Pueblo

As I write this, the US is officially at war. In fact, officially we are engaged in 3 wars - can you name them? Iraq, Afghanistan and... Korea.

Even without Korea, it would be hard to tell we were at war. People live lives, party, get in trouble, are born, die, go to the mall, go on vacation, go to jail and get out, add on that wing of the house, send their kids to preschool and college, have extramarital affairs, attend AA meetings, everything.

Iraq and Afghanistan make it a bit easier to describe the surreality of most of the 60s when we were in Nam. The war was on; intellectually we knew it. We all, even us detached teenagers, knew it was going on. The network news, at 7:30pm in those days, showed us the numbers - here's the Dow, here's the sports scores, here's the body counts. Kids got drafted, but in 1968, you got college deferments, deferments for being married, sole surviving son (hence the name of the popular band at the time, the Soul Survivors), 4F. In rich towns everybody knew a "Dr. Fake", who could find some reason to dole out a 4F to your son. In rich towns somebody knew somebody who could get you into the National Guard, or Coast Guard. And that was if you were literally dumb enough not to go to college.

Nam clattered on in the background in 68 and few cared. Each town, especially a low middle class town like mine, had one or maybe two guys killed during the entire war, and, let's face it, he usually wasn't the captain of the football team type. In 1968, in that one year, we actually lost more boys to underage driving than we did to combat deaths for the entirety of the Viet Nam Conflict, as it is officially known. In January 1968, Nam didn't really get many people worked up, one way or another. My old man, Normandy vet, VFW member, kept complaining that our home front "propaganda" was the problem, that maybe if more people "felt" the war in SE Asia, if more people had to change their lives in some way - rationing, women working, price controls, newsreels, SOMETHING - that would facility a better groundswell of support and help bring the war to a speedy, victorious end.

But none of that was gonna happen. Not during the gogo Sixties, not even for his generation of WWII vets, who just now were beginning to reap the full benefits of the Postwar Boom, the crowning piece of the puzzle - sending their kids to college. My own sister was in her frosh year at college. Rosy the Riveter wasn't only not needed - she wasn't even desirable in such an environment.

Nam clattered on, and we all expected it to be over soon, anyway. Look, the Civil War, WWI, WWII, all lasted less than 5 years. Even the American Revolution, from first shot to last shot, was 6 years. Those were the BIG wars. The little ones - 1812, Mexican, Spanish American - lasted less. Our own government, the good guys, the guys who had pushed for and backed the Civil Rights advances of the last 5 years, told us there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe if you were 18, unmarried, no prospects for college (which in those days meant, no interest in college, since virtually any college would accept a young male in those days, and "community colleges" were springing up to help address the deferment needs), you might worry about going off to fight in a war, but if you were 15, like me, by the time you were 22 and out of college, this war would be long over. Probably even by the time you were out of HS...

Nam clattered on. I knew no one who was in Nam. A couple of friends of mine had older brothers in the service, but they were either in the Navy or were stationed in Germany. Germany was not only easy duty, it was downright fun, to hear them talk. The Navy or Germany. Nobody in Nam, and certainly nobody in Korea.

So it was truly weird when the first really big war story of 1968 that cropped up was NOT about Nam but about Korea. Yeah, Korea, remember them? We're still technically at war with them! You may have thought that Korea ended in 1953, but that was only a cease fire, as we found out in Western Civilization class. We still had a lot of troops stationed there, something like 40,000, which until only very recently was more than in Nam itself. Some guys had re-upped just to stay "on the front lines against Communism" back in the 50s and had been there 15 years or even more. But nobody died there. So it was kinda like Germany, right? A little less fun. But overall, a piece of cake.

So it was definitely weird that on January 24 the news was not about Nam, but about, of all things, Korea! Korea?

This is 1968, remember, not 1952. Korea? There was a kid that I had gone to Kindergarten and into HS with; his FATHER was killed in Korea before he was born! Korea?? Guys signed up for duty in Korea so as not to go to Nam! Korea???

How passe'! How "retro"! How weird!

Some right wingers used the opportunity to remind us about the larger Cold War and Soviet threat, even tho the Soviets were never really involved in Korea at all - it was the Red Chinese who swarmed across the Yalu. But this is January 1968 - we still had Nam, still had the Wall, still had proxy wars in the Mideast, shows like I Spy and the Man from UNCLE as well as the whole 007 series were popular because they were placed in the context of the Cold War - nobody needed a reminder about the Cold War.

So the whole thing was a blip. The North Koreans captured a ship, unjustly. Guys were held prisoner. We would negotiate their release. There was not gonna be renewed armed hostilities.

A blip. It came and went.

Just like the riots. Just like the JFK assassination. Just like Nam...

A blip.

Such was the state of mind of January 1968...