I had no choice Edgar, I knew the cops....said they were "waiting" for me lol. The tear gas was nothing...
What? You didn't request a beating and they gave you one anyway? Sorry - Nothing funny about that - I sometimes wish I had had the opportunity to do like MLK and walk up to cops with dogs and not even flinch when getting hit or bitten. There were plenty of beatings, some in the back room, some out in the open, back then. On the other hand, why complain about surviving intact?
We "baby boomers" have come through some incredible, and noble times. It's one thing to go to war with your country behind you, that's a no-brainer, but to go against the status quo, of your own country and it's values, because it's the right thing to do, takes a special courage. It was only natural for me, being Black, I was born to the struggle, but as for the White people, who jumped in, took the beatings, jail, and gas, (I NEVER GOT GASSED!) I salute you. You erased my natural, and automatic prejudices..... It pains me today, when young African-Americans, take for granted, the things, we struggled to get. And even worse, to display the racism, we hate in others.
it was in '68 and i was a college student in Colorado and one of those radicals that joined Congress on Racial Equality and went to Missisippi for a voter regristration drive. the night we arrived we were arrested for "being in a car after sudnown with a colored" spend the night in jail and contiunued the next few days working on voter registration while not to far down the road some others were murdered. it was a long summer.
You cared....you made a difference......As did all you guys, I toast you.
On the war effort, I had a different approach. I had a dream I was surronded by bamboo, on my belly and scared. This was senior year in high school. I knew the war was wrong - but, naive me, didn't know why.
A little over a year later I was surronded by bamboo, on my belly and scared. Also, finding out what it was all about the hard way.
When I came back from Nam my father had me have lunch with a friend of his who's son was caught demonstrating at the University. I told him I had a lot of respect for his son and his was doing the right thing - but he didn't know why.
In 1976 when Carter signed the amnesty for those that went to Canada my father tells me that he knows my stance in the past but now I should be mad as hell. I looked him in the eyes and said that these young me did what they had to do, they should have no regrets or feel bad and it should have been done sooner.
The fight is today and it is continuing. As long as we have Trent Lotts, Bob Jones, Tom Delays, Rumsfelts, Wolfowitzs, Cheneys and GWB the fight is not over. There is still ignorance in America!
Amen Bill....BTW, I don't think naive is the word for a high-schooler who somehow felt the war was wrong. When I was in high school, I thought Kennedy could do no wrong, and was correct in trying to "save" the people of Indo-China.
I'm glad I had the experience beatings or not, I tried to stand up for what I believed was right, or wrong politically.
I got lucky in the draft lottery, very lucky but some of my buds we not lucky at all. The ones I know that made it home still thank us all for our efforts to end that damn war.
May I have another beating and a pint now?....
thanks Bill LOL !!! just what the doctor ordered.
how'd you do that?
If you right click on the icon, click on properties and copy the URL Address then paste it inside of
[img]ur url[/img]
no blanks of course
voila!
huh? is that greek?
i'll try it later, clueless here. [img]ur url[/img]
i blew it, i'll try it later
"ur url" is
http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:IrjNg2IOatwC:www.homebeer.com.tw/images/ which I got by right clicking on the image, left clicking on properties and copying the
Address: (URL). Make sure you get all the URL, some of it maybe hidden, I usually copy left to right, top to bottom to insure I get all. Most pics end with .gif or .jpg. Good Luck 
So, it is like this (without the two blanks):
If I take out those two blanks, this happens:
During my last year in the Navy I became enamored of some right wing thinkers (temporary stupidity). I left the service intending to enlist in the army and volunteer to fight in 'Nam. But I read a newspaper article shortly after that and was apauled at descriptions of our side stringing captured Viet Cong together by running barbed wire through their cheeks. In the same article I read of Viet Kong prisoners being thrown out of helicopters instead of taken to POW camps. I said, "This is not what America is about." I began researching the roots of the war (and our involvement in other parts of the world in general). I concluded that we were the aggressors. It was not long before I began to join protests. I have been protesting that war since 1965 and will continue to do so the rest of my life.
Unfortunately, that is what war is edgar, and one of the reasons I am against it. War can take a perfectly normal person and turn them into a right winger, terrible, isn't it.
BTW, there usually is a purpose for actions, someone said in another thread that good interegators can get prisoners to talk. From what I understand, they would take two prisoners up, start asking questions and when they would talk - they threw one out. The other talked in a hurry.
Short story:
I was in the 1st Cav and we were on what I called the "trail from hell". We had been getting into action two or three times a day for about a week. One day after a couple of Chu Hoi's were giving up and walking towards us - at the last moment they dropped their rifles and started shooting. Needless to say, we had about 10 rifles and a machine gun trained and them - enough said.
A couple of buddies decided they want to impale them with sticks through a 1st Cav patch. I stopped them and said -
1) That's totally inhumane.
2) The only thing you will do is inflame their buddies when they are found and we will then have enraged enemies.
3) You can't punched a stick through a patch, a shirt and into someones chest.
He looks passed me at another buddy and says, "Can you help me here!"
Go figure!
A guy who grew up with my younger brothers came home from the war. He began telling me stories of his activities over there. He told of his personal collection of Vietnamese girls' nipples. Every time he got the chance he cut them off and saved them. He told of killing everyone in a village and how one very old man pleaded "Me no Kong. Me no Kong." He told how each of his buddies and he in turn put a bullet in him as they passed.
I am not naive enough to think atrocities were carried on by only one side. I have read of how ingenius the Vietnamese were with their traps and putting bombs on little children and the like. But if we hadn't been there such activities would have ended all the sooner.
More so than that, why were we there - for Kissinger's Domino Theory. If you remember, VietNam saved Cambodia then turn the country back over to them after restoring order. So goes the Domino Theory. Fortunately, I don't have a one horror story just as that one. The things I witnessed were bad enough, plus I would have never participated in them, I would have protested! That's what we have in common.
whoa whats with this!
WASHINGTON (AP) - Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger stepped down Friday as chairman of a panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, citing controversy over potential conflicts of interest with his private-sector clients.
