Kingston, author of "The Woman Warrior and other books including "The Fifth Book of Peace." |
The group also learned and practiced meditation, particularly through workshops with the revered Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. (Their writings were later collected in the volume Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace, edited by Maxine Hong Kingston, and published by Koa Books.)
Though mostly Vietnam veterans, this group later included veterans of other wars as well as veterans of the peace movement. Eventually the American Vietnam vets were able to meet veterans of the Vietnamese forces that fought against them, and to reconcile.
But as Kingston's book relates (and I mentioned in my review), in what was to be their final session together, the American Vietnam vets asserted that they could not reconcile with American anti-war protesters, because they considered them betrayers. They felt this way even about activists in the peace movement that were part of the group.
Whether these vets really felt that way, or continued to feel that way, or how general this feeling might be even now, I do not know. But I took note of this as a possibility.
It's become something of a cultural impression that antiwar protesters were hostile towards returning veterans. The imagery of protesters spitting on returning vets still recurs. In 1998, a Vietnam vet and sociology professor named Jerry Lembcke reported on his research into this idea in The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam. He could not find a single contemporaneous media report of such an incident. While it is impossible to prove that it never happened, other scholars agree that it was not widespread or organized.
Dealing with this subject requires tact, but there is fairly ample evidence that the stories didn't take hold until years after the war, and especially became publicized as the Gulf War began. Political motives for spreading these stories are likely.
My own experience with vets and those on active duty was different. I remember Christmas vacation in 1967, when I talked about our impending exposure to the draft with one of my best friends from high school--who remains my best friend now. His decision was to accept the draft, and I supported him. The following year he was drafted, and eventually he was posted in Korea. We corresponded and Joni and I (during our couple of years together) sent him at least one care package.
The administrative part of my own first draft physical in Chicago was managed by a young lieutenant, who kept good order as we filled out our forms. But when we were finished, he closed the front and back doors to the room and told us what a horror Vietnam had become.
As for veterans, my first inkling of the future came when I was hitch-hiking, probably in 1968. I was at a quiet spot next to an on-ramp when I saw a figure running towards me from the opposite off-ramp. He was in uniform, on his way home. He'd obviously seen my long hair etc.
I braced myself for possible unpleasantness. I'd already been sucker-punched in a Galesburg bar for a stray antiwar remark (I'll never forget my brave classmate, Mary Azer, who immediately stood up to defend me.)
But it turned out this ex-soldier was excited to see me. Perhaps it was partly the life he had missed, but he also had something he wanted to tell me. "I just got back," he said, "and you guys were right."
By 1970, many leaders of the peace movement were Vietnam veterans.
Later, when the war was over, I had friends who were Vietnam vets. I don't want to get into a long discussion here of the effects of the war, but I will say that antiwar protesters are not primarily the folks who have been responsible for the scandalous treatment of veterans of Vietnam and the wars since. Not in terms of praise but in terms of pay and medical services and real support. This is what President Obama called "a national disgrace." The Obamas expended considerable effort to support veterans in real ways, though politics may distort this fact.
I'm not saying that things didn't get hot in antiwar activities in the 60s. That was true at Knox in the controversy over ROTC on campus.
But in the spring of 1968--probably near graduation--classmate Cleve Bridgeman saw me sitting alone at a white wrought iron table on the Gizmo patio. We didn't know each other well, but he wanted to talk about a moment earlier in the year when I responded to seeing him in ROTC uniform in a way I meant to be at least partly humorous. But he didn't take it that way. It surprised him, but it made him think about things a little more, and he wanted to talk about it--about why he'd been in ROTC and why he was going into the armed services. We sat on the Gizmo patio and had our only meaningful conversation. Then we shook hands and wished each other well.
Cleve Bridgeman was not in Vietnam long, and he didn't come back. So I'm grateful for the one moment we had, and that we parted with mutual respect.
3 comments:
Bill, this is from Steven Meyers, via me, Howard Partner.
Loved this. Funny how it Takes years for some of his stuff to percolate up.
You might not know this, but Bill visited with me for several months just after I started grad school in Buffalo after graduating in 1969.
Things happened that changed my life.
(We may never have talked about this before. But I’ll tell you.)
For instance, I was a graduate assistant at the state university of N.Y. at Buffalo, there on the PhD program. I had an English class full of freshman to teach. Bill joined me on occasion. This One time I remember we brought our guitars to the class and blues-jammed TS Elliott’s The Lovesong of J Alfred Pruffrock. That happened.
Another time, Somehow, We found ourselves going back to Knox. I had a car. It was the only time I’ve ever been back and never since. I think I stayed in the basement of a friend, maybe one of you.
Two events stand out from that return to Knox. First, there was a protest where the students took over the president’s office in protest of the Vietnam war. Bill was instrumental in this. In fact, he was the person who coined what became the slogan for the protest. I will never forget press releases being tossed out the windows of Old Main, probably by Bill himself. Come to think of it, This may have been the precursor of his blog. Written on them were the immortal words: the students are revolting!
The other memorable thing that happened during this tour with Bill was that I connected with someone that I hadn’t really known at all well when I was a student there. She did ceramics and I met her at an art show. I fell for one of the stoneware bowls she made. Married her and were together for a time while completing grad school in Buffalo.
(Howard, you also visited for a time - I think I was living on a communal situation in Akron N.Y.- chicken coop, compost heap and all.)
Does any of his have the ring of truth?
Howard, if you know how to reach Bill, will you forward this to him with my regards?
Best to all,
Steve
I spent lots of time as a young woman opposed to the War thinking about what I could do to stop the carnage and make the world a safer, kinder place. In retrospect my efforts seem pathetic: reading poems at anti-war rallies, collecting signatures on petitions, counseling draft eligible guys, and helping to make a film. But several times a week, I still think about a different VietNam story.
I was a senior at Knox. In order to get home to CT over the break I would make my way to O’Hare, pick up a half fare ticket to go standby, and when I was ready to board the plane I would call my father --often in the middle of the night. He would then take off for the airport; and we would arrive at about the the same time in NYC.
It was a deep winter storm that senior year and the snow was piling up in Chicago. Flights were cancelled, one after another; the airport was almost empty. Finally they announced a flight would take off at about 11 PM. At the gate there were only two of us, me and a guy in uniform.
He was just returning from Viet Nam. on his way back to NJ. We were basically the same age. He had come from a middle class family, but something had gone terribly wrong (was it that a parent had died?) and he decided to join the army to get away from the family trauma. In retrospect, I think that he just pretty happy to be alive and have an American college girl to talk to. We chatted a bit, our flight was called and we made our way into the plane. We may have been the only passengers on board.
Clearly he was trying to establish that we had much in common.. I remember him telling me about the craziness of army life and “these poor kids from the south who used chunks of butter like it was cheese. “ I told him that much of my time had been spent worrying about the war and what we could do from Stateside to stop it.
It was a very bumpy ride. Suddenly the guy grabbed for the vomit bag. After heaving a couple of times he made his way back to the lavatories. I wondered if when he was finished he would sit in the back or return to his seat next to me. He came back, smelling a bit sour and we continued our ride together.
Ever since I wondered if it was my conversation about our moral position in SE Asia or the turbulence that sent him hurling. Fifty years later, I wonder if he, too, thinks about that ride.
Wow, thanks Steve and Wendy. Wendy I've been in touch with, but it's great to hear from Howard Partner and Steven. FYI I screen comments before posting so private messages are possible, including email addresses. I simply won't post that "comment."
BK
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