I was in elementary school in 1968. It was kind of a stressful time for me. We had moved from Manchester to neighboring Glastonbury and this meant that I had to change schools. At that age, it was a big disruption.
About two weeks after we moved, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. I didn’t understand why anyone would want to kill a minister.
Two months after that, I got to stay up late and watch the news coverage of the California presidential primary. Bobby Kennedy won, they said. Off with the TV and straight to bed.
Somehow, I was the one to open our kitchen door the next morning and see the screaming headline in The Hartford Courant: “Kennedy Clings to Life.” I knew little about national politics back then, but I did remember Bobby Kennedy from his brother’s funeral. I knew that he had 11 children and that they had lost their daddy.
To my nine-year-old mind, that was a devastating idea. Who would tuck them in at night? Who carry them when their feet were too tired?
During this week in August of 1968, there were things on television that were just too much to bear. There was violence in Chicago inside and outside of the Democratic National Convention. Anti-war demonstrators had been dubbed “anti-American” by Chicago mayor Richard Daley and he was denying them any opportunity to make their positions known.
The Vietnam War was at the center of the presidential campaign. Richard Nixon won the presidency by claiming he has a “secret plan” to end the war and promised he would be a “law and order president.”
Americans fell for that nonsense and the messy exit from Vietnam looked much like what we’re seeing right now in Afghanistan.
In 1968, it sometimes felt as though the world was coming apart at the seams. It would be another year before we watched Neil Armstrong take “a giant leap for mankind” followed a month later by Woodstock with all the music, mud and controlled substances.
In the context of events on that scale, I wonder how today’s pandemic and climate crisis juxtaposed against Afghanistan and domestic politics looks to a 5th grader.
Have we learned anything at all in 50+ years? Apparently, the lessons of Vietnam faded away just far enough that we drifted into a two decades-long presence in Afghanistan. Why did one excursion fracture the country so decisively and the other hasn’t?
One very big reason is the lack of the draft. We waited in the early 1970’s (with great anxiety) to learn what my older brother’s number would be in the draft lottery. He was lucky. It was a high number. Many friends were called up to military service in a war that few could say they understood or with which they agreed.
There are plenty of arguments for the US presence in Afghanistan, but just as many for why we must leave. It’s the dictionary definition of a quagmire.
The COVID crisis we are faced with now is very different. We have the tools we need to halt the spread of this virus. Treatments are improving constantly, but there is no question that preventing people from contracting the virus is the most efficient, effective way to manage it from a public health standpoint.
Yes, I’ll say it – it is CHEAPER to vaccinate ALL adults than to treat those who become acutely ill. Aside from the simple respect for human life, it is just plain easier to vaccinate all who can be vaccinated and otherwise mask up until the number of cases is near nothing.
My grand niece started fifth grade this week (which seems impossible, wasn’t she just in diapers a minute ago?). Like me in the fall of ’68, she’ll face all sorts of adjustments in restarting school. She’s a tough cookie and I know that she will get acclimated to seeing her classmates in person.
My getting acclimated to how fast these kids grow up is another question entirely.
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97-9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
