On this day...

[susandennis]

Fifty years ago, the world was in turmoil - at least my world. The federal government was sending all the boys in the United States over to Vietnam to get killed in a war we had no business even being in. I was 21 and my friends were getting killed by my government and I was being spared because I was born without a penis.

I was in college and we spent that fall, winter and spring in peace marches and vigils - we were sad and scared and furious.

And then, at a college about the same size as mine about an hour away, on this day, 50 years ago, soldiers in the federal army - the National Guard - shot and killed kids just like me who were protesting - just like I was doing that day.

It was horrible and terrifying and unbelievable. That college - Kent State - emptied out and many of those students came to my school to stay with us. They brought more terror and fear. It was a horrible horrible spring.

----

I'm also remembering another life event - this one in 1981 which was joyful except I was horrible. I was married (another chapter in which I play the villain) and my husband was a newspaper reporter. He was on a small team of reporters who, that year, won an actual Pulitzer Prize. This year's Pulizers were handed out today, which is what brings this to mind, but in years past they were mostly awarded in early April.

My husband's group knew they were nominated and that they would find out on this particular evening. So there was a giant party planned for the announcement - if they lost, it would be a 'an honor to be nominated party' and if they won... I should have been there by his side.

Instead, it was opening night of the baseball season and I had season tickets and I was in my seat at the ballpark when he got the word he had won. I did have a beer in celebration.

I sucked so much at being married.

----

I've written about both these things at least once each and probably more but I'm thinking about them each a lot today.

Comments

[susandennis]

so many did not

[siglinde99.livejournal.com]

I’m too young to remember Kent State, but I do remember, just a couple of years later, my elementary school teacher talking about the Vietnam War during social studies (or possibly show and tell). It’s the first international news story I can remember.

You may have told that story before, but it still makes me laugh. You may have sucked at being married, but you most definitely do not suck at storytelling

[susandennis]

you most definitely do not suck at storytelling

I'll take that. thank you!

[rhodielady-47.livejournal.com]

I agree--Susan is good at storytelling.
:^)

[susandennis]

thank you!

[paul zimmerman (from livejournal.com)]

I was 10. My parents friends had sons who did not come home. They also had friends who where college age and filled with the angst that I could not understand at the time.

[lenine2.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed the husband story. His obit makes him sound like a saint. $20K for a stranger's dental work? Was he a millionaire? I hope your wedding ring was more than $20K.

I was born in 1960. Growing up my friends' older brothers all went off to Viet Nam and many just disappeared. My friends and I didn't have Ken dolls because they cost a fortune, so our Barbies' husbands were all in Viet Nam. When I was in 2nd grade a classmate's brother came home and the classmate (Joe Gannaway) brought his brother's photo album to school. The teacher passed it around the room. She told us "This is what I want you to remember when you play with toy guns." There were photos of dead bodies. Straw huts with piles of dead children. Ten years later, when I was a senior in high school, one of my classmates from that year brought it up in a civics class. That he would never forget it. I never did, either. It didn't scar me for life. It made me understand what was happening over there, because my parents never let us be in the room when the news was on. I thank that teacher for making us see it. Of course now she would be fired and probably sued.

In the early 70s POW bracelets were all the rage. My mother arranged for my sister and I to get bracelets with the name of a boy my mother babysat for when he was a kid. His mother-in-law brought them to our house. She broke down and cried. That made a huge impression on me. It wasn't just a fashion statement. I give my mother a lot of credit for that. Capt. David Leet was never found. The VFW post in Kenosha, WI, is named after him. Whenever I drove past it I remembered his MIL crying in our living room.

It must have been awful to be your age then, with your friends being killed for no reason other than politics. And then to be killed for protesting it! It can never happen again, can it?

[susandennis]

oh godno, my husband was not rich at all. at least when i knew him. i don't know where in the heck he got that $20k. my wedding ring was just a small plain gold band. i didn't want one at all but bent under pressure so settled for the least i could get by with.

how lucky you were to get such excellent life guidance from school and your mom. those POW bracelets were powerful things.

vietnam was the background of my growing up as was the military draft. for a long time, after both ended, i'd look at elementary school kids and think, they will have such a different life than mine. i don't think we could have another vietnam per se but i absolutely believe we could have another military draft and unfair war. for sure.

[christalin80.livejournal.com]

It was indeed a horrible time, that was a war we never should have been in, luckily my friend came back.

[dadi.livejournal.com]

LOL I did stuff like that too to my former husbands. I am glad that my current husband and I are totally above any conventions or such, I well remember the grudges they held because I was no present at important moments ...!

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

Is that better or worse than me leaving my brother's wedding reception to go to a gig?

[susandennis]

:)