Utrillo's Children; A Memoir of Paris In 1969. Robert Ph.D Dick

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      University of Missouri, circa 1968.

      Some things weren't making a whole lot sense. On May 13, l966, I received my 1-A classification while television was broadcasting dark body bags coming back from Vietnam, bumping down an elevator from the jaws of a military plane. Hundreds of us per week were being killed in Vietnam, and who knows how many more were horribly wounded. Corrupt politicians were telling us we were winning the war in Asia–well, maybe not! For along with the books mentioned above, we began to see antiwar materials in the bookstores. There were writers and reporters who were digging into secret places, and what they were finding was explosive. They were whistle-blowing on our government, and finding that lying and duplicity were business as usual in the highest offices in Washington. I.F. Stone wrote about President Johnson's l964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. This act allowed him to order bombing of North Vietnam without Congressional approval. Professors, students and parents wondered, “Where did the U.S. Constitution go?” “Didn't we have a three branch government with checks and balances?” “What the hell is meant by this ‘War Powers Act?’”

      The printed word has power, and writers were beginning to supply the public with information–information contrary to party line.

      CBS reporter, David Schoenbrun, a New Yorker who was fluent in French and a true intellectual, got to the front lines in Vietnam, interviewed the grunts, and found out we weren't winning the war! He reported that Presidents, Generals, and advisers, to cover up miscalculations and just plain stupidity, were lying through their teeth. Schoenbrun personally went on a speaking tour, telling audiences his conclusions about 'Nam. I heard him at the University of Missouri at Kansas City in, I believe, l965. He received a standing ovation. It often takes great courage to stand up to power, but in my youth it was happening and it blew the top off this country.

      Jon Marqua was right–it didn't take much to light the match. By the late l960s, blood was on the streets. Televised killings, assassinations, police brutality, and charging police dogs, ripping at the arms and legs of Americans, became habitual stuff on television programs.

      Corrupt politicians, the Military Industrial Complex, (that of course included the Selective Service or the Lottery) and, sadly, some university presidents, dug in for the battle. Draft Boards dotted the American landscape and were made up of ordinary citizens who had extraordinary power. On your eighteenth birthday, you were required to register with your local draft board. From then on, you were liable to be “called up” for military duty at their whim. As one Vietnam Veteran later commented, “The Military Draft System dominated our generation's thought processes for a protracted period of our lives.”

      Families argued among themselves over the issues. The young became radicalized, many joining the black community in their drive for racial equality, and many crowded into anti-war and draft-resisting demonstrations. Urban ghettos were exploding and it seemed the level of violence increased daily. America was paying its dues, and those of us under thirty didn't trust anyone.

      For me personally, my luck held out. While I waited to be inducted, I decided to kill some time in graduate school at the University of Missouri. Maybe it was because I was an only son, or maybe because I got married, or maybe because my draft board became so incensed at the mess the country was in, I got a deferment, or at least a deferment for 6 month blocks of time. Then my status would be repeatedly reviewed–at least that's what I was told. (Deferments could be granted for health, education or various family situations, but who could plan a life under circumstances like that?) As a result, none of my days were comfortable, and planning for a future seemed futile. Presidents had come and presidents had gone, most trying to obliterate what was left of Vietnam.

      The lies to the nation continued and it ripped us up. Even for young patriots, and “Hawks,” and those in ROTC, it was not a good time to grow up. When the decade of the l960s started, it really did seem to be a good time–very few of us had heard about Dien Bien Phu. And, probably fewer Americans had heard of President Eisenhower's early commitments of soldiers to Vietnam.

      So early on, things seemed golden and peaceful, at least to us white kids. Folk singers, and early rockers began to get play time, and we danced to Teen Town, shook our hips and idolized Elvis, Little Richard and Fats Domino. The decade would end in a quagmire of lost dreams, smashed hopes, broken bodies, and political debacle. I would then be 26 years old.

      There is a wonderful phrase: “The Fog of War.”

      What “the fog of war” means is:

      war is so complex it's beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend all of the variables. Our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate. And we kill people unnecessarily.

      Robert S. McNamara, in The Fog of War

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