And then My Facebook Group Commented!
MWWW: My family was there, too!
DS: I remember going to the candlelight parade
CC: I remember watching the coffins coming off of the military planes each night...so incredibly sad
NM: I was there too; what year was the candlelight event?
SCB: We went every Christmas Eve, walked, held candles and sang songs. I was young and actually thought it was a part of celebrating Christmas. One Christmas Eve I asked my mom where my candle was that I would be holding and she told me the war was over. I didn’t really understand they were related. I remember being sad that we weren’t going to march anymore as it was one of my favorite parts of Christmas. (I obviously did not understand) My dad was the head of the Peace Center in Los Gatos. I still remember looking at a dove holding an olive branch necklace there that I had wanted. At 20 years old I had that symbol tattooed on me. The only tat I have and I have never regretted it. I’m glad to see that others also remember this.
JM: I was born and raised in Los Gatos, and knew nothing of these candlelight vigils. I enlisted in March 1965, before I had heard of Vietnam. A friend and I tried to hitchhike to Selma, to join Martin Luther King in his march from Selma to Montgomery for Negro voting rights. We got busted as runaways, and my dad suggested if I really wanted to help our country, maybe I should consider joining the military.
After Vietnam, it may seem strange that someone working for Civil Rights would join the military, but my grandfather fought in WWI and WWII and my dad was a Navy pilot in WWII and the Korean War. Eisenhower and JFK had used US troops to desegregate the South. I was very gung-ho.
I breezed through Basic Training, top 5% of Advanced Electronics training, volunteered for Jump School - and right about then, LBJ send the first US combat troops to Vietnam. I got my paratrooper wings and volunteered for helicopter pilot school. I was going all the way.
But, then I started talking to Special Forces troops who had come back from Vietnam, bragging about kicking prisoners out of helicopters at 1,500' to get other prisoners to talk, flying over villages shooting everything that moves (adding to the "Body Count"), and calling our supposed allies "Gooks".
I started researching what we were doing there in the first place and found that we were supporting a corrupt Catholic government in a Buddhist land. The monks who set themselves on fire, who I thought were protesting the godless Commies, were actually protesting the oppressive US backed South Vietnamese government. The Vietnamese people fought for their independence from the Chinese, the Japanese, and the French, and now the US, who took over from the French, after they refused to give up their colonies after WWII.
By March 1966 I had determined that the war had shattered my ideals of an honorable military, and I could not participate in it. To make a very long story short, at my court martial I quoted from the Nuremberg Trials that soldiers had a right and duty to oppose a war they felt to be illegal and immoral. But, at the time, there were no regulations for someone who enlisted to declare themselves to be a Conscientious Objector.
After a total of one and a half years of honorable duty, two years AWOL, and a year in jail, I was released in September 1969.
In 1974 I received a Presidential Pardon as acknowledgement of my sincere opposition to the war.
I don't know what years those vigils were, but I'm glad to hear about them. I was estranged from my parents and almost all my friends - I was just too early being against the war. In the end, most friends and family recognized I was on the right side of history. I finally got out in September 1969, just as many were still fighting against the war or dying for it. At the start of the Iraq War, I joined Veterans for Peace, and helped to organize Arlington West Memorials, spoke at colleges, and rallies. Since Vietnam too many wars for oil and politics - too many deaths, grievous injuries, and wasted trillions, for nothing.
AB: Jon, your family and friends should be very proud of how you have conducted yourself throughout your adult life. If they don't, it's on them...NOT you! Great job.
JL: Gregory, did you also spit on our soldiers too?
KK: that wasn't protesting....we carried signs and marched and sang and held anti war concerts and wrote letters to the govt!
KK: what you are referring to was assault...not protesting~
KK: we carried flowers and solicited PEACE!....cue: Are You Going to San Francisco~...feel free to sing along~
JM: The spitting legend was BS - there's a book called Spitting Image, that details when the story first started circulating - well after the war. He also details all the versions of the story. I walked down Telegraph Ave in Berkeley in March 1966, in my full paratrooper dress uniform - got some strange looks, but no disrespect.
The most common form of the story was that a soldier arrived from Vietnam, landing in SFO, and while walking down the terminal a young hippie chick comes up to him and spits in his face, (there are a couple of version of what she said), and said, "You're a baby killer".
It never happened. The anti-war movement was for peace, not confrontation, mostly following MLK and Gandhi's non-violence, except for small radical groups, that gave the real peace movement a bad name.
JL: If you were in the service you would sing a different song. No problem with MLK, was Gandhi a U.S. citizen?
LM: Jon Monday I disagree. I was spit on at the bus station in San Francisco on my return from Vietnam. After arriving in San Jose, taking a cab home, when the can driver founded out I just got home from Nam, he pulled over and threw me out of his cab. You…See More
GT: Funny how it was ok to protest back then..but not now
SL: Cook It was OK to protest back then - pretty much everybody was against the war. It was not OK to harass the troops. They were subject to the draft and had limited choices (prison or leaving the country) other than serving. The lack of support for them was horrible.
KK: me too!
ABG: I assume that it is the protest against stay-at-home and related guidelines to which you refer. If so, you are clearly comparing apples to dog shit (oranges are WAY too similar). On the one hand, people were protesting a long term conflict (it w…See More
AB: In case its not obvious, you hit what is probably my largest peeve. I'm even more amazed that since you're only a year younger than me, you should have been affected by the draft as well. I had 4 years of my life disrupted that I could never get back. And, I was lucky that after being drafted, I was able to get into a job that kept me in the States during my service. To this day, I am especially sensitive to how poorly people in the service were treated before, during and after Vietnam. NEVER has there been a time in our history where the people who served during those years have been disrespected and shit on like Vietnam era veterans. End of rant.
JM: Beg to differ, the peace movement embraced Veterans and provided services for homeless and drug addition.Counseled people facing the draft how to get out, and counseled soldiers how to get out as a CO. Right through the late 60s, 70s, all the way to the Iraq and Afghanistan war, the peace movement has supported active duty and veterans with love and recognition. Veteran For Peace is one such group. Those who ignored the returning troops were not the people who protested against the war.
AB: I think you misunderstood what I said. Where did you think I was accusing war protesters of treating veterans badly? Granted it's been almost 50 years ago but I do have some memories of people in uniform being harassed as war mongers and baby killers during some protests. Any group is going to have at least a few "bad eggs" but they were a small minority. In any case, they aren't the ones about whom I was referring.
MB: Do you remember the sit-ins that we had on the front lawn when we refused to go to classes?
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
and then I Said:
I Realize that it is Difficult to Believe Now BUT... There Were People That Actually Thought The Vietnam War Was a Great Idea! REALLY! I'm NOT Making this UP.
During the Late 1960s The Majority of Americans BELIEVED the Government and Supported the War... OBEY! Said Lyndon Johnson and The Sheeple Obeyed... Sir, Yes Sir! Then Years Later THEY WOKE THE F*CK UP! Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding... REALITY CALLING! As a Matter of Fact, in 1968, Richard Nixon Campaigned Promising to End the War... With Honor... and then he Kept the war going until 1973... Classic "Say One Thing and Do the Opposite."
I Grasp the Concept. DOW Chemical was Making a Fortune Selling Napalm and Agent Orange. Hughes Aircraft was Making a Fortune Selling Helicopters... and the List Goes On and On and On... Corporations selling Bandages to the Military need wounded soldiers to increase sales... Corporations Selling Meals Ready To Eat and BOOTS and Guns and Bullets and Jet Airplanes... Our Own FMC sold Machine Guns that shot Winged Needles and the World Famous Bradly Fighting Vehicle... It's all part of the Strategy of BLOW UP RANDOM COUNTRIES FOR CORPORATE PROFIT!
MWWW: My family was there, too!
DS: I remember going to the candlelight parade
CC: I remember watching the coffins coming off of the military planes each night...so incredibly sad
NM: I was there too; what year was the candlelight event?
SCB: We went every Christmas Eve, walked, held candles and sang songs. I was young and actually thought it was a part of celebrating Christmas. One Christmas Eve I asked my mom where my candle was that I would be holding and she told me the war was over. I didn’t really understand they were related. I remember being sad that we weren’t going to march anymore as it was one of my favorite parts of Christmas. (I obviously did not understand) My dad was the head of the Peace Center in Los Gatos. I still remember looking at a dove holding an olive branch necklace there that I had wanted. At 20 years old I had that symbol tattooed on me. The only tat I have and I have never regretted it. I’m glad to see that others also remember this.
JM: I was born and raised in Los Gatos, and knew nothing of these candlelight vigils. I enlisted in March 1965, before I had heard of Vietnam. A friend and I tried to hitchhike to Selma, to join Martin Luther King in his march from Selma to Montgomery for Negro voting rights. We got busted as runaways, and my dad suggested if I really wanted to help our country, maybe I should consider joining the military.
After Vietnam, it may seem strange that someone working for Civil Rights would join the military, but my grandfather fought in WWI and WWII and my dad was a Navy pilot in WWII and the Korean War. Eisenhower and JFK had used US troops to desegregate the South. I was very gung-ho.
I breezed through Basic Training, top 5% of Advanced Electronics training, volunteered for Jump School - and right about then, LBJ send the first US combat troops to Vietnam. I got my paratrooper wings and volunteered for helicopter pilot school. I was going all the way.
But, then I started talking to Special Forces troops who had come back from Vietnam, bragging about kicking prisoners out of helicopters at 1,500' to get other prisoners to talk, flying over villages shooting everything that moves (adding to the "Body Count"), and calling our supposed allies "Gooks".
I started researching what we were doing there in the first place and found that we were supporting a corrupt Catholic government in a Buddhist land. The monks who set themselves on fire, who I thought were protesting the godless Commies, were actually protesting the oppressive US backed South Vietnamese government. The Vietnamese people fought for their independence from the Chinese, the Japanese, and the French, and now the US, who took over from the French, after they refused to give up their colonies after WWII.
By March 1966 I had determined that the war had shattered my ideals of an honorable military, and I could not participate in it. To make a very long story short, at my court martial I quoted from the Nuremberg Trials that soldiers had a right and duty to oppose a war they felt to be illegal and immoral. But, at the time, there were no regulations for someone who enlisted to declare themselves to be a Conscientious Objector.
After a total of one and a half years of honorable duty, two years AWOL, and a year in jail, I was released in September 1969.
In 1974 I received a Presidential Pardon as acknowledgement of my sincere opposition to the war.
I don't know what years those vigils were, but I'm glad to hear about them. I was estranged from my parents and almost all my friends - I was just too early being against the war. In the end, most friends and family recognized I was on the right side of history. I finally got out in September 1969, just as many were still fighting against the war or dying for it. At the start of the Iraq War, I joined Veterans for Peace, and helped to organize Arlington West Memorials, spoke at colleges, and rallies. Since Vietnam too many wars for oil and politics - too many deaths, grievous injuries, and wasted trillions, for nothing.
AB: Jon, your family and friends should be very proud of how you have conducted yourself throughout your adult life. If they don't, it's on them...NOT you! Great job.
JL: Gregory, did you also spit on our soldiers too?
KK: that wasn't protesting....we carried signs and marched and sang and held anti war concerts and wrote letters to the govt!
KK: what you are referring to was assault...not protesting~
KK: we carried flowers and solicited PEACE!....cue: Are You Going to San Francisco~...feel free to sing along~
JM: The spitting legend was BS - there's a book called Spitting Image, that details when the story first started circulating - well after the war. He also details all the versions of the story. I walked down Telegraph Ave in Berkeley in March 1966, in my full paratrooper dress uniform - got some strange looks, but no disrespect.
The most common form of the story was that a soldier arrived from Vietnam, landing in SFO, and while walking down the terminal a young hippie chick comes up to him and spits in his face, (there are a couple of version of what she said), and said, "You're a baby killer".
It never happened. The anti-war movement was for peace, not confrontation, mostly following MLK and Gandhi's non-violence, except for small radical groups, that gave the real peace movement a bad name.
JL: If you were in the service you would sing a different song. No problem with MLK, was Gandhi a U.S. citizen?
LM: Jon Monday I disagree. I was spit on at the bus station in San Francisco on my return from Vietnam. After arriving in San Jose, taking a cab home, when the can driver founded out I just got home from Nam, he pulled over and threw me out of his cab. You…See More
GT: Funny how it was ok to protest back then..but not now
SL: Cook It was OK to protest back then - pretty much everybody was against the war. It was not OK to harass the troops. They were subject to the draft and had limited choices (prison or leaving the country) other than serving. The lack of support for them was horrible.
KK: me too!
ABG: I assume that it is the protest against stay-at-home and related guidelines to which you refer. If so, you are clearly comparing apples to dog shit (oranges are WAY too similar). On the one hand, people were protesting a long term conflict (it w…See More
AB: In case its not obvious, you hit what is probably my largest peeve. I'm even more amazed that since you're only a year younger than me, you should have been affected by the draft as well. I had 4 years of my life disrupted that I could never get back. And, I was lucky that after being drafted, I was able to get into a job that kept me in the States during my service. To this day, I am especially sensitive to how poorly people in the service were treated before, during and after Vietnam. NEVER has there been a time in our history where the people who served during those years have been disrespected and shit on like Vietnam era veterans. End of rant.
JM: Beg to differ, the peace movement embraced Veterans and provided services for homeless and drug addition.Counseled people facing the draft how to get out, and counseled soldiers how to get out as a CO. Right through the late 60s, 70s, all the way to the Iraq and Afghanistan war, the peace movement has supported active duty and veterans with love and recognition. Veteran For Peace is one such group. Those who ignored the returning troops were not the people who protested against the war.
AB: I think you misunderstood what I said. Where did you think I was accusing war protesters of treating veterans badly? Granted it's been almost 50 years ago but I do have some memories of people in uniform being harassed as war mongers and baby killers during some protests. Any group is going to have at least a few "bad eggs" but they were a small minority. In any case, they aren't the ones about whom I was referring.
MB: Do you remember the sit-ins that we had on the front lawn when we refused to go to classes?
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
and then I Said:
I Realize that it is Difficult to Believe Now BUT... There Were People That Actually Thought The Vietnam War Was a Great Idea! REALLY! I'm NOT Making this UP.
During the Late 1960s The Majority of Americans BELIEVED the Government and Supported the War... OBEY! Said Lyndon Johnson and The Sheeple Obeyed... Sir, Yes Sir! Then Years Later THEY WOKE THE F*CK UP! Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding... REALITY CALLING! As a Matter of Fact, in 1968, Richard Nixon Campaigned Promising to End the War... With Honor... and then he Kept the war going until 1973... Classic "Say One Thing and Do the Opposite."
I Grasp the Concept. DOW Chemical was Making a Fortune Selling Napalm and Agent Orange. Hughes Aircraft was Making a Fortune Selling Helicopters... and the List Goes On and On and On... Corporations selling Bandages to the Military need wounded soldiers to increase sales... Corporations Selling Meals Ready To Eat and BOOTS and Guns and Bullets and Jet Airplanes... Our Own FMC sold Machine Guns that shot Winged Needles and the World Famous Bradly Fighting Vehicle... It's all part of the Strategy of BLOW UP RANDOM COUNTRIES FOR CORPORATE PROFIT!
SNCC Benefit Speech at My Parent's Home in Los Gatos, CA - In the Sixties, They Raised Funds to Pay for Freedom Riders in the South. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2021/03/sncc-benefit-speech-at-my-parents-home.html
I Remember That We Had a Black Man Talk. My Folks PACKED The House With People and Took Donations.
In General, The Civil Rights Movement was Successful. President Lyndon Johnson Signed Laws That Allowed Black People to Vote and Live in White Neighborhoods. My Parents Helped!
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/johnson-signs-civil-rights-act
Years Later I Bought a Condo in a Black Neighborhood near Washington DC. There was a DEEP DISCOUNT if You Chose a Black Neighborhood. The Same Condo in Virginia cost $39,000 but in Beautiful Oxon Hill, Maryland the Price was $26,000. It Turns Out That the Peter, Paul and Mary Lyric is Accurate. "They Say that Property Values Will Go Right Down if The Family Next Door is Blue." --- I Selected the Discount. Because I Don't Care What Color My Neighbors Are. at Least I'm Not Going to PAY EXTRA For White Neighbors...
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