17 10 250 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/aff89c0c95737b1adf2f682f414abc68.jpeg bc9a3cc83f52724fa88bf04a6c0bf8de https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/a6d855e2590026559808ffa0702c7171.mp3 8159f547db0b32427eff6745ceaff089 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed John Cleary Biographical Text John Cleary, a native of Scotia, NY, was a student at Kent State University when he was shot in the chest by the National Guardsman. After his recovery, Cleary received his Bachelor's Degree in Architecture from Kent State University and practiced in Pittsburg, PA until his retirement. Date of Interview 2022-01-26 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:20:39 Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords "Nineteen sixties; Baby boom generation; Kent State shooting; Protest; Activism; Architectural degree; College campus; College education; Life magazine. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: John Cleary Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Eden Lowinger Date of interview: 26 January 2022 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: 00:01 All right, we are all set. I can put it on? Okay, I am going to put you on... All right. Again, John, thank you very much for agreeing to do this interview. I always start out the interviews with a question about your early years. Could you, could you describe your growing up years, where you were born, what kind of a neighborhood you came from, what your parents did for a living, kind of your hometown environment during your elementary and secondary school years? JC: 00:34 Sure. I actually grew up in a very rural area in upstate New York, near Schenectady, Albany. The actual name of the town was Scotia. And we actually live probably about five to six miles outside of Scotia. So we were really in a very rural area. My parents had a small Cape Cod house on probably about three acres of land. Actually, they were right near kind of an intersection. And on the one corner, the intersection was Centre Glenville Methodist Church which we went to, we attended. And so it was basically within walking distance of our house, even though we were in a rural area. And then on the other side of the intersection was Glendale Elementary School, where I basically went to, you know, first through sixth, you know, I spent, I was very much of an outdoor person and my younger years, spent a lot. I was involved in scouting quite a bit. And so we did a lot of camping trips and fishing trips. And I just really enjoyed that aspect of it. Trying to think here, oh and then we you know, these were the days when you kind of had pickup baseball games, no, no adults involved. Everyone grabbed their mitts and a baseball. And since we were within walking distance to the elementary school, there was a ball field in the back. And I just remember in spring and summer, after school, going over there and some of the kids did not have gloves. So when you, when you were in the outfield, and you got your turn at bat, you just dropped your glove on the ground where it was, and then people would run out and they would share your gloves but that was just kind of our upbringing. Probably in about fifth or sixth grade, I really got interested in skiing. And my parents, there was a golf course, probably within a 30 minutes’ drive of our house where they set up a rope tow in the winter. And so I would go over there, they dropped me off at eight in the morning and pick me up at five and I skied all day and have a great- -great time of it. Later, when I got into high school, we used to have a ski club and my parents had dropped me off. We would get a bus at like six in the morning and drive two to three hours. You know we were at the foothills of the Adirondacks and close to Vermont. And so we would ski a different resort every Saturday. And gosh I remember I think this is like, you know, it was not a school bus, it was pretty nice Coach bus and I think that the cost of the bus and the lift ticket was like $7. SM: 03:33 Wow. It is a little different today [laughs]. JC: 03:51 No, it is different today could not even get a, probably could not even get a hamburger and a coke for that. SM: 04:29 [laughs] That is true, when you were a kid were you a Pittsburgh pirate fan? JC: 04:34 Well I grew up in upstate New York so. SM: 04:36 Okay, who was your, who your favorite players? JC: 04:42 You know what I did not really follow the-the you know, well I followed the Yankees and gosh, you were going to, you were going to try to- there was of course Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford. There were you know some of the other major players. My dad was a huge New York Giants fan. So I remember on Sunday afternoons, sitting in the living room and watching football with my dad. SM: 05:13 Yeah. I am a big Giants fan. I grew up in Ithaca and Cortland. So that is, that Giant's country. JC: 05:20 Yeah, there you go. SM: 05:21 Yeah. When you were, how did your parents and your young peer friends feel about the issues in the news that were taking place during those early years, particularly in the early (19)60s, their thoughts on, you know, at the dinner table when you were with your parents or your, really your friends in school. Did you ever talk about the-the war in Vietnam, the civil rights movement and some of the other movements that were taking place at that time, some for the first time? JC: 05:53 Well, I mean, I have to be honest here and say that really, I was not really political at all, I was kind of in my own little bubble in upstate New York. And basically, like I said, I was very much involved with the doing things outdoors and did not watch hardly any TV, did not watch or read any, any papers per se. We did not really talk politics at the dinner table. Usually, it was about the day's events, or, you know, when I say day's events, meaning what I had done, or what my parents had done, or you know, those-those types of issues. We really did not talk politics at all in our family. SM: 06:48 Did-did you ever, just as just as you now, this is not talking about, did you ever feel that you were something- this was way before college- that your generation was so different than any other generation? Because it was the biggest generation in history, because you were one of the children of the world war two generation- 74 million. And it seemed like everything in the news in the late (19)40s, (19)50s and (19)60s was all about these young boomers. Did you ever think about the, being a part of that generation that seems to be in the news every minute? JC: 07:26 To be honest, I really did not and, and, you know, probably in my own naïveté you know, I was just kind of cruising along with my, you know, friends that I hung out with and did things and did not really look at the overall picture nationwide, what was going on. It really was not until I went to Kent that I really began to be exposed to anything going on outside our little community. You know, we had one, one TV in the house. And basically, you know, we were watching Bonanza and Disney show. I do think my parents watched the nightly news. But, you know, I certainly was not involved in that. So, I did not really kind of piece together any kind of an overall picture what my generation was doing or, you know, I obviously had some brushes with the Vietnam War, especially. And then this was really more, maybe my senior year or my freshman at Kent, when they had the draft. I fortunately got a high number. And so, I really did not have to worry about the draft, but I did have some high school friends, especially those that I hung around with, who got low numbers, and one, one, one went into the Navy, and the other one enlisted in the Air Force. So, they-they were basically, you know, avoiding having to go into the army. SM: 09:32 Right. Now, why did you pick Kent State? JC: 09:39 Well, I was vacillating my senior years to what I wanted to major in and I started it started to gel that I thought architecture might be the right direction for me and at one time thought about going into the medical field to become a doctor. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought that I was a little more of a creative person. And so I thought architecture would be the better route for me. And my dad worked, it was like, probably the only, it was the major employer in the area, General Electric. And he had a coworker, a friend of his, whose son went to Kent, and majored in architecture. And so, my dad said, "Hey, look, my, you know, my son, John is thinking about going into architecture and I know your son is going to Kent, would you mind if he came over and just kind of looked at what, what your son is doing at Kent?" And so we went over and visited them. And of course, he pulls out these presentation boards that he had done, and some models that he had done. And I was kind of blown away. I said, this is really cool stuff. And, you know, I loved what he what he was doing and what he was involved in. So, we-we decided to go out in the spring and check out Kent. I had looked at Syracuse University, which is the you know, it still is- it was pretty expensive, even for somebody who lived in the state. And Syracuse is a little more of an urban campus. And when I went to Kent, and we went for a weekend because a little bit of a drive, and they had an orientation, where they gave you a tour of the campus. And I just remember feeling really comfortable. And you know, on, I liked the size of the campus, I liked the layout of the campus, it was more spread out and just had a really nice feel for it, and that was really what would push me to go there. SM: 12:15 Now I know that I, I am from Ithaca and Cornell has a really good architecture program too. I believe their program was five years. Was your- a five year program? Or was it four? JC: 12:26 Yeah. It actually was, it was a five year program. SM: 12:29 Yep. And I thought that is pretty common now. And that is a pretty, it is a really good program to get into. It is sometimes very difficult to get into too. JC: 12:39 Yeah, I think we thought maybe Cornell might be out of reach for me. I mean, I was a fairly good school student in high school, but I was not outstanding. SM: 12:49 Now, when you went to Kent State University, what was your first impression? So that first year you were there, what kind of an environment was it? Was it one with a lot of activism going on? Was there good relationships between the community and the students? What kind of a feel did you get beyond the classroom? JC: 13:10 Well, the interesting thing is, I kind of felt this almost tidal wave of change, which I felt happened the year that I was a freshman. Because when I when I first arrived on campus as a freshman, you know, people were still kind of dressing up to go to classes. You saw boys with ties and women in, you know, skirts and dresses, and we have RAS. And they had like a kind of a freshman orientation. And we were supposed to wear these goofy hats called thinks. So that upperclassmen could pick on you, you know, it was kind of still that kind of (19)60s type of mentality. That kind of began to fall by the wayside in the winter. And by spring, I mean, really, everyone was dressing extremely casually, jeanies, hair was getting longer, you know, just really saw a tremendous change in environment there. I guess the other point I was going to make was because architecture is a little bit of a difficult program, you-you really needed to have study groups to kind of help each other along with homework and classroom assignments. So, you know, I immediately began to bond with about maybe five or six freshmen architectural students. You know, we would study together, we worked together on projects. So, you know, the friendships really began to form fairly early. And that was kind of specific to my architectural programs. I guess I like to say, you know, I probably missed some great times down on Water Street and the bars that first year- SM: 15:21 Right. JC: 15:22 -because I was I was a little bit too concerned about my grades and everything. SM: 15:28 Right. JC: 15:30 But and I suppose I was not a drinking age yet then either. But either way, I did not really discover much of the downtown life until spring. SM: 15:42 Yeah, what year you begin there? JC: 15:48 (19)69. SM: 15:49 (19)69. You know (19)69, you know, I was just, I just had an interview with another person and who was there at that time. And the political environment of about Kent State from afar was that it, you know, Ohio University and Ohio State, were the two that were more very activist oriented with a lot of protests and everything, did not realize how many protests took place at Kent State. And-and how big these Students for Democratic Society was on the campus, who were against the war. Did you see any friction between the students at that time between those who were against the war and those who were for it? JC: 16:35 I do remember. I mean, let us, let us fast forward to the spring. I do not really do not really remember any of that in the fall or the winter. I am not saying that it was not there. But I do not remember seeing any of it. And then in the spring, there were some more outdoor rallies. And I, you know, I began to see these anti-war protests. And the school of architecture was located on the top floor of Taylor Hall. So we oversaw the campus, so when there were rallies and you know, things going on-on the commons, we would overlook that, and we would see it, and we would hear it. But I will be honest with you, I did not really attend any, any of those rallies, but I was witness to them. I did not really see any clashes between regular students and activists, but I did witness the spring rallies that were going on-on campus. SM: 17:59 Did you get a feeling there at the time that there was a tension within the community toward the students? That is the city, the city of Kent, the people who were not students? JC: 18:12 Well, I have to be careful here. Because, you know, obviously, you know, we read it, you know, we have read things and you know, you know, I have read a lot about how the townspeople resented the students, and were concerned about the students. But for me, personally, I did not spend a lot of time in town. Like I said, I did not really discover Water Street or Main Street until the spring. So, I cannot honestly say that, that that myself personally, that I saw any of that. SM: 18:52 Leading up to that, the terrible tragedy that happened on the fourth of May (19)70. Can you describe that day? What, how that opened? What you were doing in the day itself? And then sadly, how you were in the line of fire? JC: 19:12 Sure. I do not know if you want me to or not, but I, I can kind of go over the entire weekend, if you want. SM: 19:21 I would like that because I have got five interviews I have done now. And I- what is important, John, is I just want people who are not alive today. These are going to be for research and scholarships for students, faculty and national scholars down the road. And in Kent, what happened at Kent State is the, one of the historic events of the (19)60s, no question, in fact, in American history, in my view. If you want to go over what happened maybe from April 30th when Nixon announced his speech or about going into Cambodia? JC: 19:56 Yeah, what I was going to do is pick it up from Friday. Because, you know, things really changed for me starting on-on Friday. I was once again haven't really [audio cuts]. SM: 20:23 Still there? Whoops. Okay, we are all set, we are back. JC: 20:48 I was talking about Sunday. And there was really kind of a real tension that you could feel between the students and the military on campus. When you walked around campus, there was military presence everywhere. And I think for a lot of the antiwar students and the activists, you know, this, this was a really upsetting thing, to-to have this strong military presence on their campus. And so everywhere you went on Sunday, there were National Guard, at campus buildings, parking lots, driving up and down the streets. It was really kind of a little disconcerting. And right around dusk, there was a curfew that went into place. And basically, what they told us was that no groups of students more than three could be out at any one time. And we typically ate dinner a little bit later, because we would be doing work or doing some stuff up at Taylor Hall. So when we were done with dinner, and trying to walk back across an open area to our dorms, they were threatening to tear gas us because there was like three or four of us. So we had to break into smaller groups. And I know there were some groups that came out at the dining hall later, after we did, that were tear gassed. And probably around eight in the evening or so there was an attempt to have some sort of a rally on Commons. Helicopters appeared, with search lights and bull horns. And the group was tear gassed. The tear gas drifted back into our dorm. And so, we-we ran out of the building, because we could not breathe. And the Guardsmen who were deployed outside, forced us back into the building. They did not want to hear any of our excuses. They said there was a curfew, we had to stay in the building. So, we finally went into the study lounges and kind of hunkered down, because they were not as bad with the tear gas. And we really did not get much sleep that night. There were helicopters hovering all over campus that were loud. They were kind of harassing anyone that was outside. So you know, it was a pretty tense night. And it was a long night. Like I said, we did not get much sleep. So then, Monday, classes were still in session. So that Monday morning, I went to, I believe it was my English class. And the-the building entrance had soldiers on each side of it. And our professor said, you know, that there was probably going to be a rally at noon and it was our decision whether we should attend it or not. And pretty much everywhere I went that morning, the talk was that there was going to be a noon rally. So when I was done with my English class, and I decided that I would borrow my roommate's camera, he had a little instamatic. I enjoyed photography but unfortunately at that point, I did not have my camera with me. So, I borrowed his camera and thought, well, I am going to go to the rally more out of curiosity to see what was going to happen, than really, to support any cause one way or the other. And so I did go to the, to the rally, I kind of stood off to the side. I watched it as it grew in size, I really felt there was kind of a hardcore group that were right around the victory bale of maybe 100 to 200 students that were really actively protesting. And there were probably a couple 1000 there around that were just kind of watching similar to what I was doing. Some of them were going to their classes. The, the commons area is kind of in the middle of campus. And it is really a crossroads for anyone going to class. So it is a natural point where people are going to be walking through to get to maybe the union or for-for lunch, or to, to go to class. So, you know, I saw a Jeep come out with a bullhorn. And they ordered everyone to disperse and said, this was an illegal rally, and you were ordered to disperse, which pretty much everyone ignored. And so they, there was a line of guardsmen that were down, kind of almost guarding the burned out ROTC building, which was at the end of the commons, kind of sitting there in ruins. And so they, they started to move out, the guardsmen moved out on file. There were two companies. I could be incorrect, I believe it was A and C. And one, one went to the right of Taylor Hall, and one went to the left of Taylor Hall. And they started to push students back with tear gas, firing tear gas into the students. Some of the students were able to pick up the tear gas and throw it back at the guardsmen. So you can kind of see this back and forth between the guardsmen and the students with the tear gas. I did take some pictures of the guardsmen as they walked up. I was to, as you face Taylor Hall, I was more towards the left hand side, near the pagoda. And the National Guards kind of walked by me, I was fairly close to them. You know, I felt these are professional soldiers. And I did not feel threatened by them. And I felt as long as I behaved myself and did not do anything, that there should be no issue with them. And so they did go by me. And I took some pictures as I went by. They went down to, there was a parking lot in front of Taylor Hall. And they ended up in a practice football field, which is no longer there. And at the soccer or football field, well, I do not remember exactly, there were some chain-link fencing on two sides of it. So they were kind of hemmed in just a little bit, and they kind of regrouped there and kind of huddled together. And the students, by that time had been pushed down into the parking lot. And there was a small group that were still pretty active. Kind of yelling obscenities at them. There might have been a few rocks that were thrown, but at the distance they were, they certainly were not reaching the guardsmen. At one point the guardsmen did kneel and aim their weapons into the crowd. And did not really discourage any of the protesters. And then at some point, the-the guardsmen kind of re huddled together, it felt like they were discussing what they were going to do next. And then they reformed into a line and begin to walk back up this hill towards the pagoda. And to what I was thinking, that they were going to go back over, they called it Blanket Hill, and to the, to the commons. And there, there was kind of a feeling, I think, at that point, that things were wrapping up. And I do know that some of the students were beginning to leave, heading to their classes. And I was going to go into Taylor Hall, I had a design class that afternoon, and I was going to go in and get ready for my class. And so, I walked up to the-the entrance of Taylor Hall, and there is a metal sculpture there. And I was standing next to the metal sculpture, and I thought to myself, I am going to get one more picture of them right before they get over the crest of the hill. So I stood there. And I was with this instamatic and I had to rewind the camera so that I could get to the next shot. So, I was rewinding, you know, the camera, getting it ready to take a shot and they-they reached the crest of the hill, and I was getting the camera ready to raise up. And suddenly, they just turned and fired. And without any warning. And it just seemed like there was this instantaneous movement in unison, where the soldiers all turned and fired. And I believe they were firing more towards the parking lot. But I happened to be in their line of fire. And I do kind of, before I was hit, I do kind of remember, Joe Lewis was in front of me, maybe by 50 or 75 feet, not a lot. I do not think there was anyone else. I do not think there was anyone else in front of us other than the two of us, because really, the bulk of the people were either off to the side or behind me. And I do remember thinking, he was giving them the finger, you know, he was, he was flicking them off. And seconds later, they-they fired, and I got hit in the chest. I like to say, it is like, I felt like I got hit in the chest with a sledge hammer. I dropped to the ground. And I really do not have any more recollection of what happened at that point. I do remember kind of coming to in the hospital. And they were, they were doing triage at the time. And I was out in a corridor, and I was in a fair amount of pain. And my concern was that I would be forgotten. And I remember kind of panicking a little bit. Because, do they know that I am out here in this corridor? And finally, a couple of nurses came out and the first thing they wanted to know was, "Do you have your parents phone number, do you have some contact numbers?" And it is like, "Why aren't you helping me?" and they are, you know, they are, "Well, you are going to go in shortly to see the doctor but we need to be able to contact your parents." So I remember reeling off a bunch of phone numbers, home phone number and office phone numbers, and they finally wheeled me in to see a doctor. And I think I almost immediately went into surgery. And the next thing I remember, was in a hospital room with Dean Taylor and Joe Lewis as, as roommates. SM: 35:18 Wow-wow. I know, the picture of, on Life magazine is a picture of you, I believe with- JC: 35:27 [inaudible] SM: 35:27 -students around you. And I had that magazine along with the one from, I think, Newsweek, hanging in my office for many years. I was reading about that particular picture. And it is my understanding that students were in a circle around you were kind of protecting you. And they were holding hands. So no further harm could come to you. JC: 35:54 Yeah, and I- the interesting thing is, like I said, I do not have any recollection after the point that I was shot. And I was not aware of that. And Howard Ruffner took that picture. I am sure you are aware of that. And about two years ago, Howard Ruffner was in Kent to promote a new book that he had written. And basically, it was a series of photographs taken on that day. And it was right before the 50th anniversary, before COVID had hit. And so I decided, well, this is be a great opportunity to see Howard because he lives in California. And so, we certainly do not have many opportunities to get together. So I went up to Kent, and we had a reunion of sorts. Unfortunately, the media kind of made a little bigger deal about it than I thought they would, but they did. But he was showing me pictures. And he had taken a picture of the students circled around me holding hands. And that really hit me, that was a very impactful picture. And in some respects, I liked that picture better than the one he took of me. Because it really shows, you know, at that point, they did not know if the guards were coming back or not. And they were putting their life kind of on the line to protect me. And not only that, but the students that were working on me, Joe Kolum, and some others, you know, really saved, I think, saved my life. So I am really in a debt of gratitude to them for doing that. SM: 38:10 I know, when I interviewed Joe, he said that when he was put in the ambulance, you were right by his side, in the same ambulance. JC: 38:20 That very well could be I like I said, I just do not remember the ambulance ride at all. SM: 38:27 Now, how long did it take you to recuperate from this serious injury so that you can get back to school? JC: 38:33 I was in hospital for about two weeks. I was intensive care for about a week. There was, there was some concern early on about infection and some other issues. Because of the extent of the injuries, but you know, you are young. I was 19 I think at the time, 18 or 19. So I did, was able to bounce back and after two weeks what they kind of quietly got me to the airport. I have to tell you this. I guess it is an amusing story. But when-when I was at Kent as a freshman, I bought a car there and it was an old car, Chrysler, 1957 Chrysler. It was like a limousine this thing was a boat. And after I was shot, my parents flew out and they were able to use my car and because it had Ohio plates on it, pretty much could go anywhere and not be bothered by the press because they did not know who they were. And I flew home two weeks later, and they drove my car home with all my belongings. And when they got to the driveway of our house, the power steering pump caught on fire. And the car, there were flames coming out of the hood. And they flung open the door and threw all my belongings on the lawn. And fortunately, the car did not. It was just a small fire and they were able to put it out. But my parents loved to tell the story how every belonging I had was thrown out on the front lawn. SM: 40:48 Wow. And now, of course, classes are canceled. And you did you start back in the fall? JC: 40:57 Yeah, I flew home. I flew home about two weeks later, and recuperated that summer. And the professors were really great. And they did it for everybody, not just me. They sent us homework assignments, they sent us classwork, and we are able to complete our semester. You know, this is before the internet and emails, everything was done through the mail, you know, US Postal Service. And they would mail me assignments, and they and they did not cut me any slack either. And I did the work and got grades for it. So I was able to complete my freshman year. And then the following fall, you know, I went back to Kent. SM: 41:59 Now, and you got your degree in five years. JC: 42:01 I did. SM: 42:02 And, and well, how has your career been? Yeah, you, and how did you end up in Pittsburgh? JC: 42:12 Well, my-my wife was originally from Pittsburgh. And when we graduated from Kent. It was (19)74. And the economy was not doing really good right then. And jobs are really scarce. And trying to go back to upstate New York, there was just absolutely nothing there. Like I said, I was in more of a rural community, small town. And really, for architecture, you need a bigger, you [inaudible] you need more of an urban town. So, we had looked at Cleveland, that was one of our thoughts. And we also looked at Pittsburgh, and I liked the lay of the land of Pittsburgh, it was a little more mountainous, and had the hills and the rivers. And it reminded me a little more of upstate New York. So we ended, up I got a job in Pittsburgh, it was touch and go. If I had not gotten a job in Pittsburgh, we probably would have ended up in Cleveland. But I did get a job in Pittsburgh and that is where we, where we ended up. SM: 43:37 Now, after the, what I have also noticed about coming to the remembrance events over the past month, not the last two years, obviously. But last, over the 50 year period, is the camaraderie between those who are wounded and the families of those who died. I know there are a lot of issues after the, after the initially because I know there was a, there was a trial for some of the activists and so forth. But how did who was responsible for the camaraderie between the nine that were wounded and the families of the four that were killed? JC: 44:15 Well, I think a lot of that had to do with the May Force Task Group. And, you know, I will be honest with you, I was starting out in my career and work was tough. And I really did not attend the trials the way that I should have. And I had a family that I had to support. And so, I could not really take the time to go up to Cleveland for the civil trials. So I was really only there when-when I had to be and so I really did not bond with the wounded students and the families until a few, quite a few years later, maybe 10 years later. My, believe it or not, my son was born on May 4th. SM: 45:13 Oh my God. JC: 45:13 And obviously that was not planned. And it just happened that way. And so I have a pretty strong faith. And I felt like God was telling me something, you know, you cannot, you cannot bury this, you cannot pretend it did not happen to you. You cannot put it behind you. It is something that you need to confront. So I started going back to the commemorations and the May Fourth Task Force would put on a breakfast on those mornings on May 4th, and at those breakfasts would be the other wounded students and family members. And so it just began a process of getting to know people casually at first, just sitting there and having breakfast with them, and spending a little time with their family and bringing my family and Tom Grace and Alan Canfora reached out to me. And both Tom and Alan are big baseball fans. And so I guess in Buffalo, where Thomas from, the Pittsburgh Pirates had a [inaudible] team. So we did, both Tom and Alan came down one time. And we went to a pirate’s game. [crosstalk] So yeah, we had a great time. And so, you know, it just began a process of getting to know one another. And I have tried, in the last four or five years since I have been retired, to try to reach out and get to know, some of the wounded students a little better. About two years, two and a half years ago, my wife and I were out. And we did a Northwest trip to Seattle and Portland. And Joe lives out there. And so we made a point to swing by and have lunch with Joe and his wife, got to see where Joe lived. And, you know, that was meaningful for us. And Tom and I have gotten together several times. And so it is just a matter of and-and Dean Kahler. We, about a year ago, Joe was traveling through Kent, he was actually moving one of his sons back to Oregon. And the three of us got together at a local, I cannot even remember if it was a Ponderosa or what it was, but it was a lunch place. And, you know, we commented on it was, you know, these were the three of us that were hospital roommates. And it was kind of nice to get together without the, all the noise and attention that May 4th typically brings. So the times that we get together when we can kind of be out of the limelight, and just be ourselves- SM: 48:57 Yep. JC: 48:57 -I think has gone a long way to establishing some, hopefully some long-term relationships. SM: 49:08 And that is very important, that whole issue of healing. One of the questions I have asked him a lot of the people that I have interviewed are dealing with the Vietnam War, and healing from that war and the divisions it caused in America. And, and Jan Scruggs wrote a book and I think it can apply to any kind of a tragedy, To Heal a Nation. And the basic premise behind the building of the Wall in (19)82 was to heal the families who lost loved ones in that war and not to make it a political statement, but to remember those who lost their lives, and so that they will never be forgotten number one, and then also provide healing within the family and the families of the veterans, but also to pay respects to those who fought in that war and came home and were treated so poorly by America upon their return. So, the one thing about healing, do you use have do you, it is a word that sometimes is overused. But do you have still any issues with healing from this tragedy? JC: 50:17 What I have found is going up to the commemorations I, I used to always kind of hang in the back and you know, kind of be anonymous in and not really want to, you know, participate. But the last five years or so I have kind of taken on the tact that, you know, we, you know, our numbers are dwindling, and we need to respect those that were slain on that day, and the other wounded students, and, you know, remember them. And walking around the parking lot during commemoration right before them, where the markers are where the students were slain. People have come to me that maybe they recognize me, or, you know, they might just say, "Were you there?" You know, obviously, I am in my 70s, I look the part, you know, "Where were you on May 4th?" And when I share my story, I find that there are a lot of people out there that were there that day that are hurting, and they, they need to share their story. And so, I find that many a time when I am out there talking to people who were there, they were filling in the blanks for me, when I was unconscious, and when I did not witness what they witnessed the hurt and the pain, that they went through seeing the carnage and seeing the bodies on the ground. You know, I was lucky in that I did not witness that. But they did. And I think it becomes a healing process for all of us, when we talk about it together, and we have these shared experiences of being there. Each of our stories are different. And yet they are kind of weaved together to make this one large picture. SM: 52:45 Very-very well said, I know that Alan, before he passed, a couple of years before he passed, he was adamant and brought in some great programs. He was always a leader, he was always he was always lead taking the lead. And you know, and making sure because it was all about the four that died and those that are wounded. He was all about them. And, and he did a tremendous job. But he but he and several others wanted to find out who, who gave the order to do the shooting. This is the whole issue. And they brought that man there that they said they think they had him on tape. And I know that Alan was up there in the front. And there were a couple other guests there too, who were, you know, supporting that concept that whoever gave the order. And-and so do you still feel that we need to find out who did it? I mean, we know that who that they were shot my guardsmen, but who gave the order? JC: 53:42 Well, I think there is some frustration out there. Because people are looking for justice. And they certainly do not feel that justice was served here. And yeah, it would be great to find out who gave the order. And it would also be great to maybe hold some of the guardsmen that shot indiscriminately into the crowd to make them accountable. But there is so much time that is gone by, you know, we are beyond the 50-year mark, that I am just [inaudible] that that we are never really going to get to the bottom of that. And it is just going to be something that is always going to be a question mark out there. And unfortunately, I do not think there is ever going to be an answer. You know, everyone kind of has this hope that there will be some guardsmen on their deathbed that is going to share the some story about what actually happened. But short of that, I do not think we are going to really get to the bottom of what actually happened. SM: 54:59 You were there. And you know some of the things that took place, [inaudible] you read the student newspapers, at Kent state the following year when school started again. When you look at the whole that whole period from the 30th of April till when Nixon gave the speech at 9pm, until the killings and the wounding, on the fourth. Who- is that, that is, that is part of our history, is-is an important part of our history. When you look at the (19)60s, what other big major events affected your life? Even before Kent State, and I say, when you look at the, when boomers were young, there was one word that kept coming up over and over again, in my mind, assassination, assassination, bullets, killing. What is the say about our democracy? We lose a President of the United States in (19)63. That is when [crosstalk]. Yes, go ahead. JC: 56:04 Yeah. I think that everyone kind of remembers John F. Kennedy's assassination. I think I was a little too young to totally understand the implications of what had happened, but I do remember my parents being a little fearful, and that the TV was on constantly with the funeral, and all the other proceedings going on. SM: 56:36 And then only- JC: 56:39 The only other highlight, and I am sorry, go ahead Stephen. SM: 56:42 I was just going to say that the course five years later, his brother gets assassinated, as well as the Martin Luther King. And when- JC: 56:49 Yep. SM: 56:49 -when you look at the Jackson State issue, which is important because Kent State students in the group have done a tremendous job of making sure that those who lost their lives there at Jackson State 10 days later are, there was camaraderie between them and the students at Kent State. I admire them so much for this, they are, thatis a lesson for America to reach out because they also had a tragedy. But to lose some- JC: 57:17 Yep. SM: 57:17 -it seemed like the people that our age when the boomers seem to see even when you talk about Jackson State, that was in Jackson, Mississippi and Medgar Evers was killed there in that same year. So it is,- JC: 57:35 Yes. SM: 57:35 -it is, so it is like, we grew up with assassinations, one assassination after another killings, and we are still having a lot of issues. But the tragedy, you know, it is like, I have learned one thing, and Alan said, you know, these were murders at Kent State, quit saying it is a tragedy at Kent State. They were murderers. JC: 57:55 Yeah, yeah. It took me a while to say that I felt that was maybe would turn people off when you discuss it. But Alan is absolutely right. What happened there was, when you think about Dean Kahler, who was shot in the back while laying on the ground, and Sandy Scheuer and others that [inaudible], were just going to class. It was just an indiscriminate shooting. And they are certainly, their lives were not in any kind of danger. And you know, it was just wanton or wanton shooting that which really cannot be explained. SM: 58:46 One of the things that I, I do a lot of reading, and I have heard this for years, and it is in so many books. I know, Tom Grace, I talked to him about this too, is that why Kent State? You know, of all the universities in America with all the major protests, you know, and of course, Ohio State had ma- I went to Ohio State to grad school. So Ohio State had major protests at the very same time, but no one died. And in Ohio University, where I worked in my first job, they were always considered the most liberal campus in Ohio. And they were actually purging students when I was there. Because they were up to 18,000. Then then they were down 1000s. That is why the branch campuses were helping their enrollment, but [crosstalk] but they could they get kind of tired. I think I said this to Alan, when he came to West Chester University, [inaudible] there twice. I am getting tired of hearing this in history books. Why at Kent State, because why not? It is worth I think all the major crises happened at state universities where there seemed to have been tragedies. So-so, you know. JC: 1:00:03 Well, I think I think that if you look at the governor Rhodes, and you look at the burning of the ROTC building, and the mayor of Kent, Mayor Satrom, calling in the National Guard probably prematurely. And, you know, it was just all these things kind of led up to this and the rhetoric that was said, by the governor prior to the weekend. You know, I just think that all of this kind of, unfortunately, fell in place for-for something like that to happen. SM: 1:00:46 I agree. It is the word that we use nowadays is the perfect storm, seemed like the perfect storm. JC: 1:00:54 Yes. SM: 1:00:54 Everything came in. And I, as I was saying to Tom when I interviewed him, you know, I my very first book that I read on Kent State was James Michener's book- it is full of misinformation, it has got, it is incorrect, it is not a very good book. But one thing- [crosstalk] Huh? Is that like, Kent is the hotbed of SDS? Yes. Yeah. And also, he talked about President White. And he is a culprit in this in my view, because I spent my career in higher education, and you have to have a strong president. Yet, not, every university and, and the person, and everything stops, anything that happens on your campus, you have to take responsibility for it, you are in charge. And Tom, Tom was great in terms of explaining what he has historically done in the past of not being there at the time when he needed to be there. And I blame a lot of it on him. If he if he had come- JC: 1:01:56 I am just [inaudible], I am incredulous that he would be out to lunch, off campus, when everyone knew that there was going to be a rally that- SM: 1:02:08 Yes. JC: 1:02:09 -day at noon. He had to have known. SM: 1:02:11 He did, I he should have gotten back. He was away. But he could have gotten back, he certainly could have gotten back before May 4th. And because everything was happening. JC: 1:02:21 You know, I have a feeling if that had been Dr. Beverly Warren, she would have been out there on campus, next to the guards. You know, talking to them, talking to the leaders, the guardsmen, he should have been out there, you know, talking to them and making sure that things did not get out of control. SM: 1:02:48 Yep. JC: 1:02:48 And with him gone. It just gave the military carte blanche to do whatever they wanted. SM: 1:02:56 Yeah, so it is a kind of a combination of everything coming to a head and unfortunately, sadly, it cost lives. JC: 1:03:02 Yeah. SM: 1:03:03 You know, do you have one May 4th comes every year, now I am thinking of involving the remembrance, but even those years that you were not going to the events, does that May four- obviously you have a child born on May 4th. But does that, you feel like it is like April 27, that you are only four, seven days away from that, that that day that help- really had an impact on your life? JC: 1:03:32 Well, it is something that I now that I am retired and I can dwell more on it, yes, I do think about it, anticipate what the significance of the day means and trying to make plans to be there. And, you know, if there is interviews or whatever, to make myself available for that. I think that is the other thing I am trying to do on retirement is there are some Ohio teachers who were teaching May 4th in the classroom to their students, and I have tried to make myself available to talk to these people. And so yes, when May 4th comes around now, you know, there-there is some anticipation towards it and-and what can be done to keep-keep the memory alive. There were times after I was first married and were struggling at work that may 4th came and went and I think about it over lunch hour and that, you know, that might be might be the extent of it. That is it certainly has changed here in the latter years. SM: 1:04:58 Have you had any flashbacks from that day? JC: 1:05:05 No, I cannot say that I have. I have always, like I said, I think, in a weird way, I was fortunate in that I do not recall what happened to me after I was hit. But no, I cannot say that I have any unpleasant flashbacks to it. Sometimes, you know, a lot of people ask me, you know, you were you were shot in front of the metal sculpture, and does it bother you when you walk by that place you were shot? And I guess my answer to that is that, you know, when I went back to camp- I would walk by that spot every day going into Taylor Hall. And if anything, it inspired me saying, Look, you, you were given a second chance here at life, and you need to take advantage of it. SM: 1:06:00 Yep, very positive attitude, that is excellent. Yeah, I have taken pictures of that sculpture, and it has got a hole through it and one spot. So you can see how powerful those bullets were. JC: 1:06:13 Yeah. Imagine that hitting a person. SM: 1:06:16 Yes, I know. The other thing I wanted to mention, because of the I am talking really about the boomer generation of which we are a part, and what the (19)60s were all about, is the fact that we lost so many good people, and but there were a lot of positive things too, along with the negatives. Do you, we are, we are reflecting on now what is going on in America today, with all the great divisions we are having, it is very- I do not think I have ever lived at a time like this. The pandemic does not happen either. But it is everything else has been going on in the news. But when you come here- JC: 1:06:55 Well, I think social media has a lot to do with that. SM: 1:07:02 In terms of what they are what they are-? JC: 1:07:06 Why we are so why we are so divisive, versus maybe 20 years ago. I mean, obviously, every generation, you know, we had the-the war protests and kind of a culture counterculture movement, where there was, you know, our parents, I think we were trying to comprehend what the heck we were doing. But yeah, this seems to be much more, I think with social media, you can kind of anonymously sit back and be very what is the right word, insensitive or cruel. And when you are not talking to somebody face to face. You can, you can say a lot more damaging words, and not feel guilty about it. And yeah, it is, it is very frustrating to see the misinformation. And the how things are taken out of context constantly on social media. SM: 1:08:21 How, there-there came a time with your children, when they probably put two and two together and "Dad, why were you shot, Daddy? Why were you shot?" Trying to explain to them and how do you explain that to a child? As they, and as they get older, what at what juncture did you tell the whole story? Because, you know, they are, when they are young, they do not kind of grasp things. JC: 1:08:47 Yeah, I do not think we really talked too much about it until they were maybe in junior high, or you know, about that age. And I think the other thing that kind of came into play was probably like, whenever there was like a pivotal anniversary, like the 10th or the 15th or 20th anniversary, the press tends to come out of the woodwork and want to interview you and they want to do newspaper articles and they want to do you know, maybe a little local TV segment or something. So obviously that became apparent to them. So, you know, we did explain to them what had happened. And, you know, it is interesting, we were going through my daughter's paperwork from you know, my wife saves everything she will not, you know, if it is kid related, she keeps it. And there was a paper she had done probably in eighth or ninth grade for English class about the Kent State shootings. And I was, I was pretty impressed with her insight and being able to describe the events and what-what had happened, you know, without, you know, from her point of view from a younger generation not being there. SM: 1:10:25 That is excellent. I only got a couple more questions here. One of them is the, what- two, it is a two-part question. What are the major lessons to be learned from the killings at Kent State and Jackson State? And what are the, and the second part of the question is, what are the lessons from the (19)60s and (19)70s in your opinion? As we pass on, we are now we are talking we are now three generation starting of the third generation beyond boomer that are being born today. JC: 1:11:05 Well, there is lessons to be learned. I guess the question is, are we really learning anything from it? You can draw some parallels, I think, when you go back to May 4th, and the rhetoric and I am talking about Governor Rhodes' inflammatory talk about students being worse than Brownshirts. And, you know, I think, that might have been in reference to communists, communist, I do not remember, but-but anyway, you know, this kind of inflammatory discourse, which then leads to violence. And I still, unfortunately, think we are seeing it today when people say things, to inflame groups, and then violence occurs. And so there is some frustration, because you wonder, are we really learning from these lessons? Are we learning that you know, gun violence, escalates, when followed by angry words and discourse? And so, the lessons, you know, are, I suppose, that you know, we need to pause and look at where we are going with some of this, and, and try to de-escalate situations, versus escalate them. And we are even seeing it today where rather than a calm voice, and trying to resolve a tense situation, things get ramped up, and then we have an unfortunate shooting, and it can even be police that are doing the shooting, because rather than try to de-escalate a situation, things are getting ramped. So, you know, unfortunately, I see some parallels to what is happening today, to what-what happened back there. Your second part about the (19)60s and (19)70s. I think that there was an attempt by our generation to try to break from the norm, and create a more loving and caring society, one that that takes care of its own. Unfortunately, I think that has not happened. And it is kind of fallen on deaf ears. And we have a lot of social issues today that if we showed more compassion and more understanding, I think we could start to resolve some of the- these issues, but instead, everything has become political. And it just seems like any issue today, even when we are talking about science, somehow, we end up with two sides to a story. And it baffles me on some of this. Where, where, you know, we are just trying to take care of people, or we are trying to do what is best for the common good and somehow this has to become a political issue, and it truly is sad that we have gotten to that point. So you know, I think we started out in the (19)60s and (19)70s, very idealistic, we were going to change the world. But here we are, you know, 40, 50 years later, and not much has changed. SM: 1:15:48 [inaudible] I am going to end with this. I am going to ask you to talk to someone who is going to be listening to this 20, 30 and 40 years from now, and this is January 26 2022. If there is any lessons that you yourself can give to the future youth of America, in terms of, based on the experiences of what happened at Kent State and Jackson State, what would that be in terms of advice? And one thing I want to add to this, John, you have already mentioned it, you cannot forget your history, you got to know your history and where we came from. JC: 1:16:29 Absolutely. SM: 1:16:29 Yeah, not and I am really worried about, and this has been not just my generation, boomers the generations that followed, their lack of knowledge of history is amazing. I am shocked, I work with young people. They do not know the Vietnam War. I had, we have had people tell me the Vietnam wars before World War Two, how do they get through high school that way? And so, it is the, it is the knowledge of history. But what would your advice be to future generations with respect to this historic event, Kent State and Jackson State? JC: 1:17:03 Well, I think my, my advice would be, is when you look at history, I remember, in my history classes, it is more than just memorizing dates and times and when-when these things happened, you have to try to put yourself in the time and in the place, and what people's mindsets were, I think it is more important to understand the events leading up to what happened at May 4th, versus, you know, trying to remember that it happened in the (19)70s, or whatever. And if you are a college student, and you are listening to this, try to imagine yourself being on a college campus, and being confronted with the military, with guns and halftracks, and helicopters, with them preventing you from saying what you are, what you want to say. So your freedom is being challenged by powers to be in and by your political system. And you need to just visualize what would you do as a student, if you were confronted with this, and this is what we had to face. That we did not ask for the military to be on campus. We felt that we had a right to be on our campus, our campus was open, and to be assaulted in the way that that crowd was, to be shot indiscriminately and then listen to the hatred and the vitriol that came out of the country as they came out of the state, towards the students who had done nothing more than congregate on campus, to present their political views, and think about how you would react if you were confronted in that in that type of situation. SM: 1:19:50 Beautifully said. Beautifully said. John, on that note, I want to end the interview. And I want to say thank you very much for taking part are in this. I will say this, I hope to meet you. I am going to be at Kent State on the fourth. I will be there probably the second through the fourth. I love the walk that walk. JC: 1:20:11 Yeah, I am going to, even if you know that from what I am understanding, there is some uncertainty as to whether they are going to do something because of COVID. SM: 1:20:21 Right. JC: 1:20:21 And but I have missed two years there. And I think I am going to be there no matter what, even if it is just unofficial. SM: 1:20:31 Same here. So, I look, we will be in touch and I am, I am going to turn this off. Thank you very much. Do not leave me yet. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with John Cleary IIIF Item Metadata UUID 54588851-e5d0-466b-886d-67416baa6cb3 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/170dd7969ba33a631ded4eeb72cc0ee6.jpg bad2da628bdcdb8f605698446383d94a https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/b479aa5fba4ab241b6b90166a6ffe6a3.mp3 30b8f7a08b8319ea585c7c932d786244 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview ND Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed John Filo Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;John Filo is a photographer who took the picture of the 1970 Kent State shootings, in which a 14 year old girl grieves over the body of a dead young man. This picture won him the Pulitzer prize. He is now a photography director for CBS in NY.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:13057,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">John Filo is a photographer who took the picture of the 1970 Kent State shootings, in which a 14-year-old girl grieves over the body of a dead young man. This picture won him the Pulitzer Prize. He is now a photography director for CBS in NY.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Vietnam War; Vietnam memorial; Baby boom generation; Communism; Vietnam Veterans; Jane Fonda; Timothy Leary; Lyndon B. Johnson; Black Power; Tommie Smith; George Wallace; Benjamin Spock.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:13228792}}">Vietnam War; Vietnam memorial; Baby boom generation; Communism; Vietnam Veterans; Jane Fonda; Timothy Leary; Lyndon B. Johnson; Black Power; Tommie Smith; George Wallace; Benjamin Spock.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 27:48 Subject LCSH Photographers; Kent State Shootings, Kent, Ohio, 1970; Awards—United States; Filo, John--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: John Filo Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: Not Dated --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:03): Okay, go right ahead. JF (00:04): But screen token, everyone was appalled. Everyone was appalled that young people get their news from the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, or listen to the late-night talk people, and they were joking sarcasm, with the powers that be. But, you go and watch it. And you go, they speak way more truth, than they speak comedy and that what maybe is why it is funny. SM (00:33): Right. A couple final quick questions here. Why in your opinion, did the Vietnam War end? JF (00:41): Why did it end? SM (00:41): Yes. JF (00:45): I think people were just tired of it. I mean, why it ended is, there was no good reason to continue it. I mean, it was a civil war going on in that country that we were trying to get involved with. At some point, they realized, communists were not going to get in votes and canoe on over. SM (01:08): Do you think- JF (01:09): See, I mean, I was brought up on that domino effect- SM (01:11): Right. Yep. Yep. JF (01:12): ... in grade school. Well, if you let this country fall, then this country was going to fall, then this country was going to fall and this country was going to fall. But at the same time, communism was losing its influence too, in the world. I do not know. Why it ended? All I know is I was glad it ended. It took too long to end. SM (01:35): Do you feel college students played an important part? If you were to pick between one of these two, college students and protests on college campuses or Middle America, when they finally realized the war was not worth it because their sons and daughters were coming home in caskets. JF (01:53): Well, I do not know so much in caskets, but you had many, once again, I think it is many different levels. Six people, a long time to get a change going on. They do not want to hear it from just one voice. But I think, did you have that friendly fire book? SM (02:14): Yes. JF (02:14): Out about the same time. SM (02:16): Yes. JF (02:18): There were scandalous stories about the bodies that were coming back. Some of them were filled with, in the thoracic cavity, being filled with drugs. There was a drug ring. And there was all kind of nasty little, it was not a generational story anymore. It was just like, and so if we win, what happens? We have an air base closer to... And then again, it is like, you have these submarines patrolling the seas, communist and US. They could wipe out the earth how many times over. It gets to a point where it is just like, okay. And there were leaders long before Kennedy that said, could never get into ground war in Asia. It is an old military thing, we said that. SM (03:18): Has the wall itself in Washington D.C., which I know you visited. How important has that been toward healing the boomer generation? Or is it mostly just the vets and their families? JF (03:32): I think it affects all of us at certain times. But I never understood. But I know there were people that did it, but when I never understood this part, people I knew, I do not think anyone was ever upset at a soldier that they were seeing. You hear the stories. I came back and I was spit upon, as a killer of Vietnamese babies. Where I came from, I think everyone had compassion for the soldier. I think we were all realizing that the soldier was just part of the bigger problem. I mean, because under orders you were drafted, you had to go. And I think this war in Iraq, could have been over too, had there been a draft. But what they have done is send people back, three and four times. SM (04:22): How important has music been in the lives of Boomers and in your eyes, who are the artists you feel shaped the generation, including the songs that had the greatest impact? JF (04:34): Yeah, music was very important. Music was sort of like the thing you could interpret and listen to. And there were still obviously different styles, but I think it all started, for me, I think it started with the folk movement, bodied finally by Bob Dylan. And then you had your other songs, other rock bands that brew against war, killing. I mean, that was a big part of that music of that generation. SM (05:11): When you look at some of the musicians, whether it be Joan Baez or Bob Dylan, Phil Oaks, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, they were popular on college campuses and also because they were activists. So there was that mentality, and they lived their whole lives that way they can continue. Some have passed on and some continue. Richie Havens that whole group. A last question before the general things is, when the best history books are written, and what do you think the lasting legacy of the boomer generation will be? JF (05:50): Well, I do not know. SM (05:50): And that is probably 50 years, after the boomer generation is in their eighties. JF (06:00): I do not know. I honestly do not know. I cannot think of any other generation, other than the roaring (19)20s that you remember having an influence on culture so much. I honestly do not know. I have not really given that much thought. I would think that the fact that it did help America, I mean, it is a very historic time. From coming up through the Civil Rights Movement and wars will somehow always be with us, it seems like, in some small or large aspect. It will not be on that scale that Great Wars were, but it seems to me. But I think within the generation of seeing civil rights and ending with a black president and some shifts that are not yet determined. SM (07:09): And he is still considered a boomer. He is a young boomer. And then of course Bill Clinton was a boomer and so was George Bush. JF (07:16): I mean, I think, that is what it takes. There was a quote somewhere, when [inaudible] Kennedy, [inaudible] or was it Martin Luther. Someone says, how long do you think it would take for America to have a viable black candidate? And I think the quote was back in the six- 40 years. SM (07:43): I think it was Dr. King. JF (07:43): Dr. King. SM (07:44): I think it was Dr. King. So you might have said, in one of his speeches. JF (07:47): 40 years. SM (07:47): Yeah, and it might have been- JF (07:47): It is almost pathetic, almost. SM (07:57): Yeah. I am going to mention just some names here and just get quick responses. Your thoughts on these people, these are personalities from the era. Tom Hayden? JF (08:06): All right. He was a West Coast leader and then became politician. I do not have any comments. SM (08:09): Jane Fonda? JF (08:19): Jane always liked acting and same things. I think she was misused too by the... SM (08:27): Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, the hippies? JF (08:30): Yeah. Yeah. I think they sort of took it the other way. Took it to the other side. SM (08:36): Timothy Leary? JF (08:39): Yeah. No way. Yeah. These are people I did not... You would look at and you would go, wow. SM (08:46): Okay. How about Richard Nixon? JF (08:48): You would go wow there too. I mean, I remember him involved in, what was it? Was not there a big scandal in the (19)50s? They found the film in the pumpkin. SM (08:57): Yeah, Checkers. JF (08:59): Checkers. SM (09:00): He had to give his Checkers speech. I am not sure if Checkers is up there in heaven with him. How about Spiro Agnew? JF (09:13): Yeah, battering A bombs of, they get to visit. Yeah, there it is. You are a typical politician. SM (09:16): Yep. JF (09:16): Do not be looking at me, criticizing, even though I am doing something totally illegal. SM (09:21): Eugene McCarthy? JF (09:24): Another leader. SM (09:28): And George McGovern? JF (09:30): George McGovern, same way. World War II veteran. Who heard young voices. I mean, yeah, just could not get it together. He was a real generational candidate. SM (09:53): John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy? JF (09:53): Yeah. As I get older, my feelings are more with Bobby. John, I was too young with. Definitely Bobby, I think. SM (10:02): Lyndon Johnson? JF (10:04): I am sorry. SM (10:04): Lyndon Johnson? JF (10:05): I Know. I think that man, considering his background, I think he did a lot of great things for the country. I mean, that whole great society, is not so much that, but his homework and the civil rights. A surprising person, as far as I am concerned. I would have guessed him to be so mainline politically. So non-controversial. SM (10:31): How about Robert McNamara? JF (10:43): Well, there we go. Yeah. How many years later, apologized. SM (10:44): Mm-hmm. How about the black power, the term black power and the people like Kiwi Newton, Bobby Seal, Eldridge Cleaver, that group? JF (10:52): Well, I think, from being a white person, I think we needed these people to be like, they were pointers. Wow. These people have a lot of, [inaudible] hate. But then you had to, they used to made you find out the reason why. You had to look at the condition of [inaudible]. SM (11:17): And as a fact, and as a photographer, you are the only person I am asking this to. What was your thought of that Tommy Smith picture with him fist raised and John Carlos? JF (11:26): I thought it was a great photo. I thought it was a great photo, it was a very rogue photo. That is the point. They knew the consequences. They knew that they were going to be severely criticized, not ostracized. I think they were. SM (11:45): Yeah. We had Tommy on the campus and I think he knew what was coming, by doing it. George Wallace? JF (11:55): Another drum beater. Oh, wow. I remember, I even met Orville Faubus. SM (12:05): You did? JF (12:05): One on one. He was one of the nice guys. And then you realize, I was not going to let them come into Little Rock. SM (12:14): How about Ronald Reagan? JF (12:15): I do not know. He was a great communicator. SM (12:15): Danielle Ellsberg? JF (12:15): There is another one standing up for [inaudible] rights, right? SM (12:15): Yep. Benjamin Spock? JF (12:35): I got to meet him too and spend some time with him. SM (12:37): Oh, you are lucky. JF (12:38): He is a guy that changed a lot of attitudes, changed a lot of thinking, and boy he got blanks against the war. Just destruction. Longshoreman held up his sailboat delivery and, oh my God. SM (12:56): How about the Berrigan- JF (12:57): Could meet a nicer man. SM (12:59): Phillip and Daniel Berrigan? JF (13:10): Same thing. Had to do what they had to do. SM (13:10): And then some of the women leaders, Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan? JF (13:15): Fantastic. What a great thing. What a great thing, pointing out sexism stuff. You just do not realize all this was going on, in the (19)50s. SM (13:34): Barry Goldwater? JF (13:38): Do not remember him. Just, little too conservative. SM (13:45): These are just some of the terms that boomers will remember as they grew up. Tet, T-E-T. You know what Tet was? JF (13:51): Yeah. SM (13:53): What is your thoughts on Tet? JF (13:55): Tet Offensive? SM (13:55): Yes. JF (13:55): Yeah. SM (13:55): That was (19)68. JF (13:58): Wow. Well, that is when a lot of the, are you thinking that is when a lot of the people that were for the war started thinking, "Oh, I do not know"? SM (14:08): It was around that timeframe. JF (14:09): Yeah. SM (14:10): Watergate? JF (14:15): Yeah. That is what you said. Boy, those guys are just power crazy. They probably have the election long ago, but they are going to make sure. SM (14:23): Hippies? JF (14:23): Yeah, hippies were, they are fun. SM (14:30): And how about the yippies? JF (14:32): Oh, the yippies were even stranger. The hippies, they actually believe what they did for a little while. SM (14:39): How about the counterculture? That term, the counterculture? JF (14:44): Yeah. That sort of, you realize you did not have to, I think at a time it had to be known as a counterculture, but then they realized, for you to change thing, you had to be sort of absorbed in the mainstream with countercultures dots. But by saying counterculture, it is sort of, it puts you in another uniform. Like being a hippie or being a yippie. You realize if you are going to make changes, you got sort of dress like them. SM (15:15): Students For Democratic? JF (15:17): I was more impressed with boomers that did go to bat, put on a three-piece suit, go and argue. SM (15:24): What were your favorite clothes of the counterculture? JF (15:27): Favorite clothes? SM (15:28): Yeah. JF (15:29): I do not- SM (15:29): Is there something that stuck out? Everybody heard about the [inaudible] jacket early on. JF (15:33): Well, my favorite or favorite to wear? SM (15:36): No, just the favorite clothes that you liked. JF (15:38): Oh, I think I was impressed with the, since I never had any hips, I was always impressed with hip-huggers and flair pants. And I said, "Man, I must look really cool if I put them on and look like some circus clown." Because I did not have thin legs, thin body to where fashion, the fashion hung. All I did was flare pants pointed to my flaws. SM (16:11): Woodstock? JF (16:13): Yeah. I never went, but it was the idea of it. I was like, wow, you are going to go, it sounds miserable. SM (16:21): Well, a lot of people cleanly were there, that probably were not. JF (16:23): I know. I know. It is like, what is his name, scored his hundred-point game. The NBA. It is like Kent State too. It is like how many people said they were there? SM (16:44): Oh, that is true. That is true. Vietnam veterans against the war? JF (16:44): All right. Yeah. I think they have probably achieved a lot more than anyone gives them credit for. Especially when, you actually had decorated heroes. SM (16:56): Were there any books of the era that stood out amongst any others? Any written books? JF (17:03): Wow. I am trying to think what was... You mean the sort of went pop or sort of- SM (17:12): It could be authors or people who wrote. JF (17:17): All I remember is the new, I mean, everyone read Tolkien, but then Castaneda came along on a separate reality and the native Mexican drug, American kind of drugs off the land kind of thing. Yeah. SM (17:34): How about the favorite movies of the era? JF (17:44): Oh, geez. There was a lot of movies I think it was, that made nothing, what was it? Living at the Ridge or Plaza or something. SM (17:56): There was The Graduate, which was a big one. JF (17:57): So The Graduate. Yeah, it was a... SM (18:00): Midnight Cowboy and that whole group. JF (18:02): Right. SM (18:05): See, anything else here? I have John Dean down here too, only because he was part of the Watergate group. He is the guy that spilled the beans, supposedly. I guess that is about it. I cannot... Oh, communes? JF (18:19): Communes. Yeah. That was just like, yeah, I knew people that went to a few and they go, "Man, it just turned into, it always turns into ugly human center." It seemed like. I mean, I am amazed that some people put out for years. And then someone told me, there are still a few in existence, I do not know if it is going on. SM (18:46): Yeah, I think George Bush is in charge of one. The only thing I am going to mention in terms of the books that were very popular, the two are, Greening of America, if you remember that book? Which was Charles Reich and then the Making of a Counterculture by Theodore Roszak. And then Tom Wolf was a big, popular guy during that period too. I guess he still is. Are there any questions that you thought I was going to ask and did not ask? JF (19:22): Not really. Not really. SM (19:23): Nope. And what do you think the lasting legacy at Kent State will be? JF (19:30): Why? SM (19:32): Okay. JF (19:33): I do not know. That sort of needs a guarded, it almost needs a guarded position. I guess, it is whatever groups want have define it as, but I think the legacy for me is that, is there a way to have free speech in this country and in a time of maybe disapproval, without it ever coming to violence? SM (20:04): Mm-hmm. As a person like myself who just worked almost 30 years in higher ed. By the way, I just retired. JF (20:15): Wow. SM (20:15): I had retired to write my book and then I am going back to work because I put this off. I took early retirement so that I could finish this book and then write it and then go back and do the things I want to do, beyond. I forget what I was going to ask here, the final question. Oh no, I lost my train of thought. JF (20:35): Keep going. That happens to me too. SM (20:35): Golly. It was a final- JF (20:40): I mean, you could call me in a couple days and I will say I should have never said that. I should have said that. SM (20:43): Yeah. Well, the question I was going to ask is this, because it goes back to the activism. I think universities, this is just Steve McKiernan I am thinking of writing about it because I have firsthand experiences, not only myself, but others that have worked at other universities. I think there is a fear of activism on university campuses and I am not meaning volunteerism because I think the administrators who are running universities today are mostly boomers. Or down the road will be the children of boomers. And there is a fear of, they will have the memories of what happened in the (19)60s and they will always be out there supporting it and saying they support it. But there is much more controls and fear. Your thoughts on that? Because today's parents, when they send their kids to college, do not want disruption of their sons or daughter's education because they are paying good money and they want their sons and daughters to get a degree. And so there is a fear of disruption and if disruption happens, I will take my son or daughter away. So I do not know. JF (21:44): Yeah, I mean it is, I remember going to all these universities with my daughter. She just finished her freshman year at UMass Amherst and it is like everyone talks about her class. In four years, these will be the people that help you get jobs. And in other words, there was a big strong commitment that you get on this conveyor belt and you are going to get off it in four years. And you are all going to get on it right now and you are all going to get off of it in four years. There is no, well, if it takes you five. The packages are all same. There is your junior year abroad, there is this and there is that, and there is there, go do this in Central America or something. Yeah. There was no room for question of self-discovery thing. Hit your wagon up and we will on hit you in four years. SM (22:54): Yeah. Because in the (19)60s, the boomers, there was a questioning about the IBM mentality of it. And now that does not seem to be, I do not know. JF (23:01): No, there does not seem to be any matter of fact. No one can promise them anything. That is the other thing. There is research grants for government work maybe. And that is about it. And I mean, I am talking to people that are graduating from Columbia, that pay big money to graduate, go to the journalism school. And I am saying, that is great. Now you are going to take a job that pays half that, it cost you to get the degree. Yeah. There is all sorts of free adjustment that have to be made. Now all of a sudden science and the engineering is back in good grace. But on the other hand, I am still, what do we do for a plumber and what are we doing? I mean, I am not saying whatever, but here is my daughter and I said, "What did you just signed up for?" Psychology, but I think I want to move into environmental science. SM (24:10): Yeah. One thing today's college students do not do is, they do not question the money that is coming in or going out from the university. They do not even know what is going in and coming out. So whereas a lot of the students in my era, you are era, questioned that. JF (24:22): Yeah. Absolutely. SM (24:24): I had spoken to Mary when she was at Kent State and last time, and I promised to send her pictures that I took, not as nice as yours, but I sent her the pictures and she was going to interview me, but she has not correspondence since she got my pictures. So maybe she does not want to be a part of the project after all. She is a very private person. JF (24:48): [inaudible] but she always sort of works through. Have you talked to Gregory Payne? SM (24:54): Who? JF (24:55): In Emerson University. He is the one that sort of got it together the first time and she sort of uses him as a sounding board. SM (25:03): What is his name? JF (25:04): Dr. Gregory Payne. P-A-Y-N-E. SM (25:09): Okay. JF (25:09): And he showed up at Kenny. He looked like- SM (25:12): Oh, he said the fitting blonde hair. JF (25:12): Yeah. SM (25:17): Yeah. Well see, when I saw her, she gave me her email and I emailed her. She wanted my pictures and then she said, "I will probably do the interview." And then I sent the pictures and she would not even respond if she got the pictures. So I do not know. JF (25:29): I do not know what is going on. SM (25:33): Yeah, but anyways. Well that is it. JF (25:34): Okay. SM (25:35): Thank you. JF (25:37): So if there is any more questions, just call me back or let me know. SM (25:39): Will do. Well, I interviewed Alan, when he was on our campus many years ago, but I got to, I have never really finished my interview with him. So I might interview him. I would like to interview his sister, Chick. JF (25:50): Yeah. Oh, Chick is great too. SM (25:50): Yeah. But Mr. [inaudible], I am going to call you John. JF (25:55): Yeah. SM (25:55): Thank you very much. That picture was a very important part of my life. And I know you have probably heard that from a lot of people, but that picture touched the lives of college students that you do not even know and you will never know. So you need to know how important that picture was in my life because I went into higher education as a career because of what was happening at Kent State and other universities. So thank you for being the great photographer that you are. And I want to thank you again for the time you spent today answering my questions. I am meeting with a professor, up in [inaudible] college, to be able to help me with the transcribing of all these. So you will sort see the transcription before it is ever going to print. JF (26:39): Okay. But you saying on a different day I might have different answers too. It just seems like, as I get older, I am affected by what is going on around you now. You know what I mean? SM (26:48): Yeah. Well that whole thing of the (19)60s and (19)70s always affected my life. JF (26:53): Oh, yeah. SM (26:54): Well to the day I go to my grave. JF (26:58): Throw up. I mean, you actually questioned us already. I can imagine growing up in the (19)50s and... SM (27:00): Oh, yes. JF (27:03): I am sorry. I am not saying that was a bad time to grow up, but it was just, there was so much that was just accepted. SM (27:08): Yep. Yet during that very same period, our parents loved us so much. JF (27:14): Great. SM (27:14): And they wanted to give us so much. And sometimes I go back and say, "Geez, those were, not knowing what was going on in the world and being innocent as an elementary school kid." Probably like you were. JF (27:27): Yeah. SM (27:27): You had great memories being with your parents. So anyways. Well you have a great day. JF (27:34): All right Scott. And call back me anytime you got any other- SM (27:36): Steve. JF (27:37): If I failed to answer them. SM (27:38): Yep. JF (27:39): Okay. SM (27:40): Thanks a lot. Bye. JF (27:42): Take care. Bye. Good luck. SM (27:42): Yep, thanks. (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with John Filo Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Filo, John ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Photographers; Kent State Shootings, Kent, Ohio, 1970; Awards—United States; Filo, John--Interviews Description An account of the resource John Filo is a photographer who took the picture of the 1970 Kent State shootings, in which a 14 year old girl grieves over the body of a dead young man. This picture won him the Pulitzer prize. He is now a photography director for CBS in NY. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource ND Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.51 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 27:48 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/4d2c4734fa58af86dbe533d28c9d04bc.jpg ff78c5b91e27e6ff0482245b4868c94c https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/e8bde2fa588015f45463756d67755f93.mp3 6c2f5d77b4cd0aa69245bba8815f0b46 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview ND Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed John Lewis, 1940 February 21 - 2020 July 17 Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;John Lewis is a politician and was a civil rights leader. He is the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district, serving since 1987. Lewis has a Bachelor's degree in Religion and Philosophy from Fisk University, and he is a graduate of the American Baptist Theological Seminary. He was the keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in August 1963.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15105,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">John Lewis was a politician and a civil rights leader. He was the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district, serving from 1987 until his death in 2020. Lewis had a Bachelor's degree in Religion and Philosophy from Fisk University, and he was a graduate of the American Baptist Theological Seminary. He was the keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in August 1963.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 41:28 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;The nineteen sixties; Baby boom generation; Questioning authority; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Vietnam War; Environmental issues; the Environmental Movement; Dr. Benjamin Spock; Berrigan Brothers; Timothy Leary.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14275305}}">The nineteen sixties; Baby boom generation; Questioning authority; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Vietnam War; Environmental issues; the Environmental Movement; Dr. Benjamin Spock; Berrigan Brothers; Timothy Leary.</span> Subject LCSH Legislators—United States; Civil rights movements—United States--20th century; Lewis, John, 1940 February 21--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with John Lewis Description An account of the resource <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;John Lewis is a politician and was a civil rights leader. He is the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district, serving since 1987. Lewis has a Bachelor's degree in Religion and Philosophy from Fisk University, and he is a graduate of the American Baptist Theological Seminary. He was the keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in August 1963.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15105,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">John Lewis was a politician and a civil rights leader. He was the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district, serving from 1987 until his death in 2020. Lewis had a Bachelor's degree in Religion and Philosophy from Fisk University, and he was a graduate of the American Baptist Theological Seminary. He was the keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in August 1963.</span> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lewis, John, 1940 February 21 - 2020 July 17 ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Legislators—United States; Civil rights movements—United States--20th century; Lewis, John, 1940 February 21--Interviews Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource ND Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.80 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 41:28 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/efe8765bb6f08aeb73e174d64a397a2a.jpg 7cf0040f5b0e5e71fed8340105ccb07a https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/7408df7b8256f4f5206599cf616b0257.mp3 23faea88a00e74e06173990854e5de75 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2003-11-25 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed John Morris Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;John Morris, a native of Downingtown, PA, joined the Army Security Agency in 1965 and served two years in Vietnam. Following Vietnam, he was stationed at Fort Wolters, Texas, to train other operators in route to Vietnam until 1969. John Morris is a life member and active with the Vietnam Veterans of America. He is also a life member of the Veterans of Foreign War and the Disabled American Veterans. He received the Chapel of the Four Chaplain’s Legion of Honor Award.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:4487,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;5&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">John Morris, a native of Downingtown, PA, joined the Army Security Agency in 1965 and served two years in Vietnam. Following Vietnam, he was stationed at Fort Wolters, Texas, to train other operators in route to Vietnam until 1969. John Morris is a life member and active with the Vietnam Veterans of America. He is also a life member of the Veterans of Foreign War and the Disabled American Veterans. He received the Chapel of the Four Chaplain’s Legion of Honor Award.</span> Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Veterans; Bill Clinton; Watergate; Dwight Eisenhower; George Bush; Dr. \\nMartin Luther King Jr.; Anti-war movement; Lyndon Johnson; Richard Nixon; Eugene McCarthy; Muhammad Ali; Baby boom generation.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Veterans; Bill Clinton; Watergate; Dwight Eisenhower; George Bush; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Anti-war movement; Lyndon Johnson; Richard Nixon; Eugene McCarthy; Muhammad Ali; Baby boom generation.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 230:02 Subject LCSH Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Interviews; Morris, John--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: John Morris Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 20 November 2003 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: And yeah, I tested this beforehand. When you think of the (19)60s and the early (19)70s and when you were young, what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of that period? JM: With the question? I will answer the draft. Okay. The draft was something that was always there hanging over my head from the time I left high school until the time I was finally drafted. And it sort of controlled a lot of things that happened to me. For example, it was hard to get a job because you might get drafted. It was hard to start a relationship because you might get drafted. So that would be the first thing to come to my mind. The draft itself. SM: Do you think that was also on the minds of many of your peers? JM: No, absolutely. SM: In terms of their futures? JM: Well, and of course back in those days a lot of guys forced their way into college just to stay out from under the draft for some period of time, just to get some relief from it because it is always there. And you always knew who was being drafted that week or that month and where you stood in line to be drafted. How many months did you have before it would be your turn? SM: Do you remember what your number was? JM: Oh, I was before numbers. SM: Oh, you were before the numbers. JM: Before the numbers, yeah. SM: Okay. JM: Numbers were for wimps. Come On. SM: Okay, well, I remember the numbers. JM: Yeah, no, I was in the service when the number thing started. SM: One of the things about the boomer generation, which is often defined as individuals born between (19)46 and (19)64, some people say there are people born between (19)42 and 1960, give or take a couple years. But when you look at the boomer generation, in recent years there has been a lot of criticism of this generation of 70 million for the breakdown of some of the values in our society and our culture. And I would like your thoughts on people who make those kinds of comments on that particular generation. And of course they are making comments on the drugs and a lot of different things. JM: They are mostly right. We were the most pampered generation up to our time. Our parents, who we now refer to as the greatest generation, fought a war and depression and did not have any of the benefits we have and gave them to us. And we turned around and acted as though they were some sort of birthright. So we, the group that you are referring to, the boomers, of which I am a point man since I was born in (19)45, we were spoiled. We really were. We did not know about hunger. We did not know what it meant to have to get up and help around the farm and things like that. And in a sense, we probably had it too easy and drugs became a passage for us. Most people of my age smoked marijuana, perhaps just things that were quite a bit harder. I believe we almost all drank. So we were out for a good time and we were not very mature. So yes, they were right. SM: Do you think a lot of this stuff has been passed on to their children? Because right now what you are seeing on college campuses and all over America is the children of boomers have been in college for a lot of years. Now we are starting to see the very beginning of grandchildren of boomers coming, although it is still mostly the children of boomers. What sort of an influence do you feel that they have had on their children in terms of not only these issues dealing with our culture, but involvement in caring about America, but most involvement in voting and things like that? JM: Well, I am probably one of the luckiest people. My children are great. They have turned into two very sparkling young adults. So I can only speak from a very narrow point of view and I am lucky in that their friends also fall into that category. So I see mostly the good of the younger generation. And I think that is mostly the majority of the younger generation. And this newer crowd seems far more levelheaded than that X generation that came between the boomers and the new generation. And this newer crowd is, I will say from 18 through 25, seem to have their act together at a very young age. I am encouraged, but also, again, I see a very small segment of that grouping. SM: It is always hard to generalize an entire generation of 70 million. But I think the individuals that have been making these comments over the years have been people like George Will. And he always likes to get a jab at the Boomers whenever he can. I know Newt Gingrich had his time when he made commentaries, yet he was a boomer himself. JM: Yeah. SM: So there is a lot of thoughts on this particular thing. Have you changed at all in terms of your thoughts on the boomers over time? What were your thoughts of your generation at the time you were young and here it is now, believe it or not, 30 plus years hence. Have you changed your opinions on your generation over time or are they still the same? JM: Well, at the time when we were younger, say high school, mostly what I feel we felt was pressure. We looked at our parents as our role models, promptly decided that was not who we wanted to be and yet did not know how to go out and forge a new way. And we did find a way that we may call those the (19)60s, especially the late (19)60s. I think we turned everything upside down during this period of time looking for a way to become anything other than our parents. Now, looking back on that, that was again part of our selfishness. We decided we had to make our mark. And even today I think we are still doing that same thing because we are changing healthcare, we are changing retirement, all the other things. And I guess it is because of the great numbers that we have and you move that many people around, things change. Especially if they wanted them to change. SM: All right. That leads into something about one of the most unique things about the generation is its size. There has never been anything like it before, whether 65 to 70 million is the count most people give to the generation. Is there anything that is unique to this generation beyond its size? Because obviously its size stands out. JM: Yeah, selfishness there, both individually and collectively. And I say that and I put myself in that category. I was selfish. I still look at everything and think how does it affect me? How's the best going to be in my favor? Things like that. And I think that is be part and parcel of being a boomer. Yes. Other people are that way who are not boomers, but I think we pretty much set the stage for that or gave them the role model. But again, selfishness. SM: Thing is, a lot of the people our age and boomers as a whole used to always say amongst themselves when they are young that we are the most feeling, that we are the most unique generation in history because we are going to be the change agents for the betterment of society. We are going to end racism, sexism, homophobia. We are going to end war, we are going to have peace, help the poor, and all these other things. Well, if selfishness in your thought is number one, what happened? Because a lot of the people got involved in the causes to help others. JM: And I think they got disillusioned because they had a very low threshold for that sort of thing, that they could not get instant results through gratification. They just moved along. That is not to demean those folks that stayed in it for the long run. More credit to them. But going back to your question, yeah, well, we wanted to change all those things and we have not done a whole lot of good about it. And those things still exist today and probably will for far too long a period of time. SM: Looking at the generation now and kind of looking at characteristics, both positive, negative, if you were to list, and you have already talked about selfishness, but if you are going to list some of the negatives and some of the positives, what would they be? JM: I think part and parcel we are a very creative generation. I think a lot of the inventions we now take for granted came from our generation. That is definitely a positive. I think we had a work ethic taught to us by our parents that we continued. I think we picked some of the good out of the greatest generation and kept it going forward. That is one of them. The negative thing would be, I am not really certain there is a large number of us who are active in controlling our governments, both in the local and national levels. I think the ones that are in that are the ones that would have always been political, whatever generation they were born to. A large number of us get apathetic about things. It is that old fa- JM: Large number as get apathetic about things. It is that whole thing again, we wanted to make such a change in the world, at least in our country. And then when it could not happen, we thought, What the heck. Cannot be done? If we cannot do it this generation, then it just cannot be done. And we became that apathetic. It has been a fun group to be involved with. I think humor has been cranked up quite a bit since we took over the reins. I think industry and commerce and all business has changed quite a bit simply because we were in there now pulling the strings. We were the power seats. We were the guys in their (19)50s that are controlling everything. And I think for the betterment of business everywhere. And I think some of the things you see in today's workforce that were not there 30 years ago are there because boomers put them there. We were the guys that put in the baby nursery rooms for people of schools. I think were the ones that probably cranked up the healthcare coverage. These are things I do not think you went to work and expected back in 1965. SM: Of course your main negative one was the selfishness aspects. Do you think the generation X, the generation of now, were equally selfish? JM: I think they might have even been more selfish, but they were also... What is the word I am looking for? I think they played angst too much. They wanted to be un-understood, not understood, and they made that their mask. So the selfishness was inner and was in focus and they did not want you to know who they were. SM: Peter Mack was a Painter of that area. He is actually still doing paintings. He is a multi-millionaire now. But back then he was up and coming and struggling and then very successful Artist. He had a painting with words that said, You do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful. Your thoughts on that in reference to the boomer generation and the youth of the (19)60s and (19)70s? Because I put them together. Okay. JM: Well, the phraseology you used sounds very (19)60s, does not it? Do your thing, I will do mine. Come together like The Beatles. Well, first thing I hear in there is this overwhelming granting of permission. I am going to let you go ahead and do whatever you want. I am expecting that in return. I am expecting you to grant me the same permission. That is a nice overall way to explain what I think this boomer generation wanted. They wanted to do what they wanted to do and they wanted other people to feel free to do it. And I think the last part of that is a great phrase because if you come together, it is even better. But it is very difficult to go do your thing and then not conflict with other people doing their thing. Example might be, I want to have children, but I do not want to get married. What a burden that puts on society. That is the selfishness I was talking about. And bumping it up a generation, I think that phrase probably would have stuck in their throats. They probably would have said that is my mom and dad's thing. I do not want any part of that. They wanted to be left alone. I do not think necessarily they even thought about their own thing in doing it. Might be way off base, but that is just what I would say. SM: John, when you think of that period, is there any one movement that stands out above all others? And I mean, we are talking about a generation that saw so many movements, the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the women's movement, gay and lesbian, the Chicano, the Native American, they all seem to be together. But was there one movement that you feel stood out amongst everything else that when you talk about the (19)60s generation and the boomers, that is the movement? JM: Well, as you asked that question, what came to my mind was the sports industry. Back in the (19)60s, we all lived for the World Series, sports athletes were heroes to us. It has changed so much in the past 35, 40 years that I do not recognize it anymore. And I think what they have done is we still put these people up on pedestals and then we try to follow their example. And that is where I think we get a little off. And as you were saying that the first thing that, like I said, just went right to the front of my mind is sports world. I know they do not have a whole lot of effect on our society, but they have changed quite a bit. I am very disappointed in what they have done. I used to be a great fan of all sports. I hardly watch anything anymore. I cannot put up with it. SM: Do you think that what has happened to your thoughts and what has happened to the athlete is a symptom of, again, a generation which covers the (19)60s and the (19)70s of people who, because they did not trust leaders and they saw so many things that they were disappointed in that, they have even got to find something wrong when something is right, even in an athlete? That no athlete can be pure and clean anymore. You have always got to find something negative on a person. Is there something there on that? JM: That is a good point. Back in the (19)60s, they used to hide these things about athletes. I mean, look like Mickey Mantle is an example. I had all night party and drinking hard and waking up from a drunken stupid to go four for four. And we did not know about that. Yeah, it was not until you told us, he got out. But now today, let us use Darryl Strawberry is an example, we knew his every movement. If he did not come to practice that day, we knew about him. And yesterday it was easy to find fault with a guy like that. Whereas we still idolized Mickey Mantle. And I think that what I was trying to find is the gist of your question is how fair has that been, it is our view of these athletes. Yes, they are like the poster child for the people that are in it for themselves. And it is probably been the way it has always been with sports, but it has changed so much. I can remember when the local sports teams in Philadelphia would not play Wilt Chamberlain a hundred thousand dollars a year and now they are paying guys like that that kind of money a game. SM: And the minimum for a rookie, I think is a quarter million or something like that today, if you sit on the bench and get to bat 40 times. Amazing. Getting back to the movements, I want to get back to the anti-war movement in America and what was happening on the college campuses. How important, in your opinion as a veteran, because you are coming from a different perspective here than maybe some other people I have interviewed, how important do you feel the anti-war movement was on college campuses over the (19)60s and early (19)70s in ending that war? JM: Well, it sure got a lot of press. From the time I can remember, maybe I should give you a little background here. When I went to Vietnam, that was 1966, there was hardly any type of protest anywhere against the war. I got back in (19)67 and that was just starting the White Heat of the protest movement. So I went from nothing to intensity within a short period of time, pan of year, not knowing anything. That information was not given to us over there. We heard about it from the new guys coming in. So I think what they did, they got a lot of press. The newspapers and TV people loved them. So they got up there a lot. And I think they bumped the service people off of the stage. And I think they behaved, my word is childishly, is that right? They behave like children and they wanted to spotlight. And in the long run, I do not want to cast this aspersions to anybody's beliefs, but I think a lot of them were just in it for the fun, for what they think they could do. It might have been that part of their lives where they thought they could make a change. And were trying very hard. And I think they cluttered up as they clogged up the works, in my opinion. And then the final question was, do I think they helped bring me in into war? I think what they did was they made it sound as though their opinion was so prevalent throughout the United States that it was the common opinion. And I think Nixon being the consummate politician he was, decided to bring war to some form of an end, his peace with honor to get it behind us. I think he probably saw that along with his cohorts, that America was not going to go anywhere as long as the war was going on and people were still protesting it. So in a sense, yeah, they did. I think they may have prolonged the war is another aspect because if we had have been able to go in and do what we needed to do militarily, we would not have been there until (19)72. SM: All right. When you are talking about the anti-war movement, again, could you give me a little bit about your background when you went to school, high school and how right out... If you had college or you went right into the military, just a little bit of that background and the years. JM: Graduated in (19)63. Bishop Shanahan just had our College Reunion this past Saturday, and went to work. I did not go to college. And there is that drafting again. So (19)63 through November of (19)65, I was under the cloud of the draft. Went to work here in West Chester near the college. Now I will think about it, I did not pick up on anything anti-war moves. I did not pick up on any student activities one way or the other. Well, I worked in West Chester at Mosteller, the old department store. Left that in 1965 to start my own business. And I started out in dining town and became oblivious to everything else that was going on in my life. I was not married, I was starting a business. I was working 16, 18 hours a day. I was not reading the paper, I was not watching television. I do not know what was going on. Anything I cared about was where am I in the draft. So long behold or round about September, October, I knew my number was going to be up. So I looked for alternative ways to do my service. And most of those doors were slammed shut. There was no openings in the National Guard or the reserves. Getting into the Navy was difficult. Air Force was almost impossible. And for some reason I could still never explain even to myself, I joined the Army to avoid getting drafted. SM: I heard that before, but- JM: I joined the Army to avoid being drafted. I signed up for four years where I could have got out in two of being drafted. Now if you ever want an example of a bad decision, that was it. My time spent in the military till November of (19)66 was in training. No contact or no attitude or anything like that about anybody else who was doing anything else. The college kids, other people of my generation. Drafted to go in November 29th, which was my birthday. I thought that was cruel that the government could do that to me. Joined on the 17th of November and November 17th, 1966, left Boston for Vietnam. Stayed over there till November of (19)67. Came back here. And now looking back on it, I was going into a world I did not know. We were told not to pick fights with civilians when we got off the plane. I am thinking, nobody ever said that to me before. Why would I pick a fight with a civilian? We did not know. The big thing then, Steve, was the mini-skirt. Oh yeah. Okay. All right. SM: I remember that. JM: We were all anxious to get home and see these mini-skirt things. And we were in the airport at 3:00 in the morning, there was not much going on. There was Austin, there was a group of other people. And probably for the first time I encountered that coldness that people of my own age had towards the military. When you are just hanging out, there is people your age. You gravitate together. Well, as I gravitated towards them, they gravitated away from me. They did not want [inaudible]. When I finally got that through my sleepy head, I just walked away. That was my first in contact with that sort of thing. And on the way home, I encountered another one time, right here in West Chester. And I just pretty much said, They were a bunch of jerks, and went home. So that was my background. Now it was November, 1967. The summer of love is over and the demonstrations, the protests are starting to really heat up. And I am looking around saying, Did I do something wrong? And some people bother to tell me that yes I did. By agreeing to go in over there, I was branded a coward by people. SM: Could you explain again, just your thoughts on those moments when you were on that plane flying to Vietnam and when you were on that plane returning from Vietnam? JM: A little background, I did not go over on plane. I went on a boat, ship. That took, I think 11 days. Mostly what that was, the whole time spent was we were apprehensive. They tried to fill our days in with the DS classes and things like that. [inaudible], Jalapeno gun for the thousand time in your life. They try to do that, but the whole time all you know is you are going to Vietnam. And they tried to keep it... What is the word I am looking for? Not somber. Professional. There was no partying. Nobody was in the mood to party. The night before we landed in Vietnam, they let the marines land by letting them crawl down those ladders they put down the side and into those sand pants and take them off to the beach. And we are watching these guys and often the distance, we can see the flashing lights, what we assume were some mortar rounds, bullets, whatever. And we are watching these guys going in there and we are just saying, poor some of bitches, man. They are drawing into the heat of the... They are going at night. How smart is that? And then we got Marines. He expected. So next day it was our turn. And rather than climbing down rope ladders, they just had some kind of gang wave for us to walk down. We just walked with our stuff and we were not Marines. So I had our stuff, which is double bags, rifles, whatever else we had on us. And we got into the same sand pants and we were hardhats when we were in gear, we had all our gear on and we were riding to the shore to where they were going to let us out. And all I am thinking about are those movies I have seen where they were sitting in those metal targets and this big thing goes dropping down like that. And there was this Major standing there taking pictures. And I thought how could it be. So we just drug our shit out of there. And he was just there, just taking pictures. And he directed us to some people who told us where we needed to go. And that was the way over. Now, the way back, that was quite a bit different story. I have written an article about this one. They lined us up on the tarmac and they put us alphabetically. So I was able to tell a guy who had been ragging me for a year to put my time in, to put his time in, because I was M and he was S. So it was, put your time in. I was leaving Vietnam before. So we got into the Continental Airlines. I cannot forget. First Miniskirt. First mini skirt on a regular American girl, because we had entertainers over there and they wore the miniskirts on purpose. First American girl with the miniskirt. So we got into the plane and we were sitting there and there is this feeling you get, it was almost like, okay, move this effing plane. And you feel the runway. You feel it running down the runway, I should say. Just as the wheels lift, you get that weightless feeling. Just as they lifted, the plane went nuts. We all started cheering and slapping fires, all that stuff like that. And the plane took off and it settled down for five minutes later. Guys did not know each other. We were just congratulating to each other. Things like that. And it was wonderful on our way home. Plane had not cleared space yet, we were not going to wait to party. We were on the air off the ground, We were an American territory now. And I will never forget this, the Crown Royal comes in that blue bag, purple bag. This old guy got up there. He was like [inaudible], and he said, Would anybody like to drink? And he held up, and of course we went, Whoa, yeah. He says, I got one thing to ask you, is do not drink, I got a toast. And okay, so we passed on little plastic cups. Rule was, and they told us this, if you open a bottle, it must be finished before the plane lands. Yeah, you can have your alcohol, but if you open the bottle, it has got to be finished. You cannot walk off a plane with a bottle with booze in. So that bottle was going down. So we all got our cups, and the sole guy, he says, I do not know any of you guys on this plane. I just got one thing to say to you. And that old Sergeant Gruff, he says, Well done. And then, hear-hear. These Stewards came by and says, Would anybody else like a drink? Yeah, mama over here. SM: Yeah, my friend is going to move his seat so that your miniskirts can down. JM: And he woke us up about every three hours to eat. I will never forget that. SM: And how many hours to get back from Austin? 22? It is a real long flight. JM: It was 24 hours total. So part of that was spent in a wide waiting, which was the hard part. The hard part, meaning there were guys who were getting off the plane to meet their... Guys on R and R. That was where they were going. They were going to pick up other flights to go to other places. I was going to stay on the flight to San Francisco and people got off were Military, and the people who got on were civilians. And all of a sudden we were contagious. We got the looks that leave us alone. Can you be more quiet please? Type of attitude. That was the first of that I encountered anywhere that, oh my God, I have to sit with soldiers, type of attitude. And they were rather snotty about it. SM: These are all ages, these people? JM: All ages. Yeah. Forgive them now, probably guys who were in World War II. I do not know if it was just that group of people who knows who they were. They were going back to America and they had to suffer in a ride with a bunch of returning Soldiers. But it got better. It got better because the plane I picked up in San Francisco and flew into Chicago. I was sitting back in what we call coach now, that was second class, but those days, and the Steward just came up to me and said, Come with me please. I thought, yeah. What do you have in my mom? Right after the first class, first seat on the right-hand side on the aisle, she had, The Captain instructed me to put you here. You have been upgraded, because I was new. SM: That is wow. JM: And I sat next to a guy who was a Korean War veteran, and we talked the whole way over. And he was not a snot, he was one of the good guys. And we talked and I told him I did not do combat. I said, I almost used that as a sort of, “Hi, my name is John Morris. I did not do any combat. First thing I wanted you to know about me.” And we talked. And it was nice. Of course, you did not buy any drinks. The Stewards just came by and talked all the time to me. It was nice. SM: And that was a long flight. JM: Sam says it was a Chicago. Chicago got a little uglier in that. That is a hard airport. The ride back was great highs and great lows, followed by great highs and then great lows. Chicago was one of the great lows. Get to your plane, remembering the admonition. Do not pick any fights. Hang together. Military guys were clustering together. That is what would happen. Probably the only time I can remember that guys like Marines, Navy, Air Force would get together on purpose. Usually you break off into your own little groups, but we sit with Marines and Airmen, Sailors and all that stuff. SM: I remember my dad in World War II when he was in Japan two weeks after they dropped the bomb and they were told to be together because if they went individually, they would probably be dead. Getting back to some general questions here, I want your thoughts again about the boomers. The thought was that they were going to change the world. A lot of people thought they were going to change the world. There has been a lot of good things that have happened since they have... Hopefully we still have problems with race relations, but there has been a lot of laws passed on outlawing segregation. There has been quite a few positive things from respect to women's and women's equality in the United States and so forth, but just overall was that hubris on the part of the boomers that were going to change the world, that were going to be different or that were going to be the greatest generation, and in the history of this place, there will be no group ever like us? JM: Yeah, you make a good point. A lot of the things that we see now has improvement since we took over, things happened because we changed them. There are a lot of things now, although the women's rights movement is a good example. Women are now equal to men, as in some areas it did not happen for a long time, in the employment world, for example. The idea of a woman owning a company back in 1960 was unusual using that woman inherited it from her father. Today it is common. And we applaud women who step forward and take roles in industry and politics and things like that. And it is okay for them to still want to be mommies. And I think that is a great change that this generation has made that, Go back to Peter or Max, do your own thing. SM: Yes. I am trying to ask veterans their thoughts on the Nurses, the women who served there with the men. John, could you explain how the Vietnam vets looked at the women who were over in Vietnam? What were their thoughts? JM: Well, I never encountered a Nurse the whole time I was over there. Does that help you any? SM: Yeah. Or women in any other positions, whether they be like the services I mentioned earlier, or people in civilian positions, or the Donut Dollies. There were a lot of women in different roles and not just Nurses in the medical area. JM: I ran across civilian women in two categories, Donut Dollies, who were wonderful women. And for the most part they were not attractive women. And it is probably not a nice thing to say, but they were not the decent ones I met. But they were just common American women who wanted to do something. They came over from America to Vietnam to hand out the donuts, to talk to the soldiers. And they were always very nice. They would always very nice of us. They would serve us chow, which was a surprise when you went into the chow line because there you were covered in mud. Chances are good. You had those metal eating things and messier that we had. You did not expect to look up and see a woman of any caliber standing. It is like, ugh. The ones I had met always made it a point to call you Mr. Morris. Not specialist or private. Mr. Morris. And I always thought that was a nice touch because they brought you back home. You were not a private, you were not a number anymore. This nice lady was calling you Mr. And then you say, Well, call me John. SM: One of the things about the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC is that the wall was built to help with the healing process for the Vietnam veterans and their families, and certainly to heal a nation. Anybody who have read Jan Scruggs book knows it was supposed to be a non-political entity. It is to heal and to pay tribute to those who served, those who were wounded in the families and so forth. To heal. I like your thoughts on where are the Vietnam veterans, just in your thoughts in terms of obviously the healing, how important that wall is toward the healing and had the divisions that were so strong at that period between those who were against the war and the people who served, has there been any healing with respect to those two groups? JM: Let me start with that one. When you had the wall here, that is probably the most dramatic example of what you are just talking about. As you might remember, we had a bunch of guys who were bent out of shape about some of the problems you had with that. The political problems. The guys I encountered that put me off were the guys who seemed to be expecting me to agree with them that what they did was, and the only thing I could say is, Well, if you did the right thing, if that is what you thought at the time was right, I am not going to say it was wrong. But they wanted me to say what they did was right and say, Well, you have to be more comfortable with that than me. That is an example of one of the situations that come out for this particular issue. I still think today that these baby boomer protestors who are in their (19)50s and (19)60s right now should get comfortable with what they did, accept it and move along and not try to get confirmation from people like me and other veterans that what they did was right. And for most part, I will speak for the veterans I have had contact with, we do not care about the protestors. We do not hate them, we do not like them. They were there, they existed, but that is done. And we are dealing with our own issues and we are trying to get through it all. And we have to deal with that same issue. Are we comfortable with what we did? If the answer is yes, then we are happy. If it is no, then you have to find a way to get to yes. And hating somebody else that is not going to get you there. But every now and then, I run across an old protestor and they push that button on me. They are looking for me to validate what they did. That is fine. SM: During that, we have had those individuals who were here, who were protestors during that conference. And of course a lot of people have met Professor Davidson here on campus who had been the founder of SDS. And he is very comfortable with what he did. But he never needs to have validation. JM: Good friend. I liked him. SM: Yeah. And he is so genuine, that is why I am finding out between a lot of vets that I have interviewed is the fact that they are... And I like your opinion- SM: ...between a lot of vets that I have interviewed is the fact that they are... And I would like your opinion. Maybe they may never like the person totally, but do you feel there was a greater respect toward the person who was truly against the war, not trying to get out of the draft, but it was just truly against the war, was sent to jail oftentimes and paid a price for what they did than the person who was just trying, as you said, playing the game to get out of the draft, having a good time? Is there a difference or are all protestors the same? JM: No, not all protestors are the same. I am trying to remember his last name. David something, married to Joan Baez. He went to jail. SM: David Harris. JM: David Harris. He burned his draft card, did all the protesting, went to jail. For that, I think he could be admired. He, to this day, is a very strong war protestor. He is one of those guys that keeps trying to explain why he did what he did. Probably that is the only reason he is on TV is because of what he did. Now see, I do not have a problem with a guy like that. I do not know if many other people will. Muhammad Ali, there are guys in my chapter who said what he did was fine with them. With me it was not. I had to answer the call. I had to do the step forward. Anybody who did not do that to me was not as forthright as David Harris was. Now, if Ali walked through the door I would shake his hand, absolutely. But that particular thing he did with his life, I did not approve of then and I still do not. SM: The wall. Sometimes when you ask people there is an obvious answer, but every answer I have ever received is totally different. And the unique effect that that wall has had on them, just your thoughts on the importance of that wall in the veteran community, period. JM: It is mecca to the Vietnam veteran. It is where we go because we are drawn there. I did not go there until my 40th birthday and I told my wife that I was going to take my 40th birthday off work and I was going to go to the wall and I wanted to go alone because I did not know what I was going to do when I got there. I did not know if I was going to get half a mile away and back down. I did not know. So, that is what I did on my 40th birthday. And it was somewhat cleansing for me to do that. The reality still never hit me until I went with my chapter. And there I think is where I am headed with this answer. I think it is groups of veterans versus veteran singular. It is what it means to the groups of veterans, the VFWs, the Vietnam Veterans of America, all those guys. To us it is our home away from home. It is our mecca. And on a personal level, I am tickled to death that Jan Scruggs was able to do that. It probably took somebody like him to get it done, but thank God he was there to do it. SM: Yeah. You know about the politics of Washington to be able to get through the crap. Well, I will not even go into that, but you got to admire the person. You just have to admire him. You have really said some really good things on the healing process. I have a question here. Actually, it is going to go into the section where we are talking about when the best history books are written. My background is in history and the best World War II books are being written right now, 50 years after World War II. There has always been some good ones. But the historians will always say that the best books on any particular period begin 50 years after an event. Now, we are 30 years out from Vietnam and a lot of the books have been written and so forth, and a lot of books in the (19)60s have been written. But when the best history books are written on this particular era, what do you think they will say about this generation of Americans born over a 20-year period of time defined as the boomer generation, their impact on America, and I am including in this for your answer, those who served and those who did not serve? JM: Okay. Starting with those who served. Those- SM: You are fine. JM: Okay. Those guys were put into a no-win situation and when they ever had any movement towards winning, they would change the game. And then when they did not win, they were blamed for not winning. So, that has to be probably the most frustrating thing about that time for veterans who are boomers, the hell that they put some of those guys through over there, the combat veteran, to not make it worth anything in the long run. What we did in 1975, we bugged out. We left everybody behind and we just turned our back on all the hard work that was done. And that is probably going to be what those best books are going to talk about, the frustrations of the wars. Why did we go out every morning into the rice paddies and the jungles and recapture the same land that we captured the day before, only to leave it again at dusk day after day after day? That is senseless. If you want to lose a war, that is what you do. It is almost as though our leaders sat down with that purpose in mind. How can we lose this war? We cannot go into Cambodia even though we are being shot at from there. There is all these rules. Our hands were tied. SM: If you were to ultimately place the, it could be a combination of a lot of things, but if you were to just simply say point blank, the reason why we lost this war, who is to blame? Is it our leaders or lack thereof? JM: Our civilian leaders I think are responsible because they never had the intention... Well, first I think they found themselves caught in the war. The early stages of the war, we sent advisors under that catchall phrase. And I think as things got worse and we started to commit troops, we got stuck there, the quagmire that was Vietnam. And then our leaders decided for their reasons, which maybe in 50 years we will find out, that they did not want to do anything to actually win this war. And that is who I lay the blame at. Now, if you want to say Johnson and McNamara and Nixon, Kissinger and that bunch. That bunch. And whoever pushes their buttons, that bunch too. SM: But it is interesting. Military leaders report to the civilian, which is the President of the United States. But in the end, the joint chief of staff can still have tremendous influence. Are military leaders part of this blame here? Because ultimately oftentimes military leaders can persuade civilian leaders and the president that we must continue. Obviously, we are doing it to continue the war and they were getting reports. Is there some part of blame on the military leadership? JM: Yeah, the blame I think they should accept is the fact that they let it happen. And they could have easily done exactly as you said, use that influence. Explain to the civilians that that is not how war is waged, won today. But they did not. Maybe it is because they could not. Maybe the deck was stacked that much against them. Maybe they did not know how to do it. They have never been in that situation before. Maybe they just were not the Lee's and Grant's that we once had. SM: You go to the wall though, and you see the ceremonies there at the wall, the reverence they have for the leaders of their troops and the war is amazing. General McCaffrey, he has his whole big section there of people that served under him and he is almost like a god to them. Obviously, he cares about his troops. JM: What was he during the war? What rank? SM: Yeah, he was pretty high up. I do not know what his rank was during the Vietnam War, but I do know he always has a lot of people there at a wall that really... And of course he was involved in the Middle East War with George Bush and he was responsible for the killing of all the people that were going back to Baghdad. He oversaw that. So, he was off with his troops. He had troops during that timeframe as well. He became [inaudible] there for a short period of time. JM: Well, there certainly were those people who, if we had more of them, there would have been a different outcome. SM: I am going to finish up my last question and then I am going to just name some names here and if we want to take a break in between, it is okay too. JM: Sure. SM: But I want to get back to, again, this healing business you have talked about within the veteran community and as a nation, but do you think there is an ultimate responsibility on the part of Vietnam veterans or people who care about this issue to really try to heal people in a group, a generation, before they pass away? I say this because through history books, oftentimes even during the Civil War, I use the Civil War as an example, that there were years and years of opportunities for the north and south troops to come together to try to heal and respect each other as a warrior, and people who did not serve. But just simply say, "We got caught up in the times and I respect what you did." But I am not sure if I see that here as a generation. And it is like a funeral. I am leading into a question here, but it is like a funeral when a person has died and all the nice things are said about a person, but that person never heard it in their lifetime. Is there an inherent responsibility, particularly among Vietnam vets who have gone through hell upon their return, but they were the leaders in creating a memorial for the people who served in Vietnam, which has become a model for the Korean War veteran... It has become a model for the World War II veteran. They have become leaders in so many areas. Should they also maybe be a leader to make this nation better, to heal it and could do anything in its... Not only to heal within themselves. And you have really put it beautifully in terms of, "I do not have to heal for someone who was against the war. We have our own issues." But can we ever think as a collective, as a nation, so that this does not happen again? And we might be in one right now for all we know. JM: I think- SM: And John, I am going to turn this... JM: To answer your question, the single veteran can do a lot. He can run for political office. He can work within his community, things like that. But what I see more now, mostly because of my activities again, are the organizations stepping in now trying to not make change so much, but make things that are good better and make things that might not be good at all good, working within the communities as a powerful force within the community. Now, as far as healing, there are a lot of guys in my chapter who hold strong hateful feelings towards groups of people because of the war. There are people in my chapter that do not like the Vietnamese, no matter what side they fall on. They do not like the protestors. Never will. Those guys have their problems. And until we can heal those guys, we cannot let them out into the general population because they will just create more havoc. So, what we try to do is we try to work with those guys, not so much to change them, but just try to show them another way. And after that is done, then I guess it is the old story about if you want to change the world you change the person. And again, I think the veteran communities, the veterans organizations are doing a lot behind the scenes. And if you go to a VFW or an American Legion and ask them what they have been doing lately, you will think all they do is sit there and drink. But they do a lot of good. If nothing else, they put on the parades every patriotic holiday. They are in the schools working with the kids. And when somebody needs a helping hand, they are there. If there is an organization that needs some funding, some children's organization that needs a few bucks, they are there to help out. And I think they are doing a lot to heal. I just think the healing process is so long and the pain is so great that the pain remains the same size, it just becomes less intense. SM: When I interviewed Gaylord Nelson too many years ago when I first started this project and then I stopped for three years when my parents were ill, he point blank said that no one goes around Washington DC who's a boomer, who is in a political position or any kind of position, looking down on their arm and saying, "I am not healing. I am not healing." People do not think that way. But he did say one thing that really struck me and that was that forever the body politic of America has changed. The body politic. That is where the change happened. It will never be the same again. And as a United States senator, co-founder of Earth Day and all the other things, and ousted in 1980 like so many of the Democrats were... He was an anti-war senator. And course he was one of those ousted along with McGovern and Birch Bayh and a whole other group. He paid the price for his beliefs. But he thought the body politic had changed forever. I have some names here. Would you like to take a quick break or get a- JM: I am fine. SM: These are some names that I have been asking everyone. Just some quick thoughts on each of them and let me go on to the next one. Tom Hayden. JM: Married Jane Fonda. I think he was strident. You probably use that word quite a bit with the protestors. Articulate. He was good at making a point. I just think that the points he made were off the mark. SM: Jane Fonda. JM: We will never forgive Jane Fonda. Never. For what she did. And probably their biggest mistake was to become so visual, so much in the spotlight about what she did. And even now these many years later when she did try to make some sort of amends, it even came up sounding hollow. So, we just said, "Pfft." She is the second most beautiful woman in America. The first one is everybody else. SM: Lyndon Johnson. JM: The only thing I know about Lyndon Johnson, of course, is what they tell me. But I saw him as someone who was extremely good at working the political game. He was the guy who got us from the point of intervention into quagmire in Vietnam. And I think basically had a testosterone problem in that area. I think he wanted to prove something. He wanted to prove Americans had balls and that he was the head ball holder. That, I think, was his classic mistake. And I think he was probably the top dog in a kennel where there were a lot of little small dogs nipping at his heels all the time. And those people probably in the long run won out. SM: Hubert Humphrey. JM: Yeah. I do not whole lot about him. Seemed a likable kind of guy. SM: Some people believe, again, if he had had the courage to stand up to the president and he was pretty close to winning and beating Nixon, if they had said the election had gone any further, a week, Humphrey probably would have won and we had have been out of the Vietnam War even faster. We will never know. But- JM: No, not much. SM: How about the individuals that were the Black Panthers of that era? Huey Newton and Bobby Seale on the Black Panther party. JM: Opportunists. SM: Angela Davis and that group. JM: Opportunists. They saw a way to cash in, either for money or for fame, and maybe that hate that may seed in every Black person in America, they were able to exemplify and point it out. Which in a way is a benefit, because up until that point, we all thought that they were happy in their life. We did not know there would be angry Black people. I knew of a militant Black man in the army and probably he is the most responsible person to break me from my fog about race relations to a little bit of clarity in my conversations with him. But I think the ones you mentioned were opportunists. They saw, "Oh, here is a way to cash in some fashion." SM: Right. You had your thoughts on Martin Luther King Jr. and of course Thurgood Marshall who went through all the [inaudible] approach. Mostly Martin Luther King Jr., who also was upset with America. And just your thoughts on the civil rights leaders of that era, of which Dr. King was the central force. JM: I was working in Texas the night he was shot. I was working. I was helping deliver televisions as a part-time job. I was in the army. And all of a sudden the news was, he was shot. Well, remember, I am in Texas. And the people are dragging me in to watch TV into this TV repair shop, and they are talking about, "It is about time somebody shot that nigger, and we are going to be better off because of this." And I am sitting there and I am in some sense of sorrow. I am thinking, "Oh my God, somebody shot that poor guy. Here was a guy," this is what I was thinking, "Here was the guy who put it on the line. He got his whipped ass a lot for doing what he did. He probably had to have tenacity we cannot imagine to get anywhere with what he did and how he did things. And now some cretin has shot him down in cold blood. And at this stage in his life, he is on his way out of the limelight. He is being downgraded. There are others who are coming to the foreground that are pushing him aside. And at this stage of his life, he gets assassinated like this." And as it is turned out now, I do not know how many years later, he is reached near sainthood in America and to the point where his birthday might even become a national holiday. So, my major remembrance of Dr. King was the fact that the night he was shot, I was in room full of these rednecks. They were in their glory because this guy had been killed. And all I can think about is a life wasted and all that work and all that hard work that he did, maybe all that work he did will never really be appreciated. I was wrong. It has been appreciated. SM: How about Malcolm X? JM: Anything I know about him probably I saw in this movie. I read the book, Malcolm X's autobiography, while I was still in the army, compliments of my friend. He also gave me Soul on Ice to read. SM: Oh yeah, Eldridge Cleaver. JM: Eldridge Cleaver. SM: Yep. Classic. JM: And I think with Malcolm X I could just say, that anger that most Black people feel had a very eloquent voice. From what I understand, I only learned this from the movie, he was changing quite a bit towards the end of his life. And then again, he is assassinated. It seems though, when they are at a point in their lives where there is major changes going to happen to them, maybe for the good. They are taken from us. SM: Leads me right into John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy. JM: Well, we all remember where we were. SM: Yeah. 40 years ago. JM: With Kennedy, I had reached the point in my life where my world was shaken because it gave me that feeling that I was not safe. If the President of the United States could be murdered like that, how safe am I? Because he had all those cops around him. Everything about his movements are scheduled and you cannot get near him, yet he was killed. He has been murdered. And where are we going? Well, who is the next guy in line? Well, Lyndon Johnson. Is not he a buffoon? What is happening? What is going to happen to us? That is what I remember most about John Kennedy as far as the assassination goes. It is a shame he has been reduced to how he died versus how he lived. We will never know what kind of president he could have been. And if he would have lived, maybe he would have been a lousy president, just one of those ones we forget about, but we will not know. We lost all that promise. Bobby Kennedy, I think he was a warmed up version of John. He tried to recapture that Camelot spirit, bring us back to where we thought we were with Kennedy before the assassination. Naturally I was sad at his murder, but not nowhere near what it was like with John Kennedy. SM: Right. Eugene McCarthy. JM: Clueless. He had a thought. It was a good one, but he had to have more thoughts to put them together and he just did not have the talent for that. Probably was a brilliant guy. Some of the things that I read he wrote were very well written. So, he was probably a brilliant guy, but he did not have the political savvy to bring it forward. And unfortunately, they made mincemeat out of him. SM: How about George McGovern? JM: McGovern is somewhat like that too. I think he probably just was a little bit more politically strong. I think the thing with McCarthy is that he could easily be led astray, and I think he was. Whereas McGovern, I do not think you could easily lead him astray, but you could still do it. SM: Some other characters from that particular period. Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, the hippies. JM: Yeah. Oh, I think they were over the top. I think that is how they played it. They wanted to be that in your face, loud guerilla protestor. And I think that is what they wanted. And Abbie's book says it best. Steal This Book. He wanted to be so out there that you had to kind of admire his audacity. And I think Rubin was just annoying. SM: You ever read his book, Do It? Rubin's book. Rubin's book. JM: No, I never read that. SM: I will tell you a story beyond this interview about him. It is kind of hilarious. Timothy Leary. JM: He was in a position to have caused a lot of harm to this country because he was an admired person because of his position. He was pressing drugs on young people who were impressionable. And I can remember when LSD was the then popular drug. He was pressing it and people had a tendency to believe that it must be okay, or at least not as bad as our parents are telling us it is if this guy is for it. But I think in his sense he was probably more harmful to our country in the fact that he presented that false impression of how are, how drugs work. Thank God he is probably being seen for what he really was. And I think what he really was-was just the guy who wanted his 15 minutes and snapped it up. SM: How about the Berrigan brothers, Daniel and Philip? JM: The priests? SM: Yes. Daniel and Philip. JM: They were both Jesuits, were not they? SM: Mm-hmm. JM: Okay. Not that that has any bearing on anything other than my answer. I am Catholic. Jesuits are considered the tip of the spear in the Catholic religion in that if there is any goofiness going on, you can find a Jesuit. And I think that is where they fit in. They became involved with the anti-war movement and they put the Catholic face on the anti-war movement. SM: What about Benjamin Spock? JM: The protestor or the doctor wrote the kids’ books? SM: Both. JM: Okay. SM: He is one and the same. JM: The doctor wrote the books that our parents used to raise us, probably relatively harmless that. I think that he was too certain of his thoughts and his beliefs and he tried to ram them down people's throats. I remember that from the interviews I saw on TV. It was almost as though, "Sit there and listen. I am going to tell you how it is. Dare not challenge me." And that bothered me. SM: Richard Nixon. JM: God, we elected him twice? SM: Not me. JM: Not me either, but- SM: No comment. JM: ...in my opinion, a lot of the problems we had at the time we had because we elected him president. He was a polarizing force in America. If you loved him, he did no wrong and you would drink the Kool-Aid for the guy. If you hated him, he could do no right. And everything seemed to go down the hill because of it. SM: What about Spiro Agnew? JM: A buffoon. I am saying that because of how he exited the political arena. He was taking kickbacks when he was the governor and things like that. He was doing all the things that politicians do that make us hate them. And Nixon plunked him out of nowhere. And I think Nixon got screwed by the people who are supposed to do their work by presenting this guy to him. SM: How about Daniel Ellsberg? JM: Daniel Ellsberg. Pentagon papers, right? SM: Mm-hmm. JM: I do not know a lot about him other than the movie I saw. Well, first of all, by the movie, he was in Vietnam. And then he came back here and became a reporter. He supported the war, then he went against it. I know nothing. I believe his psychiatrist's office should not have been ransacked. That is wrong. SM: Robert McNamara. JM: I think he was an extremely brilliant and smart man who probably did not have a lot of inner courage. And I think he probably did not see big pictures. He saw details, and it was the details he would focus on to the exclusion of the big picture. And I think he screwed up and I think he will admit that. SM: How about Gerald Ford? JM: I think he was just thrust into the limelight probably because he was a good soldier for the Republican Party. It was fun when he was president. You did not expect much of the guy and if he did anything, you were happy. And when he screwed up, he probably just smiled. That is all I remember about him. And his stupid WIN buttons. What the hell was he thinking? SM: Well, history will oftentimes say the war ended. He ended it. JM: By supporting Nixon? SM: No-no. We got out of Vietnam on April 30th, 1975 under his watch. So, a lot of people give him the credit, and I am not sure if history has really looked at him. I think the role that he played over that two years... I forgot. Nixon was kicked out. I am not sure what people think really of him in the long run. JM: It is amazing you brought that up because I would not have remembered he was president when the war ended. In my mind, the ending of the war was an event in place and to happen, and it just so happened under his watch, as you said. I do not think he consciously said, "Let us end this war now." It was just ending. Somebody else ended it for him. He was just doing the leg work. Somebody else ended it for him, he was just doing the leg work. SM: You had already made reference to Muhammad Ali, but I bring him up again. Muhammad Ali and all the COs, conscientious objectors, from that period. He stood up late to the forefront. But your thoughts on Muhammad Ali and the conscientious objector. JM: Well, I will start off with general conscientious objector. If they indeed did their service, which was an alternative you had, you could go clean bed pants at the Valley Forge Hospital. SM: Mm-hmm. JM: Do your time there. SM: Mm-hmm. JM: Then fine. As it turns out, they were actually aiding the war effort. Because that was one less thing that we had to pay for. And the ones I had known in my life were pain in the asses because they would always try to make me feel that because I would do something like going to the military, that they were much better than I was. They would not lower themselves to harm somebody. And in my mind, I would always say, "yeah, until pressed." Anyone can be pushed into a situation where you will defend yourself, if nothing else. So I did not really think they had the courage of their convictions. As long as it was easy to be a conscientious objector, I think that is when it was fine for them. When it became difficult, it may have separated a bit. And if anyone held that belief today, after being a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, then I will admire that person. But I think a lot of them now will probably be just as bloodthirsty as anybody else. SM: And Muhammad Ali again in terms of... JM: I think he wanted to prove that no matter how much we are told that you have no choice. You have a choice. If you are willing to pay the price, the choice is there. He did. He paid an awful price for what he did, I do not think he paid enough, but he paid. He lost his championship, he lost his right to earn a living, and he lost a lot of respect of Americans because of it. SM: Barry Goldwater. JM: He ran for president, right? SM: You run against Johnson (19)64 or the big one. JM: Well, I guess the only thing I can remember about him was people went out of their way to convince me he was so conservative that he might just be the end of us all. And I am thinking to myself, "How can anybody be that bad, that evil, that stiff- necked, that if we put him in the President of the United States, he is going to get us into a war? A bombing war? A hot war? Nah." And then Johnson did the same thing. SM: Right. Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, the women who were in the forefront of the women's movement. JM: Betty Friedan wrote a very good book about aging for women. I will probably be affected by that book that I read. As I understand those two women were front-runners for the women's movement, which was when it first came out, was somewhat laughable in that they did not seem to have a platform that was something you can get onto. Where things like inequity and pay for jobs, that was an issue and that is something they should have gone after and did, but there were other things that they harped about, excuse the phrase, harped about that seemed, "Why are you concerned about that when they had so many other bigger issues to deal with?" SM: The music of the period, how important was the music of the period in your life? The music of the (19)60s, in terms of both positive? And secondly, I have two-part question here, your thoughts on the music of the (19)60s and the (19)70s, impact on your life, and your thoughts on the musicians who were anti-war. And there were a lot of them. JM: Mm-hmm. SM: Joan Baez, was very obvious. Everybody knows about Phil Ochs. But of course you can even say John Lennon and The Beatles. There is a lot of things in there. And certainly Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. And you are dealing with a lot of the musicians of that period who were anti-war, just your thoughts on that, through their music. JM: Let us see. First part of the question. What effect did it have on me? SM: Mm-hmm. JM: Profound. I actually believe that I changed as music changed. In early, well, in the late (19)50s, early (19)60s, I was into that, what they called, " doo-wop music," and The Platters and The Drifters and The Coasters and all that stuff. And then The Beatles arrived, changing music the way they did, British Invasion, I feel I changed. Some of my favorite singers, Janis Joplin, for example, to this day when I am feeling low, I put her music on to give me a list. I have got Joan Baez tapes at home. I love her music. A woman? No. SM: Right. JM: Now, she was too strident. She and Tom Hayden, they were both strident. So, now I think music had a profound effect on my generation because it was the thing we created. And I do not know how many of our people did, but we created it by liking it. There had not been a market for rock and roll. SM: Right. JM: There would not have been there any rock and roll. And then as we grew up and became the rock and rollers, we changed it once again. SM: Is there any one musician that stood out for you? Group or musician? JM: Well, I will say Janis. Yeah. The first time I heard Janice sing, the hair on the back of my neck stood out. SM: Oh. JM: It was a moment I will never forget. We had the album, Big Brother & The Holding Company- SM: Oh, yeah. JM: Cheap Thrills. SM: Yeah, the cover is unbelievable. JM: Yeah, Robert Crumb. SM: Mm-hmm. JM: We brought into the barracks and we had waited. I mean, we were literally salivating, because none of us had ever heard this phenomenon sing. So you put it on and playing it on your basic record player. SM: Right. JM: And as I said, as she started to sing, the hair in the back of my neck stood out. And what she would do for me is she would get me there, and then she would make me profoundly sad when she sang. And then the next thing out, she would make me feel excited. I would feel the blood pumping in my veins. She could do all that for me. SM: And when you heard she died, and the way she died, you may not remember where you were, but what were your thoughts on how she just passed away? JM: I remember where I was. I still feel to this day that I wish I would have been there that night to put my arms around her and talk her out of it. Maybe I could have saved her. Now, obviously that is ridiculous. But that is how I felt. SM: Mm-hmm. JM: And I was really, very sad. And of course, when Pearl the album came out, which was just finished as she died, that was sort of like her gift to us. SM: I am almost done. JM: Okay. But you did ask me about the ones who protested the war. SM: Yes. JM: So what did I think about them? SM: Mm-hmm. JM: I enjoyed it. The guy who wrote Draft Dodger Rag, was that Phil Ochs? SM: I think Country Joe McDonald was another one of the singers that was a protester. JM: Yeah. I enjoyed that. I thought that was great. I loved the protest music. Did it make sense that I liked the protest music? I did not care. It was funny. It was interesting. It was fun. SM: Your thoughts, I will not mention the name, one of the individuals that I interviewed, is a very well-known Vietnam veteran, pretty high up. And he has a problem. And his problem is that he had no problem with those people who protested against the Vietnam War who were musicians and entertainers. But he has a tremendous problem today with entertainers and musicians who protest against their current war in Iraq or are just out there protesting. He was making references to Ed Asner, Mike Farrell, the people that have been out there that have been so visible. And he says, "I do not understand my problem because I had none and I almost died in Vietnam. Yet I have a problem today, and I am trying to deal with this." I do not know how Vietnam vets look at it. Whether you think that Vietnam vets have problems with today's people who protest the Iraq War? Or they do not make that kind of thinking, "This is just one person's thoughts." JM: Well, there is a connection really between the singer protestors of our era and the ones today. And that is they should just sing and entertain us and just shut up. SM: Okay. JM: I do not want to hear Naomi Main's opinions about Bush or Ed Asner myself. SM: Right. JM: Entertain me. That is why I am looking at you. I want you to entertain me. SM: Right. JM: So I am bothered by the fact that they take the stage the way they do and the platform and then use that to preach to me about things like that. Just sing, just act, just do what you do. Do what puts you here. SM: Right. JM: Do not use it as a format to come after this. Yes, there is a lot of difference now of how people feel about entertainers who protest as compared to what it was in the (19)60s. In the (19)60s, it was almost the thing to do. Everybody was against the war, so you have to be against the war. SM: Right. JM: And then if you say, "Well, I am for the war," people would think there was something wrong with you. SM: I got a couple terms here. I just want your thoughts to these terms. SDS. JM: Students for Democratic Society. What is the young guys pretending they are at war with their government? [Inaudible]. SM: Counterculture. JM: Good phrase. My problem with that phrase goes back to when the counterculture became the culture. And if you did anything else, there was something wrong with you. And back in those days, if you wore Chinos and got a short haircut, you were counterculture and they would not accept you. SM: Right. Yeah. Pentagon Papers, I have already gone through that, but just maybe mention to the (19)60s and (19)70s, people had thoughts about the Pentagon Papers. JM: All I know about that is the movie I saw. And James Spader was the actor in it, I do not know. That is all I know. SM: Chicago Eight or Seven depending on- JM: Yeah. They were found guilty of leading the riots in Chicago, as I understand it. What I remember most about them, other than the fact they were loud and a little bit obnoxious, was they used the trial as a format, as a springboard for their idealism. They did not care if they were going to become guilty or innocent, they just wanted the rest of the world to hear them one more time. And it was tiresome. I filed it very little because I got tired of hearing about it. SM: Kent State. JM: Oh, true tragedy. In all honesty, I think if they would have sent a regular troops there, it would not have happened. But they did not. I guess I am saying something against the Guard and Reserves, but I think regular troops would have been a little bit more disciplined and would not have happened, more likely, would not have happened. A true tragedy. Probably a pivotal moment in the way our society viewed the world. SM: What is that? JM: Love to have been there. Sat on a foot locker waiting to be mobilized to go there to keep the crowd controlled. SM: Oh really? JM: I was in Kansas. SM: Oh my God, you really wanted to be there. JM: We were ready. They told us that we had to, all these classes were canceled, we had to be there. SM: Mm-hmm. JM: We had to be able to move within a four, five hour notice. We would be in the barrack. We were sitting on foot lockers listening as much as we could about what was going on at Woodstock. And that is Woodstock for me. I would love to have been there, but I was in Kansas. I think it probably was that [inaudible] of a boil for the summer of love. Got to build off to it. SM: The leaders of Vietnam, during that timeframe- JM: Excuse me a second. That was (19)68, was not it? SM: That was (19)69. JM: (19)69, yeah. SM: And Reverend Pastor [inaudible] was there. JM: Okay. SM: I think 17. But it certainly does not let us [inaudible] JM: They used the term, "Summer of Love" and that was (19)67. SM: Right. JM: So [inaudible] SM: That was in San Francisco. President Q and General Call Key, those are the two people that ever remembers who were the leaders during the (19)60s and right after the war. And then they had a couple toward the end. But your thoughts on the leadership of Vietnam? JM: In most part, I will say that those who served in the army of South Vietnamese were mostly brave people. They lived a life where the war was never going to end for them, really. We went home after a year, they stayed. So, you know, hear the stories about the South Vietnamese soldier not being a good warrior and everything. SM: Mm-hmm. JM: But I think that was an unfair assessment. The leaders, I think, fall in that category where you kind of hoped they were not corrupt, because they were putting people's lives in jeopardy for the wrong reasons. Maybe they were or maybe they were not. I think they probably had good solid generals to lead them. I think they probably got told what to do by the American generals there. Mostly it was our show. SM: Your thoughts on the generals? Because when you think of the Vietnam War, I think of three, I think of General Maxwell Taylor, I think of General William Westmoreland, and I think of Creighton Abrams. Those are the names that come to the forefront over this war. Your thoughts on them as leaders in the military? A war that, I hate to keep saying the term, the only war we have ever lost, but I think I am wondering if history's really going to say in the long run that we truly lost it. That is why I believe history books, who people are unbiased will tell the truth. JM: They will say we lost the war and won the peace. But now to answer your question, I think earlier we talked about the generals, and I think I had mentioned that I thought they were just unable to not have the civilians call the shots. They probably were as good a general leading man as generals generally are, but they just did not have the political clout or the savvy to pull it off. They probably could have used a patent, that might be the best way for me to put it. Just a son of bitch who did not care. He knew he was right and he was going to do it. He would have gone to the Delta and marched all the way up through Hanaway, and they did not let us do that. SM: Just a couple few more names and then we are done. John Lennon; I would bring him out because he stands to the forefront of all The Beatles. He was killed in 1980, but he was this "give peace a chance," he was as anti-war as you can get. The United States, he is as high up on the enemy's list as you could find. They wanted him out of the country. John Lennon. JM: And you succeeded getting him out of the country too. SM: Yeah. JM: And he had to go on radio wearing a fatigue shirt with the, I think it is the second Army patch on it, I remember that clearly. I will go back to what I said earlier. Sing, entertain me, do not talk. I tuned him out. If he had an opinion about the war, it did not matter to me. It sort of just bounced off the wall. SM: But you listened to his music stuff. JM: Oh sure. SM: Yeah. JM: Well the music is a great equalizer. SM: How about Ramsey Clark? Of all these former attorney generals, he is the most anti-war person you could get. He was anti-war during the (19)60s, the (19)70s, he still is today. JM: Well then, I congratulate him for holding onto his beliefs. I know very little about the man. SM: It has been pretty consistent. And I am going to end this with actually two questions. One of them is a question centering around Country Joe McDonald, who was here back in (19)98. JM: I remember. SM: And he made a statement in the room when Jan Scruggs was at dinner, I think you were there, John, I think there is a group here at this dinner, and I am not sure if he caught everybody's attention. He made a comment that, and I want your thoughts on this comment. JM: Okay. SM: His comment was the reason why Vietnam vets have such a problem upon their return, particularly he was emphasizing the combat vets, is that that there were no POWs left. There were no North Vietnamese POWs. And he was making a reference that, "You figure out what happened to him." And that is part of the reason why there is guilt on the part of some vets toward what happened over there. They cannot heal mainly because what may have happened to the people they captured who were the Viet Cong or the North Vietnamese troops, who they in turn handed over to the South East were in turn just plain killed. It was a pretty strong statement. And it was just a reference he made and it was a joking kind of a reference, but it was dead serious. I may be interpreting him wrong, but I think that is what he was referring to toward the combat, that is not all Vietnam vets. Because you have the story of the POWs of American troops and of course we lost many and they were treated poorly, so we were not talking about that, but we were talking about why were not their POWs, those individuals who a lot of them were captured and that is what he was referring to. And that is why he thinks there is so much of a problem with the combat vet in their healing, reference to the guilt of handing them over to the South Vietnamese troops, who they knew what they were going to do them. JM: Well, I will say I do not know what they did with POWs. I know I was there when they had captured them. SM: Mm-hmm. JM: I mean, I heard the stories, but I do not know if there was an internment camp for them. Well, let me finish my thought on that. I know that there was a strongly held belief that if you brought in a Viet Cong warrior and fed him and gave a place to live and worked with him, taught him that Americans are not so bad, he would probably convince you that you had won him over and then as soon as your back was turned, he would be going back out in the bushes with his buddies. That was the strongly held belief. SM: Mm-hmm. JM: So I guess what I am saying is there was everybody believed there was no way you would ever get this POW from either Viet Cong or the Northern forces ever to stop wanting to go back and fight against you. That to me, that is the first thing that comes to my mind. I think if you took that issue away completely, the same guys you are talking about, the combat vets who have problems dealing with the healing process, but still have problems dealing with the healing process. It may be a part of that problem that they face, but without it, they would still have the same problems. SM: Mm-hmm. JM: And I heard about the guys that did things like that, but I never did it, nor did I know anybody who did, nor did- SM: And I may be in misinterpreting Country Joe, but he just made a straight comment, "What happened to him?" That is what his reference is to, then you be the judge. JM: Yeah, there was 300,000 of them missing, right? SM: Right. JM: And there is plenty of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese POW MIAs. SM: Right. JM: There is 300, 000 of them. SM: Yep. JM: We are complaining because we have 1,800 missing and we want ours back. SM: Was there one particular tragic event in your young life, and I am not referring to your service in Vietnam, is there any one American event that had the greatest impact on you? JM: When you say young life, you mean when I was younger? SM: When you were younger. Or it could be even today, but it is basically during that period, during the (19)60s and (19)70s. The thing that stood out, that may have had the greatest impact on you. It could have been a tragic event or it could be a very positive event. JM: I will give you what came to my mind first, the assassination of John Kennedy. That feeling that I was no longer safe. If they can get to the president, they can get to me. And I did not know who they were, but they scared me more. There is a bunch of crazies out there running around and I do not have any way of protecting myself from them. You cannot be protected from them. Kennedy was proved positive of that. So if there is any one thing, yes. And I will give you another example; I remember growing up as a kid, not being able to look at horizon without thinking of a mushroom cloud. And I, to this day, drift into that. I will be somewhere just looking out the horizon and I will mentally envision a mushroom cloud. So maybe it was the understanding of what nuclear weapons were, how devastating they could be, and how unsafe I was. Because here I am looking at this nice bucolic scene and who knows, some bomb may go off. SM: The last question, I guarantee. JM: I hope not. SM: I will certainly ask you for final thoughts if I did not hit something that you may have thought I was going to ask. This gets into the whole concept of trust. We are dealing with it here on the college campus. We are going to be bringing a speaker in next semester on the leadership of trust. Because I am wondering your thoughts on how that period in American history, because of the failure of our leaders, the very obvious failure of, and the lies that were told to the Americans by President Johnson and probably President Nixon, the enemy's list. But you can even go back to the Eisenhower when he lied about the U-2. And then you can go into President Kennedy. Well, did he have anything to do with the DM murders or killings? Then you go to Johnson, then you go to obviously Nixon, then you getting into the Reagan era about The Iran-Contra. But what I am getting at here is do you feel that in your youth when you were young, you as a teenager and in your twenties, that the trust issue, the lack of trust, the impact that young people had, whether they were veterans or non-veterans, had toward leaders. And I refer to not only leaders in the White House, but leaders of our churches, leaders of our corporations, leaders in university presidents, leaders in any capacity. The youth did not trust them because they have been lied to. And I want to know if your thoughts on whether this trust issue is something that I am over exaggerating or that really is part of the boomer generation, generation that is not trusting, and they have passed that on to their kids, who in turn do not trust who now will in turn pass it on to their kids, because they are seeing some things even today. Who can you trust in this world? I see that personally, and I mean it is not my interview, but I see that as a major issue in the boomer generation. But I may be totally wrong. Just your thoughts. JM: Okay. Well first, I think that a certain amount of distrust is a healthy thing. It is what stops children from talking to strangers and things like that. I am going to deal with the distrust you are talking about though. When I was growing up, Eisenhower was the president. We had complete faith in this guy. Well, here was a five-star general hero of World War II, builder of our highways. SM: Mm-hmm. JM: Almost a Scratch Golfer, right? This guy you could trust. SM: Mm-hmm. JM: And of course that guy, he had his vice president. He was a little seedy looking. But I grew up in an era where you could trust your leaders or at least you felt like you could. Obviously, I was wrong because we go back in that period of time, you can find lots of examples. SM: Mm-hmm. JM: I think what happened was there was this explosion of distrust during the (19)60s that happened. "Do not trust anyone over 30," common thought. Now those people, the guy who said that, is something like 65 now. I think we used that distrust as one of our shields, one of our weapons, when we went to try to make changes when we went to exert our own personalities, we were distrustful. And yes, we have passed that along to our children because we have gotten so good at it that it does not seem to be a yoke or a cloth we want to shed. We want to remain distrustful to some extent. And yes, there is a sadness in that. Now, I would like a world where we can feel a little bit more trust towards people. And yeah, it is probably just as strong today as it was back then. And in that sense, it is sad because I think, along with a lot of things that went right with how the boomers changed things, this might be one of those things that did not go quite right, it went wrong. SM: Mm-hmm. JM: By this time we would, I will use me as an example, I would want people my children's age to trust me. And if I ran for Mayor of Downingtown, I would want those young people to trust that I have their best interests at heart. I do not know if they believe that. And if you cross racial lines, I would know they do not believe that. SM: I am finished. Is there any other final comments or thoughts you would like to state on anything linked to the interview or a question that you thought I may ask that I did not? Any final thoughts? JM: Question that maybe you should have asked that you did not? Yeah, okay. We hit on it briefly, but I mentioned earlier that when you were 20, you have a tendency to gravitate towards people your own age. And when I came back and we would go to a party or something and the subject would come up, "now I am in the army, I just got back in Vietnam," or "I am going to Vietnam," or something like that. Actually, after I got back, I should be more clear. After I got back, I sensed the people my age who did not have my experience turned cold. Were maybe distrustful, but all of a sudden somebody, I should have something in common with I no longer do. And to add to the worst thing, I did not seek out those people that I had something in common with for 25 years. I did not do anything within the veteran community. I did not join the VFW, I did not do any of the things I am doing now. SM: [inaudible] hold that thought, I am going to change- JM: I was talking about being young and losing the trust of people of your own age group. And then I segued into not seeking out those people that I would have something in common with, other veterans for 25 years. And I think that was pivotal to me in my life, that I at one point 25 years later decided, "There is something in here inside of me that needs to get out." And I think I found an avenue for that, and that was joining veterans organizations and becoming active with veterans. And I think if I could add any one thing, it would be to tell any veteran out there who is not home yet to try and come home. Go to your VVA meeting, join your VFW, work through it. Because it made the most difference to me in my life to have done that. SM: And in the veterans community today, is it a strong unit? In other words, World War II and Korean vets, Gulf War Vets and Vietnam vets, there is no animosity toward them, there is a feeling of [inaudible]- JM: I am glad you asked that question. I think the Vietnam veterans actually changed that. When we came back, they did not accept us. World War II, Korean guys did not accept us. We were not veterans. I heard that. It was said to me. And we, the Vietnam Veterans of America, we decided that is not right. Never again should any generation of veterans turn its back on another, which is our credo. And we went out there and we said, "Okay, fine. World War II and Korea, we forgive you. What you said is forgotten. Now, let us be veterans together." And with the passage of time, the aging of the World War II, Korea guy, turning over the mantle of responsibility and power to the Vietnam veterans at the organizations, they have come now to understand we were not the people they thought we were. There was a cohesiveness within the veterans’ organizations that did not exist 25, 30 years ago. And we were not the force that was creating the problem either. It was the World War II, Korea guy who did not accept us. SM: Again, to clarify, why did not they accept you? JM: [inaudible]- SM: And was it combat vets or was it non-combat vets? JM: You would like me to give you their answers? SM: Yeah, their answers. Yeah, from their perspective. JM: That is the only thing I have, because their answers would be, "I spent four years in the Army. I did not know when I was going to get out of Germany. You guys went over there for what, 12 months? And maybe you did not even see any combat? You went on R&R; I did not get any of that. I was fighting for the world's freedom. What were you doing?" These are things that people said to me. Basically, what I tried to do was become wallpaper. I did not want to talk about it. People talked to me about it. Short story, buddy of mine was at the VFW, this was in the (19)70s, Vietnam veteran. He was the kind of guy that would go in there and say, "I do not give a damn if you accept me as a veteran. I am joining. Here is my DD 214, now sign me up." They signed him up. He became active. He came like vice president, vice commander, whatever they call that. And he would drag guys like me there to join. I mean, that is a good veteran. He is a good member of any organization. And one night he dragged me to the VFW in Downingtown. And I am sitting at the bar and my friend is going around the bar talking to his buddies. And he has told the bartender, whose name was Bernie, I will never forget, "Bernie, get this guy an application. He is with me," like that. No application; drinks, no application. Finally, he goes, "Hey Bernie, give this guy an application. He wants to join." Now, he did not ask me if I wanted to join. He just wanted to get the application in my hand. Guy sitting over to my left said, "I think we have enough Vietnam veterans in this club." Not under his breath. And then there was that missing shock that did not come. Nobody said anything to him, like, "Shut your face," or, "You are out of line." None of that happened. My friend, I am expecting him to go ballistic, but nobody else did. So I pushed my drink back towards the bar and I said, "I am out of here." And I never walked back into that VFW again until the night I joined the VVF, which had to be, I do not know, 15 years later. And that happened. And people will say, "Well, cannot you forgive?" Yeah, we did. We forgave these guys. That is why the veteran’s organizations today are so good. And that is why these guys coming up from first Persian Gulf War to this one now, it is going to be much better. We paved the way for these things to work for them. There is my answer to your question. SM: And of course, that experience you had with the World War II vets, and then you had to deal with all these Americans who treated the vets poorly upon their return and trying to figure out why... in your estimation, as to why vets were treated poorly upon their return, do you think it went back to how the media portrayed the vets in terms on the news, the bad things that happened in Vietnam, whether it be the My Lai massacre, the drug scene, as we got into the late (19)60s? And actually, there was a lot of people did not want to fight in the late (19)60s that were actually over there. When you look at the American population as the whole, and their very poor treatment of Vietnam vets, I know each one has their own individual story, and probably each person has their reason for not treating vets properly, but in general terms, why do you think Americans treated vets so poorly upon their return? JM: They were confusing the war with the warrior. They did not like the war, so ergo, we were the problem. And a couple young people would confront me in my lifetime, I should say, and ask me, "Why did not I not go? Why did not I just stand up and say, 'I am not going'"? Well, I was in the Army. They would court-martial you, they would throw you in jail for that. "Well, if I would have been in the service, that is what I would have done." I said, "But you are not in the service. You have this right to say this. I do not have that choice. When I signed up for the army, I gave away, in my mind, the rights to do that." And I pretty much always would never do anything that I could not live with. I could not live with that, saying, "Well, I am not going to fight. I am not going to go to Vietnam. Even though you are trying to send me over there, forget about it. I will not go." I could not live with that decision. I would not be happy today if I would have made that decision. SM: Would you agree that one of the commonalities of all veterans, no matter what war they faced, and that would be World War II vets, Korea, Vietnam, and maybe even the Gulf War and the young people coming back today from Iraq, is that it is such a private thing that oftentimes vets in general just keep quiet and do not tell themselves... Because it is all too common now in the stories of World War II vets about parents who never came back and told their families about anything. They just went on with their lives. Korean War vets were that way as well. We know about the Vietnam vets. Is this just something that is common to the warrior? JM: Yeah. I once wrote that silence is the language of the veteran. We know silence and we are more comfortable with it. I did not talk about it. I was with the Rotary Club of Downingtown for nine years. And after I made my transformation into becoming a veteran, I spoke in front of them and I said to them, "My name is John Morris. I am a Vietnam veteran." That group never heard that from me before. Yeah, that silence is our language. We were comfortable with it. We were miserable in it, but it is more comfortable sometimes than talking. I know if I start talking to a veteran and I can just see he is uncomfortable talking, we drift right into silence. And it is that acceptance, that thing, "I am not going to make you talk, sir." Fine. I understand. It is that acceptance that works. SM: In conclusion here, could you just state your name again and your date of birth and what you are currently doing and where you live? JM: My name is John Morris. I was born 11/29/45. I work selling concrete products for Binkley and Ober in Lancaster, and I live in Downingtown. SM: And also, and proudly state your position with VVA, because I know you are an ... John, you are. You are an outstanding citizen of Chester County, and just some of the things that you have done once you joined the veteran organizations and what you have done for vets over these past few years. JM: Currently, I am on the board of directors, have been for about five years. I am just finished my eighth year of writing a monthly newsletter we call the Voice of 436. I am fortunate enough to have the local newspaper, daily local news, republish my articles that I write in that newsletter. I have been in every chair there is for the Vietnam Veterans of America. I have been the vice president, I have been the president. One of my proudest moments as president was working with Steve McKiernan to bring The Wall That Heals here to West Chester University. I think of that as my crowning moment, as my year of ... as a veteran. The other things we do, I work with other newsletter editors throughout the country. We swap our magazines and we trade ideas, things like that. Other than that, I think I have a few other things, but that is pretty much got it covered. SM: Well, John, I just want to say, as I always do when I see you and all Vietnam vets, welcome home. JM: Thank you, Steve. SM: And thank you very much for the opportunity to interview you. JM: My pleasure. SM: ...with that in mind, when you think of the 1960s, and actually when you think of your youth, what is the first thing that comes to your mind for that entire period? JM: My military service, of course, without a doubt. And that was (19)65, (19)67. SM: Explain a little more detail why that was the defining moment in your youth. JM: It was when I left home. I graduated high school, went on to college, and then got a job going to night school, and bam, suddenly I was out of town, and not on a vacation to Atlantic City. I got to see a piece of the country that had the culture, that had no idea existed. SM: What culture was that? JM: It would be a culture where you saw people who had never worn shoes before they were drafted into the military, they came from the boondocks; a culture where the Civil War was not ancient history, it was current history, things like that. SM: And the community that you were stationed in that you saw this? JM: Everywhere from, let us say, Fort Gordon, Georgia... we are talking about the military community, to Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas. For example, when I got to El Paso, there were signs above the restroom doors in the train station that said, "Whites" and "Colored." And it was like you might have seen that in the (19)60s on a newspaper during the marches, but it was like that is on TV, but damn, this really exists. SM: How were you treated as members of the military during the time you were stationed there? JM: The people treated us extremely well. El Paso, Texas is a military town. Fort Bliss, Fort Bliss at that time was probably the largest military installation in the United States. Something like 65,000 troops were there. It is huge, absolutely huge. And it was also a ... not just Fort Bliss, but it was also an Air Force base, a strategic air command base built up against it, and White Sands Missile Range, which is also up against it. So you could drive for 100 miles and not leave to the military installation. SM: How many years you was stationed there? JM: Almost a full two years. SM: And those two years, again, were... JM: Two years were 1965, September (19)65, to September (19)67. SM: When you think of that particular period and you think of the boomer generation, one of the things that comes to mind often amongst people in that age group is that they felt they were the most unique generation in American history, that they were the generation that was going to change the world for the better, a generation that was going to end, racism, sexism, poverty, end all wars, bring peace to the world, bring general harmony. And this is the commentary not of boomers as they age, but boomers when they were young. Your thoughts on that kind of a mentality from the (19)60s and (19)70s? JM: At least my viewpoint was there was nothing that this country could not do. Putting a man on the moon, not a problem. We had the engineering, we had the talent, we had the vision, we could do it all. I found myself working for GE Missile and Space in Philadelphia, doing nothing significant other than playing with these things, which were eventually to become warheads. And that was just the way it was. Every now and then you would have somebody try to picket a building that we were working in because we were making nuclear nose guns. That is fine with me. I am glad we are making them, and I am glad we are making them better than the other guys, I hope. And that is the way I looked at that. But a different kind of a mindset I think than [inaudible 00:16:39] but again, it was a positive attitude that we could do things. Again, it was also the realization that there is this tide of, "Let us get rid of this racial persecution. It is terrible." And for the most part, it was like I never really cognizant of it. It was not something in our house that was done except the N word, as they say today, was periodically used. And when I went into the military, again in (19)65, I left a lily-white environment, for the most part, into a racially more integrated military than you would find in my neighborhood, I think. SM: Your neighborhood is? JM: My neighborhood is northeast Philadelphia. I do not remember the year, but I remember it was either in (19)57 or it would have been like 1960 when Northeast High first opened up, or one of the first early years of it. And one of the Black teachers had her son transfer in, and he was the first Black student. And again, Northeast High was huge. We had about 3,800 students in that high school, and one kid was Black. And it was nothing like, "Oh, that is unusual." And that was it. But it was one of those things that you remember. SM: One of the things in recent years from pundits on television or around the radio, whether they be George Will or when Newt Gingrich took over in the Republican Revolution, (19)94, you heard the commentary, that there is an overall criticism of the boomer generation as the reason why we have so many problems in this world today and why our culture has, some would say, gone backward. And this is not me, this is others. The criticisms are leveled at the breakup of the family, the use of drugs, disrespect for authority, and all these other things. Your thoughts on the pundits of the world who will generalize the boomer generation as being more negative than positive with respect to our culture today? JM: I would have to say that it was not so much them as the media and the media revolution. Everybody by the (19)60s had one TV in the house. I grew up with a TV in the house from 1949. I remember us having a TV when we lived in South Philly, and I remember neighbors coming in to watch TV in our house. It was a big deal. Today, our kids run around with cell phones. Our children run around with cell phones. But the communications revolution has been, I think, a major player in the perception of what the boomer culture was for, was against, and was it 80 percent for or 80 percent against? I think the spin on that came from the media, which I will go to my grave believing is a liberal, left side of the continuum, the political continuum. And they are biased. And I do not stamp all of them as being unethical, but you have got to be balanced in reporting. And I do not think they were balanced, and I think it holds true to today. SM: So you are talking about the (19)60s and 2003? JM: Correct. A huge span of time. And the biggest difference is now that if you want a different slant on what you are seeing, you can go to a different cable channel. You can press a button and you can get the BBC and you will see, "Whoa, wait a second, let me rethink this. I am hearing something different than what I am being spoon-fed every day from Channel 6," I will pick on Channel 6, "every day." It is different if you go to CNN. It is different if you go to nbc.com. It is different if you go to BBC. [inaudible] well, that is a different opinion. But the fact that whoever controlled the media back then really controlled what the people were being fed and educated with. And that is my two cents on the media. SM: So when you are talking about George Will and you are talking about New Gingrich, were they off-key? They were conservatives, packing the liberals. JM: It is like point, counterpoint. On one side, you can have George will, and on the other side you can have George Stephanopoulos. SM: [inaudible] I do not believe somebody is phoning me. Hang on one second. When you look at the boomer generation, could you give me some of the qualities... And by boomers, I mean the young people from the (19)60s and early (19)70s or middle (19)70s. When you look at that generation, what are some of the positive qualities that you saw in these young people, and some of the negative qualities? JM: Again, just I guess the positive ones is that we seemed focused. It was go to college. It was get a career. It was really just try to be that next rung of the socioeconomic ladder than your parents, because the parents would tell us, "I do not want you to work like a dog like me. I want you to get an education. I want you to do good things and get out there." It was a generation of Boy Scouts. It was not so much community service as it was you do the right things. And if you did something wrong, by the way, out on the street doing some mischief, you did not have to worry about your parents coming after you. The neighbors saw you. They would grab you by the scruff of the neck, drag you to your house, then you were really in trouble. But nobody got away with a whole lot. It was the eyes and ears of a community that kept a bunch of the kids straight. Now, there was always a couple of kids who were going to get into trouble, but I think that is what makes us great. Some people get misdirected, some people get to channel it in a different direction and do good things. But it was pretty pleasant. There were the screw-ups that came with the times, and how we viewed it. This is the week of the Kennedy assassination, about 40 years now. That is hard to believe. I mean, sitting here, that is hard to believe, that I am 58. That was 40 years ago. But where were you and what was your action? In hindsight, my actions were deplorable. When I say deplorable, in my family, the Kennedy name was not a very good thing. My father would take his name in vain frequently, which I think he tied back to Kennedy's dad, Joe Kennedy, in the liquor business. My father had a saloon. Actually, both sides of my family were in the booze business before Prohibition, during Prohibition, and until the early (19)70s. So when Kennedy died, I know exactly where it was. I was jubilant almost. And again, I apologize to whoever I offend, but it was like... And I knew who got him, in my mind. It was the military who got him because he did not succeed in turning the missiles away from Cuba. He did it by trading off our missiles in Turkey, which we had six months later. So it was like, what a cowardly thing to do. Again, this is hindsight. What I know now, what I knew then, two different things. And I remember my wife, who lived five doors away, as it turns out, she [inaudible] terrible things on me and said, "Oh, how about Kennedy getting" ... I said, "No loss." And again, this is a very politically aware, historically-oriented person at that time, at the ripe old age of 17, 18, whatever, and saying, "You know what? Hey, I am glad he is gone." Hindsight, I am an idiot. What a terrible thing to say. You would not do that. Even if you truly believe that, you are insensitive, totally insensitive to everyone else who was mourning. And I was in front of Bucky's Sticky Buns, Margaret and Orthodox, in Philadelphia bus station when I got to work. So do you remember where you were? Yes. I can almost smell the sticky buns cooking. SM: Brings it all back from- JM: It does. It really does. It is funny, different things triggered it. Again, this is Kennedy on every channel. But in our house, the Kennedy name was not something that you touted. And after he was assassinated, again, the marksman in me is... I grew up shooting in the Scouts. And I am saying, "The guy is a good shot, but nobody is that good." So to this day, I will still watch who shot Kennedy. And my younger brother who is only 13 months younger than me, if we want to really bug each other, say, "Which time do you want to take?" And we will go at the two-player conspiracy theory, go back and forth. And I am a shooter to this day, and I am extremely good. I do not care what anybody says, there were two shooters, one from the front, one from the back. And I am willing to bet it was the military, some... I will say a general, for lack of a better word, but some general who basically had the same upbringing or background that I was given, that "Kennedy is a bad guy, he sold the country out, the Cuban missile crisis was mistake, the Bay of Pigs invasion [inaudible] Kennedy's doorstep also. We are not going to let this guy do this anymore and make us look like fools." I do not know, but people have been shot for a whole lot less than that. SM: If you were to, again, look at your generation, if you were to list some things, adjectives to describe their positive and negative qualities, what would they be? JM: Focused, forward-looking or forward-thinking, very optimistic, until about the Vietnam War, mid-(19)60s. And then it all came home. I am trying to think of another word... almost idyllic. It went from idyllic to chaotic to unfocused. And I think it almost bred the next generation that came along and said, "I am the me generation. I am not worried about the world. I am worried about me, and I want my share. And I do not care whether you have your share or not." I think it was the (19)80s when they came around and said, "The company is worth more if you sell it off in parts. It may be worth $10 million as an entity by itself, it is worth $20 million to chop it up and sell it. To hell with the people whose lives are affected. Do not care. It is the bottom line. I am a Wharton MBA, and it is strictly business. No offense." My father's words to me was, again, "Go to work for a big company. They will take care of you. You take care of them. And 25 years, you will retire with a gold watch." I saw that die, but that was my upbringing. The happiest day in his life almost is probably when I went to work for General Electric Missile and Space and came back with a $ 10 check, which I guess is worth probably about $100 today, that said... He turned in a suggestion, "We are not going to use it, but hey, keep those ideas coming along. Here is a $10 check." And he was just thrilled to pieces with that. He said, "See, I told you. You take care of them, they will take care of you." And then Secretary of Defense McNamara would open his mouth, kill an Air Force contract, and they would let 2,000 employees go in a heartbeat. Strange times. I think we were a generous generation, and I think we were very much focused on that. Of course, culturally, I think the pill came around in (19)63. Did not do me a whole lot of good. SM: At home or away? JM: Either, either. And I will not go into that detail, thank you. SM: I want to get right into the Vietnam War, especially on college campuses. How important do you feel, in your own personal feelings, the anti-war movement was in ending the war in Vietnam? And anti-war is defined as primarily a lot of college students and youth from that period, as well as priests and political leaders. JM: Boy, like I said, that is a chunk right there. How important were they in bringing the war to an end? SM: Mm-hmm. JM: I think they were very important. And I would have to flip a coin as to whether I hold them accountable for prolonging the war or shortening it. Along those lines, I am thinking, again, it just ties in with today with Iraq. If I was an Iraqi general, I would look back on history and I would say, "You know something? When the American people lost faith that they could win the war, when it was day after day of protracted combat with no light at the end of the tunnel, the Americans gave up." When Nixon decided to pull away from the peace tables and bomb Hanoi- JM: ...From the peace tables and bomb Hanoi. I said, bomb them back to the Stone Age. When 9/11 hit here, my first thought was we were at war, and I am glad my finger is not on the big red nuclear button. Because I would have pressed that sucker just to get even with somebody. Not the right thing to do. Again, this is me, not the 18-year-old, but this is me, the 58-year-old. I look at what happens again with the news media, the coverage of the war, body bags every night. And the station saying, "Hey, a couple of troops were dragged out of their shot-up Humvee and beaten with stones." And then the military comes out with a version that says, "That did not happen." "The wounds they suffered were..." And again, that is today, the story will change again tomorrow. "Was caused by the impact of the blast," or whatever. I think if I was Ho Chi Minh, and I think you can go back and check his history notes, you will find he was ready for a 100-year war. They have been fighting for a hundred years. If it was not the Chinese, it was the French. If it was not the French, he will take on whoever comes along. Iraq is probably the same thing. They got the Sunni, the Shia, the Basque. It is the same thing. They have been fighting each other for years. You do not walk into the middle of the Civil War. It is just a nasty turf. Ho Chi Minh, I am sure him and his followers sat there and said "You know something? We can take a bombing, but we can watch them rioting in the streets. We can watch them protesting on the campuses and it is just a matter of time. They ain't going to go. And we just have to wait them out." And again, with the electronic revolution, I said, our troops are watching this thing. It is not us watching them in Vietnam on 24-hour old footage. It is they are watching us live on a satellite down link to a phone in their hands. They are watching us protest. What kind of support is that? When you make a decision to send troops into battle, you support them a hundred percent. You do not give aid and comfort to the enemy. To see a picture of Jane Fonda over there. And I am just like, I know what she was feeling, but what was she thinking, when she sat on an anti-aircraft gun? She is giving aid and comfort to the enemy. And God bless America, she can do that. But if you are at war, realize that, if that had been World War II, the previous generation, the greatest generation. She would have been tagged with the name of Hanoi Jane as opposed to Axis Sally, or, what was the other one? Axis Sally and Tokyo Rose, and she would have done jail time. If they would have caught her back in the country. That was the generation that brought me into the world. And then all of a sudden what went differently that people would allow the First Amendment to be stretched that far, that we would not support the troops. Different story. SM: When you look at the movements of the time when you were young, because there were a lot of movements in the (19)60s and the (19)70s. Obviously the Civil Rights movement was in the (19)50s, when you were even a lot younger. And of course the anti-war movement and the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, Chicano movement, Native American movement, environmental movement, a lot of movements during that era. Is there one movement that you think truly does define the boomer generation and truly defines America? When you think of the youth of the (19)60s, and when I say youth of the (19)60s, I mean people who were born and obviously raised in the late (19)40s and (19)50s through their mid (19)60s and then of course going to college in the (19)60s and (19)70s. So what movement would you say, is there one that stands out? JM: There was several that stand out. Number one, all the Vietnam vets. Every last one of them. And I think there were like, I do not know the numbers, probably 3 million of them. And again, guys like myself who I got orders for Vietnam and never went, had to go, got very lucky. But I did my battle on Temple University's campus. Again, I got out in (19)67, went to Temple University, back to school, (19)68, (19)69 and (19)70. The height of the anti-war movement. The cubicles next to our, we had a group called Veterans at Temple, just veterans who gathered together because we did not fit in. We were not your normal students. Besides being older, we had just seen a whole lot of other stuff. We had been outside the campus. We had left home, and come back. But next to us we had Students for a Democratic Society, we had Veterans Against the War, Veterans at Temple. We had some Black student league, I think was the name of the first Black organization on campus. There was a Black veterans' organization we also had who banded together in our own group, strictly Black, strictly veteran, strictly to become teachers and go back and teach their own, and pull them out of the ghetto. So a unique environment. SM: So you are really Civil Rights, or anti-war was there or... JM: Civil Rights was huge. Absolutely huge in the (19)60s and the war movement were probably the two biggest movements. I do not think the women's movement was that big. And again, I hope nobody horse whips me for blasphemy, but I am going back into history. I remember saying in high school, I had no problem with a woman getting a scholarship to college if she takes it and does more with it than just marry a guy. If she uses that education. Because for the most part, and to this day I know it, women are far smarter than guys. I do not know, we are good for hunting and getting dirty, but I think ounce for ounce, women have a certain intellectual evolutionary advantage on thinking on the guys. And I do not know what, it is all testosterone or lack thereof or what. But I remember feeling that. SM: Do you remember at the time, did you sense that when you were at Temple University that there was a togetherness amongst the African American students who were fighting for civil rights and certainly there were many white students who were in Freedom Summer. And was there ever a split where African American students went to strictly work on civil rights and white students went to work on the anti-war movement? Did you see that at Temple when you were there, particularly in the late (19)60s? JM: I would say so. I recall my disassociation from the Black movement. I forget who the speaker was, but Cecil Moore, who now has a street named after him in Philadelphia and his entourage of thugs/bodyguards, came to some kind of a demonstration on campus. And literally one of those guys shoved me out of the way, from the back. Like cold cocking me. Well, I turned around and I was going to take a shot at the guy, but again, I learned something in the army, you do not take on an army if you are a patrol of one. He had the biggest guys surrounding him. And the Black movement was getting very militaristic. You had the Black Panthers for a number of years already. I felt unsafe on Temple's campus. Matter fact, my only word to my daughter to this day, I will swear to it. And so will she. She had her choice in any college she could go to take that thing from Bill Cosby. And I said, "You can go to any college you want." Bill Cosby chose Temple. I had no choice. I took Temple, the only one I could afford under the GI Bill. There was no way in hell I would let her go to Temple University's campus. To this day, I think it is unsafe. When I was there, it was unsafe. A white student was gunned down two hours before I was across the same spot by a bunch of kids who just wanted to kill a whitey. Memories of the (19)60s? Yeah, those are some of the memories I had. There was that schism. I do not think any the Black students were doing anything other than saying we are not going to go to Vietnam, because I think the rumor was, percentage wise, they were directly more Blacks than Whites. To this day, I do not believe that I is true. And I think the statistics of whoever you check will go one way or the other. But it is not like 90 percent, it is more like you want to be 40 percent or you want to be 60 percent? SM: I am going to get into another area here, commentary. When you look at the Vietnam Memorial itself, the Vietnam Memorial is one of the greatest things that has ever happened to America. I am pretty biased on that. This is your interview though. JM: Yeah. SM: How do you feel the Vietnam Memorial has done with respect to the Vietnam veteran and their families, number one, but secondly, what the wall has done for America as a nation? Have we healed? JM: I think we are still healing. I think it has been tremendous. I remember personally being against the design when I first saw it. I do not think you can appreciate it until you go there. And that is like watching TV, that is one thing. You actually go there, whoa, that is a different thing. It is priceless. And the impact I think it has will probably go one for at least another a hundred years. It will be like, who do you go to see? Do you go to see the Lincoln Memorial? No. You go to see the Vietnam Memorial. It was a turning point in our country's history, when people suddenly again stood up, took notice, and either pro or con, voiced their opposition or voiced their favor, and clashed over it. And I think the last time that happened was the Civil War. Indeed, it pitted family against family. Well, Vietnam did the same thing. You had in the same family. Brother, pro-war, sister, peacenik. In the same family. And a lot of them took years to mend from that animosity. And that wall, I think it just has shown its healing effect. SM: One of the questions I have asked everyone in the interview process is, I have actually gone out and dwelled on the issue of healing. Because how important is it, with respect to the future of our nation. And what do veterans owe society to give back? What do people who were against the war owe society to give back? Overall with respect to healing, do you still feel, and I know I have a leading question here. That the divisions were so strong at that time in so many different ways, talking (19)60s and through the early (19)70s, that I think those divisions are still present in our society today because no one forgives? No one forgets, no one forgives. JM: No one forgets, no one forgives and it is just under the surface, it is just under the skin. Scratch it and it will surface. Again, yeah, we are looking back in retrospect, a lot of things that I did I would not do today. For example, there were anti-war marchers who blocked the staircase in one of the buildings on Temple's campus because a recruiter was there. You are not going to stop me from going to see a recruiter. We are talking about a company recruiter, a GE or DuPont or whatever. I basically stomped up the whole staircase stomping on my fellow students because they were getting in my face. And I was telling them, no you are not. In hindsight, I probably would have talked a little bit more, probably should have talked a little bit more, but I was just pissed. And it is like when you are young, you know everything. And when you are older, the more you realize that you do not know everything. Again, as hindsight is 20/20. SM: People have even asked me as a person who was not a vet. One of the things that I learned early that to gain trust of Vietnam vets or Vietnam era vets is to say who you are, where you were, and why you did not serve. And I have been very honest my whole life about that. Breaking an arm and there is a lot of things there. I will not go into that. But getting back to the healing process, when people go to the wall who did not serve in the war. It is my perception that there is a lot of guilt feelings, amongst individuals who now upon being older are reflecting on what they did. But not necessarily the true anti-war protestor, they got arrested, were in the service. And was really against the war. Your thoughts on whether there are guilt feelings and whether Vietnam vets feel that there are a lot of guilt feelings amongst the boomer males who did not serve? JM: Good question. Again, I know there are Vietnam vets who have guilt feelings about admitting that they are Vietnam vets, because they were not in a combat role over there. And I am one of those, and what do I tell people that "Gee, you are a Vietnam War vet. Where were you, Pleiku, Da Nang?" I said, "No, El Paso, Texas. Beautiful Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas." And as great as I thought I had it, I know one guy who was a lifeguard in Hawaii for his tour. So it is the flip of the coin. I was in orders once; the orders were shot down. Two guys on one side, one guy on the other, they are in action. Whether they alive today or not, I do not know. It was the luck of the draw. I think there were people who went to Canada, and then Carter gave them an amnesty. And I think that changed history right there. Where if you would ask me would I allow my daughter to be drafted, and would I tell her "No, go to Canada." I do not think I would tell him to go to Canada. We would have the discussion. We really would, "Do you want to do government service as an alternative? Do you want to do like Muhammad Ali/Cassius Clay?" He basically said, "You can take my prize fighting title, and you can send me to jail. I ain't going." I respected that. The ones who basically said, "Nope, I am going to Canada." I do not hold them as high as Ali. But it is like there is a ranking. It is not just everybody into certain categories. If there was extreme religious reasons, for one. But the times I think really changed with Carter's amnesty as to how we need to look at that question. The precedent has been set. We can run, just 50 bucks to get you across the border. And you are safe for the duration, which we are pretty darn sure is not going to be another 10-year war. I do not think we will ever do that again. which is why I do not think Iraq will run 10 years. Closer more to 10 months. Where we get to the point that says, "We are declaring victory." As we probably should have done it in Vietnam, and then leave. Or you bomb them back to the Stone Age and open up a jihad that the world has never seen before. It is going to go one way or the other. It might be Armageddon. All I know is there was the Cold War that we grew up with, with nuclear annihilation, just a shadow away. And then we went to this new war, that we have been fighting since I think the (19)80s and the (19)90s, which is a religious war that we are still fighting. And people are just realizing this war did not happen... The World Trade Tower was hit with a car bomb, a truck bomb in (19)93, not 2001. 2001 was a couple of years back. That plane was targeted, those buildings were targeted years ago. And we have been taking hits. A lot of it, we cannot prove, a lot of what we can prove. But we are in a totally new communications and literally a global world war. This is a world war like no one has ever seen before. Make World War II look like a turkey shoot. This is going to be huge, and it is going to be huge, and it is religiously driven. Which means in our country, we open our doors to everybody. SM: How does the Vietnam War have the continuous relevance in our society today with all these, the war on terrorism, Iraq and 9/11? I can answer that personally myself, but I want other people to answer that. Does the experience of the Vietnam War have lasting and forever impact on America? JM: Looking back at it, the Vietnam War, and again in hindsight, is if I decide to go to war, I turn it over to our military men. And I basically say, "This is what I want done, do it." I do not say you cannot go above the 38th parallel in Korea, as in the Korean War, you fight wherever the enemy is. And by the way, you do not fight on your turf. You fight on their turf. Vietnam, classic example of a screw-up of not looking at history. We had North and South Korea, it was a civil war. We have North and South Vietnam. And we could not bomb North Vietnam for the longest time. I would have bombed them back to the Stone Age. If I could not buy them off economically. I mean, my first move is to take B52's and load them with food and radios, and I drop them on the enemy. Take a look what the rest of the world is doing, and have a good meal while you are doing it. And here goes $50 million, let me buy you out of a war. We can reach an agreement. Now if I cannot do that, if I have to go to war, it is not an interdiction. I would ask the military, I would say, "This is what I want to accomplish. Do it. And you have no limits. Get it done." They will come to me with the game plan, and it gets a political decision. We either go to war or we do not. But before we put one service man at risk, we make that decision. It is all or nothing. SM: I am going to switch this. JM: Again, it is an evolutionary thing. Where we are at right now is a global conflict. And I do not think the media is playing it up. The media is just basically saying, "We are in Iraq." Yeah, but they are blowing up in the Philippines, Muslims. They are blowing up here. Whether it is just Muslims or whether it is the... I am not sure [inaudible] just off the African coast. But if you have a religious war, guess what, that is nothing new. We have got the crusades. Go back before that. It just goes back way-way-way back. SM: Got the ongoing battle in Ireland between the Protestants and Catholics. JM: The Israelis and the Palestinians. When was the seven-day war? SM: (19)67. JM: (19)67? SM: Yep. JM: Okay. I was a Jewish chaplain's assistant in a country at war with Vietnam, with an allegiance to Israel, a religious allegiance. We had a contingent of Israeli Air Force taking this training, the same missile training I had taken. And the debate was, "How do we get off the fort? How do we get to Israel? How do we fight for a war that we could personally relate to?" The war ended before anybody could do anything really stupid. But boy that was a piece of history right there. The conflict that you are presented with, do I go to Canada? No. My case was "Do I go to Israel?" I mean that was the only thought in my mind. SM: There is a good point there. Because I am not sure anything has been written that much on our Jewish Vietnam era or Vietnam vets who truly cared about what was going on in Israel in 1967. They were willing to go over there and risk their lives as American citizens to help the Israeli citizens. JM: And just an aside, in basic training, one of the first formations we went to after we got to Fort Jackson, or Fort Gordon, Georgia, for training, was a chaplain's orientation. And they basically announced, okay, all the Catholic troops over here, the Catholic chaplain will see you, and all the Protestants and all the Baptists. And oh, by the way, if there are any Jewish personnel, the Jewish chaplain's assistant will meet you over here. Then they dismiss back to the company level and our company commander says, "Okay guys, I have had all the Catholics, Baptists, Protestants, whatever. Oh, by the way, are there any Jewish personnel? Please step forward." 10 of us stepped forward in our company. And he stepped back, literally stepped back, and said "Jewish, right?" said, "Yeah." He says, "How did I get 10 Jews in my company? I do not think there are ten in the whole fort." Uh oh. But as it turned out, he was just being... But again, from his vision, his perspective, he usually was used to maybe one or two. Again, percentage wise, the population, but here they were drafted out of Philadelphia, New York City, Jewish ghettos. SM: Right. Yeah. I knew a lot of Jewish Vietnam vets in Philly. Lots. I want to, before I get into the next segment of the interview, since you served the late (19)60s. JM: Mid (19)60s. SM: Or mid (19)60s, when that helicopter, when the news was showing on April 30th, 1975, the final evacuation of the few Americans that were left in Saigon. And then of course their allies there, the South Vietnamese troops and families that were linked to America. What were your thoughts when that was on the nightly news? JM: Thank God the war is over. The retreat is over. To me, that was the end of the war. We were literally pulling out the last troops and the war was over. We had lost the war. We had left with our tail tucked between our legs, and the war was over. It really was a good feeling knowing it was over, and to me that was at the end of the discussion. There would be no other photographs of Vietnam. No, it was over. SM: No thought of what might happen to those who were left behind and... JM: Yeah, I had thoughts about that and my thoughts were that they would be treated no better or worse than the Korean vets. If they were in custody, they would eventually be turned over, repatriated. We would have found out that they were grossly mistreated, because that is the way it has played in the Third World nations. It is the nature of the beast, the Japs did it in World War 2. The Germans did not mistreat the prisoners, military prisoners, but that was a separate little niche. Korea was a different story. Vietnam was a different story. I think you see the same mistreatment now in Iraq or Afghanistan. I think Mogadishu is, I guess, the one that goes back about 15 years, maybe? We were trapped there for a while. But Mogadishu, they dragged that trooper through the streets. The press played that up, and at that point it was, we were declaring victory in Mogadishu and getting out of town. Because we were not going to make a stand here. It is a civil war, it is warlord against warlord. We learned from Vietnam, we are not going to get involved in that again, it ain't worth it. SM: Following up on what you just said. When you think about when President George Bush Sr. Was president, in the Gulf War, we heard a lot about, even in Ronald Reagan's administration, that the Vietnam syndrome is over. And George Bush emphatically stated that the Vietnam syndrome was over. What do you think he meant by that? We all know what the Vietnam syndrome means, but was he prophetic or was he not telling the truth? Because it seems like there is still constant references back to Vietnam no matter what conflict we get into? JM: And I think that has to be said. Because it is the yard stick by which you measure, I guess, two things. How you execute a war, and how you treat the veterans who return. The war in Vietnam was prosecuted poorly. Reasons aside, that is political. It was militarily executed poorly, and the troops were basically shunned by their own people when they returned. After the 100-day war in Iraq, George Bush Sr., there was a full military parade. And it was like, yes, the objective was to get him out of Kuwait. That was done. The troops did an outstanding job. It was a military victory, clear cut without any argument whatsoever. And the troops were welcomed home. I believe the Vietnam troops led the parade in Washington DC, as their homecoming. And to people who have not been in the military, perhaps it does not mean anything. But to those who have served, there was that camaraderie, loyalty of saying, yeah, you recognized that whether we served as a lifeguard in Hawaii or a chaplain's assistant in El Paso, Texas, we put our lives on the line. I mean, I volunteered. I was asked to serve the chaplain. With the [inaudible], it is the same. Hey, let us face it, you are an expert rifleman, and you know how to drive, and I will probably get sent there and that is what you will be doing, is being my bodyguard. That is the only way you would describe it, I did not have to go. My military specialty at that point was a Nike Hercules missile crewman. 30-foot rocket. It only goes to Korea or Germany, fairly decent duty assignments. And nobody is shooting at you. Or I took Plan B, which is be the chaplain's assistant, and run the risk. SM: Did you volunteer? Or were you drafted? JM: I was drafted. But by the way, that is another thing. That it was surprising how many people who, oh, they watched either the football game or they listened to Bandstand. They had no idea that when the president upped the draft, the Secretary of Defense of McNamara upped the draft 50,000 a month. I mean, I knew. But when he did that, I called the draft board. I knew my number was out there, and I had been looking at different military branches. The Air Force offered me a seven-year deal, to a 20-year-old, "We will send you back to college. But you have got to get another degree, can only take it two or three years to do it. You give us four years after that." That is what, six, seven years? To a 20-year-old? That is one third of your life. And I said, "What else have we got out here?" The joke of it was I took my chances with the draft, thinking that military intelligence would make a wise decision how to use Private Mo Green. Again. Got lucky. SM: You have said a lot of things here. If someone were to ask you tomorrow at work, come in and there is a survey done, and "Please write down in one sentence the reason why we lost the Vietnam War." Why did we lose the Vietnam War? JM: Failure to pursue a military victory. And total failure to support the troops on the line by the civilian population. SM: If you were to evaluate the military leadership, not the civilian, and that is certainly the President of the United States, who gets a lot of criticism, but if you were... SM: ...and certainly the President of the United States, who gets a lot of criticism. If you were to evaluate the military leaders, the General- JM: William Westmoreland [inaudible]- SM: ...William Westmoreland and Abrams, and even Maxwell Taylor early on, how would you rate them, and their leaders underneath? JM: Yeah. Probably a little foolhardy and a little ignorant of history, or more concerned with their career and not arguing back, and I do not know that they did or did not, with the presidents, saying, "Let us not do this. What do you want me to do there? You do not want me to go into North Vietnam? Where is the enemy? North Vietnam, that is where I am going. If you do not want me to go there, let us not [inaudible]." Again, you can have the general spout off like MacArthur did to Truman in Korea, saying, "I am going up there, I am going to raise hell." I think that would have worked. I do not think the Chinese would have flowed across the border if they really thought we were serious. Now, they did. But I think at that point they said like, "They are not going to nuke us." I would have nuked the Chinese. I will tell you that right now. I would have nuked them. I would have done the same thing that was proposed by some generals, to put nuclear minefields between the north and the south; hindsight, really stupid. Probably a bad idea. It is like building canals using nuclear devices. If you do not mind the leftover radiation in the canal, not a problem. Very effective way of doing it. I would have used nuclear blackmail. I would have drawn a line in the sand and said, "Hey, you go back and you stay up there and we work these things out. And oh by the way, here is 20 million bucks, and all the rice you can eat, and education for your people." And that is cheaper than a war. SM: That is exactly some of the criticism leveled at Barry Goldwater and the reason why he did not win the election, because they had that one advertisement that showed the little girl. It was only shown once, and it really cost him probably the election. It made him look like a warmonger. And President Johnson followed suit with the Gulf of Tonkin. JM: "In your heart, you know he is right," was the Republican defense for him. And the counterculture said, "In your guts, you know he is nuts." Boy, it is coming back like was yesterday. SM: He did not turn out to be a bad senator, either. JM: No. SM: And this is just a note, I find it very ironic that he and Senator Scott of Pennsylvania were the two senators that walked in and asked Nixon to resign. What irony, what irony. JM: I recall Senator Scott coming to General Electric when I was working there in (19)65. I had gotten out of school, was an electronics technician working in GE, and I remember telling him, "Do not go into Vietnam. If you are going to do it, do not do it like Korea." That is all I said to him. But I literally had the handshake and told the guy. I remember telling a college professor, we got [inaudible] talking about the Vietnam War. This is (19)64. I said, "I hope we do not do it like Korea." As it turns out, he was a Korean War vet. He said, "You do not know what war's like." I said, "You are right, but I know you do not fight it like you fought Korea. You do not draw a line and say, 'You can escape over there.'" I said, "Let me tell you what I am going to do. I am going to kill every one of you, or we make a deal. You want to make a deal? Let us make a deal. We will stop all that stuff. You do not have to lose all of your cities, because by the way, on Monday I am going to take out this one. On Tuesday, I am going to take out this one. You can call it Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or you can call it Seoul. Call it whatever you want. But I will bring you to your knees militarily, and I will do it real quick." I think that is what Colin Powell meant during the 1990 Iraqi war, the Kuwaiti war: "I am going find the leadership, I am going cut its head off, and I am going to kill it." And that is what you do. When you go to war, that is exactly what you do. But you ultimately have to have a game plan. What do you do if things do not go the way you want? Declare victory? Respectable option. Who's to say otherwise? B, go for everything? Or just with withdraw with your tail between your legs? Not an acceptable option. SM: Some might say, though, that cut the head off, you heard this during the Iraq war, you cut the head off by killing all the leaders, but you still got the tail. And we are seeing the tail right now. Even though Saddam Hussein's alive, but if he were gone, this would still be happening. And so I find it interesting, you strongly believe that you would have used strong force and they would have come to their knees, but there is no guarantee they would have, because you explained also the Vietnam War, and then thousands of years and the enemies and we are willing to wait. Do you think that our lack of patience was another reason why we may have lost that war? We had been there a long time, it was a long war. JM: We had been there far too long. World War I was five years long. The Korean War was three years long, not even three years long. Vietnam was over 10 years. And we were not going to do that again. SM: The best history books, they are often written about 50 years after an event. The best World War II books are being written now. There has been a lot of them; Stephen Ambrose, even though he was criticized recently before he died. When the best history books are written about the (19)60s generation, I know a lot of them talk about Vietnam, but it is so part of the boomer generation and how they formed as people in our society, that when the best history books are written, what do you think the historians are going to say about the boomer generation when they were young? JM: They were presented with challenges that people had not been presented with before. And they had to make a decision at a very, very young age. I am sure you could probably go back generation, generation, generation, there is probably a turning point for all of them that they had to come contend with what they can do and what they cannot do. I do not know if that answered the question, but Vietnam, for the (19)60s generation, the boomer generation was it. And it marked people as to whether they said, "Well, I will take my chance with the draft," like I did, or some people said, "You know something? It is more convenient for me to be drafted next week. Let me volunteer for the draft." And other people who said, "I am going to Canada. I am not participating." They opted out. They made a decision to go to another country. That is a tough decision to make at the age of 19, the age of 20. I think the same decision was made during World War II, but we were the victim of a sneak attack. And the perception is it is the right thing to do. We are defending the country. We have been attacked. Vietnam was not we were attacked. We were going there to nation build, we were going there to defend liberty because the domino theory was that eventually... wind up with the commies in Camden and San Francisco. San Francisco would probably be a better breeding ground. SM: Right. Also during the (19)60s, President Nixon had the enemies list and it was a long list and included people from the media, leading activists in the country, Black liberation individuals, Catholic priests, to doctors. JM: [inaudible] sure. SM: What does that say about America too, though, the enemies list of leaders looking at people who do not agree with a foreign policy? [inaudible] ... surveillance of individuals who are against foreign policy or... JM: Now, we are not talking McCarthy in the (19)50s, right? SM: No. No, we are not talking about that period. We are talk- JM: I am looking at it as a continuation of... it is something that in my mind, even back then, it was nothing new. The fact that today we can look back at Kennedy's womanizing after Clinton, it is like, "Well is this something new or was it a cultural thing that was tacitly condoned all these years?" I mean, [inaudible] was supposed to have dalliances with his driver during the war [inaudible] but I just hope... I am not going to say that. This is just a continuation. I think once you crossed... there were certain boundaries, again, with the media, certain things are private, certain things are public. I do not think there is anything now which is private. Now, just a matter of the way you look at it, I myself am looking for a president who is part Boy Scout and also has the ability to look at the enemy in the face and lie through his teeth to the advantage of this country. I need him to lie through his teeth to our people, to our citizens, only in that remote instance where it is to the benefit of the country. But after that, I expect him to be a straight shooter. When Clinton obviously lied with his arms raised up, to me, that was the okay, the cart blanche for all future generations to lie, and sworn testimony does not mean anything, perjury does not mean anything, as long as you can get away with it. And that was condoned by the press. I would have crucified the guy, not what he did, but for lying about it. That is not politics. It is what I expect from a man. I expect a man to be with all the niceties of the gentleman, but with the ability to lie and play poker. But once you have been caught, I expect you to own up. I do not expect you to lie to a court of law. It just sets precedent. And the precedent is now set that they gave him a pass. I would not give him a pass. And I do not know how many of my generation would, other than my wife, who gave him the pass. I looked at her like she is an alien, but we are just diametrically opposed. Is that because I am five years older than her? I do not know. SM: You get into this whole area of leadership and trust, the impact that leaders had on us and boomers in general when we were young, and obviously possibly continuing through as we aged. When you look at President Johnson and the history books of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which we do not have to go into that, but we know what happened there. JM: Sure. SM: We know about President Eisenhower, and he did lie to the public about the U-2 incident. He did lie. And I can remember him being a little boy and seeing him on television, and I admired him. We saw President Nixon with his enemies list, which then of course we know about Watergate. Some people claim that even during Reagan in the Iran Contra, but maybe it is more Reagan's people than it is him. And then some people are complaining now about Bush not being up upfront and honest, and Tony Blair and others. What I am basically getting at is, was one of the impacts of the (19)60s and the (19)70s is that we do not trust anybody anymore, or have the American public ever trusted their leaders prior to? JM: Well, I think that they trusted their leaders, and I think they still trust their leaders, but giving them an ounce of doubt today would have been like a ton of doubt before. There has got to be that faith in your leader. But again, and I keep bringing the media into it, the media flavors the doubt, the media builds the doubt, the credibility. And they do it in such an obviously biased manner; and again, my jaundiced view of the world. But if the press says a Republican has done something, I give that 12 ounces worth of credibility, as opposed to if they say it about a Democrat, it is like no credibility at all. They are just not going to say it. So gee, who is more guilty, the Republican or the Democrat? There is probably a shred truth of both of them, but the media will play it up, again, in a biased fashion, condemn one party over the other. And for the life of me, I think they can play both sides of the street, condemn them both, and make twice as much news, but they do not. SM: What influence have you had on your kids? And I share that with respect to all people who were young in the (19)60s and (19)70s and what they passed on to their kids with respect to public service, the ideals that the (19)60s had that we were going to change the world, that everybody is equal; I am going to vote; giving back. We have seen this past week that slogan over and over, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country, which so many young people of the (19)60s and (19)70s took into it. What happened with the boomers, the 770 million who heard that and went through all the experience of civil rights, Vietnam, all those who we have been talking about, and passing this on to their kids who became Generation X? And then we got another generation of kids in here right now. Just your thoughts on that. JM: Well, I have got one of those kids. She is 26 years old. And again, very socially aware, very giving to the community, very generous. And I hope that she got those beautiful thoughts from myself and my wife. I think we passed on all the good stuff. I think she sees me go a little over the edge on occasion. And she recognized that dad's over the edge again. We are talking about a 26-year-old. And got her head screwed on straight and has the values that I have, which I think are pretty good; I am slightly biased [inaudible]. But again, a very generous individual. She will help out fundraising. She has volunteered for... the Coatesville VA Hospital veterans Thanksgiving Day dinner at the Stadium Grill is Thursday. This Thursday? Yeah. She will be working there, just feeding the [inaudible] the hospital. SM: [inaudible]. JM: And she brought that to my attention three years ago. It is an annual outing for us to do that. But that is just typical of what she does. She graduated number one here in West Chester. She could have gone on to a high paying job anywhere. She said, "No, I want to do something else." She helps manage the Chester County SPCA. And she has got a heart of gold. So am I saddened that she did not marry a millionaire and support her daddy in the manner to which he has got accustomed? No-no. But she is very generous and she does want to justice. So it is like big plus, big plus, big plus. And I think all of her friends, to a large extent, are of a similar grain. I think it is a wonderful generation. I think they are looking at what their parents have been through and recognize it and say, "Well, if we can do anything that makes their life easier or avoid making the same mistakes that they have told us not to make," they are pretty good. They have their heads screwed on straight. SM: We hear often from the pundits and the media and everybody else that is out there that the parents rarely share their experiences of their youth with their kids. And if they do, it is either when a person's dying or has had an illness or something as they get older. And we also hear all too often that vets, no matter whether they served in Vietnam or World War II or Korea, just do not like talking about it. But as they age, their stories have to be told, Vietnam era and Vietnam vets. And I will get to that after the interview, about a project that I would like to see Chester County do [inaudible] every single vet that ever served in Vietnam are taped for historic record, male and female. But your thoughts on that in terms of the sharing? Because obviously you have shared. Do you feel just from talking to your veteran friends and maybe some people that did not serve but were on the other side of the anti-war movement, that they have not really sat down with their kids, that their ideals have not been passed down to their kids; what went wrong, kind of thing? What happened? Your story is a positive one, but- JM: Yeah, but [inaudible] I have seen vets in tears publicly in front of their families. Now, in our good old cowboy, Texas president attitude, we do not do that. You do not cry in public. Well, that is dumb. Do anti-war guys of the same generation, same timeframe, do that? They might. I do not think that they do. I do not think that they do. As for talking about the experience, again, there is some guilt that says, "Hey, nobody shot in me. I did not go in the Jones. I partied almost every night. So I do not want to bring that up." I mean, I am comparing myself to a combat vet. And for the most part, there were very few combat vets. An awful lot of people got wounded. 300-some-odd-thousand got wounded. But during that time, that 10-plus-year time span, an awful lot of people went in. It is one of those crazy things. In basic training, I caught a ricochet bullet up against my neck. How close do you want to get? That was an eye-opener, when you say, "You know something? It did not break the skin." It put a little burn mark. I thought, "Bullets are hot." So when you get shot, it is not only, "Ouch, that hurts," but it is like, "Ouch, that burns." So it is like, "Well, how do you tell somebody about that?" Well, I told my daughter. I said, "Hey, touch wood. I am the luckiest guy around. I caught a ricochet and all I got is little burn mark from it." They would not let me keep it either. SM: Oh, my God. JM: But I share everything, except the girls that I dated. But it has helped me build an open relationship with my kids and with their friends. I suspect from the comments that she brings back to me that all parents are not as open with the kids as we are. There is no subject we will not touch. And is it because while we have touched all subjects there is to touch? It has always been, "Talk to me. And you got a question? What about this and what about that?" It is an open relationship with the kids. SM: One last question before I get into the names here, which will be the last third, is very bluntly, what will be the last legacy of the boomer generation, the 70 million born between (19)42 and (19)60 or (19)46 and (19)64, depending on what you want to say, of which 15 percent sociologists will say were ever involved either in service in Vietnam or involved as an activist in any protest movement? So we are talking 85 percent of 70 million who never served and were never involved in any anti-war or any movement of any kind. JM: Can you rephrase it for me [inaudible]- SM: What do you feel the lasting legacy of this generation will be, I guess when they are all gone? I raised this because I am a historian by trade and before I ever got into higher education with my major. And I have read an awful lot of oral histories and thoughts on the Civil War and how the Civil War people never healed. They went to their graves hating the South or the North, never forgiving, although they had had the great ceremonies in Gettysburg where they tried to come together, but many would not. And all too often the sadness that historians have written about the Civil War veterans who just never, ever healed or wanted to heal. And part of the lasting legacy is the sadness of the bitterness that so many of them had when they went to their graves. So just your thoughts on the lasting legacy of a generation. JM: I do not think it would be bitterness going to our graves. I think it is more like we showed the world a different way, or I should say we showed the wrong way to treat veterans returning from a conflict, and to separate the military from the political. The military is a tool to be used with great discretion. And something which is, again, basically a great bunch of people who are willing to put their life on the line and not question the order, to achieve the hopefully correct politics of the country. And it also taught us that you just do not go to war without a game plan. And regardless of how it comes out, the soldiers who returned are the heroes [inaudible]. I do not think anybody will ever go to war again, and this includes the current Iraqi war, without a whole lot of thought and ongoing thought. But the thought has got to be constructive, the actions, the discussions, the politics. Rioting is counterproductive; not rioting, protesting, I think, is counterproductive. I do not think it will be tolerated unless it is done with respect. Again, trusting the politicians, we trust them as far as the next election. We do not have 100 percent faith in them. We know they are not pure. We know they are not perfect. We expect a level of honesty from them and we damn well better get it, or we will vote them out. SM: Which leads right back to trust, just right back to the whole issue of trust and how important it is. Well, the last part of this interview is just going to be your thoughts on names from that era, people who were in different positions, older or younger, during the (19)60s and early (19)70s, just your comments and thoughts on them. The first one is Tom Hayden, who just happened to be on our campus a week and a half ago. JM: And I am sorry I could not make it. He is a protestor. I do not think he helped the war end any sooner. I think he actually added names to the wall by protesting. But I respect his right to protest. SM: How about the other members of that Chicago 8 group? Because it was Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, and I am going to get into Abbie Hoffman- JM: Abbie Hoffman [inaudible] Bobby Seale. SM: ...Jerry Rubin and Bobby Seale. I will go right into Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin from the Yippies. JM: Yeah, another group. SM: [inaudible] another, different group? JM: I think they could have been far more effective by being far more in suit and tie than clown makeup. I think if they wanted to end the war, as I told people way back when I was on campus, "You want to make a difference, go to senator so-and-so's office. Get an appointment, talk to the guy, send him a postcard. Show him that you are his kid and you have got serious concerns." But the whole idea that tipping over trash cans, setting fires, burning buildings, that creates a backlash and it is counterproductive. Make the system work. The system works. It is not perfect, it is not extremely fast, but it does work. SM: How do you feel about the Black liberation? There was Black power people who were... Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, Angela Davis. JM: That is Angela Davis over there, is not it? SM: Yes, it is. She is a professor at University of California Santa Cruz right now. JM: How do I feel about them? SM: Yeah, the whole Black power group. JM: I remember having to step in between a Black soldier and a white soldier during the riots of (19)65 or (19)66, I think. One guy's uncle got I think killed by a Black man. And I stepped between them and said, "Hey, look. We are in the Army. We are a unit, we are together. I know it hurts. And I know the guy used the N word, his uncle, his brother was killed by it." I said, "We have got to stand together." I think that they did the right thing, but again, it is the method that they used. They were far too confrontational, and it was counterproductive. But it could have [inaudible] it was productive. It could have been far more productive, I think, if they would have used Martin Luther King type... If you are looking in a mirror and the only difference is I am Black, I think you are going to have a tough time disagreeing with me if I am using your language, if I am using your wardrobe. Again, I appreciate this is the land we can be different. Thank God for that. But it is like if you want to accomplish a mission, you have got to be willing to make some concessions. SM: It goes right into the other... Of course, you got Martin Luther King, Jr. Then you have got Malcolm X. Those are two central figures of the period. JM: [inaudible] a guy wore a white shirt and tie, excuse me, a white shirt and bow tie, but a jacket. But he was different. If he would have put on a regular necktie, I think it would have been to his benefit, but he was creating a uniform. Good, productive steps and then a counterproductive move could have been more effective. SM: Dr. King, of course, is known as the civil rights leader who became involved in the anti-war movement. In fact, he got heavily criticized in the civil rights movement amongst his peers. Bayard Rustin, right here from West Chester, along with Dr. King, were two of the very few African American leaders who went big time anti-war. And your thoughts on ... Dr. King always [inaudible] Bayard Rustin is that they made the comparison of being Black in America to being the yellow skin over... concerned about people of all colors. Just your thoughts on Dr. King overall, and Bayard Rustin, who were civil rights leaders who were against the war? JM: And again, being against the war, I do not have a problem with that. It is how you manifest that and the effects on the troops who are over there fighting the war. If it is perceived as giving aid, comfort to the enemy, I do not think that is good. I think it is counterproductive, and you are going to make enemies. But talk about a span of time from their days, Martin Luther King's days, if you would have asked Martin Luther King 40 years ago, "We have got this guy named Colin Powell and people are talking about him as being President of the United States and has a big groundswell of support," he would say, " 400 years from now maybe, but not 40" [inaudible]- JM: 400 years from now maybe, but not 40. Hell no. And again, while Colin will not run, if he did, there is no doubt in my mind that he would probably win. He is squeezing. But again, here we are. It is only 40 years later. And how many years was Martin Luther King after the Civil War? That is like, do my math, hundred years. SM: (19)65, right. (19)63. JM: It is a hundred years to him. And that is forty years to Colin Powell [inaudible] Condoleezza Rice. SM: Right. JM: Very powerful, influential people today. Now is that because the media now puts them out front because they are black? I do not care. They are extremely talented individuals by what little I know to judge them by. But that is time. That is communications. SM: Can I take a two-minute break and go to the restroom? JM: Sure. SM: And then we will finish. All right. Make sure this is working properly. It is. All right. Jane Fonda, I know you have been waiting for- JM: I just thought of the- SM: How about that in Washington? JM: And I have seen that at other VFW posts around the country. Again, I know what she was thinking. I know what she was feeling. But what was she thinking? Counterproductive. And I literally rank her with Tokyo Rose, Axis Sally for World War II. As simple as that. What she did was deplorable. if she wanted to give an interview in Hollywood saying, "I have thought about it and I see no reason whatsoever for us to be there. I think it is a big mistake." That is one thing. But to sit there in an anti-aircraft gun in Hanoi while we have got prisoners over there languishing, and giving the photo op. No, no. To me that is, that is treason. SM: How about Benjamin Spock? Dr. Spock, he was involved in the anti-war movement. He was a baby doctor. JM: Yeah. Mr. baby book himself. I do not have any thoughts one way or the other about him, other than saying he was against the war. And I am sure he was in some rallies and stuff like that. But I cannot picture him being here. And other than the suit and tie, he may not have been. But... SM: How about the Berrigan brothers? Daniel and Philip, right from Baltimore. JM: Yeah. SM: But Philip died last year. JM: Yeah. Not a whole lot of thought about him. SM: From the Catholic movement. How about Lyndon Johnson? JM: Lyndon Johnson. I feel sorry for the guy. I think he either just did not ask the right questions or he got somewhat fraudulent, bogus answers from the military. When he asked, again, we can speculate as to what he asked the generals, but like Gulf of Tonkin. That is a fuzzy area that really, I do not believe that somebody said, "Hey, let us Trump up charges that the torpedo votes attacked the Turner Joy, the destroyer." SM: Right? JM: I do not believe that. I think somebody said something. They saw something and relayed, it got a little blown out proportion. Then he made a move, said, "Oh, okay, fine. Well I have got to have congressional war power because we have been fired upon." And he does not have that? I thought he always did. But I think it says as the nuclear commander, he always had the power to declare a war at a button's press. And he had the button. SM: Richard Nixon. JM: Talk about being at the wrong place at the wrong time. I do not hold him in as terrible a position. He got caught trying to do a coverup and he did not fess up. If he would have fessed up, I think he would have stayed in office. Just as Clinton got caught, Clinton did not fess up. He went to whole nine yards and stonewalled, unlike Nixon. So I hold Nixon in at a higher level than I hold Clinton if I am going to rank my presidents. And for that very reason. SM: And of course James Buchanan's the top. Gerald Ford. JM: Gerry Ford, well, I think he was just trying to do the best that he could. Not a whole lot of thought on that. SM: He ended the war. JM: Yeah, But I think the options he were presented was, we can either stick in there another 10 years, we can end it overnight with a nuclear catastrophe, or we just give up as nicely as we can. [inaudible] SM: Hubert Humphrey. JM: Again, I think he is probably a good anti-war advocate as could be described. SM: Spiro Agnew. JM: Piece of [inaudible] comes to mind. Anybody gets caught with their hands in a cookie jar like he got caught... He was a quirky personality. I do not think he could ever have been president other than by Nixon dying. But just I was impressed by his vocabulary, as was everybody. And his sense of humor. But that is all I remember about the guy. SM: How about Eugene McCarthy. JM: Gene McCarthy. SM: Not Joe, Eugene. JM: Yeah. Again, on the flavor of Humphrey. Anti-war, had his reasons, he ended very professionally, if I can use that term, with decency. SM: George McGovern. JM: Not a whole lot of thought on George. SM: Presidential candidate, 1972. JM: Yeah. SM: Symbolized him as the far left. JM: But no. SM: Timothy Leary. JM: Timothy is up there in one of those big clouds of smoke, I am sure. I could never understand him, like I said. And again, you are talking to somebody who I have never taken a drag of a cigarette. Okay. Let alone marijuana. SM: Never inhaled. JM: Never dropped LSD. Can honestly say I probably never inhaled other than might have been secondary. SM: From a rock concert. Yeah. JM: From somebody else. SM: Yeah. JM: Timothy Leary I just told was a nut case. Always did and company always will. SM: John Kennedy. JM: We discussed that earlier, going in. I think, again, because hindsight is 20/20, he is an overrated president. Camelot was almost a Hollywood manifestation by the press. They created an image, they fell on it. See, like all of a sudden, let us do cop shows on TV. Then it lasts about six years, comes back 10 years later. Let us do real life or shows. Let us do trading places. Let us make overage hotels. And here is another one. Let us do the Kennedy's love life. Okay? We cannot do that. So we got kid gloves first thing. What is his face? Clinton came along and all of a sudden, hey, we did not do it Kennedy. But that was then. This is now. He is fair game. But let us not overdo it. We do not want him getting impeached. We just want to play it for as long as we can. Let us wag the dog at the movie ring. SM: How about Robert Kennedy? JM: Robert Kennedy. Mostly kind thoughts about him other than against Sirhan. Killed him, but no great big thoughts one way or the other. Teddy Kennedy I did not particularly care for. SM: What were your thoughts of the general Cao Ky and President Thieu of South Vietnam? Those are the people that come to mind at least after the Diem regime. JM: Yeah, General Ky who I think is still a very, he is still alive in this day. SM: I would like to bring him here to pull it off. JM: Yeah. I think he, like the aristocracy of Vietnam at the time, Was doing whatever he could do to succeed. Whether he was militarily inept or not. I do not know if anybody could be a military genius, a Colin Powell of Vietnam. Unless the circumstances were different. I am glad he came here. I think he probably contributed to the country and is doing whatever he can do to make a buck. Just as he did in Vietnam. SM: Go back to, you see someone that when people remember the most for the longevity. JM: And I am just drawing a blank with him, to be honest with you. SM: Ralph Nader. JM: I bought a Corvair and the car was unsafe at any speed because you could not get it to run half the time. No. Nader, again, I think is like anybody else's. He just, while he wears the suit, he does not wear it well. And in fact you are telling us you have worn the same suit for 20 years, it is probably not the best thing you want to tell us. You would lose credibility. He could have been far more effective with a little bit of coaching. SM: George Wallace. JM: George Wallace. Interesting. I remember being judge of elections in Philadelphia when people were trying to vote for him. And we were told that you have to write his name in because he was not going a ballot in Philadelphia. We had people going crazy. But I respected the truth of what he said. If he said, "I do not want blacks in here," he was telling you, "I do not want blacks in here." Okay. There was honesty about him. I do not think the guy would lie about something like that. Of course, he got paralyzed and shot from that nut job. SM: Daniel Ellsberg. JM: Pentagon Papers, right? SM: Yep. Vietnam vet. JM: Leaking government papers is a no-no. I admire the fact that he did it. I think he could have done it better. Again, hindsight is 20/20. Do not ask me how, I think he could have been far more effective than having himself portrayed as a traitor. SM: How about Robert McNamara? JM: Think that is a guy I do not hold in very high opinion. I think he made a lot of very, very stupid, ill-informed snap decisions that really do not matter a big deal when you are manufacturing cars, but costs tremendously. I think he prolonged the war. I do not think he helped a whole lot. I think he was counterproductive. I think the war would have over far sooner. And if you want to call it a victory, it would have been a victory without McNamara. SM: The women's movement leaders, and you always think of Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan. Those are that kind of the- JM: I think of Bella Abzug, myself. SM: Oh yeah, definitely. JM: Yeah. Some people had credibility, some did not. And I feel sorry for the women's movement when we talk about, well these were the front-runners or the initiators of the women's movement who stood by with President Clinton and basically, by their silence, endorsed his behavior, which says, "Well, the hell with what I have been saying to you folks in the past 30 years." Now stands behind his president, were so forgiving of him and forgiving by their silence. If I was a woman, I would basically tell them all to go jump in a lake. SM: When you are looking at women, it is interesting that during the (19)60s and (19)70s that during all the movements, men are in most of the positions of power and women are in secondary roles. That is why many ended up starting the women's movement. But they have learned from the civil rights movement. How important were women in the (19)50s and (19)60s with respect to not only the women's movement, but other movements, period? And we were finding out now how important they were in Vietnam. They were always important that it took a long time for women to be recognized some of their [inaudible] with respect to their contributions in the Vietnam War. JM: I think the whole idea of, or I should say the growth of use of contraceptives opened the door to women fulfilling themselves to the max. Being in the working world, making a decision to have a career or a family or both on their own terms. I think that was the advantage that came out of the (19)60s was birth control, which totally reshaped what they could do. Again, my biggest argument has always been their far superior to men, mentally speaking. I can still take most of them in fight. SM: Right? JM: Five out of 10 times. SM: Right. JM: But it always been, I have always said it was a waste of intellectual capacity for them to be just barefoot pregnant down on the farm. What a waste. They should be out there. I am thrilled when I see a leader who really excites me, who has got the talent and the guts, the everything. Condoleezza Rice I mentioned. There was a sharp, sharp woman. I would follow her orders into battle if she was a military person like Colin Powell or I believe what she says. She has got that much credibility in her voice. And I do not think she is acting. That that woman is pure talent, pure influence. SM: I am a firm believer that Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, will be running against each other in four years after Bush is done. JM: Condy will kill her. SM: Well, yeah. And the question is, if President Bush wins, because I think she is going to leave his administration, that is another story to go back and run consent. I just think there is some things going on there. Muhammad Ali. JM: I, looking back at the time, I said, "Boy, is that a dumb thing to do." He could have had it all. He could have done just like Elvis Presley, put a uniform on, be a spec for, tour the camps, be promotional and run [inaudible] machine and still retain his championship. He decided to leave or to not to leave but to serve. I respect his opinion. It was as I believe a religious based opinion, like a total respect for that. I think he should opt for military service. That is his call. SM: People like Ron Kovic and the people like John Kerry, the Vietnam veterans against the war, because when they came back, they were as adamant as Tom Hayden. Your thoughts on them and their involvement in prolonging the war. JM: Again, I think they could have done a better job, but they looked like longhaired, dope smoking, Commie free person. And I have not used that term in what, at least three days. But it is like, again, do not shoot the messenger, however, if the messenger looks like the enemy, you are probably going to take a shot at them. They could have done better. Wearing fatigue shirts, it was very symbolic. But smoking pot and growing your hair long and using F this and F that it is counterproductive because they are far more productive. SM: A lot of them threw their medals away. JM: Yes. SM: Purple hearts. John Kerry being one of them. JM: Yes. SM: The people linked to Watergate, which would be the John Dean. Just your thoughts on him, because he is the guy that brokered everything. JM: It is a fine line. Watergate again, I think was one of those moments in cultural history where the communications media, the press, the news, the TV crossed the line and said, "You know something? We are going to pursue this story. And we do not care whether we find a woman under the bed or a burglar at the door. We are going to take no prisoners. Because we have got to have something for the 11 o'clock news." I think in World War II they would not have done it. They just would not have done it. What, make the President look bad during a time of war? We are not going to do it. But that was that generation. Here we are 60 years later. SM: Great. Barry Goldwater again, I brought him up. He has become a big hero in the conservative movement. Just your thoughts on him. JM: I remember backing Barry in high school. I do not know whether I passed leaflets out at the polling place or something like that. But I remember closely watching it and I very much liked the man's style. I thought he was an honest, straightforward individual. SM: And I am going to finish with just some terms from the, well, one of them is your thoughts on the music, your thoughts on the thoughts on the music of the (19)60s and the thoughts on those musicians and entertainers who were anti-war and the effect that they had on the war itself. JM: I think the musicians served as a rallying point because they were so different. I think they were an easy way to grab the audience. And oh, by the way, the change of music style to acid rock drove me to country western in the (19)60s, which as it turns out, was great because my father-in-law happened to like country western music. Of course he did not become my father-in-law for a couple of years after that. I think they were a tool. Again, the media will focus on Woodstock. It is a happening. It is a gathering. It is the 11 o'clock news. We have got something. And again, who went to these? Kids who were almost ready to be drafted or who were drafted. And I still cannot stand. I can stand rap today a little bit better than I can stand acid rock and I cannot stand acid rock. SM: Did you like Janice Joplin and Jimi Hendrix? JM: Not really. I mean, if I could not follow the music and let us say you are talking to a guy who cannot dance. Let us be honest about this. No, I just thought were, again, they were just tied up with the movement. And who linked them together? The media by accident probably. But it became one and the same. SM: The folk singers were very important in the anti-war movement. Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, Peter, Paul, and Mary, the list goes on and on. Holly Near, I mean, there is many of them. Just your thoughts on the folk musicians and Bob Dylan. They were people that really had an effect. JM: Again, they were part and parcel of the whole culture. I mean, there was another piece that was, gee, are you a long haired, dope smoking Commie, pre [inaudible] rock musician, anti-war protestor. All that shape. And each new layer was added to that. Did they contribute to elongation of the war? Probably a little. I do not think a whole lot. SM: I know at the Vietnam Memorial they have certainly invited some of the musicians or the singers, but that is never been any of the folk singers. Joan Baez at the wall? I do not think so. JM: I think he was here in (19)99. (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with John Morris Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Morris, John ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Interviews; Morris, John--Interviews Description An account of the resource John Morris, a native of Downingtown, PA, joined the Army Security Agency in 1965 and served two years in Vietnam. Following Vietnam, he was stationed at Fort Wolters, Texas, to train other operators in route to Vietnam until 1969. John Morris is a life member and active with the Vietnam Veterans of America. He is also a life member of the Veterans of Foreign War and the Disabled American Veterans. He received the Chapel of the Four Chaplain’s Legion of Honor Award. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003-11-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.134a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.134b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 230:02 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/a53ebc63c63da3c3a48639efe53f80cb.jpg 4407016ead7306ec9d7fc7d3ddf7a4b7 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/083a666d1fff15ba1035879e502bb78f.MP3 ff8b92d706b09a5ad41ab684f350b8c5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 8/7/2019 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed John Sinclair Biographical Text John Sinclair is a poet, writer, and political activist. He was born in Flint, Michigan. Sinclair later became the manager of rock band MC5 in the late 1960s and was a founding member of the White Panther Party, a far-left, anti-racist political collective. He earned his Bachelor's degree in American literature from the University of Michigan and completed coursework toward a Master's degree in American Literature at Wayne State University. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:28:05 Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords John Sinclair; 1960's; 1970's; MC5; John Lennon; The Beats; Beatnik; Beatles; Yippie; Hippie; Paul Krassner; Jerry Rubin; Allen Ginsberg; Hash Bash; (Davison; MI); White Panther Party; COINTELPRO; Bill Kunstler; Hugh M. Davis Jr.; Damon Keith; Abbie Hoffman; Festival of Light; Bobby Seale; Huey Newton; Rainbow People’s Party; Robert Martian; Hauldeman-Ehrlichman; Rennie Davis; Jack Kerouac; Eldridge Cleaver; John Kerry; Marijuana Movement; Michael Moore; SDS; FBI; CIA; J. Edgar Hoover; Ed Sanders; Leonard Weinglass; FISA; Justice Rehnquist; Nixon. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: John Sinclair Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Carrie Blabac-Myers Date of interview: 7 August 2019 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 0:02 SM: All right, we are on. 0:04 JS: Good 0:05 SM: Well, first off ̶ 0:06 JS: Now can I ask you this? Can you give me an mp3 file of this when it is done? 0:11 SM: Oh, yes. 0:12 JS: Okay, great. 0:12 SM: Yeah. It has, it has to be it has to be sent from the university. Not me, the university. 0:17 JS: I do not care who sends it, I just want to get it. 0:19 SM: Yep. You will get it. 0:21 JS: For my records. 0:22 SM: Yeah, all my interviews and everything has to be approved first before they ever can be used for research and scholarship. 0:29 JS: [laughs] 0:31 SM: Okay, my first question. 0:32 JS: Well, I do not have that problem. 0:34 SM: [laughs] Okay. 0:36 JS: I am just a citizen. 0:37 SM: Yeah, my first question is when you think of the 1960s and early 1970s what is the first thing that comes to your mind? 0:46 JS: A big smile. 0:48 SM: [laughs] Is there anything beyond that smile? 0:56 JS: Well, I was just thinking about what a great time it was. 1:00 SM: Is there any particular event that stands out to you during this whole (19)60s early (19)70s that, were you were not involved that, you know, think it was an amazing event and also an event where you were involved? 1:22 JS: Oh, I do not know. It was daily life for me since from about (19)64 until I do not know, (19)80 some time. [laughs] It was a succession of events day after day. A way of life. It was not just events you know what I mean? It was not no Woodstock or nothing like that. 1:47 SM: Right. 1:48 JS: Daily life with people. Taking LSD. You know. Fighting the government. Trying to end the war in Vietnam. Putting on free concerts, all that kind of stuff. 2:00 SM: When do you take when to take your first drug? 2:04 JS: My first what? 2:05 SM: When did you take marijuana or any drug? When was the first time you ever took it? 2:13 JS: Well you know, marijuana is not a drug. That is a misconception. Marijuana is a medicine. 2:21 MS: Right. 2:24 JS: I started smoking marijuana by 1962, early in 1962. But before that I took sleeping pills. I drank cough syrup. I drank beer, wine, whiskey, rum. [laughs] 2:38 MS: What was your ̶ You grew up in Flint. What was it like growing up? 2:42 JS: I grew up in Davison, Michigan, outside of Flint, a little country town. 2:46 SM: Yeah. What was it like growing up for you? 2:51 JS: Well, it was like the movies of American life in the (19)50s in a small town of all white people. 2:59 SM: Did you go to a big high school? 3:01 JS: No, I went all thirteen years in the same building. 3:04 SM: Oh my gosh. 3:06 JS: I grew up in a small town Davison. 3:12 SM: I can tell you are a jazz. 3:20 JS: ̶ There was not anything in the town, it was an escape from the town, you know. 4:06 SM: Right. 4:06 JS: Mentally I could escape by listening to Ray Charles and Big Joe Turner. You know. 4:12 SM: Yeah well, Ray Charles is one of the one of the really good ones. 4:17 JS: Yeah. 4:17 SM: Do you? 4:18 JS: Well, I got into him right at the time that he switched to Atlantic records in 1952. I was eleven. So I remember his records on Atlantic, you know. 4:27 SM: Were you also if you were interested in the blues, were you also interested in jazz? 4:32 JS: Not until I got out of high school. 4:35 SM: Yeah, Coltrane and Miles. 4:37 JS: When I went to college, I got turned on to jazz. 4:40 SM: Yeah. 4:41 JS: And then I became a jazz fanatic. Then I became, in the mid – (19)60s I was an avant garde jazz fanatic: John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Archie Shepp, Pharoh Sanders, you know. 4:57 SM: Will you ever into the group Weather Report? 5:01 JS: No, they were a little tame for me. 5:03 SM: [laughs] Well, um, when you look at the rock scene, obviously, you know, this is the era where music played a very important role in the (19)60s and (19)70s in the lives of both young people and all people in fact, were there any rock groups that stood out during that timeframe for you? 5:22 JS: Oh, sure. Of course. 5:27 SM: Any particular ones? 5:29 JS: You ever hear of the Beatles? 5:30 SM: Uh, I think I have. 5:31 JS: The Rolling Stones? The Who? 5:34 SM: Right. 5:36 JS: Let us start with them. 5:40 SM: Yeah. 5:41 JS: I was the manager of a group called the MC5. I was associated with scores of groups in Detroit, and later around the country. So yeah, I was aware of all of them. 5:54 SM: I have questions that I was going to ask later on about MC5, but maybe I will ask him right now because that was in the mid – (19)60s that you became their manager? 6:02 JS: Correct (19)67. Yeah, quite a few people that I know were MC5 fans. They were very wise. 6:11 SM: Well, they were MC5 fans [inaudible] quite a few people I know at Kent State were MC5 fans. They were music that was kind of, if I can remember correctly, that the Yippies really liked? 6:24 JS: Well, yeah, we were Yippies. 6:26 SM: Yeah. What was it like to be a Yippie? And for people? 6:30 JS: ̶ It was great! 6:30 SM: For those who may not grew, who may not know what Yippie is, what is a Yippie? 6:33 JS: A Yippie is a member of the Youth International Party or their followers that were not members. They did not really have a membership. They did not even have an office it was an idea promulgated by a recently departed Paul Krassner. 6:51 SM: Oh, yes. 6:52 JS: Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman and Ed Sanders and other guys. 6:57 SM: Yeah they were. 6:59 JS: ̶ That I knew. 7:00 SM: Yeah, Jerry came to Ohio State when I was there and gave one heck of a speech. 7:04 JS: I will bet he did. That was his forte. 7:08 SM: I remember that was 1971 and he was wearing that bandana with all those paintings on his face. 7:14 JS: Yep, yep. That was his peak right there. 7:17 SM: Yeah, well the crowd was unbelievable. 7:18 JS: That was when he got John Lennon to help me get out of prison. 7:23 SM: That whole thing about the event that took place in 1971. Correct me if I am wrong, you came to national fame because people got to know you through that song 'John Sinclair' is that correct? 7:37 JS: No. 7:38 SM: No? How did you become famous? 7:42 JS: Well, they gave me ten years for two joints. No appeal bond. I was fighting the marijuana laws and in 1972 I overturned the marijuana laws in the state of Michigan. Just before that song time came out. 7:58 SM: And I know that so many people were upset about the penalty that was given to you for simply selling two cigarettes to an undercover 8:06 JS: ̶ No, no, I sold nothing. I gave a police woman two cigarettes because she asked me for one. 8:12 SM: Right. And then of course they had that concert. 8:16 JS: There was no sale. 8:19 SM: The rock musicians did this concert and I could not believe how many big names were there! 8:26 JS: [digital music plays in the background] Well it was a culmination of two and a half years of concerts by everybody that we knew; everybody that supported me and we culminated it in this and Jerry Rubin convinced John Lennon and Yoko Ono to attend, and that took it over the top. 8:47 SM: When you heard that song for the first time that you were in prison, when you heard it, were you surprised? 8:55 JS: Surprised. 8:56 SM: Were you surprised that John had not written a song about you? 8:59 JS: Oh, of course, sure. 9:00 SM: It was an unbelievable thing. 9:02 JS: I did not know him. 9:05 SM: Yeah, well I can remember hearing that song on the radio when I was a kid. 9:10 JS: I had already been released by then, by the time the song was released. What did it was when he came to Ann Arbor in the flesh and appeared at our rally. That was three months before the record came out. 9:17 SM: Okay. 9:17 JS: He sang the song there. He had just written it. 9:33 SM: You have been a poet, you have been a poet for a long time. You started out as a poet. 9:37 JS: Long time. 9:40 SM: How would someone say who maybe knows you real well describe your poetry? 9:47 JS: Oh I have no idea. 9:49 SM: How would you describe it? 9:50 JS: Describing my poetry is; no it is not something I; that describes itself. You read the poem, there it is, you know. It is what it is. I do not know, it is not about something, it is what it is, you know, I am a poet. 10:09 SM: Now, do you? I notice that you connected the music with the poetry? So you were the spoken word? 10:17 JS: That is just a marketing term you know. Poetry is poetry you know. Then they have this other genre where you can say anything and they have poetry slams, but none of those really have anything to do with poetry per se. 10:35 SM: When did you start being a poet? Did you write in high school? 10:38 JS: In 1962. 10:39 SM: Wow. 10:43 JS: And I got to be fairly good by (19)64. 10:48 SM: Now, I know that you had mentioned that Allen Ginsberg and Ed Sanders were at that one concert but you had been with him before. 10:59 JS: They were my mentors, I followed them. 11:02 SM: Wow. They were; when, Alan Ginsberg came to Ohio State, he filled two ballrooms at one time. 11:12 JS: That is good. 11:13 SM: And he never opened his mouth. He just did a chant. You know. 11:17 JS: Oh dear. That was the least favorite part to me I liked his poetry and his recitations. 11:24 SM: But it was, it was what they called a 'happening' back then, and you know that word. I have some specific questions on the (19)60s and (19)70s. In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin? 11:40 JS: January 1, 1960. 11:43 SM: Okay. When did it end? 11:49 JS: December 31, 1969. When the (19)70s started. 11:56 SM: How do you feel about people that say the early (19)70s are part of the (19)60s? 12:01 JS: Oh, I do not care what they say. 12:02 SM: Yeah. A lot of people say that, and I mean, I have interviewed so many people. 12:08 JS: What they talk about the (19)60s, does not include the first part of the (19)60s either. They are talking about (19)68 to (19)75 or something like that. When white people discovered what was hippies, is what was going on. Really 19(69) Woodstock, really started in (19)69 what they think of it see because before that, they were all squares. Hippies was a small community of people regarded as outcasts. Hated by squares. 12:45 SM: I know that the ̶ we interviewed a person who mentioned that he thought the (19)60s was divided into two parts. Part one was 1960 to 1963 when Kennedy was shot and then (19)60s and then after that (19)64 to (19)70 when all hell broke loose. How do you like that commentary? Do you agree with that? 13:09 JS: No, I see at all as a continuity. 13:16 SM: Also, the Beats played a very important role here. And I like the thought on the Beats because this is just it is way beyond just having Allen Ginsberg and Ed Sanders. You know they were different. And they were the first one that really kind of challenged the system in many ways with their writings. They were ahead of their time. Some people, some people think that the (19)60s really began with the Beats in the (19)50s. Your thoughts on that? 13:43 JS: Well I do not know you are using the (19)60s as a metaphor for a period of social change. That really has a different set of numbers, so it is kind of confusing. You are talking about the social revolution that took place in the (19)60s and early (19)70s. 14:03 SM: Yes. And all the movements. 14:04 JS: That is not the (19)60s though. The (19)60s was ten years, you know, it was a decade. [laughs] 14:12 SM: Well, that is important, when I interview people, they have different opinions on everything in terms of the (19)60s and even on the Boomer generation. The one thing, and your thoughts on the issue of spirit when we talk about the boomer generation; which is originally when I was going to be writing a book on. 14:30 JS: The what? 14:31 SM: The Boomer generation that were born between 1946 and (19)64. 14:36 JS: Oh Boomer. Okay, yeah. 14:38 SM: I got corrected a many times by people by saying, it is not about age, it is about spirit. It's about the spirit of the time, I think was Richie Havens that told me that, "I am born in 1941 Steve and I am the (19)60s. I am the spirit of the (19)60s", because it was a period of time where there was a scary ̶ 14:57 JS: Well, we were the ones who did the things that were different. Yeah, yeah, I was born in (19)41. Sanders was born in (19)38 you know, we were the ones who did the things that were different. 15:09 SM: Right. 15:10 JS: People our age. 15:13 SM: When you hear that you know ̶ 15:15 JS: We were inspired by the beatniks and by black people. 15:21 SM: Could you explain a little more detail what you are saying there in terms of, because the people that will be listening to these who are going to be doing research and scholarship on this period. When you say that 'the beatniks' and people of color; black people were the inspiration. Could you go into a little more detail? 15:43 JS: Well, yeah, what do you want? 15:46 SM: How? Well how they inspired. How they inspired the spirit overall of that period. 15:53 JS: Well, by their example. By the way they lived, by the things that they created, their art, their ideas. 16:02 SM: Can you ever see a period of time? If the music was not there would there have been the (19)60s? 16:09 JS: I am sorry? 16:10 SM: If there had been (none) of the music that we all know happened in the (19)60s and (19)70s, would there have been a (19)60s? 16:19 JS: I do not know. [laughs] I do not know how you do these things! How you are going to separate these things? And why? Why do not we talk about what happened? I am not interested in speculating. I am interested in what happened. What is going to happen next? 16:37 SM: Yeah. What? When you look at this, when you look at this period, this ten years from 1960 to (19)70, what did happen in your in your view that made it so different than other decades? 16:55 JS: [laughs] Well, I saw the same thing that everyone else did. I do not know what you are you trying to get out of me? These are kind of big questions. 17:06 SM: Well, just based from your experiences, the things that you know, how you became who you are, and how you became the activist that you were, the poet that you were, the musician. 17:16 JS: I followed the example of the beatniks and I intermingled with black people and I studied their culture. This is what shaped my personality. Now, I got to write that practice you know? I listen to a lot of records. Thousands. 17:41 SM: One of the musicians that always fascinates me is Marvin Gaye. And particularly when he made the changeover in the late on that 1971 period when he did the album, What's Going On. 17:55 JS: Correct. 17:55 SM: And I thought it was his greatest work. But he got heavily criticized for it because I think because they were saying it was not the typical Marvin Gaye music and that seemed to be, I mean, a major happening in the early (19)70s in the music world. 18:14 JS: It was. 18:15 SM: I mean, I played it over and over again. It is that kind of music with messages. 18:18 JS: Also, Stevie Wonder do not leave him out, talk about brilliance. They were twin towers of creativity. 18:27 SM: Right. Look at the people. 18:30 JS: Then the Rolling Stones took Stevie Wonder on tour with them and introduced him to white people and then he became bigger. They also did that with Ike and Tina Turner and with B.B. King. 18:45 SM: What would your thoughts on the whole, the lawsuit or the ̶ that particular one in Ann Arbor, with the marijuana what the whole lawsuit that you won? Or Leonard Weinglass was your lawyer and it was case. 19:05 JS: That was a real specific case. That was a federal case of conspiracy. I was charged with conspiring to blow up a CIA office in Ann Arbor. 19:17 SM: And you won that case? 19:20 JS: Well, yeah, because the government said that they were wiretapping and they had, the defendants were captured on wiretaps but they could not say who the wiretap was on because it was a matter of national security. And then it came out that they were tapping national security targets without a wire warrant, and we challenged that in court with Weinglass, Bill Kunstler and the great Hugh M. Davis Jr. of Detroit. 19:57 SM: That is a major case because that whole period of the (19)60s with all these illegal things happening with COINTELPRO and all those activists organizations, I know when I was in college, they were spying on our campus. 20:10 JS: They were spying on all campuses and they were not supposed to have anybody active in United States. I did not happen to conspire to blow up this office but I know the people who did and I know why they did it to call attention to the fact that the CIA had an office that was recruiting on the campus of the University of Michigan. In violation of international and national law. 20:35 SM: So that is an historic case. 20:37 JS: So we unearthed them. Yeah well, the historic part was that we won in the Supreme Court. See, we had a judge in Detroit who just died, Damon Keith, a great jurist. It was in the eastern district of Michigan and he awarded in our favor that there was no such thing as a warrantless wiretap and that the government, he ordered the government to divulge the information on the wiretaps and they said, "We cannot divulge it because then we would have to say who it was on and blah, blah, blah, and it fits with our strategy." And they said, "Well, you have got to reveal it or drop the case." And so he freed us from the charge, and then the government appealed the judge's ruling. So my case went to the US Supreme Court, as US versus US District Court, eastern district of Michigan and that was adjudicated in the Supreme Court, eight to nothing in our favor and Nixon was repudiated. As a result of that this group, this organization, government organization, called FISA was created which came up again in the Bush era because he was defying them. You remember that? 21:25 SM: Yes, I do. 21:57 JS: Well FISA was established as a result of our case. Because they wanted to get a wiretap that nobody else knew about they had to go to the FISA court. They could not just bop one on somebody. You know what I am saying? 22:15 SM: Yep. 22:18 JS: That was a lasting result of that. And they say we had something to do with Watergate. Because you know because Watergate was about removing their wiretaps. 22:32 SM: Right. 22:33 JS: My case was decided on a Friday afternoon in the Supreme Court. Justice Rehnquist had just been appointed from the Nixon so-called Justice Department to the Supreme Court. He had recused himself from the case because he had been one of the architects of the warrantless wiretap. 22:53 SM: Oh my God. 22:54 JS: Well they presume that (they decided my case on Friday, but they did not announce it until Monday) and they presume that Justice Rehnquist called the Nixon-Mitchell office and told them that they had lost in the Supreme Court eight to nothing, and that if they had any wiretaps, they'd better get them out by Monday so they could say that they did not have any. 23:21 SM: Wow. 23:21 JS: And that was the Saturday of the Watergate break in. 23:24 SM: Unbelievable! Well that is historic. [laughs] Crazy, huh? Yeah, that is historic! 23:30 JS: Yeah. That is what they say. There is no way to know. But that is what they say. 23:35 SM: Yeah. Were you in the courtroom when, when they were doing their legal arguing? Weinglass? 23:43 JS: Yeah I was there in the Supreme Court. Yes. That was a thrill. And the great Bill Bender argued our case. The nation's leading constitutional, leftwing constitutional scholar. He argued our case. Another great part of it was that the Solicitor General of the United States Erwin Griswold refused to argue Nixon's case because it was so full of shit. [laughs] 24:14 SM: Everything Nixon did was that way mostly. [laughs] 24:17 JS: So in the Supreme Court it ended up that this, one of those, um, criminals from Arizona, I think it was Robert Martian. One of those guys. Part of that Hauldeman-Ehrlichman axis. They had to argue the case and they were [inaudible] the Supreme Court ripped him to shreds. 24:25 SM: Oh my god. Wow. 24:39 JS: Yeah, I was so thrilled. [laughs] 24:43 SM: Well, that particular event where they all came together; the activists and the musicians and so forth. I mean you had, you know, Rennie Davis was there. 24:52 JS: Well, that was what we did see, we were they White Panther Party. We had the MC5. We were associated with the Stooges and really fifty other bands in Detroit and Ann Arbor. 25:06 SM: Wow. 25:07 JS: This is what we did. 25:08 SM: Now this is where I would like you to give a little more detail because I, the MC5, I have some people at Kent State, some former students there who were big MC5 fans, could you talk about MC5 and their influence? The years that you had them as their manager and just talk about all these bands you are talking about in Detroit? Your life is fascinating. 25:32 JS: Ha! 25:32 MS: No! It is. I mean, it is! You know, all the different categories from being a poet, a musician, a writer. Radio, having your own radio shows, a manager of a rock band, you write! And what you did with the underground newspapers. I mean, your life is amazing. 25:54 JS: Well thanks. I was inspired by Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, Ed Sanders, Amir Braka. 26:02 SM: He cannot get any better than that. Because they are the Beats. 26:05 JS: That is where I come from. 26:07 SM: Yeah, we grew up on that. 26:08 JS: And then I took a lot of LSD. 26:11 SM: Yeah. How many trips did you have? 26:15 JS: I could not tell you that. 26:18 SM: Did you write your best poetry when you were on a trip or did just, you did not want to be on any kind of medicine at all when you when you wrote your poetry? 26:29 JS: I just take as it comes. 26:32 SM; But what? Now how did the MC5 come together? 26:39 JS: Well, they went to high school together in Lincoln Park, Michigan. 26:44 SM: And how did you become their manager? 26:48 JS: Well, I heard the band and I thought they were great and I became a huge fan and I saw them every time they played for a year, and then I became their manager. They needed someone to help them. 27:01 SM: Right. And the band was often categorized so that they were involved in issues caring about certain issues. They were more of a ̶ and they performed I believe in Chicago. 27:15 JS: Right. 27:16 SM: And just before that they went crazy there in the park. Describe that scene. 27:26 JS: Well, they played and then the police attacked the people in the park and we fled. 27:32 SM: I think I think that is when Rennie Davis gotten beaten over the head, I think. I know he said he was there. 27:38 JS: Well, Rennie Davis was in another part. See they also had the Democratic Convention. And that was father downtown than the park, you know. We were in Lincoln Park with the Yippies created this thing called the Festival of Life as an alternative to the Democratic Convention. We had the music and the poetry and the acid. The other people were conflicting with the Democratic Party and the Chicago police regularly for a week or so. 28:16 SM: Could you talk a little more detail about the festival? 28:18 JS: That was led by the SDS and by the mobilization against the war in Vietnam. We were led by the Yippies. 28:29 SM: Could you, in your own words describe a little bit more about the Festival of Life when we talk about the (19)68 Democratic Convention we all hear about the SDS and that group, the activist groups, and we know that Andy Hoffman was there and that there were some Yippies there but we do not really see the breakdown. 28:48 JS: No, no, no, we were not part of the protest at the convention we had our own event. 28:52 SM: Right. I know. But I do not think it is discussed that much. They always just talk about the 28:57 JS: Well, that is not our fault. I kind of discuss it now. 29:02 SM: Could you do it? Could you talk a little bit more about the Festival of Life? 29:08 JS: Yeah, it was a Yippie event created by Ed Sanders, Paul Krassner, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and others. I was in on the planning of that as well. It was, the idea was to put on a free concert in the park in Chicago in protest against the Democratic Party and not just the Democratic Party but what we called the 'death culture.' See the Democratic Party was carrying on the war in Vietnam. Full force at that time, full force. Now Lyndon Johnson had stepped down because he did not feel he would get reelected because he had [inaudible] this war so fiercely, which was true. And so Humphrey was running and he had been Vice President so he was just as bad. So we want anything to do with the Democrats. So we put on our own event because our whole outlook was alternative, alternative to the death culture. Then we were going to have this political conversation? We were going to have a free concert. All the bands in the hippie nation were supposed to play. The Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, they all got scared when they saw the people getting beat up by the police. So none of them came except for the MC5 we came from Detroit by car; and we played. We were determined to play. Fuck the police. 30:46 SM: How long did the MC5? Are they still performing? Or are they kind of broken up? 30:55 JS: They broke up in 1972, yep. I thought you were writing about the (19)60s. You do not know about the MC5? 31:03 SM: Yeah, I know, I got it right here. 31:05 JS: They were the greatest band of the (19)60s. [laughs] 31:09 SM: But I did not know that they had all dispersed and gone separate ways. 31:13 JS: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You need to read the book that Wayne Kramer recently published called The Hard Stuff. Then you should talk to Wayne Kramer, the lead guitarist in the MC5. 31:33 SM: The White Panther Party was formed because it was the Black Panthers had asked you to be a counter another support group for their cause correct me? 31:48 JS: No, no, no. No they put out a; white people were asking what they could do to further the cause of the Black Panther Party and Bobby Seale and Huey Newton said you should start a White Panther Party. So we did that. We responded to that. We thought that was a good idea. 32:08 SM: Did you have a lot? 32:09 JS: They said, our real problem is the white people. So somebody else needs to have a radical party to organize white people in our support. And in support of socialism. Because first of all, the Black Panther Party was a democratic socialist organization. 32:28 SM: Again, the White Panther Party existed from (19)68 to (19)80? 32:32 JS: (19)80? I do not know anything about that. 32:38 SM: I thought the length of time that the party was together was for twelve years. The Black, I mean, I am not talking about Black Panthers; the white, the White Panther Party was to kind of 32:49 JS: No, we changed it to the Rainbow People's Party in 1971. So for us, it went from (19)68 to (19)71. Some other people in San Francisco kept a White Panther Party, but it was not us. 33:07 SM: Now you were um, you lived in the United States, and then you moved to Amsterdam, as well, you have; 33:14 JS: Oh, you are jumping ahead quite a bit, yeah. 33:16 SM: I am going all over the place. Yeah. I have got so much here on your life. But I wanted to talk about that because I think it is when I think of Amsterdam, I think of jazz. 33:29 JS: Jazz? 33:30 SM: Yeah. A lot of jazz musicians go to Amsterdam. It is a very creative city. It is a very progressive city. 33:36 JS: Yeah. But not music or art. What progressive is that they keep your hands off of you. But their art is terrible and so is there music. 33:48 SM: Yeah, I know jazz musicians like Amsterdam because they feel like 33:52 JS: Well, they like to hear them play so they got gigs there you know? 33:55 SM: Right. 33:56 JS: And it is a great place to live, but not so many live there. Many more live in Paris or Copenhagen. 34:04 SM: You were involved in working with underground newspapers too. 34:09 JS: Correct. 34:09 SM: I am reading a book right now on the history of the underground newspapers. 34:13 JS: Oh wow. 34:14 SM: And their impact on the on the Vietnam War and a lot of other causes but particularly the Vietnam War. 34:24 JS: Do they have anything about the [inaudible]? 34:26 SM: I have only, it was a book written in 1993. It cost me fifty dollars I am just start starting to read it. And Tony Auth the cartoonist for the piece, the late cartoonist from the Philadelphia Inquirer is in it quite a bit too, because he did a lot of underground. 34:45 JS: Who was that? 34:45 SM: Tony Auth. 34:48 JS: I do not know him. 34:49 SM: Yeah, he was in the Philadelphia Inquirer for many years be came from Los Angeles. 34:52 JS: Oh, oh. No wonder. 34:53 SM: But he talked a lot about it, but you worked with the underground newspapers and you have been involved with them. 35:01 JS: How you contribute is, you did not get paid. It was not like working for them. 35:06 SM: They are important. 35:07 JS: Yeah, I know, but the important part was that people did it because they felt this information should be disseminated, not because they were getting paid. And they were not owned by anybody they were collectively owned. It is a beautiful thing. 35:28 SM: Well. 35:29 JS: Totally the opposite of the journalism that they have now. 35:32 SM: Exactly. I remember being in three different universities and I got my news from them. 35:38 JS: Right. 35:39 SM: And I still got a lot of them that I kept and never threw them away. 35:42 JS: Right. And you will not find one today. Will you? 35:45 SM: No, I go on the campus today and I do not see anything. But in terms of their influence during that period of time, we are talking about the (19)60s and (19)70s when so much was happening. They were vital, were not they? To me they were vital. 35:58 JS: Vital. Rock and roll, underground newspapers and underground radio. You know then, we did not have no internet. 36:09 SM: That is right. 36:11 JS: You know and to communicate you had to write up something, type it on a mimeograph, run it up on the mimeograph, fold them up, buy the envelopes, buy the stamps. Put them in envelopes, write the address, send them and three days later they get the message. So that was the [inaudible] in which you operated. So the underground paper, they came out every week, right? Or every other week at worst. That is the way that you found out what was going on. 36:43 SM: I got to interview Vietnam vets who said that were in their basic training, they found out a lot about the Vietnam War through reading underground newspapers. 36:54 JS: Yeah, because the army was not going to tell them. 36:56 SM: No. 36:58 JS: They were just cannon fodder to them. 37:01 SM: This is when they were doing their six weeks basic training. 37:03 JS: Underground papers had a great role in creating the resistance within the armed forces, which became a decisive factor. It really was marked most prominently by the great testimonial of John Kerry, a Naval lieutenant who said this is all horseshit. 37:28 SM: Right. Yeah. 37:30 JS: To me, that was a turning point. 37:33 SM: That was amazing. 37:34 JS: In ending the war. 37:36 SM: Well I interviewed Bobby Moeller, earlier today, and we were going into detail about that particular time that he went before the Foreign Relations Committee with Senator Fulbright. And that was historic and to add that some of the atrocities and then there was a book written I think, about 2003 by Mark Turce and it talks about the atrocities in Vietnam and it's just; that were hidden for many, many years by the government and then he was able to find them. So uh. 38:10 JS: Well the whole thing was an atrocity from beginning to end. You know, these are people that are farming rice in their paddies. They were not at war when nobody except for the dictators of South Vietnam who were backed by the US. They were not doing nothing to nobody. They never came here. We killed hundreds of thousands of people and then the bomb, you know, horrible, horrible. Every part of it was horrible. It was inhuman. 38:44 SM: Yeah. 38:45 JS: And they lied about it from beginning to end. 38:49 SM: Yeah. The whole (19)60s when you think about it. It went; to me, the watershed event was the Vietnam War and civil rights obviously is another one. 39:02 JS: Yeah, the twins. 39:03 SM: Yeah the twins and 39:04 JS: And then the Women's Movement came up. And then the Gay Movement. 39:08 SM: Right. That was in (19)69. 39:11 JS: Yeah. 39:12 SM: Yeah. It's like this whole, you know, you are involved in this period when all these groups are coming to, you know, the various causes they all we had the anti-war movement and of course, we know about the civil rights movement and with a women's movement and the gay and lesbian movement with the Chicano movement. I have been interviewing some Asian Americans who were a lot older, there was a movement in that particular group. We do not hear about too much. 39:41 JS: Yeah, they had the records expunged from when they locked him up in the concentration camps during World War II. 39:48 SM: Yes, yes, yes and you have got doctor Tekaki talking all about that and some of his books, and certainly the history of the Native Americans is another one. 40:00 JS: Yeah. 40:01 SM: This all kind of comes together in the (19)60s and in the, in the (19)70s, and you are involved in a lot! 40:08 JS: Well, you see, once they assassinated their own president, that kind of pulled covers; it started to pull the ̶ you know, that was the end of the illusion that this was all on the up and up. They killed, they assassinated the president! 40:26 SM: Yes. 40:26 JS: They did not like his policies, they got rid of them. You know, that was the beginning of the end. 40:32 SM: Did we ever have an Age of Innocence even before he was killed? 40:36 JS: Oh, I do not know what you mean by we ̶ 40:39 SM: America, this nation. 40:41 JS: There is no such thing. America, you know, there is black people. There's white people, there's rural people that do not, there's no such thing as that. It is all a myth. We just all live in the same piece of land. An Age of Innocence, you know they came over here and stole this country from the people that lived here and assassinated them in huge numbers and not only assassinated them but removed their way of life. Killed off the plants and the animals that they ate. That is the innocent White people. The poor white people. Rotten motherfuckers. 41:22 SM: The word that has been used a lot; we are that we are a very xenophobic nation. Afraid. 41:31 JS: I am not part of no 'we' like that. I am nothing like any of that. That is not my 'we'. I am a we with those who were born here. I am an American, but I do not subscribe to all of that horseshit. 41:47 SM: When you look at the term, the 'Yippies' and the 'hippies', and how the anti-war movement and we are all the people for that period, they kept talking about Theodore Roszack wrote that great book The Making of a Counterculture that was kind of required reading on college campuses in the early (19)70s. To you, what is the definition of a counterculture? 42:11 JS: That is never a term that I use. I thought that guy was totally full of shit. Roszak. 42:18 SM: Yeah. 42:19 JS: They made it required reading on campus so that they would all get the wrong idea. Course, the next idea they got on campus was that history was over. [laughs] So you see where they were trying to lead the young people in their educational facilities? 42:38 SM: Well, you know, we learn more about history by reading Howard Zinn, because Howard Zinn, because Howard Zinn had an alternative view. 42:43 JS: Exactly. Umberto Eco. [laughs] 42:50 SM: Yeah, you know, I actually had a chance to meet him. He was an interesting man. 42:56 JS: I will bet. He is a good writer! I like his novels. 43:01 SM: Well, his history was unbelievable too and so, one of the things here I wanted to: what, of all the movements you have been connected to the course, several movements in your own way but, what of all the movements that took place in the (19)60s and (19)70s how important was the anti-war movement in ending the war? There has been a lot of discussion of this in books and scholarly writing. 43:34 JS: Well, what do they say? The people who were waging the war did not end it. They kept it on as long as they possibly could. It was us that ended it. 43:46 SM: Oftentimes the criticism is the college students, the alternative view is that the college students did not end the war in Vietnam. Maybe the general protesters might have been but there was a lot of criticism of college students I do not know if you had that same feeling. 44:04 JS: What? I do not I do not care what anybody thinks okay the criticism these fucking idiots means nothing to me. There was what happened and then there was what did not happen or whatever they say, they are nuts! Plus, they got agendas of their own! They are capitalists. 44:24 SM: Why did we lose that war? In your opinion. 44:28 JS: We? I won! 44:31 SM: I am not going to say 'we' anymore. 44:32 JS: I was on the side of the Viet Cong! We won! Why did America lose it? Because they were on the wrong side. They were on the wrong side of history and they were on the wrong side in the war. They were wrong. They were evil, vicious, you know invaders. 44:59 SM: They certainly did not understand 45:00 JS: Bombers. 45:01 SM: They did not understand the culture they were going into ̶ 45:04 JS: Well, they understood well enough that it was different from ours and needed to be eradicated. They used the same shit they used on the Indians. They destroyed the villages and tried to destroy their livelihood. You know, they are just totally vicious. That is the way white people are, it is what they are all about. You know, yeah, the European Union now, I am a big fan of European Union, cause seven years ago, these people were bombing each other's cities. Well, now they got people rising up in all these countries that want to go back to that. They are a fucking idiots. 45:48 SM: I love your honesty. I love your honesty. 45:52 JS: That is all I got. 45:52 SM: Do that know that? I love that that I like about you and all the people I have been interviewing is I love hearing their points of view. Because they are all they are all valid. 46:03 JS: And you will not be hearing them on TV. [laughs] 46:08 SM: No you will not. You will not. Well, I want to get back to the event that happens every year that I believe we just came from, which is the Hash Bash. The Hash Bash. 46:21 JS: Hash Bash, first Saturday in April. Yeah. 46:24 SM: Now that has been happening since 1971? When did when it first start? 46:29 JS: First Hash Bash was (19)72. We had a gathering in (19)71 but it was to protest my imprisonment. In (19)72, I was already out. (19)72, see when my case, came to the Supreme Court and they overthrew the marijuana laws, they would passed a new one, but it did not take effect for three weeks between March 9th and March 31st in (19)72, they did not have a marijuana law in Michigan at all. So we took full advantage of that we make quite a bit of hay with that. And then we were going to put it back into effect on April Fool's Day, we thought the idea would be to have an event in the middle of the campus to stick our middle finger up and say fuck you we are not going to pay any more attention to the new law than we did to the old law because you are still wrong. There should not be any law. And now that is what we have now but it took place last year, fifty years later, you see. 46:46 SM: Wow. Fifty. And how many people come to the event every year? 47:38 JS: Thousands. 47:40 SM: And look, I am going to try to make it next year. What is the date is eight? What is it? 47:45 JS: First Saturday in April. 47:49 SM: It is in Ann Arbor? 47:51 JS: Yes. 47:52 SM: I have been trying to make it. 47:54 JS: Cannot miss it. 47:56 SM: I am going to be certainly at Kent State next year. You are going to Kent State for the fiftieth? 48:00 JS: No. 48:01 SM: I am trying to try to make that. 48:05 JS: [laughs] They will probably shoot some people in their celebration of the fiftieth. The Government, Trump, you know. 48:14 SM: Yeah, a lot of things strange things are certainly happening now. I, one of the questions I have here is what in all the events and again, this is just your personal feeling. What was the watershed event in the 1960s? I said Vietnam War, but what do you feel is the watershed event and I preface this by saying that many Vietnam vets I say six Vietnam veterans, some well-known some not, have stated that the, they felt they had to be involved in the Vietnam War because it was the watershed event of their youth. 48:19 JS: I do not know. I do not know I find it impossible to reduce anything to one thing. It was a huge movement. 49:06 SM: Mm hmm. When you think of the hippies, hippies and the Yippies, and the SDS 'ers, and the even the American, the conservative student groups and everything, it was quite, it was quite a time when there are a lot of different groups involved in certain kinds of protests. I do not see that today. I do not see it anywhere really. 49:32 JS: Oh, they protest today, I mean, the political moment is pretty similar to the way it was that then, they just do not have hippies anymore. But they have protests all the time. 49:45 SM: But they have protests, but they are more like singular protests. For example, the women's groups are all going to be there. I do not see a lot of other groups beyond the women's movement. That has been a criticism of the gay and lesbian movement, even Martin Duberman's written about it. That the one concern he sees with the gay and lesbian. 49:46 JS: Ok wait a minute, now we are going back on the criticism. What are they doing? The critics? What is they are answer to the fucking uh, oppression of females? Other than criticism of the, groups that are doing something? 50:19 SM: Yeah, I think the crucial; the criticism was the ̶ that they are doing it singular and not in a unity with a lot of other. 50:25 JS: But can we follow their lead? Who are these people with all of the answers? Why cannot I sign up with them? 50:35 SM: Good point. Instead of being, in other words instead of being a critic you do it. You be the example. 50:46 JS: Well, I have been the example for years and years but so what? Why do I have to think about a critic? Who has a job and plenty of money in the bank and a house and a car and they are going to tell me what I am doing wrong or what somebody I believe in is doing wrong. I do not care about them. Fuck them. You know what I am saying? Every point we talk about, you start telling me about what the critics would say. I do not care about them. 51:17 SM: Maybe because I am, I guess, I read too much. 51:22 JS: I do not know. 51:22 SM: There are from books. 51:24 JS: I am a constant reader, I read from day to night, every day. But I have not got the wrong ideas. [laughs] 51:31 SM: You know, talking about you know, what are your favorite books from the (19)60s and (19)70s? 51:37 JS: Oh. 51:37 SM: You did not you did not like Roszack because of the making of the counterculture, but that is one of the ̶ that was one of the biggest selling books that there was. 51:45 JS: Well, that was one of the reasons that I did not like it. What do I want with a best seller? 51:50 SM: There was a cultural narcissism no? 51:52 JS: Best seller just means that more idiots fell for it. [laughter] That is not a criterion of goodness to me. 52:01 SM: That book if you ever had a chance to try and sit down read it was pretty hard to understand to. 52:07 JS: Well, because he did not have any idea what he was talking about. It is like that guy who writes about music who thinks he is so great Greil Marcus. They are just making that shit up. They do not know anything. 52:20 SM: Yeah, he, he did make money off it though, I will say. 52:23 JS: Well good for him, but what is that do for me? 52:27 SM: Nothing. 52:28 JS: Thanks. 52:32 SM: Today when we are looking at now again, I want to get back to the Hash Bash because what, when you have the venues and you have the events there that are planned Who, who, who plans the Hash Bash on an annual basis number one, and how do they break it down? Is it musical groups is it you know, speakers, you know, what is the Hash Bash? 52:57 JS: They must have a website where you can go to and see this stuff. 53:04 SM: Is it over several days? 53:05 JS: I am just a founder, you know, I go on I read a poem, I give a poem and then that is it. So they have speeches, I do not listen any of them. 53:17 SM: And they covered what subjects basically? Anything? 53:21 JS: I do not listen to them! 53:23 SM: Ok. [laughs] 53:26 JS: Probably telling you about marijuana, legalizing marijuana. I started the legalize marijuana movement in Michigan. I do not get to listen to anybody. I know they got what they are talking about from me. [laughs] 53:26 SM: I know that there was a gentleman in San Francisco that was really involved in trying to get this passed as well. I am not sure if he is still alive. But how many states now are there that have legalized marijuana? 53:57 JS: Quite a few. 53:58 SM: Yeah. Do you think do you see? 53:59 JS: See, I mean, when you talk about no movement, today marijuana smokers are very well organized group of democratically oriented people who passed the law. They register, they put it on the ballot and they vote for it. Nobody else does that. We do it. We have been doing it. That is why its legal. 54:24 SM: Do you see that in maybe fifteen or twenty years from now that all fifty states will be in unison? 54:31 JS: I hope so. For their sake. 54:34 SM: Yeah, because I work part time in a pharmacy and I see how we have people that are sick that are taking marijuana from the pharmacy. So ̶ 54:45 JS: Oh yeah? You are you supplying it? 54:46 SM: No, we it has been okayed by the doctor. And so we have we have it in the protective area of the pharmacy. 54:54 JS: But you have it though? 54:55 SM: Yes, we have it. 54:56 JS: Yeah. You know in Amsterdam they have medical marijuana. You have to go to a pharmacy and tell them what you want and then they have to go buy it from a coffee shop [laughs] they do not have it on the premises. Yeah, I got it. I got some just to see what the protocol was. 55:16 SM: Yeah, well, we have it under lock and key. 55:18 JS: You had to wait three days. 55:20 SM: We have it under lock and key. 55:23 JS: I will bet. 55:26 SM: But I, you know, I some of the other things here I got so many things I wanted to ask here 55:32 JS: Better do it now. 55:34 SM: The divisions that we see in America today are so terrible. Obviously this President has accentuated it. But um 55:43 JS: Well its racism. This has always been a racist country. This guy just brings it out because that is what he is getting elected on. He is getting elected because he is a creep. He is a, he is a capitalist pig. And he is a racist dog and they like that. 56:01 SM: Amazing though that ̶ 56:02 JS: And they were really pissed off that they had a black president that they had to bow to for eight years. And they almost a woman! These are Americans man, these are the motherfuckers that fight in our wars. [laughs] 56:16 SM: John, is not it amazing though when you think of everything that you have lived through, I have lived through that we have just experienced in our lives, that we are still dealing with this. This kind of crap in the year two thousand nineteen. 56:30 JS: Well, they will be dealing with it until they get rid of racism. You see? 56:34 SM: Yeah. Racism is what America is built on, it is what it is all about. You know that had these people were slaves for them for three hundred years. Three hundred years is more years then the country is alive. That is right. 56:49 JS: And they never said they were sorry. They have never given them the reparations. They keep treating them like they are inferior citizens. They do not have education or jobs for them. What do they expect? Shit. These people go around shooting people, Jesus Christ! They show them all these movies of people killing people all the time. They sell them any fucking gun they want. What do they think is going to happen? Guy goes to a shopping mall and shoots his sister! 57:19 SM: When you see when you see the TV that we grew up with in the 1950s, which was all about westerns and cowboys killing. 57:27 JS: And the police, the police were 57:29 SM: Yes. 57:30 JS: Do not you remember Sergeant Friday? 57:31 SM: Yes, yes, yes. 57:33 JS: Yeah. 57:34 SM: We saw these things and you know shooting and killing and all the other stuff and you kind of wonder well, what kind of effect might that have? When I said Age of Innocence I was referring more to the (19)50s but that was not an Age of Innocence. They were still hanging people in America. They were you know. 57:50 JS: They just came back from a war where they were shooting people in the face you know. 57:54 SM: Right. Yeah. It is a ̶ it is kind of sad. We are still in those kind of situations. 58:02 JS: Well, that is what we call [inaudible] ̶ 58:06 SM: Of your many deeds and accomplishments what are you most proud of? 58:13 JS: Wow. Whole thing. I like it all. 58:24 SM: This is uh, you know, you, I am, you are very good at this because you are proud of who you are. You are proud of who you are. 58:33 JS: I am. What I have done and proud of what I have done. 58:36 SM: Yeah. 58:38 JS: Well, I am just another human being filled with faults and [laughs] wrong doing you know. 58:46 SM: You probably never thought when you were in high school that you would end up doing all this stuff in your life. Did you? You know. 58:52 JS: Well I did not know anything about anything till I read "On the Road." 58:55 SM: Right? Right. Oh, yeah, Jack Kerouac. Oh yeah, I read that book. That is an unbelievable book. 59:01 JS: Yeah. 59:02 SM: Classic. 59:03 JS: Well it opened up a bigger world for me. I grew up in a small town. 59:10 SM: Yeah. Well, I tell you, we had five beat writers on our campus when I worked at Westchester. 59:16 JS: Oh that is cool! 59:17 SM: And we had the female writers and, Ann Waldman came. 59:22 JS: Oh wow! That is a great writer! 59:23 SM: Yeah Leroy Jones' wife. 59:27 JS: Oh Hettie! 59:28 SM: Hettie. Yeah. I interviewed Hettie for the project. 59:31 JS: Oh good. 59:31 SM: So she was she was there. Who else? We Ed Sanders. Ed Sanders came though because he knew the English professor who wrote a lot about the Beats. So Ed came, and we had another one. Well, we had about five of them all together. I did meet Allen Ginsburg though at Ohio State. 59:50 JS: That is good! 59:50 SM: And he was just, he is a, what a giant he is. 59:55 JS: Yeah, he is a great American. 59:58 SM: Now if you look at the people from (19)60s and (19)70s period who did, who do you admire? And who do you totally despise? 1:00:10 JS: I admired thousands of people. John Coltrane. He was God to me. Who did I despise? Richard M. Nixon and his whole gang of thugs. 1:00:32 SM: Is there anybody that you kind of dislike and like? I, you know that combination that mixture; that now one day you just cannot stand the guy or gal, and the next day you support them? Was there anybody in that medium, middle ground? 1:00:51 JS: Yeah, I used to think Eldridge Cleaver was great and then I thought he was an idiot. 1:01:01 SM: Yeah, he changed. There is no question about that. "Soul on Ice". Some of the slogans from that era too. Which of the slogans that you remember more than any other from the (19)60s and (19)70s? 1:01:16 JS: I do not know. 1:01:18 SM: One of them is from a Yippie. Pardon? 1:01:25 SM: One of them is from a Yippie. A friend of yours. Jerry Rubin "do not trust anybody over thirty". 1:01:32 JS: Well, things like that, we were wrong about a lot of things so it is hard to have an emotional connection with our ideas of that time. Because so many of them were wrong. 1:01:42 SM: What is amazing is he was twenty-nine when he said it! [laughs] He was thirty before he knew it. And then of course um, there are other ones as well. Yeah. Some of the people again that came to your VIP event in 1971, the John Sinclair Freedom Rally is just amazing. I am looking at the list of some of the names here. I know Pete, Bob Seeger was there. 1:01:54 JS: He was trying to warn them. Yeah. 1:02:16 SM: Phil Ochs was there. 1:02:18 JS: He was a local band, Bob Seeger. 1:02:21 SM: Right. 1:02:22 JS: At that time. 1:02:22 SM: Yep. 1:02:23 JS: Until (19)75. 1:02:26 SM: And then Ginsberg and Sanders were there. 1:02:28 JS: Phil Ochs was Jerry Rubin's best friend. 1:02:31 SM: Right. And we lost. You are correct. We lost a really fantastic person a great person in Paul Krassner. 1:02:39 JS: Yeah. 1:02:40 SM: I interviewed Paul a long time ago. He gave me a lot of names 1:02:45 JS: I will bet he did! He knew everything. 1:02:47 SM: And but he he'd be funny and he'd be funny one minute and dead serious next. 1:02:52 JS: Yeah. Yep. 1:02:53 SM: And I did not know he was ill. I had not known the story. 1:02:57 JS: Well he was eighty-seven or something. Jesus Christ. You have the right to be ill then. 1:03:04 SM: He did a lot of a lot of good things and a lot of people will remember him and he was memorialized on my Facebook page. People that I did not even know knew him, admired him. People that had never met him, admired him. So he, it's a big loss for that period. What were some of the um, you know, this whole thing do we learn from people? Lessons of life. What were the lessons that we hopefully learned from the (19)60s so that we will not repeat them again? 1:03:41 JS: I do not know, again you are talking about that we that I am not really a part of. 1:03:49 SM: That could be you. It's your thoughts on 1:03:52 JS: Well, I did not have to give anybody a joint. 1:03:55 SM: [laughs] Yeah, that is right. 1:04:00 JS: That is what I learned. 1:04:01 SM: Because you could go to jail for it. 1:04:04 JS: Correct and I did go, to prison. 1:04:07 SM: And, and is not it, unbelievable? The number of books right now being talked about how many people are in prison for reasons that they should not even be in prison? 1:04:19 JS: Well, yeah, that is what America is all about, prisons. 1:04:23 SM: It is true. 1:04:24 JS: We got more prisoners than anybody on earth. 1:04:28 SM: Yeah. 1:04:28 JS: It is a lucrative business. 1:04:31 SM: I agree. And, and it's and again, I would hope that someday one of our leaders would take a look at this issue in more greater detail and get some of those people out of jail. I mean, they are people in jail for selling marijuana to a friend at a rock concert. I mean, come on. You know, so ̶ 1:04:56 JS: Who do you think you are talking to? 1:04:57 SM: I know. I am going to get into the Vietnam. The, some basic, general questions with not 'we', 'i' things that you think about. When the, what was your thought on the way Vietnam veterans are treated upon the return from the Vietnam War which was pretty bad. 1:05:20 JS: Well, they still treat them that way. I think it is outrageous. 1:05:24 SM: I agree. And they were dying in massive numbers compared to World War II vets they were dying faster than they died. 1:05:33 JS: Well, they had more sophisticated weaponry and chemical warfare that they were exposed to. 1:05:38 SM: Yup. Used to be just mustard gas. Right. And Agent Orange is a, is a killer. 1:05:48 JS: Do not, do not forget Napalm. Do not forget you know, they are soaking these people with fire in their villages. You know, I feel bad for the Vietnamese veterans the way they are treated but on the other hand I think they are despicable for what they did to the people in Vietnam. And I do not hear them saying they were sorry, very often is they are mostly whining about themselves. But you see if they would have stayed here, they would not have had those things happen to them that is basically my bottom line. 1:06:22 SM: Do you agree that 1:06:25 JS: I say we tried to tell you not to go. 1:06:28 SM: Yup. 1:06:28 JS: You insisted on going so you got what you deserved, I thought. 1:06:33 SM: Some got drafted though. 1:06:34 JS: I hate to say it like that, but that is the way I feel. 1:06:35 SM: Some got drafted and could not get out of the draft which is, you kind of empathize. 1:06:36 JS: Well then you did not have to go and choke the motherfuckers. 1:06:43 SM: Right. 1:06:43 JS: You should take your medicine. 1:06:48 SM: Do you think that uh, I personally have a feeling that the people that served in the war, that did not commit atrocities that is, are heroes by simply serving their nation but then I also believe the anti-war 1:07:07 JS: Oh, what was the? What did they contribute to our nation? By fighting in Vietnam? What did we get out of that? 1:07:17 SM: Well, they did not get anything out of it. 1:07:19 JS: What did we get the people they were defending? Did the Vietnamese come into our bedrooms and cut our throats at night? 1:07:26 SM: Yes, yes. Yes, that is what, that is what I am getting at. 1:07:28 JS: I do not think so. 1:07:30 SM: A lot of the anti-war movement was about not only trying to make sure we did not send men over there to die, but also to save the lives of the Vietnamese citizenry. 1:07:42 JS: Of course. 1:07:42 SM: And to be caring about them. 1:07:44 JS: Humanitarians! 1:07:45 SM: Yes and, and I do not think we do enough talking about that particular aspect of the war. That two to three million died in that war. Many most of them are innocent citizens. Because of the saturation bombing they took on the airplanes and everything else. 1:08:04 JS: Right. 1:08:05 SM: So it is. 1:08:07 JS: What I am talking about is because they are still doing it to people in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan. You know, that is what they do. Now, they do not put the people on the ground so much they just are in Colorado and they send these things to bomb these people's villages. They are even uglier today than before and we got two or three wars going on at any given time. And they are endless. They have been in Afghanistan longer than they were in Vietnam. 1:08:41 SM: Right. 1:08:43 JS: Fighting a religious war. 1:08:46 SM: Now, going to another area here. You are still writing newspaper columns correct? On cannabis? 1:08:52 JS: Well, I write a marijuana column for Michigan Marijuana Reporter monthly magazine. 1:08:58 SM: Yes. And how long have you been doing that? 1:09:05 JS: Well, next week it will be my one hundred and second column. 1:09:10 SM: Wow. And you have already brought up the fact of the, you know, the marijuana, the people, the movement and everything. How many people do you think are involved in that movement right, we are now nationwide? 1:09:29 JS: Oh I have no idea. 1:09:32 SM: But you have got a big following, a lot of people are involved in this issue. 1:09:37 JS: Well, a lot of people smoke weed. 1:09:38 SM: And I just go into the store Barnes and Noble and I see a lot of a lot of magazines dealing with cannabis. 1:09:48 JS: A lot of people smoke weed. They have been at war with this for eighty years. 1:09:56 SM: And when you hear that 1:09:59 JS: And we are winning. 1:09:59 SM: The old slogan sex rock, sex, drugs and rock and roll that was what some people, that was how they defined the (19)60s and early (19)70s. What do you say? 1:09:59 JS: That is a bowdlerization of our slogan. "Walkin' low, dope and fucking in the streets." 1:10:09 SM: [laughs] Oh, wow. 1:10:21 JS: That is the original. 1:10:22 SM: Oh, okay. Huh? 1:10:24 JS: I invented that. 1:10:26 SM: And they are banning that and they are using the sex drugs and rock 'n roll huh? 1:10:31 JS: They have been for years. 1:10:35 SM: Now, things that people are now, as someone; I do not have any of your books and I would like to buy some if I could. I would pay for them and you can sign them because I'd like them to be at the research center from people. I definitely want to and I will email you on this another time. But I certainly want to have books written by you or articles that will be with your interview and a picture and everything like I do with the all the other people I am interviewing. But of all the books that you have written, which of all the books that you have written what is the one that you think people should read that they really want to know who you are 1:11:22 JS: [laughs] You know, I do not care if they know I am. That is not why I write. I write to say things. I am not into celebrity culture; means nothing to me. 1:11:34 SM: That is okay. But [inaudible] ̶ 1:11:38 JS: I do not care if they know who I am or not. 1:11:42 SM: But they will certainly remember you when they hear your commentary on things. 1:11:46 JS: That will be good. 1:11:47 SM: And that is what, that is what makes you very unique and very historic, in my view. It is, as I say, again, your involvement in so many things. It is like you are multitasking in life, and I also like the fact that you keep bringing the "I" in it. It's my life. It is my thoughts. It is my thought. I do not care what other people think. 1:12:12 JS: Well, that is all I got. 1:12:13 SM: Yeah, I guess my problem is I read too much and then I you hear this person says this and so it makes me think about what they are saying. That is why I asked the question. 1:12:22 JS: Being in an academic environment also. 1:12:24 SM: Yes. 1:12:26 JS: It is pretty stifling. That is what I think. 1:12:26 SM: So now you are obviously an activist. Now when you look at the categories the poet, the writer, the activist, the musician, the radio program, all these other. The um, is there one that stands out above other that you would not have become good in the others if it had not been for this one? Is it the fact that you. 1:12:53 JS: I do not know. I do not think like that I do not have any idea. 1:12:56 SM: You started out as a poet though. 1:12:59 JS: I am still a poet. 1:13:00 SM: Yeah, but you were a thinker, poets are thinkers. 1:13:04 JS: And I still am 1:13:05 SM: Yeah, yes, yes. Poets are thinkers and writers and ideas and ̶ 1:13:10 JS: That is what I do. 1:13:11 SM: Yeah, we will see that that is you and that is helped that think help you expand in this other world of activism and whatever the other categories we might be talking about here. 1:13:28 JS: I do not really get what you are saying. I am the same guy, whatever I am doing, I am the same guy. 1:13:34 SM: Okay, that is all I need. I do not think I have anything. Um, the, the foundation that you have right now the John Sinclair Foundation. 1:13:50 JS: Right. 1:13:51 SM: Now that is really there to protect all the things you have been involved in. Is that correct? So the copyright? 1:13:58 JS: Well, to preserve yes and extend into the future past my lifetime. 1:14:08 SM: That is excellent. Where is that located? Is that in Detroit? 1:14:12 JS: Yeah, it is in Detroit. It is not a physical thing. It is an idea. 1:14:18 SM: Okay. But when you are no longer around who is going to be protecting your stuff? 1:14:24 JS: Oh my board members. Okay very good. Yes, it includes all your books and I guess it your records and ̶ Well, I am in the process of transferring all my intellectual property ownership to the foundation. And also like, I am doing a speaking thing next week for a group of doctors and they are giving me a nice piece of money. I am donating all fees like that to my foundation because I do not need no money. 1:14:55 SM: Very good. 1:14:57 JS: I am on Social Security. 1:14:59 SM: What is your speech on? 1:15:01 JS: Marijuana. A pain conference of doctors. In Cincinnati. 1:15:10 SM: Wow. See, I know people who are dying of cancer and they need it. 1:15:17 JS: Well they need some Simpson Oil, yeah. 1:15:23 SM: We have a customer where I work who does get it and it is helping her survive. 1:15:31 JS: I know two guys that came back from their deathbed. Now, I know a lot of other people that take it since then. Because they proselytize. 1:15:41 SM: Right. 1:15:42 JS: It is good stuff. 1:15:47 SM: From the, from the (19)60s themselves who do you stay in touch with? Is there any of the; do you stay in touch with Bobby Seale and some of the other activists? 1:15:56 JS: Now I never really knew Bobby Seale. I have met him in recent years. But and I met David Hilliard in recent years, but you know, you usually see people when you go to their part of the country so I am in touch with a lot of people around here that were around in the (19)60s. 1:16:17 SM: You link up at all with I think Jeff Gibbs and the movie producers from the Flint area? 1:16:23 JS: You know, I went to their festival last week. I saw Jeff's movie "Planet of the Humans." 1:16:32 SM: How is it? 1:16:34 JS: Terrific. 1:16:38 SM: I got to go see it. 1:16:39 JS: I got to see Mike Moore. Me, Jeff and Mike all went to Davison high school. 1:16:49 SM: And, and Michael was a few years after you though, correct. 1:16:53 JS: They are both thirteen years younger than me. 1:16:55 SM: Right. Wow, they had a high school produce those three. Wow. 1:17:03 JS: [laughs] Amazing, huh? 1:17:03 SM: Yeah, but what is it about Flint? Now, not just the high school, but what is it about Flint that can create three people like you? 1:17:15 JS: Oh we were beyond Flint, we were in Davison, like you know, five thousand people when they were there. [laughs] A great place. It used to be called the vehicle city. When I was a kid in the fifties they had three shifts in the factories around the clock. They had Buick, Chevrolet, Fisher Body, AC spark plugs, Delco batteries, they had all kinds of factories. Powerful little place. 1:17:53 SM: Well Michael Moore's movies have certainly had an impact on people. 1:17:57 JS: Oh yeah, if you had ten Michael Moore’s this would be a different country. 1:18:00 SM: I agree. And he is and he is got a movie, he is probably got another movie in mind he is one after another. 1:18:07 JS: I am sure he does. Well, he edited this one with Jeff. 1:18:10 SM: Right. 1:18:14 JS: He was saying how much fun he had doing some hands on editing because he does not get to edit his own. [laughs] 1:18:24 SM: I guess when since a lot of what I am talking about is the era you grew up in and the America that you grew up in. I am going to say the 1950s (19)60s, (19)70s and (19)80s. And then we got the (19)90s and now. But people our age, those are the ̶ those are the formative years. When you think about those formative years, and you think about America, and you think of what I know you have you have some very negative things to say but what do you think what do you say to the people that are listening to this? When you look at those forty years of post war, say post World War II America and right through to Ronald Reagan, what do you say? What do you say about that? 1:19:13 JS: Well, it is better than post Reagan. You know the ugliness of today started with Reagan. Although Trump makes Reagan look like Socrates. 1:19:32 SM: Now that is a quote. 1:19:34 JS: And he was a stupid motherfucker and a terrible actor. 1:19:40 SM: Yeah, one of the things will always we will never forget about Ronald Reagan is his insensitivity towards people with AIDS. 1:19:48 JS: Well, anybody that was not white and straight. This just came forward in one of his racist conversations with Nixon, just in the news this week. 1:20:05 SM: When would you say that? In the (19)60s and (19)70s, we were taking many steps forward in the positive, trying to get rid of racism, sexism and homophobia. So we take two steps. 1:20:17 JS: Well, we were you know, the opposition was but the government and the establishment was opposing every step of the way. And they still are. Because you see they are the problem. This is their world, that 1 percent that rules all of this, it is their fault. [laughs] Until you deal with them, it is going to keep getting worse and worse and worse. 1:20:43 SM: [inaudible] 1:20:44 JS: They own everything. 1:20:45 SM: What I was going to say was ̶ 1:20:46 JS: They own every newspaper, every TV station, every movie, every record, they own everything. 1:20:54 SM: Well, when you consider the 2 percent of the population makes more than the 80 percent of the rest of the population that says something right there. 1:21:22 JS: Yeah, not very eloquently. 1:21:22 SM: The thing I am really getting at is that back then there was a perception that we were making two steps forward for every step backward now, some other thoughts that were for every step forward we are taking two steps backward. Is that a good description? 1:21:26 JS: I do not know. I know this asshole came in there and everything [inaudible] that the president did that was positive, he dismantled every bit of it. 1:21:34 SM: Right. 1:21:35 JS: What do you call that? That is a lot more than two steps backwards. 1:21:40 SM: You are right. 1:21:42 JS: When you put someone like Betsy DeVos in charge of the Education Department that is like a mile backwards. 1:21:53 SM: What would be your final thoughts on the (19)60s? Just your overall final thoughts on the (19)60s. The era that you say is from 1960 to (19)70? Not on, that is. 1:22:07 JS: Well that is the (19)60s, yeah. 1:22:10 SM: Yeah. Well, just give some adjectives to your final thoughts on that ten years here in America? 1:22:22 JS: I do not know. I do not think that way. I do not know what you want me to say. 1:22:29 SM: Any, any if you looked if you took the whole ten years, what would you say to someone? This is? This is what the ten years was about. 1:22:38 JS: I would not. 1:22:43 SM: So basically what you are saying is that everybody has their own thoughts, and it is the context. 1:22:48 JS: Correct. 1:22:48 SM: It is their context, not your context. 1:22:52 JS: Well, I mean, I do not think about it like that. It was a period in life you know, I have lived almost eight decades. They were all interesting. They were all different. What I did was different and in some ways the same but that ten years it was fun that is the way I look at it. It was fun and the ̶ I ended up in prison. 1:23:22 SM: And you grew from that, obviously, that experience really helped shape you. 1:23:28 JS: Well what else could I do? You live through it or you commit suicide. There is only two ways. 1:23:35 SM: Well you went in there, and then Supreme Court decision. I mean, the impact! That never happened. 1:23:41 JS: But that did not have anything to do with my jail sentence. That was a whole different case. You mean the US Supreme Court. 1:23:49 SM: Yes, yes. 1:23:51 JS: No, that was a whole different case. 1:23:52 SM: Right. 1:23:53 JS: That did not have anything to do with marijuana. I got nine and a half to ten years for possession of two marijuana cigarettes. 1:24:02 SM: Which was ridiculous. 1:24:05 JS: But that is what it was. 1:24:06 SM: It was outlandish and that is why everybody came to your support and the song and everything else. 1:24:11 JS: Right. 1:24:13 SM: And lastly, you would never; I do not think you would ever. Did you ever meet John Lennon? 1:24:19 JS: Sure. 1:24:21 SM: What was it like to meet him? What are your thoughts on him? 1:24:25 JS: Like meeting other male human being. 1:24:30 SM: Of course he was taken from us in 1980. 1:24:33 JS: Yeah. 1:24:38 SM: And from what I have read, is the reason why the Mr. Hoover in the whatever the FBI started getting on his case, when he started doing the song, John Sinclair or something like that in the protests. 1:24:53 JS: They did what now? 1:24:55 SM: I have read in the, in some books that when that concert happened or in that concert where he [together] sang the song, where he sang the song and Yoko's right by his side, that may have been the impetus for the CIA and Mr. Hoover or of course, he is FBI, I should say ̶ 1:25:15 JS: I was also the fault of that asshole senator Helms. 1:25:18 SM: Right. 1:25:21 JS: He wrote to J. Edgar Hoover that this guy in the Beatles was causing trouble and J. Edgar Hoover wanted to know: who were the Beatles. 1:25:29 SM: Yup. Yup. Any final thoughts you want to say on anything? 1:25:37 JS: No. I am not ready to quit. 1:25:41 SM: Just keep going. I want to meet you in person. 1:25:44 JS: Well you have to come to Detroit right now. 1:25:47 SM: Now what I am going to do is I am going to try to come in next 1:25:49 JS: I will be in Cincinnati next Friday. 1:25:52 SM: I cannot do that but you will be at the event next year, will not you? 1:25:57 JS: Which one? 1:25:58 SM: The anniversary of the event we were talking about, the one in April. 1:26:09 JS: Oh, Hash Bash. I go every year. 1:26:13 SM: Well, that, that is where I am going to try to make it next year. 1:26:15 JS: Okay. 1:26:16 SM: Because I know a couple of people that I have interviewed and they are your friends and so they gave me your name and in so I just I would like to meet you because I would like to meet you because you are an activist. 1:26:30 JS: Well, God willing, I will be there. 1:26:32 SM: Yep. But let me just say, I will close with this. We will send you the university, we will send you a copy of this. It will be sent to your email address, I believe? 1:26:43 JS: Yeah. 1:26:44 SM: And they will send it to you and then you have to listen to it to approve it. And then then it will be approved and then it will be used for research and scholarship here at the Binghamton University with the other two hundred, two hundred seventy five other people I have interviewed. 1:27:00 JS: Good. 1:27:00 SM: In the archives, so people and we got to get a good picture of you. And I want your books and I will email you so that if there is books that you have that I can purchase from you, I will pay you and if you could sign them so they will be at the university with your interview. 1:27:15 JS: Will do. 1:27:17 SM: And, John, I want to thank you for being honest and direct, and being who you are. And, and when I had those melodramatic pauses it was because, man, this man knows what he wants. He knows he knows. He knows what he believes in. And that is, I like that in people. I like that in people. And I think and young people need to know that they are in control of their lives. 1:27:44 JS: Yeah, that is what you got to find out. 1:27:47 SM: You got to you got to believe in something too. So you have a great day. 1:27:52 JS: Thanks. Good luck. 1:27:53 SM: Thank you. Yep. Thank you. Bye now. 1:27:55 JS: Bye. (End of Interview) Subject LCSH Civil rights movements—United States--20th century; Political activists--United States; Musicians; Sinclair, John--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with John Sinclair https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/af9a347cb9b1f4bc60ba4f7899732397.jpg 1a9995d7f99da6c64aa20ccbc2f9bf8c https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/a2dfde44a49cbc7dec6867796fcb6f94.mp3 4e7590ec67e961a32cdaa69a4368c2cb Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-07-23 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed John Wheeler, 1944-2010 Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15107,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,16777215],&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Calibri&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:11}" data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;John Wheeler (1944-2010) was an Army officer, consultant, lawyer, chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, senior planner for Amtrak, and CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He also was a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, a special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, as well as serving as a presidential aide to the Ronald Reagan, George H.W. and George W. Bush administrations. Wheeler was a graduate from West Point, Harvard, and Yale.&quot;}">John Wheeler (1944-2010) was an Army officer, consultant, lawyer, chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, senior planner for Amtrak, and CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He also was a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, a special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, as well as serving as a presidential aide to the Ronald Reagan, George H.W. and George W. Bush administrations. Wheeler was a graduate from West Point, Harvard, and Yale.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 153:04 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Vietnam War; West Point; disenfranchised group; \&quot;We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young\&quot;(book); Bobby Muller; Vietnam Memorial; Women's Memorial; Glenna Goodacre; Rhodes Scholar; Jim Webb; \&quot;Touched with Fire\&quot;(book).&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Vietnam War; West Point; disenfranchised group; "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young" (book); Bobby Muller; Vietnam Memorial; Women's Memorial; Glenna Goodacre; Rhodes Scholar; Jim Webb; "Touched with Fire" (book).</span> Subject LCSH Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Lawyers; Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund; Wheeler, John, 1944-2010--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: John Wheeler Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 23 March 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:07): Sometimes it is [inaudible]. I just clear it away. You stated in that foreign affairs... I am going to make sure I read these correctly because I have some quotes here. You state in a foreign affairs article in the spring of (19)85 that, how our country finally comes to grips with Vietnam will depend on how the Vietnam generation comes to grips with its own experiences. We are in 2010 now, that was (19)85. How would you answer this today? JW (00:00:35): We are doing it poorly because we live inside the human condition. One example is, we still have cases of stolen valor. You have got politicians running for office, making up that they served in Vietnam or that they served in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is just the latest shoot on that tree, but it is the human condition. Humans do not do well at adjusting to war and its effects. That does not mean that writing on the subject and the working on it is not a good thing. It just means it is hard. The debates we have now in Congress, in the Council on Foreign Relations of which I am a member on the current issues, for example, the rules of engagement or on the way the defense department's being run, the Pentagon, all echo for me now just another verse. It is like Dante, almost. Just another big verse and set of couplets out of, I am afraid, it is inferno. It is not the Paradiso. From 1968 to 2010, now we have Robert Gates who is making many of the same mistakes as McNamara. I know that because I was in the building with McNamara and then Clark Clifford, I worked there. SM (00:02:13): Right. JW (00:02:15): The difference is, Gates does not have the depth and breadth of character that Robert McNamara had, and that is a big difference. SM (00:02:30): What were the most important influences in your life? I know your dad and your military background and I interviewed Peter Coyote yesterday, the actor, and of course, he comes from a new left background. Totally different from your background, but when I asked him the question, I said, "When you look at your life up to this point in 2010, what are the specific events? Can you name three to five personalities, people, events, happenings that made you who you are today?" How would you respond to that? JW (00:03:04): Well, it has to be my mom who grew up on a ranch in way West Texas. We are not talking just Laredo and Webb County. We are talking Asherton, Texas. And she is Irish from that part of the state. My dad is an army brat. My grandfather was cavalry from Texas and so those are formative. My brother was formative for me. He died suddenly three years ago. That is a huge loss, helping me realize the answer to your question, how important my brother was. Shared memories and a sounding board through life. We were just barely 20 months apart in age. After that, it would be, I would have to say C.S. Lewis. Increasingly, as we age, we realize that people who influence us are not necessarily close friends. They are people whose-whose spirit or presence means a lot. C.S. Lewis and my uncle John Conley, who received the Silver Star for conduct in that first low-level raid of the B-29s over Tokyo, March 8 and 9, 1945. They were significant. Their memory, what they did and what they stood for. C.S. Lewis, because the way he writes and deals with issues of faith works for me, works for my DNA and my background. Although, and I believe in faith that I will meet him. I am a little nervous about that because he is a big gruff Irishman. I am not sure how we will get along. You know, he died the same day, and I actually calculated, the same hour as John Kennedy. SM (00:05:05): November 22, (19)63. JW (00:05:06): Yeah, the same hour, actually though, it is interesting, when you account for the time change between London and Texas. It was just interesting. SM (00:05:14): How old was he when he died? JW (00:05:15): He was 63. SM (00:05:17): Young. JW (00:05:17): He was young. Help me, one other guy died that day. You got to Google it. Three, and they were all Irish. I think all three were Irish. Anyway, Jack Kennedy and of course, Jack Lewis' nickname was Jack, happened to die that same day. At West Point, the Kennedy assassination was significant. Little did I know that also, at that same hour, another Irishman named Jack was taken and Google and find that other third. There were three significant personalities died that day. That is a good way to answer your question. West Point is significant. It is significant for everybody that goes there in different ways. SM (00:05:58): Yeah, yeah. I have actually known people who have gone to West Point. We had a couple of our students that went there and I do not know, they got in after they finished two years of college, but they wanted to go to West Point, so they got in and they graduated. One of them was the mayor of West Chester, Pennsylvania's son was at West Point. I know he served in Iraq, but duty, honor, country was something, even when you, in this book where there were differences of opinion about the war, even amongst the veterans of the Vietnam War, even there was still, no matter what the differences may have been and the frictions that took place over politics, no one ever lost that. The feeling of... There was a sense that that was something so important. How important has that been in your life? Just those three words, not only from your service in Vietnam, what you have done since Vietnam, but going into Vietnam West Point and serving for four years. JW (00:07:02): They are as important for me as any other man in my West Point class or for the women now, who go. It is important to note that it was in June, actually, May of 2005 that the 10000th woman graduated from the five Federal academies, and do not forget that James Webb and I parted company over that issue. The women going to the academies. That was his article November, 1979. Washingtonian women cannot fight. Now, he tells people when he runs for office that, "Oh, he has outgrown that article". Do not you believe it. Webb does not change much. I know him well. I edited his book, A Sense of Honor. SM (00:07:53): Yeah, I have the book. JW (00:07:54): About West Point. Have you seen it? SM (00:07:55): I have not read it. JW (00:07:56): Did you look at... Do you have the book? SM (00:07:58): Yeah, I have the book. I have read the Fields of Fire, but I have not read it. JW (00:08:00): Have you opened up... Have you opened the book up? SM (00:08:02): No. JW (00:08:02): Have you looked at the frontispiece? SM (00:08:04): Yes. JW (00:08:05): So I am in it. Are you aware of that? SM (00:08:08): No. I guess [inaudible]. JW (00:08:09): All right, here is what you are going to do. By the way, it is 14:30 and we are going to have to come to a hard stop, so I want to make sure we go through your questions. Let us answer them crisply. Then you can come back. SM (00:08:19): Right. JW (00:08:20): What I would like you to do, sir, is, go to a Sense of Honor, open it up, go to the frontispiece and look at the dedication. SM (00:08:31): Okay. JW (00:08:31): And I want you to email me back and tell me what the green bench is. SM (00:08:35): The green bench? JW (00:08:36): Yes, sir. I want you to do that. SM (00:08:39): Okay. JW (00:08:39): You are going to have to work a little bit to find out what the green bench is. SM (00:08:42): All right. I shall do that. You said in the same article that I just mentioned up briefly- JW (00:08:47): Anyway, I edited for Webb. I know the man. SM (00:08:50): Yeah. I tried to interview him before he became senator, but he was busy running for the Senate and then I was never able to interview me. So you said in the same article that the events of one generation shaped the attitudes of the next, and you brought up examples in your book about the results of the harshness on Germany in World War I and how it shaped many of the Germans and their attitudes and due to the reparations and the tough stand that was taken against Germany. How does that apply to Vietnam in terms of the effect that maybe what happened in World War II affected the Boomer generation? JW (00:09:33): Two ways. One is, the intellectual and story level, which happens in every culture because of a war. There were so many of us that went into Vietnam. The generation was roughly 30 million women, 30 million men, roughly. Roughly 60 million in all. When you count, not just technical baby boomers, but also those born a little before because so many youngsters born in (19)44 and (19)43 fought in Vietnam, but you do not count all the baby boomers born late in the (19)50s because they were just nine years old during the Vietnam War. So you use 60 million. Well, that is 30 million women and 30 million guys, and so the children grow up knowing that something happened and they pay attention. They listen and they learn like any youngster does in a family. Regardless of what the parents were doing during that period, it was significant for their parents. That is one way, story and culture, family. But there is something more significant. Everyone who fights in a war, goes through trauma, and now, in the year 2010, we understand what PTSD is. By the way, my own West Point classmate, Jim Peak, who was Secretary of Veterans Affairs, uses this term post-traumatic stress dash normal reaction. Now, he is a doctor, an MD, first MD to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs. My point is, Jim is saying, that is what happens in war. And do not forget, Jim was an infantry platoon leader in combat in Vietnam, then he went to medical school. Then he becomes in many years later, secretary of Veterans Affairs. Post-traumatic stress, normal reaction. My dad had PTSD. By golly, I hope he did. I mean, that would be normal. Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge. SM (00:11:45): Right. JW (00:11:47): He was at Remagen when they found the bridge was still standing. He fought all the way to the liberation of the death camp at Nordhausen. It was a hard fight. He had a little, that small Sherman tank, fighting Panzers. That was a very risky thing to do. I am saying that that effect on those fathers, there were so few women that fought in the Vietnam War or were even in the military at that time, compared to the number of men. For example, there is only eight women on the wall. There is eight nurses. That had to hurt the children. That hurt the children. It hurts the children in every generation. Those are the two effects. Let us march on. SM (00:12:41): I have a couple of other quotes here from these two books. One of the quotes from you is, "I think the challenge that lies before us is not to forget ourselves, set up in some kind of super minority, one more special interest group, but instead, to figure out what it is we have to offer". Now, I say that because today, in our society we have a lot of people who criticize special interest groups, particularly, different minorities. You have heard the whole politics of... The year of special interests and everything. But Vietnam veterans, I know, when I worked at Ohio University in my very first job, a lot of them could not get jobs, and we had Vietnam Veterans affairs officers at Ohio University because of getting jobs and the way some of them were being treated upon their return, they were not going to be hired. So they became part of the affirmative action plan. So I just wanted your thoughts on, you made this statement about being a special interest, but in affirmative action, they became a special interest because they were being discriminated against on their return. Just your thoughts on that. JW (00:13:54): Well, there is two thoughts. One is, there is a sense in which all of us became a nigger for a while. Everyone who came back from Vietnam became for a while, a nigger. That means we became a disenfranchised group. We became someone whose particular story was not... Society did not want to hear our story. And we were stereotyped, as if we knew what stereotype was. I mean, back in the (19)40s when I was born, who used stereotype, man? But we understand what all that means. Or in another sense, we were the (19)50s housewife women sent out for coffee. What I am saying is, we were a disenfranchised group. Our fathers and our forefathers, the Civil War vets, the World War II vets, the Teddy Roosevelt era vets, they were esteemed. We were the opposite. We were disesteemed. We spent a while being niggers. I am using the term to make a point. SM (00:15:15): Yes. JW (00:15:17): But what it did, was give us great empathy. It gave many of us great empathy, actually. We did not know it when we were building a wall, but it became a fulcrum on which our country turned so that our period in that particular silo, in that particular disenfranchised condition ended. We did not know that. We were just kids. That is why that book, Hal Moore's book, We Were Soldiers Once- SM (00:15:49): Great book, with Joe Galloway. JW (00:15:51): But the last part of the title, it is not in the movie title, and young. We were young. The wall would never have been built if we were not so young and we could take a licking and keep on ticking, so to speak, when we were young. But it gives great empathy to the guys who served in Vietnam. There is no anger, and by the way, there is no big sense of entitlement. Bobby Mueller is a minority among Vietnam veterans. Most Vietnam veterans have a great sense of personality and self. They actually know where they were and what they did. That is not all. They know that and they know two other things. They also know who their fathers were and their grandfathers and that they kept faith with them. And that gives you a pretty deep keel. They know something else. It is kind of like the funnies or the cartoons because every once in a while someone pops up and says, "I was in Vietnam", when they were not. Well, why do they do that? I am going to tell you why. Have you read the book, Vanity Fair? That is okay. SM (00:17:15): No, I have not read it. JW (00:17:16): Do you know anyone who's read it? Do you know somebody who has read it? Well, sure you do. Think of the really best English teacher, probably a really good woman at Ohio. Professor at Ohio. SM (00:17:25): Right. JW (00:17:27): Anyway, anyway. There is a line in Vanity Fair, was written by William Makepeace Thackeray, "Bravery never goes out of fashion." SM (00:17:44): The one thing that I think upsets me more than anything else that I have seen in the last, is the imposters. The people who say that they were in Vietnam. It is really interesting, and this is still part of the interview because there was a book that was written about this and there was a professor up at Harvard- JW (00:18:06): Stolen Valor. SM (00:18:07): Yeah-yeah. Stolen Valor. JW (00:18:09): Jug Burkett. SM (00:18:11): Yeah. And there is others that have actually, when it was not popular to be a Vietnam veteran, and then when it becomes popular, then they come out and say that they are one. Many of them made money off it. To me, it is a crime. It is a crime. They will have to face You Know Who, above. JW (00:18:36): Do not get excited about it. It is okay. They are just dogs chasing the bus. It is okay. SM (00:18:42): Remember the professor at Harvard that did it? And I forget his name. The Long Gray Line is a great book. I read that quite a long time ago. I have not read the rewrite. It was probably 15 years ago. 806 people were in your class, and how important were Kennedy's words, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country", as well as, "Pay any price, bear any burden". How did that affect the 806? JW (00:19:20): There are two big effects at West Point. One of them is, ideals expressed by our fathers or by our spiritual fathers, so to speak, like Kennedy. I want to give you one concrete example of a guy for whom that quote meant a great deal, and that is Frank Rybicki, R-Y-B-I-C-K-I. He is in the book, the Long Gray Line. You can look Frank up. He was killed. He was one of the first in our class killed in the Rung Sat Special Zone in 1967. Infantryman. That quote meant specifically, a great deal to him. So he is an example of how that imprinted on some of us. That is not what forms you at West Point. Far more important is the second thing. On July 2nd, 1962, from my West Point class, we all reported in and Uncle Sam issued us to each other. SM (00:20:35): Some of the statistics here, which you well know, you were part of the first class at West Point that took the full impact of the Vietnam War. What I gather, the information I have here, is that 30 of your classmates died in Vietnam. I never got- JW (00:20:50): They did not die. There is this great line in Mash, it is where Hawkeye is talking and someone says, "Oh, sir, they died". And it is Alan Alda. He says, "They did not die. Old people in hospitals die. These men were killed." SM (00:21:09): Very important. That is a magic moment in this interview for me. I have never thought of it in those terms. Do you know how many of your classmates were wounded that survived? Because I do not... I have never seen that statistic. JW (00:21:24): Here is what I can tell you. My West Point class, the class of 1966 was decimated. One in 10 either lost his life or a part of his body. I went through the entire register of my class, and for every Purple Heart, that meant they were either killed or wounded. I did not count all the wounded. I counted those who were wounded in a manner that significantly altered their life. So one in 10, which means... The number is 83 or 87, were killed or lost a part of their body. Which, if you convert that back to the legions and what the effect of those wounds would have been in Roman times, my class was literally decimated. Decimation was levied on allegiance as a form of punishment. My class was not punished, but it was literally decimation. That is what I know about that. SM (00:22:35): You were involved, obviously, in building something. I did not even know this, that you were involved in building a memorial to Southeast Asia at West Point. JW (00:22:46): Yes. SM (00:22:47): And that was one of the main reasons why you were picked to be the leader of raising funds or building the Vietnam Memorial. JW (00:22:54): I was chairman of the board for the Memorial Fund. SM (00:22:58): Could you tell me, we know about the wall, but I do not know anything about what happened at West Point. Could you tell me a little bit more about that? And- JW (00:23:07): It was an idea I had in... It was my idea. It was just on the eve of our 10th reunion, 1976, and I said, "Why do not we build a memorial at West Point for everyone killed?" And the reason I did it is because we were disenfranchised and our country did not know about us. What we would do for our fellows, and their next of kin and widows and kids we had to do for ourselves. With that thought in mind, I went to Wes Clark, Jeff Rogers. This is in the book, the Long Gray Line. SM (00:23:44): Yes. JW (00:23:45): And Matt Harrison, and we met right here in town at Matt Harrison's house just down the street. Wes Clark and Matt and I met, Jeff was up at West Point. We called Jeff. At our reunion, we all together presented the idea to build a memorial at West Point. It would take money, some money, and we would have to get permission to use land. We worked together to get the land from West Point. That was a good drill for getting land and wash it and in order... We were all very young, right? In order to have some money, my solution was to unite the 10 classes of the (19)60s. That is how it got built. SM (00:24:33): It is unbelievable. And then, correct me if I am wrong, but then many members of the class of (19)66 were involved in working on the Vietnam Memorial as well. JW (00:24:43): Yes. SM (00:24:44): And how did you meet Jan Scruggs and I think Bob Dubak and [inaudible]? JW (00:24:47): Again, that is in the long line, the details. SM (00:24:50): Right. JW (00:24:51): So you could look it up there. I met Scruggs because it is actually a chapter that begins in the book The Long Gray Line. But I read an article... So, look it up there. SM (00:25:00): Yes. JW (00:25:01): Save us time here. But I went and I read an article that he raised, whatever it was, 200 and some dollars. The exact sum is actually Rick Atkinson has the exact sum, and people were kind of making fun of him on national television, but we were on the cusp of finishing the memorial at West Point. So this is the summer of 1979, and I made a point to call him up when I got back to Washington. He came over to my home. It was a day like this. It was kind of a hot day, summer day. And I listened to what he said, and I said, "I got a Rolodex. You can do this." I said, "You can do this." And then he paid me a compliment, which is what a soldier can do, and he is a soldier. He said he trusted me and there were all these reasons not to trust me. I went to West Point. That is a good reason. If you have been a trooper in the one 99th, you learn that these officers with good ideas can get you hurt, no matter how good their ideas. It may be brilliant, you can still... Just like Afghanistan. General Petraeus may have a great idea, but someone is going to get hurt. SM (00:26:20): Yeah. JW (00:26:20): I am only half kidding. I am saying that he learns to be wary. He trusted me, even though I went to West Point. He trusted me, even though I was an officer and I have been to these Ivy League schools. That was really... I mean, who would... What sense does that make? So he asked me to be chairman. That is how it happened. The greatest compliment that the field soldier will ever give you is to trust you, period. SM (00:26:58): And it is important because Jan has done a great job [inaudible]. JW (00:27:04): Yes, he did. SM (00:27:05): And under a lot of criticism too, from God knows how many people. JW (00:27:12): They were not there during the fight and it was a fight. SM (00:27:16): Right. Talk about your work with the wall and your beliefs with respect to helping the healing process. One of the questions I have asked everyone from Senator McCarthy when I first started this back in (19)96 part-time, to my full-time work of last a year and a half, is that the students that I worked with at the university, when we used to go on these leadership, on the road trips, we always talked about healing. And we took a group to see Senator Muskie in 1995, 6 months before he died. And the question we asked, the students came up with is that, due to the divisions that were so intense in the Vietnam generation or the boomer generation, the divisions between those who served and those who did not, the divisions between those who supported the troops and did not, the divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and straight. The burnings within the cities, the riots and so forth and certainly what happened in 1968 with the assassinations. Is this generation, the Vietnam generation, going to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? I have a quote I am going to read from this book that you wrote, but what is your thought on the healing process and the role? And the second part of the question is the role that the wall has played, not just for veterans and their families and the people who lost loved ones, but the nation? JW (00:28:51): You got to read the quote first. What did I say? SM (00:28:54): There is a quote in here. Where is it here? It is on page seven and I... Page seven, and it is bottom paragraph. "Bonded by the heritage of World War II in the electronic media and profoundly shaped and divided the freedom rights, the Peace Corps, the women's movement, and the Vietnam War, the 60 million Americans who came of age in the (19)60s are healing their divisions through remembrance and dialogue. This work is vital since we will be the leaders of our national institutions in the year 2000, we are the century generation." So you were talking back when you wrote this book about the healing process, and you were very confident that it was happening. Just your thoughts now in the year 2010. JW (00:29:51): Well, there is three things about that. I always check those pictures. Three things to answer your question. First, it is in the nature of life, like a large tree, to take a wound in the trunk or a whack, but still grow and the bark heals around it and could still be a pretty sturdy tree. So that is natural. That is just natural for a human tribe. The effect of the wall was some healing. It was worth the effort, not just for its main purpose, to remember those who were killed or for the deeper remembrance, which was really for the next of kin, particularly, the mothers. Sometimes I thought, there were a number of years where I thought, we really did it for the moms as I thought about it. But there was also healing. And by striving for healing and using the word and putting the thought into. JW (00:31:03): Using the word and putting the thought into consciousness. It added materially to what might have been the slower process by nature. In particular, it accelerated the process of freeing the Vietnam veteran from disenfranchisement and being almost taboo because we were walking remembrance of things that were taboo. One of the biggest taboos is healthy manhood, that the idea of healthy manhood has 10,000 volts in it. Actually, it always does. That does not change in human culture. Probably will not change for another couple of thousand years. 800,000, I mean, that is in our genes not going to change much. The idea of healthy manhood, it has to do with stolen valor. Of course, it is a badge of healthy manhood to go out as a war fighter. But the third process goes back to CS Lewis. It is grace. I am at a point in life now where I can say not just asserting it, but affirming as CS Lewis did when he was in his (19)50s and near his own death. And that is the wall got built by grace and there has been healing by grace and our country, as do all countries and tribes of humans walks in grace. So think about grace. SM (00:33:01): You are okay. It is okay I got the main one there. Yep. Yeah. I tell you, when I go to that wall, and I am been honored to be at over 30 times on Memorial Day and Veterans Day events now. It just touches me every time I am there and I am not a veteran, and I sit usually after the ceremonies and I just sit there and reflect on, I knew a lot of Vietnam vets. I know two people on the wall, and to me, it is one of the greatest things that is ever been done in my life. JW (00:33:38): Well, it was built by grace. SM (00:33:40): Yeah. JW (00:33:40): It was not built by, I will tell you this. It was not built by a bunch of ragtag soldiers. SM (00:33:45): Yes. JW (00:33:45): I mean, which is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, our team. Let me tell you something John Warner said, and you can still ask him. God bless him. He actually might even be in the club. We are at the Metropolitan Club, so he could be here right now. He comes here often, and I will tell you what he said. He said, "I know how that wall got built. You were," and he was talking to all of us. We were young men. And then this was decades later, so we were not so young. But he said, "You were in God's hands." He actually did not say that. He said, "You were in God's hand." That is John Warner. "You were in God's hand." Go ask him. SM (00:34:41): That was, I loved him. I know he retired. JW (00:34:45): He said it. SM (00:34:46): That is Unbelievable. The wall that heals is a follow up to that question is Dan, when he wrote the book to Heal a Nation, I think you have already said it, but where does the nation stand with respect to healing from all the divisions in our society? How did, I have not had a chance to even interview Dan. I sent him a letter once and he did not respond, so maybe he does not want to-to be interviewed. But how does he feel, do you think, with respect to the nation part? I know he- JW (00:35:17): Dan has to speak for himself. SM (00:35:19): Yeah. JW (00:35:19): I will say that if you read with Carol, hear all the references to [inaudible] in this book, Touched With Fire in the Long Gray Line, and then the books he has written and go to the website for vvmf.org and read his stuff, you will get a take on his attitude. SM (00:35:38): Right. JW (00:35:38): It is a solid and faithful soldier's attitude. It is all one could ask of the American soldier. SM (00:35:47): Yeah. Well, we brought him to Westchester for our Wall that Heals. I did not mention, we brought the traveling wall and we had over 6,000 people who came and quite a few veterans after midnight. The Women's Memorial, obviously, Diane Carlson Evans has played a very important role. Again, I have gotten to know her too. I interviewed her for the book. But a lot of the movements from the (19)60s, whether it be the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-war movement, women were put in secondary roles, were women thought of when the original Vietnam Memorial was built. Because it is my understanding, Diane had to really battle to get that in the beginnings before Congress to even get them to think about building the Women's Memorial. JW (00:36:34): Right. In the book Touched With Fire, you will find the first part of the answer to that. Several women have written, and you can Google this idea, out of the anti-war movement came the women's movement. The idea of standing up came, as women, came out of the anti-war war movement. SM (00:36:54): Yes. JW (00:36:54): That is 0.1. That is actually grace from Vietnam. There is a sense in which women came to the front of the bus and the war fighters were put in the back of the bus for that to happen in a great and poetic cultural sense, and that is great. That is okay. We are fine. I mean, you take the war fighters and say, "Go back to the back of the bus." We were disenfranchised. They were treating us like, but we were still back there remembering how great it was in Vietnam and what were they going to do. Send us to Vietnam, the bus was still air conditioned. I am just, I am making a joke. But in a sense, we went to the back of the bus while they got to the front. That is what the women were doing. In large. It was a good thing. Second, it was women were absolutely key in getting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial built, and the women will tell you they were not at the back of any bus. We were out there in the slot wrestling with Webb. But the real efficient, practical work was done by the gals. Sandy Forio is one. She could tell you about the other women on the Memorial fund, but she was our lead fundraiser. I mean, the gals were, and do not forget, it was a woman who won the design, all the productive work. SM (00:38:13): Not Linda Goodacre? JW (00:38:15): The women did. No, not Linda Goodacre. The Women's Memorial was Linda Goodacre, but Maya Lynn designed the Vietnam. I am just saying, if you look at it, the guys were out there. We were like pigs and slop doing whatever with inefficient things there. We were just basically keeping the barbarians at base. So the women actually did the productive, effective work of fundraising and designing it. Did anybody notice that the creative and sustaining work? I mean, I am just saying if you unfold the memorial story, by the way, they gave as God as they could. I mean, the people, when Sandy Borio was speaking at meetings about what Webb and Perot was doing, we had to restrain her man. She was all set to go hurt him. So I am just saying, right. If you want women's liberation, I mean, it was happening right there. That is just, it is a good part of the story. Absolutely. However, to his great credit, and everybody should be proud of this, the minute the women came, James Gregg said, "We will help you." And I did too. And then a lot of people wanted to burn us at the stake and beat us over our head and shoulders, but we did not notice any difference because we already were already being burned at the stake and beat around head and shoulders because they did not like the design to begin with. So the fact that we were helping the women with the statue, we could not tell. The pain threshold was beyond noticing the difference. I am just making a soldier's joke, to his credit, James supported it. So did I. SM (00:39:49): What is amazing is that- JW (00:39:50): And we testified you could go hear our, we went and testified together. SM (00:39:56): From knowing Lewis in that timeframe when Bill Clinton came to the wall with the bringing kinfolk to the wall, and all the speakers that have been brought in, the entertainers that had been there. To me, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and the people that were involved, the wall have been the greatest advocates for healing in this entire nation, because I have witnessed it as a non-veteran who sits there and watches it. And I had conversations with Lewis about it. He was really pushing for Bill Clinton to come because he felt it was important, and he was also the reaching out to Vietnam and helping the warriors in Vietnam. JW (00:40:35): But is there a question here? SM (00:40:37): The question is, to me, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund seems to be one of the leaders in the healing within the nation, period. JW (00:40:46): It is not the fund or the wall. SM (00:40:48): Well, the group in bound in the. JW (00:40:52): It is grace. SM (00:40:54): Okay. JW (00:40:54): That is the better door to go in through, I think, because we are just human beings. But it is grace. From a scientific point of view, that is an anthropological point of view. The wall is a liminal place, L-I-M-I-N-A-L. It is a liminal place. It is a phenomenon that happens in human tribes. It is a way of saying it is a sacred place. I will give you an example. At the dedication. Dan and I were alone after the speeches. We were alone, by the way, president Reagan had not come to the dedication. It was too controversial. He came two years later when we dedicated the statue, but he did not come to the dedication of the wall. We were alone in a sense. So what? We were alone in Vietnam too. Do you know what I mean? We were soldiers and young, so to speak. Anyways, what Dan and I both noticed was even though there were maybe 112,000 or 150,000 people around us, we were walking along the top of the walls. We could look over to our right. It was almost as silent as the room that we were in, with 150,000 people. And Dan turned to me and said, "When we die, there is going to be a heck of a party." My wife saw it on TV. She saw everybody going to the cathedral to read names. John Walker, the Bishop of Washington, gave us permission to do that. It is in the book, The Long Green Line, and my wife was watching that. She is an Episcopal priest. My wife at the time, not my current wife. This is my wife Lisa. There was a divorce because the wounds in the family that went with my daughter's birth defect and my selfish dedication to the wall, I took myself away from my family, ended the marriage. I did not have a family meaning saying, "I am going to do this." I did not give them a vote. That was selfish. But when we were married, she looked at the names being read at the cathedral, and she said, it was just out of the blue. I was not even paying attention because I was so tired. Matter of fact, I was so tired that week I could finally de-stress from a hard three years. And I did not know that I had seven more years of fight to go because Jim Webb and Ross Perot and John McCain were going to spend the next three Congress was trying to sneak through changes of the design. Yes, they did. But the manager here made me a sandwich. The club was closed. But- SM (00:44:34): You can eat it. You can- JW (00:44:35): No-no. I will get it. But I am just saying it was the same thing. He went, himself and personally made it because the whole town was filled with veterans, and I just came here to be alone, just like we are now. God bless him that manager. I lost my train of thought. I was talking about my wife. I was so tired I [inaudible] past three, my wife turned to me and I was almost, I could not go to sleep. You know sometimes you are so tired, you cannot go to sleep. I was just zoned down out, and she was watching the reading of the names, which was very moving. I was grateful for it. And the president went, finally, just, the president grabbed the first lady and they went to the cathedral. I was so grateful to John Walker and God bless him. He died too young. And so what I am saying is that in this mood, just out of the blue, she says "You are going to heaven, Jackie Wheeler." SM (00:45:58): You are going. No, just you are. Because I know personally the effect that it had on Vietnam veterans in my community, two in particular, WHO until we brought the traveling wall, when Dan came, they had never had the courage to even go to Washington. And they told me point blank, they were not going to even walk over. But the day that Dan was there, we had our greatest crowds in the evening because OF classes. But we had the ceremony outside with the president of the university and the mayor, and we had Vietnam veterans and their kids speaking, and Dan spoke. We had country Joe. But over in the corner, along the wall, by the science building. I saw both of them. They were emphatic that they were not ready yet. That is as close as they came. They did not walk up to the wall. But that is another thing. When I left the university, one of them thanked me for the wall. But Dan Scruggs and what you have done is just, to me, the most important thing within the generation, the boomer generation. To me, it is the most important thing that is ever happened within the boomer generation, because you cannot define, in my opinion, the boomer generation without talking about Vietnam. As Paul Critchlow says, it was the watershed moment in everyone's life. But Paul said to me, he said, "I felt I wanted to be part of the most important happening in my lifetime, that watershed moment." That is why he served in Vietnam. And even the anti-war people and all the other things. The war is the center core. So I do not ever have a chance to say thanks to Dan Scruggs and all the people that were involved like you, but to me, in my life, as a non-veteran who deeply cares about Vietnam veterans, it is the most important thing that is ever happened in my life. And I am not even a veteran. JW (00:48:29): Understood. SM (00:48:30): I come to the wall and I bring students to the wall because I know how important it is. And when you see those names, it is just unbelievable. I read books and every time there is a Vietnam veteran whose name is mentioned, who passed away in this book or that book or that book, I go to the wall and look the name up. There must be a couple hundred names that I do not even know who they are except the fact they were in books. JW (00:49:03): Okay. SM (00:49:04): So one of the conversations that I think this book is tremendous, I wish they would reprint this book. In fact, I mentioned to James Thalas when I interviewed him. I said, what would be great is to bring all these people back together again from the, that are in the symposium? And he said, and James Thalas said, "I would be willing to do it." And I know Bobby Mueller real well, and I know actually Phil Caputo, he is out in Arizona right now. But what I am getting at here is I would like your responses to some of their commentaries back in when this was written, this came out in (19)81, and you make a comment. You make a statement to, a quote here that I think is very important because you praise James Thalas, "And there are too many guys in our generation who do not understand how the war shaped them. Unlike Jim Thalas." And I said this to Mr. Thalas when I interviewed him, and you praise him and others that he admitted he was wrong. He admitted that he was a coward to obey the draft the way they did it, and not protest against the, it is not like protesting against a war. It was evading the draft. And he feels guilty about it, and he does not, I do not think he feels guilty now, but he was. JW (00:50:30): It was an article what did do in the class war end. Yeah. But he did. He stood up to it. Right. Manfully. SM (00:50:36): Right. And your thoughts on, did you think that many within the generation did that? Or was he still a rarity? JW (00:50:43): Jim? Jim is exceptional and a rarity. SM (00:50:47): Yeah. Too many did not. JW (00:50:48): Yeah. He is one that the Rhode Scholar people got, sometimes they miss, but they got it right. When he became a Rhode Scholar. He makes that program look good. You know what? You can knock Jim Thalas, just do not knock him around me. SM (00:51:01): No. Yeah. He respects you. I am telling you. And he actually respects Jim Webb too. He mentioned that the, and I have a comment from Jim Webb. JW (00:51:12): Well, that is right. You better respect Jim Webb and you better watch out for his right hook. SM (00:51:18): Right. He mentioned something when we were talking about that, when you look at the Vietnam generation, it is a generation of service. It was a generation that went in the Peace Corps. It was a generation of Vietnam veterans who went to serve their nation. It is a generation that went and volunteers in Service to America. It is a generation. And then he said, "Hold it. Hold it. I think one of the weaknesses of the boomer generation is that they are not a generation of service because they avoided the war." And he brings up the reasons why in his own-own way. So when you talk about the (19)60s generation as the generation of service, yet Jim Webb challenges that idea what do you think of Jim Webb's thoughts? JW (00:52:21): Could you restate the question? Just- SM (00:52:24): The question was- JW (00:52:24): Closer. I mean, just- SM (00:52:26): I think what Senator Webb was saying at the time is that we all look at the (19)60s to the (19)60s and the (19)70s, and the boomer generation that grew up at the World War II as a generation that was really inbound in service. It is one of the characteristics, the qualities, whether it be service by serving in Vietnam, or serving in the Peace Corps, or volunteers in Service to America, or alternative service, or at least for those who were, is objectors doing alternative service for two years in a very hard way. A couple of my friends did in Newfoundland that would have qualify. But he says, "Too many avoided the war through avoiding the draft and what a so and generation has such large numbers avoiding service, and they should have fought in the war." Is what he is really saying. Response on that? JW (00:53:38): First, Jim is right. You still got a wide shot for his right hook. I am just pulling your leg. SM (00:53:45): Yeah. JW (00:53:46): It is a combative statement, but he is right. That is the first thing. Second, he is touching on something fundamental. The people who lost the most from not going into service, as Jim said, were those who have made that choice themselves. Those good things they could have done, people they helped, did not benefit from their service, but they themselves suffered most. That is why I used this quote and why this is called Touched with Fire. SM (00:54:38): Just right there in the front. JW (00:54:43): You do not have to read it. I am just pointing to this quote. You either enter the action of your time or there is a sense in which you have not lived. So the real loss was for those who made that choice. By the way, not all of them made some kind of selfish choice. Many had no choice to make. Many were drafted. That was not choice. And yet they stood too and served with their fellows. A lot of them are on the wall. There were many women who were treated like women in the (19)50s were, they did not have much choice. That is cruel. Our society in ways was cruel to women in the (19)50s. Thank God for Catherine McKinnon and the women who did lead and still lead the women's movement. So we were, many people did not have a choice. We were so fortunate, those of us who could go to West Point or Annapolis to be able to choose. Then there is something deeper, and I will tell you who taught me this, was Elliot Richardson, God bless him. SM (00:55:54): Died of [inaudible]. JW (00:55:55): Yes. It is the, you must read the essay, the Moral Equivalent of War. Google it and read it. SM (00:56:07): He wrote it. JW (00:56:08): No, it is a classic. SM (00:56:10): Okay. JW (00:56:13): It is not Holmes, but I am embarrassed. It is a classic. You read it. SM (00:56:18): Okay. JW (00:56:19): The Moral Equivalent of War, Google it, turn of the century. Elliot pointed me to it because war evokes the deepest signatures of grace actually, and of sacrifice and of those things worth not just dying for, but living for, of any human experience. Maybe even more than birth. Maybe more than birth, because war's death. “You must read the, think about what Elliot was saying, just like I think about it. You figure out what he was saying." He said, "You read that Jack, Elliot Richardson, God bless him," and his name was on, I put his name on the back of the wall. You know there is names on the back of the wall. SM (00:57:10): No, I did not know that. Yeah. JW (00:57:11): Well, you go, if you look in The Long Gray Line, there is a set of names. I thanked everybody that was significant in getting the wall built. I called Jay Carter Brown and said, "I want to do this." But I said, "If I have to ask permission, it will never happen. It will become public." He said, "This is Jay Carter Brown, God bless him." Jay Carter Brown on the telephone, chairman of the Fine Arts Commission, the Commission of Fine Arts. He says, "Oh, I think it is like putting the builders name on a cornerstone of a building, do not you think? Comma Jack?" And I said- SM (00:58:03): Yeah. JW (00:58:04): "Well, sir, yes." And he said, "I think it would be perfectly routine." And I said, I was chairman of the board at the morning front. I said, "Yes, sir." And he said, I was on the phone. And he said, I said, "So there would not be a need for a hearing?" "I would not think so, would you?" And I said, " No, sir," I make things up. I am not making that up. SM (00:58:36): Elliot Richardson, we all know him in history because he resigned because of- JW (00:58:41): That is why I am making the point. Okay. SM (00:58:41): Yeah. JW (00:58:43): Got that, got that. That is you go, you go do that work. How we doing? It is 3:20. SM (00:58:50): I got a few more questions and you can eat your sandwich over here. Bobby Mueller, in that same discussion, talked about how disappointed he was in America, that the leaders had let us down, that he went into service. And I wonder how many people who served at that time thought like Bobby with respect to, upon the return to America, there was a thinking that when you went to Vietnam, that America was always the good guy, but now that America's the bad guy? JW (00:59:32): Bobby was reacting, but we were young. We were all overreacting. That is the way Bobby. That is the way Bobby, God bless him, overreacted. It was a little too much. There was some truth in what he said. A sense of alienation was understandable because we were alienated. I mean like a good marine, since we were alienated, he figured out that he was alienated. But you overreact. It is a little bit much to ask a guy who was 25 years old or 31 years old at the time, to have a sense of growth, maturity and history. Especially when you have had the wounds he had. SM (01:00:18): Right. JW (01:00:18): So he was putting his finger on some real truth. It is just that there was surrounding truth. Bobby sees it, I think, in a larger context now. Was he right? Yes. Was it a little overstated? Maybe. God bless Bobby. SM (01:00:36): Bobby was at my retirement party. I invited him and he came and it was an hour and a half in there. We actually met him a couple times. What is interesting, I will never forget [inaudible] telling him at the extra room at this session that you were in, he said, "Bobby, you have a temper." I do not know if you remember that. He has said, "Bobby, you have a temper." It seems like today that there are efforts by the right and conservatives to divide our nation by making references to the (19)60s and (19)70s for creating all the problems in our society today with respect to the counterculture, the new left, the activists of many movements for creating the following, the drug culture, the divorce rate, the breakup of the family, the irresponsible behavior, the welfare state, dependence on government, dissent mentality, which actually what Mr. Webb talks about in the book. Special interest, controlling ideas in universities where various studies programs are being taken over by the troublemakers of the (19)60s. Phyllis Schley and David Horowitz said, but in the two, talking about that "Universities today are run by the troublemakers of the (19)60s because they run all the studies programs from women's studies to gay." SM (01:02:03): Because they run all the studies, from women's studies to gay and lesbian studies, environmental studies, Native American studies, black studies. Your thoughts on- Actually, the people that made these comments some of them were people like New Gingrich and Governor Huckabee and George Will in some of his writings and others. JW (01:02:28): It is all as American as apple pie. If Ben Franklin and Abigail Adda, I would rather talk with Abigail before I talk to John Adams. I just think I would rather spend the afternoon having a tea with Abigail more than- SM (01:02:45): A couple of biographies done on her recently- JW (01:02:47): Oh, she is pretty good. Abigail is pretty good and John, he could come along. My point is, if the Adams' were here and Ben Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, they had listened to everything you just said. The question you just said. And, they would say "Well, it is working out. What do you think Tom" and Tom said "Well, it is working out. It is working out." Of course, they are all sitting there knowing that Tom has got this thing going with Sally Hemings, but they are not going to mention that. No one is going to, I mean you know. I am just saying they are all human. We are all human. And, they would say "Well, it looks like it is probably the Republics, looks like it is working out. What do you think?" And, they would say "Yeah." Dolly Madison, I would love to talk with Dolly Madison as well as James Madison. I am saying they would look at everything and say "This is Americans apple pie, Chris. Who knew what apple pie was and what America was?" But, I mean, that is how they look at it. Everything you have just said can be transformed by a mathematical formula so that it is the right [inaudible] while they are beating us up from the left and it is all working out. It is all just mud wrestling. And, it goes with the system that was set up. Here is the biggest thing to remember about the very healthy condition that you defined. I see it as healthy, just slinging mud at each other. What the founding people did, some of the guys being well advised by their wives, and I am talking about Dolly and Abigail, just to start with, Betsy Ross too. God bless her making the flag. Molly pitcher, God bless them. Seriously that the whole generation that fought the revolution. The condition of controversy, it is just built into our republic and it tends to work out okay. What they did in order to keep an envelope around everything, like a rocket ship has a steel shell or a metal shell, do not pierce it the oxygen will leak out in the space and we will all die. I mean, we are a big rocket ship actually. As Buckminster Fuller says, we are on a spaceship, it is called Earth. Be careful. Do not leak the oxygen out of our planet. There is some truth in that, but I am trying to make this point. What holds it all together is how they balanced. In our republic, the branches of government, executive has some powers, everybody's got some power. But, here is my point. We assume once we get the idea, do not leave. Do not take your eyes off the blackboard too quick. What we are learning, you got to pay attention to it. They were not balancing each other's virtues. They were balancing their vices. What I mean is pride and ego on one side will be a very effective antidote for pride and ego on the other side. You do not have to worry about the good impulses of one side being balanced by the good impulses of the other side. Actually, good impulses tend to work together. It is the human condition on one side, a little bit of pride, a little bit of ego, a little bit of illicit sex going on. We are shocked. We are all human. I am just saying. I am just trying to exaggerate a little bit to make a point that what they did was balance, not virtues, but balance, weaknesses or vices, so to speak. That is the genius. So, you got- I am going back to your question. Oh my God, they are calling us rascals. Well, we called them rascals. Oh my God. You never ever forget the vitriol. Just to be clear level that Abe Lincoln or Tom Jefferson or FDR. It is just we live in an envelope of life that is short. Even if we are 65 or 85 years old. It is a short envelope. A little more perspective and we could see things the way Abigail and Dolly too. SM (01:07:31): You give a good perspective there because some people may look at this and say, well, what those students were saying about the divisions and the lack of healing in the nation is just continuing with these. We see it in Congress today that no one talks to each other. Everybody has got the right answer and what other people's answers are, they are totally wrong. So, those kinds of things. And, you have a great quote here too. And, I think this is on page six, and I am not going to go over any more quote this the last one, but- JW (01:08:04): Oh, the cruelest thing you do to someone is read their book, Adam. Oh my God. SM (01:08:08): I want you because this is important. I thought of this too, growing up in the (19)50s, our generation. See, you see things- I think that is what the wall does too. You see things in terms of commonality as opposed to things that divide. You think of things that unite and you say it in this paragraph. "Our generation shares the features of common experience, background and power. We grew up in the (19)50s and (19)60s in a country united by electronics, radio, television, and many shared attitudes. For example, we watched John Kennedy's inaugural address. We watched Disneyland. Davy Crockett with S Parker who just passed away last year. We know what Conrad and civil defense drills mean. We danced together. We turned rock and roll into cultural force. Such similarity was unique in history among so many young people at one time." What you are doing there is you are doing something very positive. You are showing- Instead of always talking about the divisions, what are the commonalities that make us want, try to understand each other better through our shared experience. JW (01:09:18): That had not changed. SM (01:09:20): Yeah. JW (01:09:21): How are we doing? I am having trouble, because I know we were budgeted to four, but for various reasons I only got five hours sleep last night trying to hold my family together with what we are dealing with. SM (01:09:36): Wow. How much time do we have here? JW (01:09:37): Well, it is only 3:30. SM (01:09:39): Do you have enough time? JW (01:09:40): Yeah, I have got some more time. If we could do some more questions. SM (01:09:44): These are real [inaudible]- JW (01:09:45): Also, you can come back on the phone. I mean you can adjust this and maybe talk even on the phone tomorrow. I am just having trouble. SM (01:09:55): In your feeling. When did the (19)60s begin, in your opinion? When did it end and what do you feel was the watershed moment of the (19)60s? JW (01:10:06): First, it is talking about the people. That is why I come up with the 60 minute. I say, let us not talk about baby boomers per se because that does not capture the social energy and the social framework. The social framework, and that is the question you are asking. What is the- What are the bookends socially? And then, we can talk about the human beings that were caught in that. That is 60 million, not 76 million. It is 60. SM (01:10:31): The front edge of the so-called generation is more from 46 to 56 basically. JW (01:10:34): No. SM (01:10:34): No? JW (01:10:38): No-no. I am going to be very clear on that correction. You got to go back to (19)43 or (19)42 even because you want to talk about people who were young and malleable and shaped by the events. So, forget 46, it is too late. You got to go- I am 44. I know I am in this group. So, let us first talk about the markers and then talk about the human beings in it. That is why this baby boom thing is... It is stupid. It is not measuring the right elements. It has got the bulk of them right, but it leaves out too many important people. Those born before (19)46. I mean there is- You get my point. SM (01:11:18): Oh yeah. Many people have brought it up to- JW (01:11:21): So, let us first talk- So forget baby boom. Baby boom was a label put on a bunch of human beings that were born [inaudible]. Let us talk about events and then talk about who's framed by them. Let us talk about the valley and then we will talk about the people who live there. The valley is on one side- Well, 64 let us start- When the number of funerals at West Point began to get pretty significant. That would tell you when the war was on us. That will be (19)64. Because, we are talking about either life or death. That does not mean- I am not saying West Point, I am just saying there is an indicator and that is when the funerals began to get numerous. And, how do I know? Because I marched. I was on funeral details. I know. So, it would be (19)64 when awareness of war and the simultaneous coming of age of a pretty united group of people and self-awareness among the group. Because, we were all just in college, (19)64. So then, the era would go on, has to go through (19)75 at least, which would be when the war ended with the helicopter leaving (19)64 to (19)75 would be pretty good. Now, who were the people who were 18 that is newly liberated from home, and newly empowered as young humans at that time? Well, it would be the freshman in college, would not it? So, you want freshmen in college or people in college in (19)64. Not necessarily just in college, many were not in college. But, I am saying take people who were 18 and older in (19)64 or who turned 18 in... You are going to be in college in (19)64 if you were born in (19)43. So, it would be Americans born in (19)43. And, this is how I came up with the 60 million, going up to Americans who would be... In 1975, they would be... You got to be aware in (19)75 you got to be an aware human being. So, if you were born in (19)43, you are going to be an aware human being, 18 or so, come (19)64. But then, you are going from (19)43 up to (19)50, (19)55. You add 20 years, you get 75. So, it would be 57, 43 to 57. But, that arbitrary, and that is how I gets 60 million. You go to that 40, you- and I define it in the book. That is actually defined in your book. I go through the numbers, whatever I say there is the how I got the 60 million. But, my point is (19)46 to people born as late as (19)75. That is bullshit. SM (01:15:20): 64 is- JW (01:15:20): Oh, (19)46- SM (01:15:22): (19)46 to (19)64. JW (01:15:24): Oh, so you were born in (19)64 then in 1974, you were 10 years old. You were not affected by the events of the [inaudible] of the greater world when you are 10. That is an exact example of why that whole construct of looking precisely at a baby boom like a social engineer and saying that has anything to do with cultural interpretation is bullshit. SM (01:15:59): And, you know I [inaudible]- JW (01:16:00): You are not going to say that someone who was 10 years old was really affected by that. Do you get the point on- SM (01:16:04): Yeah, yeah. And, Todd Gitman, the person who was with SDS and actually was the second leader of SDS, was born in (19)42. So, I was the leader of SDS and [inaudible]- JW (01:16:18): All I am saying is the first 10 pages or 20 pages of that book, I answer that question. How are we doing? SM (01:16:30): Okay, just three more. Three more. What was the watershed moment? Was there a watershed moment in this period, when you talk about the period? JW (01:16:35): In what sense, for who? SM (01:16:36): To you, what was the watershed moment of- JW (01:16:39): In what period? SM (01:16:42): I mean in the period we are talking about here, when the (19)60s began and when it ended. Was there such? Was there a watershed- JW (01:16:50): Yeah, it was coming back from Vietnam when I realized. I was in a different culture in a different place and the first thing I realized it was my home. My real home was- At first I thought it was in Vietnam. Well, it was really, and then I thought, well, it is really West Point. And, it was in a way, but that is not really it. My home was those that I fought with and served with. It was those guys issued to me as I was issued to them by Uncle Sam for my environment, in my world on July 2nd, 1962. But, because I had left the military, left the army I was floating alone. I was a stranger in a strange land to use a biblical phrase. And, it was disorienting. My brother had to hold me by the hand and help me figure out how to talk, so to speak. It is not that I was not culturally aware. I mean, I got a good job. I had been to good schools. For me, the watershed was understanding that my country and culture was a ship that had left me and I was not on it. And, people did not want to hear about where I had been or my classmates or know about Tommy Hayes and how he got killed. They did not want to talk about sacrifice and valor and there were three words- There were at least four words that were just heaved out the window. One of them was the idea of healthy manhood, let us throw that out the window. Oh, healthy manhood? No, we are all going to be laid back and have ponytails and that is okay. I am trying, in a poetic sense to say the idea of healthy manhood went out the window. Suddenly the motto of West Point became really old speak. It was okay if it were on [inaudible]. It very disorienting time. One reason when I went to Yale Law School, I was kind of depressed and thank God for the faculty there who fished me out of the water. God bless them. SM (01:19:49): What do you think were the, two more, in your opinion, what was the greatest mistake ever made in Vietnam? And, the thing is that, and I preface this by saying that in my opinion as a person who did not serve, but has read a lot. A lot of presidents deserve some sort of blame for our links to Vietnam from Eisenhower to Kennedy to Nixon Johnson and obviously Ford, we left after Ford, but then he was criticized heavily to leave for us leaving. So, in your opinion, what was the greatest mistake ever made in Vietnam? JW (01:20:34): Well, we now know that topping the Christmas bombing was stupid. By that I mean in the context of fighting a war to win, I want to be very careful. There are people who say that was not a war worth fighting. So, winning did not make sense. It is going-going to be a very productive conversation to explore anything with a person who says we should not have been there and we should not have been trying to win. Okay, and I understand that. Okay, but here is how I am answering the question. I am saying from the point of view of this being a war, which was to be won and for which my class was decimated in combat. From that point of view, the biggest single mistake was stopping the B52 bombing of Hanoi because we now know from general job that they were close to caving. SM (01:21:40): What year was this, the exact year? JW (01:21:42): 73, 74. We knew 72. That is how close we were. They were close to crumbling. We now know that it was a big mistake. It would have made a huge difference on what they settled for in Paris. A huge blunder. Now, wait a minute. Other people at the table will then go bananas and yell and scream and say "No, the mistake was we should not have ever been there." Well, okay, you can have that conversation. That is a different conversation. You could say it was not worth winning. You could say it was immoral. They could say, oh, you baby killer. You know, you can go nuts. And, Abigail and Dolly would say "The tea is not going to do. You got to get some bourbon. Tom" Jim, Mr. [inaudible], Dolly's husband [inaudible]. Jim [inaudible] go get some bourbon. Tea is not going to do for this crowd, they need a drink. Okay. All I am saying is I want to answer your question as a war fighter. And, as someone who is aware that we had sent soldiers to fight and win from a war fighter's point of view, given we were there, given the lives sacrificed, given the war, the fact of war, given the idea that in war there is no substitute for victory, the biggest single blunder was not pushing Hanoi past that point of caving. And, they were ready to do it, Job has said. We were being pounded toward the table and toward making big major compromises and agreements to get out of this thing. We were just being hammered. That was the biggest blunder. And, the prisoners of war who came back said, we heard the bombs. Some of them could have killed some of us. We wish you had not stopped because they were scurrying around, really scared kitty cats at that moment. This is the word from the POW's. I am really tired. I am sorry man. You have one more question and then maybe you could re-look at the stuff I asked you too. We could tag up with maybe another hour on the phone or something. SM (01:24:08): That would be fine. I appreciate this and one last question that is kind of a follow-up. When Ronald Reagan became president, you mentioned our already that it was too controversial to come to the opening of the wall. To me that is inexcusable as President of the United States- JW (01:24:27): But, I am not saying that. I am saying I understood. We were just too hot. SM (01:24:30): But, the thing is when he became president- JW (01:24:33): Because, do not forget, Perot and McCain and Webb were [inaudible] hell at us. And, Webb was close to Reagan. It is okay. SM (01:24:42): Well, President Reagan, when he became president made a comment over and over again. We are back, we are back, we are back. And then, President Bush, who was his vice president later in the late (19)80s, early (19)90s, said the Vietnam syndrome is over. That is just my last question. Could you comment on what do you think Ronald Reagan meant by we are back? The perception was that what happened in the (19)60s and the (19)70s where law and order is back. We are not going to have these student protests anymore. We are going to get the military back to the way- JW (01:25:24): Okay, let me respond to that question. First of all, God bless Nancy Reagan. I will tell you what about Nancy Reagan, as the first lady of California, she went out to meet planes coming back and coming back at the various airports. There were several places in Vietnam and rather in California, where planes would come back. And, because she was at Sacramento, she could go to Travis Air Force base and meet a lot of planes and there would be guys that would land, it would be early morning and it would be a little bit of rain and they would see a woman with a little detail of California state police with her if she was meeting a plane. And, people can make up stories why they do not like Nancy Reagan and they can do that. Just do not do that around me. Yeah, I love her for that. She was there and it is not like there were a crowd of people meeting any of the planes. SM (01:26:37): You knew from publicity. She did it because she cared. JW (01:26:40): She did it because she cared. God bless her. Now, it is not like 800 people could come to Travis Air Force base to meet the planes. I am making a point about Nancy Reagan first. Do not ever forget it. That is important. Second, what President Reagan was saying was, at the dean's level, there are things worth dying for still. And, I want to hand a compliment, and I would ask you, when you write as you do or however you put your work together, there is someone who deserves and has earned a really good compliment for the way President Reagan spoke when he came to the time when we conveyed the memorial to the United States in 1984, the statue was done. We were going to build the women's statue. That is okay. But, we conveyed it to the United States and he came, and he spoke wonderfully, and the person who wrote that speech was terrific, and please write down her name and say so. This is a bouquet of roses for her. And, that is Peggy Noonan. Now, she may not be your- I mean, all I am saying is- SM (01:28:05): I know all about her. I got a couple of reports. JW (01:28:09): I am just saying, it is like Nancy Reagan, you can knock Peggy, do not do it around me. SM (01:28:12): I am not going to. I am not going to. JW (01:28:14): I am just saying. She wrote that speech and she is terrific. SM (01:28:19): And, that is the one Ronald Reagan gave at the- JW (01:28:22): When we conveyed the memorial to the United States- SM (01:28:27): 1984. JW (01:28:28): It was Veterans Day in 1984. SM (01:28:34): Is there any way you get a copy of that speech or? JW (01:28:36): No, you can get it. You will google it or contact Peggy. Call Peggy up and say "God, this guy wants to give you a bouquet of roses. You know that?" SM (01:28:46): She lives in California, I think- JW (01:28:48): I think she lives in Manhattan. Anyway, that is your homework. Do not tell me your problems. Go do your damn work, man. I do my work. You do your work. You want to be a journalist, go P one. You want to go work mean go get your- SM (01:29:00): Well, actually, I am a college administrator [inaudible]. JW (01:29:03): I do not want to hear you telling me your problems. What I want you a college administrator. When did you get into sadism? I am just kidding. Masochism. Here is what I am saying, just you find Peggy. Tell her about that compliment. It is not-not a compliment. It is like she did it. I want to say one last thing about West Point and soldiers. It is true of the military now because it is a volunteer meal, military. It is always been true of West Point and the five service academies. West Point is just one of five. But, because we have a volunteer military, it is actually true of everybody in the US military. We are trusted by our country to defend our country. It is privilege. Citizens pay for us to be able to do that. They pay for us to develop the skills we have and the gratitude goes first from us whom they trust to the citizens. I am saying thank you. It is a trust. It is not the other way around. I mean, many people say humans do not do well at adjusting to war and its effects. That does not mean that writing on the subject and working on it-it is not a good thing. It just means it is hard. The debates we have now in Congress, in the Council on Foreign Relations of which I am a member. On the current issue, for example, the rules of engagement or on the way the defense department is being run the Pentagon. All echo for me now, just another verse. It is like Dante, almost just another big verse and set of couplets out of, I am afraid it is inferno. It is not the Paradiso from 1968 to 2010. Now, we have Robert Gates who is making many of the same mistakes as McNamara. I know that because I was in the building with McNamara and then Clark Clifford, I worked there. The difference is Gates does not have the depth and breadth of character that Robert McNamara had, and that is a big difference. SM (01:31:51): What were the most important influences in your life? I know your dad and your military background, and I interviewed Peter Coyote yesterday, the actor. And, of course he comes from the new left background, totally different from your background, but when I asked him the question, I said "When you look at your life up to this point in 2010, what are the specific events? Can you name three to five personalities, people, events, happenings that made you who you are today?" And, how do you respond to that? JW (01:32:25): Well, it has to be my mom who grew up on a ranch in way West Texas. We are not talking just Laredo and West County. We are talking Asherton, Texas, and she is Irish from that part of the state. My dad is an army brat. My grandfather was cavalry from Texas, and so those are formative. My brother was formative. I mean, he died suddenly three years ago. That is a huge loss. Helping me realize the answer to your question, how important my brother was- JW (01:33:03): ...me realize the answer to your question how important my brother was. Shared memories and a sounding board through life. We were just barely 20 months apart in age. After that, it would be, I would have to say CS Lewis. Increasingly as we age, we realize that people who influence us are not necessarily close friends. They are people whose spirit or presence means a lot. CS Lewis and my uncle John Conley, who received a silver star for conduct in the first low level raid of the B-29 is over Tokyo, March 8 and 9, 1945. They were significant, their memory and what they did, and what they stood for. CS Lewis, because the way he writes and deals with issues of faith works for me, works for my DNA and my background. Although I believe in faith, that I will meet him. I am a little nervous about that because he is a big gruff Irishman, I am not sure how we will get along. He died the same day that... and I actually calculated, the same hour as John Kennedy. SM (01:34:24): November 22, (19)63. JW (01:34:26): Yeah, the same hour, actually, though. It is interesting when you account for the time change between London and Texas. It was just interesting. SM (01:34:33): How old was he when he died? JW (01:34:34): He was 63. SM (01:34:34): Young. JW (01:34:34): He was young. Help me, one other guy died that day. You got to Google it. And they were all Irish, I think that all three were Irish. Anyway, Jack Kennedy and of course Jack Lewis, his nickname was Jack, happened to die that same day. At West Point, the Kennedy assassination was significant. Little did I know that also at that same hour, another Irishman named Jack was taken. And Google and find that other third, there were three significant personalities died that day. That is a good way to answer your question. West Point is significant. It is significant for everybody that goes there in different ways. SM (01:35:16): Yeah. I have actually known people who have gone to West Point. We had a couple of our students that went there, and I do not know, they got in after they finished two years of college, but they wanted to go to West Point, so they got in and they graduated. One of them was the mayor of Westchester, Pennsylvania's son, was a West Point graduate. I know he has served in Iraq. But duty, honor, country was something, even when you... in this book where there were differences of opinion about the war even amongst the veterans of the Vietnam War. There was still, no matter what the differences may have been and the frictions that took place over politics, no one ever lost that. The feeling of, there was a sense that that was something so important. How important has that been in your life? Just those three words. Not only from your service in Vietnam, what you have done since Vietnam, but going into West Point and serving there for four years? JW (01:36:19): They are as important for me as any other man in my West Point class, or for the women now who go. It is important to note that it was in May of 2005 that the 10000th women graduated from the five federal academies. And do not forget that James Webb and I parted company over that issue. The women going to the academy. That was his article November 1979, Washingtonian, "Women cannot fight". He tells people when he runs for office that, oh, he is outgrown that article. Do not you believe it? Webb does not change much, I know him well, I edited his book A Sense of Honor. SM (01:37:09): Yeah. I have the book. JW (01:37:10): About West Point. Have you seen it? SM (01:37:11): I have not read it. JW (01:37:12): Did you look at... do you have the book? SM (01:37:13): I have the book. I have read Fields of Fire, but I have not read the right. JW (01:37:16): Have you opened up, have you opened the book up? SM (01:37:18): No. JW (01:37:18): Have you looked at the frontispiece? SM (01:37:20): Yes. JW (01:37:21): So I am in it. Are you aware of that? SM (01:37:24): No, I... JW (01:37:25): All right, this is what you are going to do. By the way, it is 2:30 and we are going to have to come to a hard stop, so I want to make sure we go through your questions. Let us answer them crisply. Then you can come back. SM (01:37:35): Right-right. JW (01:37:35): What I would like you to do, sir, is go to A Sense of Honor, open it up, go to the frontispiece and look at the dedication. SM (01:37:45): Okay. JW (01:37:46): And I want you to email me back and tell me what the green bench is. SM (01:37:50): The green bench? JW (01:37:51): Yes, sir. I want you to do that. SM (01:37:54): All right. JW (01:37:55): You are going to have to work a little bit to find out what the green bench is. SM (01:37:58): All right I shall do that. You said in the same article that I just mentioned it briefly – JW (01:38:02): Anyway, I edited for Webb, I know the man. SM (01:38:05): Yeah. I tried to interview him before he became Senator, but he was busy running for the Senate and then I was never able to interview him. You said in the same article that the events of one generation shaped the attitudes of the next, and you brought up examples in your book about the results of the harshness on Germany in World War I and how it shaped many of the Germans and their attitudes and due to the reparations and the tough stand that was taken against Germany. How did that apply to Vietnam in terms of the effect that maybe what happened in World War II affected the boomer generation? JW (01:38:47): Two ways. One is the intellectual and story level, which happens in every culture because of a war. There were so many of us that went into Vietnam. The generation was roughly 30 million women, 30 million men roughly. Roughly 60 million in all. When you count, not just technical baby boomers, but also those born a little before because so many youngsters born (19)44 and (19)43 fought in Vietnam. But you do not count all the baby boomers born late in the (19)50s because they were just nine years old during the Vietnam War. So you use 60 million. Well that is 30 million women, 30 million guys, and so the children grow up knowing that something happened and they pay attention, they listen and they learn, like any youngster does in the family. Regardless of what the parents were doing during that period, it was significant for their parents. That is one way, story, culture, family. But there is something more significant. Everyone who fights in a war goes through trauma. And now in the year 2010, we understand what PTSD is. By the way, my own West Point classmate, Jim Peak, who was Secretary of Veterans Affairs, uses this term post-traumatic stress-normal reaction. He is a doctor, an MD, first MD to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs, my point is, Jim is saying that is what happens in war, and do not forget, Jim was an infantry platoon leader in combat in Vietnam. Then he went to medical school. Then he becomes in many years later, secretary of Veterans Affairs. Post-traumatic stress, normal reaction. My dad had PTSD. By golly, I hope he did. I mean, that would be normal. Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, he was at Remagen when they found the bridge was still standing. He fought all the way to the liberation of the death camp at Nordhausen. It was a hard fight. He would have that small Sherman tank fighting panzers, that was a very risky thing to do. I am saying that that effect on those fathers, there were so few women that fought in the Vietnam War or were even in the military at that time, compared to the number of men. For example, there is only eight women on the wall, there is eight nurses. That had to hurt the children. That hurt the children. It hurts the children in every challenge. Those are the two effects. Let us march on. SM (01:41:54): I have a couple of other quotes here from these two books. One of the quotes from you is "I think the challenge that lies before us is not to forget ourselves, set up in some kind of super minority, one more special interest group, but instead to figure out what it is we have to offer." Now, I say that because today in our society we have a lot of people who criticize special interest groups, particularly different minorities. You have heard the whole politics of the era of special interests and everything, but Vietnam veterans, I know when I worked at Ohio University in my very first job, a lot of them could not get jobs, and we had Vietnam veterans affairs officers at Ohio University. Because of getting jobs and the way some of them were being treated upon their return, they were not going to be hired. So they became part of the affirmative action plan. So I just wanted your thoughts on, you made this statement about being a special interest, but in affirmative action. They became a special interest because they were being discriminated against on their return. Just your thoughts on that. JW (01:43:05): Well, there is two thoughts. One is there is a sense in which all of us became a nigga for a while. Everyone who came back from Vietnam became for a while, a nigga. That means we became a disenfranchised group. We became someone whose particular story was not, society did not want to hear our story. And we were stereotyped as if we knew what stereotype was. I mean, back in the (19)40s when I was born, who used stereotype man, but we understand what all that means. Or in another sense, we were the (19)50s, the housewife woman sent out for coffee. What I am saying is we were a disenfranchised group. Our fathers and our forefathers, the Civil War, that is the World War II vets, the Teddy Roosevelt era vets, they were esteemed. We were the opposite. We were disesteemed. We spent a while being nigga's. I am using the term to make a point. But what it did was give us great empathy. It gave many of us great empathy actually. We did not know it when we were building a wall, but it became a fulcrum on which our country turned so that our period in that particular silo, in that particular disenfranchised condition ended. We did not know that, we were just kids. That is why that book, Helmore's book, We Were Soldiers Once – SM (01:44:57): Ah, great book with Joe Galloway. JW (01:44:59): But the last part of the title, it is not in the movie title that is, "We Were Young. The wall would never have been built if we were not so young and we could take a lick and keep on ticking, so to speak when we were young. But it gives great empathy to the guys who served in Vietnam. There is no anger, and by the way, there is no big sense of entitlement. Bobby Mueller is a minority among Vietnam veterans. Most Vietnam veterans have a great sense of personality himself. They actually know where they were and what they did. That is not all. They know that, and they know two other things. They also know who their fathers were and their grandfathers and that they kept faith with them. And that gives you a pretty deep keel. They know something else. It is kind of like the funnies or the cartoons because every once in a while someone pops up and says, "I was in Vietnam when they were not". Well, why do they do that? I am going to tell you why. Have you read the book Vanity Fair? That is okay. SM (01:46:23): No, I have not read it. JW (01:46:23): Do you know anyone who has read it? Do you know somebody who has read it? What is your- do think of the really best English teacher. Probably a really good woman at Ohio. Professor at Ohio. Anyway, there is a line in Vanity Fair was written by William Makepeace Thackeray, "Bravery never goes out of fashion." SM (01:46:50): Now, the one thing that I think upsets me more than anything else that I have seen in the last, is the imposters. The people who say that they were in Vietnam. It is a really interesting, and this is still part of the interview, because there was a book that was written about this and there was a professor up at Harvard- JW (01:47:12): Sterling Valen. SM (01:47:13): Yeah-yeah. Sterling Valen. JW (01:47:14): [inaudible]. SM (01:47:17): Yeah, and there was others that had actually, when it was not popular to be a Vietnam veteran, and then when it becomes popular then they come out and say that they are one. Many of them made money off it. To me it is a crime. It is a crime. They will have to face you know who above. JW (01:47:42): Do not get excited about it. Okay. SM (01:47:44): And they are- JW (01:47:45): Just dogs chasing the bus. It is okay. SM (01:47:47): Remember the professor at Harvard that did it, and I forget his name, The Long Gray Line is a great book. I read that quite a long time ago. I have not reread it, it was probably 15 years ago. 806 people were in your class and how important were Kennedy's words "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country, as well as pay any price, bear any burden". How did that affect the 806? JW (01:48:25): There are two big effects at West Point. One of them is ideals expressed by our fathers or by our spiritual fathers, so to speak, like Kennedy. I want to give you one concrete example of a guy for whom that quote meant a great deal, and that is Frank Rybicki, RYBICKI. He is in the book, the Long Green Line, you can look Frank up. He was one of the first in our class, killed in the Rung Sat Special Zone in 1967 [inaudible]. That quote meant specifically a great deal to him. So he is in the example of how that imprinted on some of us. That is not what forms you at West Point. Far more important is the second thing. On July 2nd, 1962 from my West Point class, we all reported in and Uncle Sam issued us to each other. SM (01:49:38): Some of the statistics here, which you will know, you were part of the first class of West Point that took the full impact of the Vietnam War. What I gather, the information I have here is that 30 of your classmates died in Vietnam. I never got the- JW (01:49:53): They did not die. There is this great line in mash, it is where haw guy's talk, and someone says, "Oh sir, they died, and it is Alan Alda". He said "They did not die, old people in hospitals die, these men were killed." SM (01:50:12): Very important, that is a magic moment in this interview for me. I never thought of it in those terms. Do you know how many of your classmates were wounded that survived? Because I have never seen that statistic. JW (01:50:26): Here is what I can tell you. My West Point class, the class of 1966 was decimated. One in ten either lost his life or a part of his body. I went through the entire register of my class and for every Purple Heart that meant they were either killed or wounded. I did not count all the wounded, I counted those who were wounded in a manner that significantly altered their life. So one in ten, which means the number is 83 or 87 were killed or lost a part of their body. Which if you convert that back to the legions, and what the effect of those wounds would have been in Roman times, or my class was literally decimated. Decimation was levied on the legions as a form of punishment. My class was not punished, but it was literally decimation. That is what I know about that. SM (01:51:36): You were involved obviously in building something, I did not even know this, that you were involved in building a memorial to Southeast Asia at West Point. JW (01:51:47): Yes. SM (01:51:48): And that was one of the main reasons why you were picked to be the leader of raising funds or building the Vietnam Memorial- JW (01:51:57): I was Chairman of the board for the Memorial Fund. SM (01:51:59): Could you tell me, we know about the wall, but I do not know anything about what happened at West Point. Could you tell me a little bit more about that? JW (01:52:07): It was an idea I had in, it was my idea. It was just on the eve of our 10th reunion, 1976. And I said, "Why do not we build a memorial at West Point for everyone killed?" And the reason I did it is because we were disenfranchised and our country did not know about us. What we would do for our fellows, we and their next of kin and widows and kids we had to do for ourselves. With that thought in mind, I went to West Clark, Jeff Rogers, This is in the book of Long Gray Line, and Matt Harrison. And we met right here in town at Matt Harrison's house just down the street, West Clark. And Matt and I met, Jeff was up at West Point. We called Jeff at our reunion. We all together presented the idea to build a Memorial at West Point. It would take money; some money and we would have to get permission to use land. We worked together to get the land from West Point. That was a good drill for getting land in Washington. We were all very young, and in order to have some money, my solution was to unite the 10 classes of the (19)60s. That is how it kept up. SM (01:53:32): Unbelievable. And then, correct me if I am wrong, but then many members of the class 66 were involved in working on the Vietnam Memorial as well. And how did you meet Jan Scruggs and I think Bob Dubak and those guys? JW (01:53:49): Again, that is in the Long Gray Line, the details. SM (01:53:49): Right. JW (01:53:50): So you could look it up there. I met Scruggs because I, it is actually a chapter that begins in the book Long Gray Line, but I read an article, so look it up there. Yeah, saves time here. But I went and I read an article that he raised, whatever it was, 200 and some dollars. The exact sum is actually Rick [inaudible] that is the exact sum. And people were kind of making fun of him on national television. But we were on the cusp of finishing the Memorial at West Point. And so this is the summer of 1979. And I made a point to call him up when I got back to Washington. He came over to my home, it was a day like this, it was kind of a hot day, summer day. I listened to what he said and I said, "I got a Rolodex. You can do this. So you can do this". And then he paid me a compliment, which is what a soldier can do. And he is a soldier. He said he trusted me. And there were all these reasons not to trust me, went to West Point, that is a good reason, if you have been a trooper in the one 99th, you were that these officers with good ideas can get you hurt no matter how good their idea is. You, it may be brilliant. You can still, just like Afghanistan. General portrays, we have a great idea, but someone is going to get hurt. I am only half kidding. I am saying that he learns to be wary. He trusted me and I went, even when I went to West Point, he trusted me. Even though I was an officer and I had been to these Ivy League schools, that was really, I mean what sense does that make? So he asked me to be chairman. That is how it happened. The greatest compliment, that the field soldier will ever give you, is to trust you, period. SM (01:55:55): And [inaudible], it is important because Jan's done a great job in [inaudible]. And under a lot of criticism too, from God knows how many people. JW (01:56:08): They were not there during the fight and it was a fight. SM (01:56:12): Right. Talk about your work with the wall and your beliefs with respect to helping the healing process. One of the questions I have asked everyone from Senator McCarthy when I first started this back in (19)96 part-time to my full-time work the last year and a half, is that the students that I worked with at the university, when we used to go on these Leadership On The Road trips, we always talked about healing. And we took a group to see Senator Muskie in 1995, 6 months before he died. And the question we asked, the students came up with is, due to the divisions that were so intense in the Vietnam generation or the boomer generation. Divisions between those who served and those who did not. The divisions between those who supported the troops and did not. The divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, the burnings within the cities, the riot and so forth. And certainly what happened in 1968 with the assassination. Is this generation, the Vietnam generation, going to its grave like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? I have a quote I am going to read from this book that you wrote, but what is your thought on the healing process and the role? And the second part of the question is the role that the wall has played, not just for veterans and their families and the people who lost loved ones, but the nation. JW (01:57:43): You got to read the quote first, what did I say? SM (01:57:48): There is a quote in here. Where is it? Here? It is on page seven and it is bottom paragraph, " Bonded by the heritage of World War II and the electronic media and profoundly shaped and divided the freedom rights, the Peace Core, the women's movement, and the Vietnam War. The 60 million Americans who came of age in the (19)60s are healing their divisions to remembrance and dialogue. This work is vital, since we will be the leaders of our national institutions in the year 2000, we are the century generation". So you were talking, back when you wrote this book, about the healing process and you were very confident that just your thoughts now in the year 2010. JW (01:58:44): Well, there is three things about that. Three things to answer your question. First, it is in the nature of life, like a large tree to take a wound in the trunk or a whack, but still grow and the bark heels around it, it could still be a pretty sturdy tree. So that is natural. That is just natural for a human drive. The effect of the wall was some healing. It was worth the effort, not just for its main purpose, to remember those who were killed or for the deeper remembrance, which was for the next of kin, particularly the mothers. Sometimes I thought there were a number of years where I thought we really did it for the moms as I thought about it. But there was also healing. And by striving for healing and using the word and putting the thought into consciousness, it added materially to what might have been a slower process by nature. In particular, it accelerated the process of freeing the Vietnam veteran from disenfranchisement and being almost taboo. Because we were a walking remembrance of things that were taboo. One of the biggest taboos is healthy manhood, that the idea of healthy manhood has 10,000 volts in it. Actually, it always does. That does not change in human culture. It probably will not change for another couple of thousand years. 800,000. I mean that is in our genes not going to change much. The idea of healthy manhood, it has to do with Sterling Valen. Of course, it is a badge of healthy manhood to go out as a war fighter. But the third process goes back to CS Lewis. It is grace, I am at a point in life now where I can say not just asserting it, but affirming as CS Lewis did when he was in his (19)50s and near his own death. And that is the wall got built by grace. And there has been healing by grace and our country- SM (02:01:50): Yeah. I tell you, when I go to that wall and I have been honored to be at over 30 on Memorial Day and Veteran's Day offense now, it just touches me every time I am there and I am not a veteran. And I sit usually after the ceremonies and I just sit there and reflect on, I knew a lot of Vietnam vet, I know two people on the wall. And to me it is one of the greatest things that is ever been done in my life. JW (02:02:19): Well, it was built by grace. It was not built by, I tell you this, it was not built by a bunch of rag keg soldiers. I mean, which is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, our team. Let me tell you something, John Warner said, and you can still ask him, God bless him. He actually might even be in the club, we were at the Metropolitan Club so he could be here right now, he comes here often. And I will tell you what he said. He said, "I know how that wall got built..." and he was talking to all of us. We were young men. And then this was decades later, so we were not so young. But he said, "You were in God's hands". He actually did not say that. He said, "You were in God's hand" as John Warner, "You were in God's hand". Go ask him. SM (02:03:22): I would love to, I know he is retired. JW (02:03:25): He said it. SM (02:03:26): Unbelievable. The wall that heals, as a follow-up to that question is Jan, when he wrote the book To Heal A Nation, I think you have already said it, but where does the nation stand with respect to healing from all the divisions in our society? I have not had a chance to even interview Jan. I sent him a letter once and he did not respond. So maybe he does not want to be interviewed. But how does he feel, do you think, with respect to the nation part? I know he- JW (02:03:56): Jan has to speak for himself. I will say that if you read with care all the references to Jan Scruggs and- JW (02:04:02): Read with Care, all the references to [Jans Drugs] in this book, 'Touched With Fire', 'The Long Gray Line', and in the books he has written. Go to the website for vvmf.org and read his stuff. You will get a take on his attitude. It is a solid and faithful soldiers had to. It is all one could ask of the American soldier. SM (02:04:25): Yeah, well, we brought them to Westchester for our wall that heals. I did not mention we brought the Traveling Wall. We had over 6,000 people who came and quite a few veterans after midnight. The Women's Memorial, obviously Diane Carlson Evans has played a very important role. I have gotten to know her too. I interviewed her for the book. But, a lot of the movements from the (19)60s, whether it be the Civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, women were put in secondary roles. Were women thought of when the original Vietnam Memorial was built? Because it is my understanding, Diane had to really battle to get that in the beginning before Congress to even get them to think about building the Women's Memorial. JW (02:05:11): In the book, 'Touched with Fire', you will find the first part answers that. Several women have written and you can Google this idea. Out of the anti-war movement came the women's movement. The idea of standing up as women came out of the anti-war movement. That is point one. That is actually grace from Vietnam. There is a sense in which women came to the front of the bus and the war fighters were put in the back of the bus for that to happen in a great and poetic cultural sense. That is great. That is okay. We are fine. I mean, you take the war fighters and say, "Go back to the back of the bus." We were disenfranchised. They were treating us like niggas, but we were still back there remembering how great it was in Vietnam and what were they going to do, send us to Vietnam. The bus was still air-conditioned. I am making a joke. But in a sense, we went to the back of the bus while they got to the front. That is what the women were doing. In large it was a good thing. Second, it was, women were absolutely key in getting the Vietnam veteran memorial belt. And the women will tell you they were not in the back of any bus. We were out there in the slop wrestling with Webb. But the real efficient, practical work was done by the gals. Sandy Oriole is one. She could tell you about the other women on the Memorial fund, but she was our lead fundraiser. I mean, the gals were, and do not forget it was a woman who won the design kind. All the productive work. SM (02:06:48): Yeah, Linda Goodacre. JW (02:06:50): The women, no, not Linda Goodacre. SM (02:06:52): Glen. JW (02:06:53): The Women's Memorial was Linda Goodacre, but Maya Lynn designed the Vietnam one. I am just saying if you look at it, the guys were out there. We were like pigs in slops doing whatever with inefficient things there to, we were just basically keeping the barbarians at base so the women actually did the productive, effective work of fundraising and designing it. Did anybody notice that the creative and sustained work? I am just saying this, if you unfold the memorial story, by the way, they gave as God as they go. I mean, the people, when Sandy Foreoll was speaking at meetings about what Webb and Parole was doing, we had to restrain her man, and she was all set to go hurt him. So I am just saying, if you want women's liberation, it was happening right there. It is a good part of the story. Absolutely. However, on to his great credit, and everybody should be proud of this, the minute the women came, [Janus Greg] said, "We will help you." I did too. Then a lot of people wanted to burn us at the stake, beat us over our head and shoulders. But we did not notice any difference because we already were already being burned at the stake and beat around the head and shoulders because they did not like the design to begin with. So the fact that we were helping the women with the statue, we could not tell the pain threshold was beyond noticing the difference. I am just making a Walter's joke. To his credit he supported it. So did I. SM (02:08:21): What is amazing is that... JW (02:08:22): We testified, you could go hear, we went and testified together. SM (02:08:27): From knowing Lewis in that timeframe when Bill Clinton came to the wall with the bringing Kim folk to the wall, and all the speakers that have been brought in, the entertainers that have been there, to me, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and the people that were involved in the wall have been the greatest advocates for healing in this entire nation. I have witnessed it as a non-veteran who sits there and watches it and I had conversations with Lewis about it. Even again, he was really pushing for Bill Clinton to come because he felt it was important. He was also reaching out to Vietnam and helping the warriors in Vietnam. JW (02:09:06): Is there a question here? SM (02:09:07): The question is, to me, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund seems to be one of the leaders in the healing within the nation, period. JW (02:09:17): It is not the fund or the wall. It is grace. That is the better door to go in, I think. Because we are just human beings, but it is grace. From a scientific point of view, that is an anthropological point of view, the wall is a liminal place. L I M I N A L. It is a liminal place. It is a phenomenon that happens in human tribes. It is a way of saying it is a sacred place. I will give you an example. At the dedication. Jan and I were alone after the speeches. We were alone. By the way, president Reagan did not come to the dedication. It was too controversial. He came two years later when we dedicated the statute, but he did not come to the dedication of the wall. We were alone in a sense. So what? We were alone in Vietnam too. You know what I mean? We were soldiers and young, so to speak. And what Jay and I both noticed was even though there were maybe 112 or 150,000 people around us, we were walking along the top of the wall so we could look over to our right. It was almost as silent as the room that we were in 150,000 people. Then Jan turned to me and said, when we die, there is going to be a heck of a party. My wife saw it on TV. She saw everybody going to the cathedral to read names. John Walker, the Bishop of Washington, gave us permission to do that. It is in the book 'The Long Gray Line'. My wife was in Washington. She is an Episcopal priest. My wife at the time, not my current wife. This is my wife Lisa. There was a divorce because the wounds in the family that went with my daughter's birth defect and my selfish dedication to the wall. I took myself away from my family, ended the marriage. I did not have a family meeting saying, I am going to do this. I did not give them a vote. That was selfish. But when we were married, she looked at the names being read at the cathedral and she said, just was just out of the blue. I was not even paying attention because I was so tired. Matter of fact, I was so tired that week I could finally de-stress from a hard three years. And I did not know that I had seven more years of fight to go because Jim Webb and Ross Perot and John McCain were going to spend the next three congresses trying to sneak through changes of the design. Yes, they did. But the manager here made me a sandwich. The club with clothes. SM (02:12:59): You can eat it. JW (02:13:00): No-no. I will get it. But I am just saying it was the same thing. He went himself and personally made it because the whole town was filled with veterans. And I just came here to be alone, just like we are now. God bless him to that manager. I lost my train of thought. I was talking about my wife. I was so tired. SM (02:13:32): We are good through at four. What time is it now? JW (02:13:40): Yeah, 10 till 10 past three. My wife turned to me and I could not go to sleep. You know when sometimes you are so tired, you cannot go to sleep. I was just zoned out. She was watching the reading of the names, which was very moving. I was grateful for it and the president finally just, the president grabbed the first lady and they went to the cathedral. I was so grateful to John Walker and God bless him. He died too young. So what I am saying is that in this mood, just out of the blue, she says that you are going to heaven, Jackie. SM (02:14:28): You are going. No, just you are. I know personally the effect that it had on Vietnam veterans in my community, two in particular, who until we brought the traveling wall, when Jan came, they had never had the courage to even go to Washington. They told me point-blank, they were not going to even walk over. But the day that Jan was there, we had our greatest crowds in the evening because of classes. But we had the ceremony outside with the president of the university and the mayor and we had Vietnam veterans and their kids speaking and Jan spoke. We had country Joe. But over in the corner along the wall by the science building, I saw both of them. They were emphatic that they were not ready yet. That is as close as they came. They did not walk up to the wall but, that is another thing. `When I left the university, one of them thanked me for the wall. Jan Scruggs and what you have done is just, to me, the most important thing within the boomer generation. To me, it is the most important thing that is ever happened within the boomer generation. You cannot define, in my opinion, the boomer generation without talking about Vietnam. As Paul [Creshlow] says, it was the watershed moment in everyone's life. So Paul said to me, he said, I felt I wanted to be part of the most important happening in my lifetime, that watershed moment. That is why he served in Vietnam. Even the anti-war people and all the other things. The war is the center court. So I do not ever have a chance to say thanks to Jan Scruggs and all the people that were involved like you. But to me, in my life as a non-veteran who deeply cares about Vietnam veterans, it is the most important thing that ever happened in my life. I am not even a veteran. I come to the wall and I bring students to the wall because I know how important it is. When you see those names, it is just unbelievable. I read books and every time there is a Vietnam veteran whose name is mentioned, who passed away in this book or that book or that book, I go to the wall and look the name up. There must be a couple hundred names that I do not even know who they are except the fact they were in books. One of the conversations that I think this book is tremendous, I wish they would reprint this book. In fact, I mentioned to James Fallows when I interviewed him, I said, what would be greatest to bring all these people back together again that are in the symposium? And he said, and James Fallows said, I would be willing to do it. I know Bobby Mueller real well and I know actually Phil Caputo, he is out in Arizona right now. What I am getting at here is I would like your responses to some of their commentaries back when this was written, this came out in (19)81. You make a comment, you make a statement to a quote here that I think is very important because you praised James Fallows. There are too many guys in our generation who do not understand how the war shaped them. Unlike Jim Fallows, and I said this to Mr. Fallows when I interviewed him, and you praise him and others that he admitted he was wrong. He admitted that he was a coward to evade the draft the way they did it, and not protest against them. It is not like protesting against the war. It was evading the draft. He feels guilty about it and he does not. I am not saying he feels guilty now, but he was [inaudible] JW (02:18:46): There was an article, what did you do in the [class war draft]? But he did. He stood up to it right manfully. SM (02:18:53): Your thoughts on that? Did you think that many within the generation did that or was he still a rarity? JW (02:18:58): Jim? Jim is exceptional and a rarity. SM (02:19:02): Too many did not. JW (02:19:03): He is one that the Rhode Scholar people got, sometimes they miss before they got it right when he became a Rhode Scholar. He makes that program look good. You know what, you can knock Jim Fallows. Just do not knock him around me. SM (02:19:19): He respects you. I am telling you and he actually respects Jim Webb too. He mentioned that and, I have a comment from Jim Webb. JW (02:19:26): Well, that is right. You better respect Jim Webb and you better watch out for his right hook. SM (02:19:32): He mentioned something when we were talking about that this, when you look at the Vietnam generation, it is a generation of service. It was a generation that went into the Peace Corps. It was a generation of Vietnam veterans who went to serve the nation. It is a generation that went in volunteers in service to America. It is a generation and then he said, hold it. Hold it. I think one of the weaknesses of the boomer generation is that they are not a generation of service because they avoided the war. He brings up the reasons why in his own-own way. So when you talk about the (19)60s generation as a generation of service, yet Jim Webb challenges that idea. What do you think of Jim Webb's thoughts? JW (02:20:33): Could you restate the question? SM (02:20:37): I think what Senator Webb was saying at the time is that we all look at the (19)60s and the (19)70s, and the gen and boomer generation that grew up after World War II as a generation that was really involved in service. It is one of the characteristics, the qualities, whether it be service by serving in Vietnam or serving in the Peace Corps, or volunteers in service to America or alternative service. Or at least for those who were consciousness objectors, doing alternative service for two years in a very hard way like a couple of my friends did in Newfoundland that would have qualified. But he says, too many avoided the war through avoiding the draft. So the generation has such large numbers avoiding service and they should have fought in the war. Cause what he is really saying. Thoughts on that? JW (02:21:46): First, Jim is right. He has still got one shot for his right hook. It is a combative statement, but he is right. That is the first thing. Second, he is touching on something fundamental. People who have lost the most from not going into service, as Jim said, were those who have made that choice themselves. Those good things they could have done, the people they helped did not benefit from their service, but they themselves suffered most. That is why I use this quote and why this is called 'Touched with Fire.' SM (02:22:44): Pull it right there in the front. SM (02:22:45): Yes. JW (02:22:48): You do not have to read it. I am just pointing to this quote. You either enter the action of your time or there is a sense of which you have not lived. So the real loss was for those who made that choice. By the way, not all of them made some kind of selfish choice. Many had no choice to me, many were drafted. That was not choice and yet they stood too and served with their fellows, a lot of them are on the wall. There were many women who were treated like women in the (19)50s where they did not have much choice. That is cruel. Our society in ways was cruel to women in the (19)50s. Thank God for Catherine McKinnon and the women who did lead and still lead the women's movement. Many people did not have a choice. We were so fortunate, those of us who could go to West Point or Annapolis to be able to choose. Then there is something deeper, and I will tell you who taught me this, it was Elliot Richardson, God bless him. SM (02:23:57): Died about a year ago. JW (02:23:59): Yes. You must read the essay, the Moral Equivalent of War. Google it and read it. SM (02:24:10): He wrote it? JW (02:24:10): No, it is a classic. It is not a Holmes but embarrassed. It is a classic. You read it, the Moral Equivalent of War. Google it, it turned the century. Elliot pointed me to it because war evokes the deepest signatures of grace actually, and of sacrifice and of those things we are not just dying for, but living for of any human experience. Maybe even more than birth, maybe more than birth, because war's death. You must read it. Think about what Elliot was saying, just like I think about it. You will figure out what he was saying, he was saying you read that chapter. I put his name on the back of the wall. You know there is names on the back of the wall. SM (02:25:09): No, I did not know that. JW (02:25:14): Well, if you look in 'The Long Gray Line', there is a set of names. I thanked everybody that was significant in getting the wall bill. I called Jake carter Brown and said, I want to do this. But I said, if I have to ask permission, it will never happen. It will become complex. He said, this is Jake Carter of Brown, God bless you, Jake Carter of Brown on the telephone, chairman of the Fine Arts Commission, the Commission of Fine Arts. He says, "Oh I think it is like putting the builders in one of the cornerstones of the building? Do not you think, Jack?" And I said, "Well, sir, yes." And he said, " I think it would be perfectly routine." I was chairman of the board at that point. I said, "Yes, sir." I was on the phone and I said, "So there would not be a need for a hearing." "I would not think so, would you?" And I said, "No, sir." I make things up. I am not making that up. SM (02:26:32): Elliott Richardson, we all know him in history because he was resigned cause of... JW (02:26:36): Got that, got that. You go, you go do that work. How are we doing? It is 3:20. SM (02:26:36): I got a few more questions and you can eat your sandwich while we are here. Bobby Mueller, in that same discussion, talked about how disappointed he was in America, that the leaders had let us down, that he went into service. I wonder how many people who served at that time felt like Bobby with respect to, upon the return to America. There was a thinking that when you went to Vietnam, that America was always the good guy, but now that America's the bad guy. JW (02:27:26): Bobby was overreacting, but we were young. We were all overreacting. That is the way Bobby, God bless him, overreacted. It was a little too much. There was some truth in what he said. A sense of alienation was understandable because we were alienated. I mean like a good marine, since we were alienated, he figured out that he was alienated. But you overreact. It is a little bit much to ask a guy who was 25 years old or 31 years old at the time, to have a sense of growth, maturity and history. Especially when you have had the wounds he had. So he was putting his finger on some real truth. It is just that there was surrounding truth. Bobby. Bobby sees it, I think, in a larger context now. Was he right? Yes. Was it a little overstated? Maybe. SM (02:28:26): Yeah. JW (02:28:26): God bless Bobby. SM (02:28:27): Bobby was at my retirement party. I invited him and he came and it was an honor to have him there. We actually met him a couple times. What is interesting, I will never forget Phil Pipudo telling him at this session that you were at, he says, Bobby, you have a temper. If you remember that. He said, Bobby, you have a temper. It seems like today that there are efforts by the right conservatives to divide our nation by making references to the (19)60s and (19)70s for creating all the problems in our society today. With respect to the counterculture, the new left, the activists of many movements for creating the following, the drug culture, the divorce rate, the breakup of the family, the irresponsible behavior, the welfare state dependence on government of dissent mentality, which actually what Mr. Webb talks about in the book. Special interests, controlling ideas, and universities where various studies programs are being taken over by the troublemakers of the (19)60s. Phyllis Schley and David Horowitz said, but then the two talking about that universities today are run by the troublemakers of the (19)60s because they run all the studies programs from women's studies to gay lesbian studies, environmental studies, Native American studies, Black studies. Your thoughts on actually the people that made these comments, some of them were like, people like New Gingrich and Governor Huckabee and George Will and some of his writings and others. JW (02:30:14): It is all as American as Apple pie. If Ben Franklin and Abigail Adam, I would rather talk with Abigail before I talk with John. John Adams. I just think I would rather spend the afternoon having tea with the Abigail more than that. SM (02:30:31): Couple biographies out on her recently too. JW (02:30:33): She is pretty good. Yeah. Abigail was pretty good. And John, he could come along. My point is, if the Adams' were here and Ben Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, they had listened to everything you just said. The question you just said, and they said, well, it is working out. What do you think Tom? And Tom said, well, it is working out. It is working out. Of course, they are all sitting there knowing that Tom has got this thing going with Sally Hemings. But they are not going to mention that. I mean, I am just saying they are all human. We are all human. And they would say, well, it looks like it is working with the Republic. It looks like it is working out. What do you think? And they would say, yeah, Dolly Madison, I would love to talk with Dolly Madison as well as James Madison. I am saying they would look at everything and say, this is Americans apple pie. Chris, who knew what apple pie was and what America was? But I mean, that is how they look at it. Everything you have just said can be transformed by a mathematical formula so that it is the right sand. Well, they are beating us up from the left, and it is all working out. It is all just motor wrestling. And it goes with the system that was set up. Here is the biggest thing to remember about the very healthy condition that you defined. I see it as healthy. They just slinging and mud at each other. What the founding people did, some of the guys being well advised by their wives, and I am talking about Dolly and Abigail, just to start with. Betsy Ross, too, God bless her making the flag. Molly Pitcher, God bless them. Seriously, the whole generation that fought the revolution, the condition of controversy is just built into our republic, and it tends to work out okay. What they did in order to keep an envelope around everything, like a rocket ship has a steel shell or a metal shell, do not pierce that. The oxygen will leak out in the space and we will all die. I mean, we are a big rocket ship actually, as Buckminster Fuller says, we all are on a spaceship. It is called Earth. Be careful. Do not leak the oxygen out of our planet. There is some truth in that, but I... (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with John Wheeler Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Wheeler, John, 1944-2010 ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Lawyers; Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund; Wheeler, John, 1944-2010--Interviews Description An account of the resource <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;John Wheeler (1944-2010) was an Army officer, consultant, lawyer, chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, senior planner for Amtrak, and CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He also was a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, a special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, as well as serving as a presidential aide to the Ronald Reagan, George H.W. and George W. Bush administrations. Wheeler was a graduate from West Point, Harvard, and Yale.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">John Wheeler (1944-2010) was an Army officer, consultant, lawyer, chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, senior planner for Amtrak, and CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He also was a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, a special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, as well as serving as a presidential aide to the Ronald Reagan, George H.W. and George W. Bush administrations. Wheeler was a graduate from West Point, Harvard, and Yale.</span> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-07-23 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource in copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.122a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.122b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 153:04 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/51852f7856db4bdc6c834d347165bed6.jpg 3c74f4cd9a389dcc17dc01be8f7dd465 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/44ab1081e03e1b7dc68cd5d38b0c12ef.mp3 4a0c11bf70d47b3cd830d51069ef77a5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 1996-11-18 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Joseph Lee Galloway Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Joseph Lee Gallaway is a veteran war correspondent and an author. In his writing, Galloway covered conflicts all across the world, including the Vietnam War, the first Persian Gulf War, and the Iraq War. He is the co-author of the Vietnam War book We Were Soldiers Once... and Young, which was later adapted into a movie, We Were Soldiers.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:7043,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:1},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Joseph Lee Gallaway is a veteran war correspondent and author. In his writing, Galloway covered conflicts all across the world, including the Vietnam War, the first Persian Gulf War, and the Iraq War. He is the co-author of the Vietnam War book <em>We Were Soldiers Once... and Young</em>, which was later adapted into a movie, <em>We Were Soldiers</em>.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Vietnam Veterans; Free love; Campus Demonstration; Vietnam War; Non-political entity; Veteran Memorial; Baby boom generation; Army; This Noble Land: My Vision for America; James A. Michener; Soviet Empire; Lyndon B. Johnson; George McGovern; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Malcolm X.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14281427}}">Vietnam Veterans; Free love; Campus Demonstration; Vietnam War; Non-political entity; Veteran Memorial; Baby boom generation; Army; This Noble Land: My Vision for America; James A. Michener; Soviet Empire; Lyndon B. Johnson; George McGovern; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Malcolm X.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 107:13 Subject LCSH War correspondents; Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- Journalists; Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988 -- Journalists; Iraq War, 2003-2011 -- Journalists; Authors; Gallaway, Joseph Lee--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Joseph Lee Galloway Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Benjamin Mehdi So Date of interview: 18 November 1996 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 00:05 JG: There is home. But in this case, and maybe in every case, that was wrong, that it was not, Dan Garcia, who, whoever left home. He was at home with professionalism, he was at home with his courage. He was at home with those he served with. And maybe, just maybe it is we, who did not go, who did not serve, for whatever reason, who have been away from home all these years. And so, I say, not a welcome home to Dan, but a welcome to the rest of us. That is very powerful stuff. 00:44 SM: Wow. That is. 00:44 JG: And I have showed that to a number of Vietnam veterans, and every one of them just left with tears in their eyes, at how right he got it. And I am sure in my heart that-that-that Peter Goldmark was probably a campus protestor, march against the war. And I wrote him and told him, that I that I really would love to see him, expand on that those remarks and give them to a broader audience. Because where we are now is, is we need reconciliation, this country, the war, rip-rip, ripped the country apart. And either we find some way to forgive each other and forgive ourselves or the world just keep killing us like those old Cambodian mines keep children that were not even born when the war ended. 01:47 SM: See that is the premise of why I am trying to do this project. There were a couple of things that that prompted me to even try to do this. I have worked at universities now for over 18 years. But in the last five years, when we do programs both on and off campus, I have taken students to meet leaders and I got involved with Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Philadelphia. We did a program at my former school at Jefferson where Don Bailey, the former Auditor General, who was a Purple Heart recipient in the Vietnam War refused to sit down with the Vietnam veterans responsible for the wall in Philly. We did a program at my former school at Jefferson where Don Bailey, the former Auditor General, who was a Purple Heart recipient in the Vietnam War refused to sit down with the Vietnam veterans responsible for the wall in Philly. And they, you may remember, uh, many years back when they tried to put the wall together in Philadelphia, that, uh, some of the top Vietnam veterans went to Washington, took the names off the wall, and walked the entire distance back to Philadelphia, and then buried the names right at the, at the ceremony when they opened several years. And Bailey would not shake hands with those veterans. And I thought that kind of- That was my first inkling that despite all the fantastic things with the wall, the healing and so forth, that maybe there is still a lot of healing that has to be done, not only within the Vietnam veteran community, but within the nation as a whole. And then a couple other instances have led up to this desire to try to interview people for their perceptions on questions that I am asking everyone. And then of course, there is spontaneity going in different directions, because my basic purpose here is to- It is a very complex issue, the Vietnam War and the (19)60s and the early (19)70s and the Boomer generation, their impact on America. But I guess I am frustrated because I see tremendous attacks being leveled against the Boomers right now, which is my generation. And first question I wanted to ask you is, when you look at all the current criticisms of the Boomer generation, which is those people born between 1946 and (19)64, but mostly those Boomers who were in college or of college age during the Vietnam War. A lot of criticism's being leveled against them as to the breakdown of American society, the drug scene started then, the divorce rate is on the rise, being the free love and effects and all that other stuff happened at that time. No respect for authority, because on college campuses during the war, there was protests, and they did not respect administrators or anybody in position of authority. Of course, they were lied to by their government. But what are your thoughts on the criticisms today leveling against the entire Boomer generation and the decay of our society going right back to those times? 04:31 JG: Well, the first thing I have to say is that I am not a Boomer. I was born in (19)41, before the war started. I am a prewar model by three weeks. But what that means is that I did not, I did not meet my father until I was four years old, four and a half, when he came back from-from the army. I guess everybody's thoughts about the boomer generation are-are shaped, to a large extent by what you have read and what you have seen of the (19)60s and the (19)70s. My thing is that-that during the (19)60s and the (19)70s, I was out of this country. I went, I have essentially left this country in 1964, and did not come back until 1980. I was a war correspondent in Vietnam, I was a foreign correspondent. I served Tokyo, Vietnam, Tokyo, Indonesia, India, Singapore, and then finished up with three years as the bureau chief in Moscow for UPI. So, I cannot tell you that I ever saw campus demonstration in this country, or that I ever saw confrontations with the police, except as I read them, newspapers and in the magazines, and saw the stories on the wire. So, I guess my view is, is a little removed. And maybe a little less passionate as to what went on. The boomers, I think, had no patent on the changes that took place in this country. They were a catalyst. Sometimes for good sometimes for bad. I am not sure that you can saddle them with responsibility for everything. But they are responsible for enough to make it interesting. 06:59 SM: What were your thoughts? As a person who served in Vietnam, when maybe you were not here in America, but you were-were over there. And you heard about, you heard about the protests, things that were happening on the college campuses, probably, I would say started around (19)65 and until about 1972. What were your thoughts as a person who was over there serving, and then the thoughts of your contemporaries and how you may be changed over the years and your perceptions of- 07:32 JG: The thing is that I always looked as to motive. Personally, after the first six weeks that I was in Vietnam, I found myself rather opposed to this war. I thought it was being fought very stupidly. I thought that we had bitten off a rather larger chunk than this country would ever be able to chew. It did not take long. I mean, I arrived there, sort of all I knew about war was what I had learned in John Wayne movies, and I think on the third day in country, I found myself on a helicopter landing on a hill where a Vietnamese ranger battalion had been overrun and every man killed, and we were there to find and collect the body of the American advisors. And so, you know, I helped carry that man to that helicopter. And I thought to myself, right then and there, this is, this is not, this is not quite what I thought it was going to be. 08:47 SM: Then this is (19)64? 08:48 JG: This is 1965, March-March of (19)65. I landed there, right after the first battalion of US Marines came ashore at Da Nang. And this was immediately thereafter. And you know, and in the process of doing that story, I immediately ran into some IVS volunteers who worked that province. And I said, “I bet you are glad to see Americans here.” And the guy looked at me like I was crazy. He said, “No, this is complicating my life, no end and making it much more dangerous. Before I could drive the roads of this province, rather freely, taking care of people who were starving or needed medical help or whatever. And now I cannot because all Americans have become priority targets”. And so, you know, literally the first week I began finding out stuff that made me question whether this was-was a very wise course we had undertaken to walk. Now as for these people back here, who really, the demonstrations did not get started until late (19)65. I think it was, oh, the old beat poet. Ginsberg had a demonstration in San Francisco in November of 1965. And I think that was one of the very earliest ones. And I, when I was doing research on our book, I-I went back and looked at that, and I found Senator Everett Dirksen, denouncing these people, as communists and traders and suggesting that they all be shot. So, you know, it was a real startling sort of a development at that time. I cannot say that I knew at that time that it happened to me, but I do not think it crossed my, my radar scope. By the time there was a movement, and there was a major confrontation going on. I am afraid that although I oppose the war myself, I could find not a lot to say for these people who also opposed it because I questioned their motives. I thought it was, shall we say enlightened self-interest. It was a protest against the draft far more than it was against the war. And I thought it was very elitist. I thought, you know, I knew who was fighting alongside me in Vietnam, I knew very-very well, because in the first major battle of the war, in the Drang Valley, I met a kid from my high school class that I graduated with in Refugio, Texas. And that was a graduating class of (19)55 kids. And his name was Vincent Cantu. And in that valley, for a dozen more guys, Hispanics, all of them from South Texas, within 20, 30 miles of my hometown, so I knew who was fighting this war. And I knew who was not fighting this war. And so, I had some trouble with their motives. 12:32 SM: Let me check this to make- 12:37 JG: Something to drink? 12:37 SM: I am fine. I got my Coke here. I stopped at McDonald’s. Talking about the motives now kind of moving up to 1996 as opposed to 1965. The Vietnam memorial was built as a nonpolitical entity. I really admire Jan Scruggs, and all the people involved in that whole process making that happen. I know all about the obstacles that he faced with getting that particular part of a portion of land and so forth, but it is a nonpolitical entity. Yet, when I go to the wall, and I have tried to go the last four Memorial Days, I have been there the last form or days and this is my third veterans day in a row to try to get an ambience and a feel for what transpires there, I sense that there is, there definitely is a lot of healing. But I still get the sense that we have a long way to go. And when I say a long way to go, not only amongst the veterans, but the non-veterans, the people who come to that wall, yours truly the Steve McKiernan's, who was in college at that time did not serve. I was a severe asthmatic, and I got out of the service that way. But it was not I was getting out of the service. I just could not serve. I had a very severe asthma. But the division seemed to still be there. And the question I was trying to raise is-is how much healing has really taken place amongst the veteran’s number one? And will they ever forgive those who were on the other side? The those who oppose the war. And the second question is, do you think there is merit in trying to take the next step beyond the wall, which was to heal the Vietnam veterans to try to heal the generation, the whole generation which the divisions still seem to happen? I just liked your thoughts on both of those questions. 14:28 JG: Well, to start, to start at the top of the wall, and the end, the whole sort of homecoming exercise of the last 12 or 15 years has been for the veterans, a very positive, very healing experience. I-I find it very hard to explain to someone who does not carry the same baggage, exactly what it means. The best way, I guess is to tell you that I have never been so privileged and honored as, as this past Veteran’s Day. When I got to hold up, lift up a young boy, four and a half years old Thomas Alexander Rudell, so that for the first time, he could touch the name of his grandfather, my friend, Captain Tom Metzger, who was killed in action,14, November 1965. And over my shoulder, I can see Tom's daughter, I could see both pride and pain their eyes. And so, to me, this is, man this is this is more than any church I have ever been in. It has more power to it. It is without question, the most powerful and healing piece of art that I know of, on the face of this earth. And it is so for most of those who went to Vietnam, it was a place that that for us is- I have seen too much magic there either. There is no other word for it. If you go talk to the volunteers who work at that wall and ask them for their stories. They will tell someone come up and say, “I am looking for someone who knew my father.” And they will say, “Go stand at his panel, and just stay there a while, and something will happen.” And it always does. There is there is a potency to that experience. That is, it is almost overwhelming. But that is healing for those who were directly wounded. If you are going to look for healing for those who did not go for whatever reason, I am not sure that is not the place. They are not going to find healing there for themselves. I do not know what we do about them. What we do about-about reconciliation. This is something that has got to be worked on. And we need to work on it. 17:35 SM: That reconciliation. Talking about almost like Lewis [Burwell] Puller [Jr.] was talking about before he killed himself back in (19)94, when he reached out, when the invitation to Bill Clinton to come to the Vietnam Memorial that year. And then Lewis wanted to sit and right beside him as he was speaking, remember that? I watched it. And I got to know Lewis briefly before he killed himself because I took students to the wall, and he spent three hours with our students there. And then the following spring, killed himself. Our students were quite shocked. But it was, it is the business of healing. That wall is for Vietnam veterans to heal, and their families and those who served because that is what is for, it to pay tribute to them, the people who served this country and gave the ultimate price because they were not welcomed home. But the next step is I would like your commentary in terms of when the invitation was given by Jan, and Lewis was supportive of it, to bring Bill Clinton there. That is, that is to me is tremendous reconciliation, bringing the other side. And it is almost like, I know how veterans feel toward McNamara the most a lot of them hate him because of some of the things he did. But would not the ultimate reconciliation be having him at the wall? Or having your strongest opponents Tom Hayden at the wall? Or trying to say those were very difficult times. We need to heal as a nation and shake hands, forgive. And it is hard to forget sometimes some of the things that went on, especially Jane Fonda going to Hanoi. Now, that is hard to forgive, but- 19:24 JG: Well, I have a-a lot bigger problem forgiving McNamara. He is the guy who knew, and he lied. And he, he lost heart in the war very early on probably as a result of the battle that I fought in. The battle that I wrote about. I think by November 1965, he knew it was a lost cause. And he did not have the balls to stand up, say it. He did not have the balls to give the right advice to his boss, President Johnson. He just silenced himself. He walled off his arm on judgment and was a good soldier for too long, terrible more years. And he did not address any of that in his book that he wrote last year. That-that is a that is a quibbler’s book. It is a book that tries to point blame at everybody but himself. I got no forgiveness for a guy like that. He dies, he goes to hell, ninth level. And Lyndon Johnson is waiting for him. And Boy is he pissed- 20:35 SM: That is amazing he was- 20:40 JG: Clinton-Clinton is the national command authority. He is the chief executive; he is the Commander in Chief of the armed services. On that day that you talk about, when Clinton came to the wall, that morning at Arlington National Cemetery, I was the master of ceremonies at-at Memorial Day services, and I looked at this crowd, I had about 30 minutes with him before he got there. And I saw some who were thinking about making a noise. And I said, ‘Do not do it.” I said, “Whatever else you may think of him, you respect the office, but more important than that, you respect my friends and your friends who rest here”. And I talked about Tom Metzger whose grave is not far from the amphitheater. And I talked about his daughter. And I talked about some other people who are buried there that I said, “Do not you by your actions here today, do not you dare dishonor them.” And they were pretty good. They behaved themselves. And if they would not have, I would have kicked their butts. And I think they knew that too. But I the President of the United States is a different case. I think you have to suspend judgment because of the office, whether you like the guy who is in it or not. And I do not know what Bill Clinton did. I do not think anybody knows what Bill Clinton did except Bill Clinton. If you want to forgive, you ought to confess, I believe that is the way the Catholics deal with it. 22:35 SM: I think when he came there, I wrote an article for The Philadelphia Inquirer. They did not print it. But it was printed it on our campus. And it was basically saying that the wall was the was the step toward healing from the Vietnam War, but I felt I called the visit like the next step. There may have been a lot of veterans that were against him. But when he came to the Vietnam Memorial, I know they were expecting a lot of people to be protesting him. And but there were not that many really, when you look at the numbers that were there, according to- I was not there. That is my shirt come in the next year. Look to me, like there were very few. And there were placards up there. There were more than- 23:14 JG: I was sitting right down there in the VIP seats. 23:17 SM: So, there were more than the 200 that they say there were? 23:21 JG: They had them walled off way up the hill. 23:23 SM: Okay. 23:24 JG: Behind the fence. And, and they were raising the hell. I do not know how many there were, but it sounded like a lot to me. Because I could not, even from that distance. You could hear them chanting, you could hear them screaming. You could hear them hollering. You could hear them taking on an unfamiliar role for them being a protestor. 23:48 SM: That again, goes back to the old business of having a hard time forgiving and forgetting. 23:55 JG: Yeah. 23:55 SM: And-and the wall is supposed to be a place of healing. Nonpolitical, yet there is a political statement being made right there. 24:03 JG: Yeah. Sorry. Life is like that. 24:10 SM: When you look at the Boomers and I got just some general questions, when you look at the Boomer generation, what do you see as their most positive qualities and their most negative qualities? Now you are, you are a couple of years before Jack Smith, I remember when I interviewed him. He is one year older than- But I have never put up a timeframe on Boomers. Because many of the leaders of the protest movement were older graduate students in their late 20s when college students were just coming there at 18, 19. But from your own personal perspective, when you look at the (19)60s and the (19)70s, and the attacks being made in America, what-what are the positive qualities of the young people of that era and one of the negative qualities in your eyes? 24:57 JG: Well, for whatever motive they question. If they ask hard questions, I respect that. They, earlier than most Americans got a quick feel that they were being lied to by their government, by their president. They knew how to raise hell to get attention to what it was-was their cause. All of these are positive things in my view, the government should be looked at with great suspicious of them as they were of Lyndon Johnson. So that is the positive. The negative. Well, I carried the questioning onto lengths and depths maybe they should not have crossed. Anything that opens the country to an epidemic of casual dope use casual sex, casual calls for overthrowing the system and revolution. I think those are all negatives. 26:55 SM: Of course, the overthrowing of- 26:57 JG: And my question would be where the fuck did their revolution go? When the draft ended, juice went out of the movement. And a revolution went down the whole. 27:17 SM: Well, the Boomers always used to- a lot them used to saying college campuses at that timeframe- Of course, I cannot always preface this on college campuses. Because over half of the young people in America, that era did not even go to college. So, we kind of tend to have a tendency at times to just concentrate on what was happening in the schools, and not really investigate what has happened to the other half of the Boomer generation that never attended college. But it is no question that the issues, the issues are what drew students to protest, and that the passion toward those issues, but when the war ended, the Boomers aged. Are they like any other generation? Because Boomers used to say that- 28:04 JG: Forever. 28:05 SM: “We are, we are the most unique generation in American history. Number one, we are going to change the world.” And thirdly, a slogan of that period was it was a very famous Peter Max poster, “You do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful.” So, there was that mentality of doing their own thing and, and whatever cause it might be. And the goal would be, hopefully to work together on solving issues. But- 28:33 JG: I, you know, if I am going to fault them for something is that they tend not to clean up the books. You know, they leave a lot of accounts open, things that yesterday they were willing to die for, or at least be uncomfortable for. And when it is done, they do not balance the books. They do not stop and look and say, “Wow, you know, these agrarian reformers that we supported in Cambodia have turned out to be some of the greatest butchers in the history of the world.” Who is protesting? I heard a little bit out of Joan Baez, and that was it. And she was essentially walled off from her whole generation as a consequence. And I have had this argument with, with Boomers before I said, “Where the hell is Jane Fonda?” You have got 3 million dead people. You got bones piled to the ceiling in Cambodia. Where is Jane? Where is Tom? Where-where are the people who cared so much for life. Now, it is all happening in a vacuum because they do not care. They moved on to something else. 30:00 SM: I think Tom Hayden still living his life the way-. He is kind of- he has been in politics out of California. And he is kind of still working hard on the environment and still living as he always did. Although he is very Jane Fonda. What a combination. Has your opinion changed over the last 25 years? When you when you came back in 19? Well, when you were there in (19)65, and then of course, you were over in Europe as a reporter, have you changed your attitudes toward the Boomer generation over that 25-year period? Where have you been pretty consistent in your thoughts on them? 30:40 JG: Fairly consistent. I was a little surprised when they all turned up as lawyers and stockbrokers, driving Volvo's doing the consumer thing. But I guess that is normal. I guess that is a normal progression. But the question is-is that I have had I have had from very early on, and they are still not answered. So no, I have not I have not changed my opinion. 31:20 SM: And those questions are again. 31:26 JG: Where is your revolution? What have you done in this world? You are now turning 50? What have you what have- what is your impact beside the impending bankruptcy of Social Security and Medicare? Where have you left your mark? How have you changed the world? Where- how have you done all those things that you have demonstrated for or demanded? Where is the, where is the beef? 32:02 SM: Would not you say to that, it might be kind of early to say where is the beef? Boomers are just turning 50. And, and this is the time now where they could be leaders the next 10-15 years. So, it is kind of difficult to evaluate them at this juncture. It is a little too early. Would not you say? You are- 32:21 JG: 50, you are getting near the end of the game. You better have a few scouts on your belt, or you are not much of a warrior. You know, this is what they say in the financial planning business. It is time to get serious. Boy, you are going to retire here before long. What have you done? What have you done? 32:52 SM: When you look at the, you know, because you cannot talk about 60 million people just like you cannot talk about all Vietnam veterans. But are there examples of Boomers that you know, who have lived a lifetime of commitment toward a variety of issues? And just as they were when they were 20. They are still doing it at 50. 33:13 JG: Yeah, I would say there are. They have to be out there. I have met some of them. I think like all of us, their-their perspectives have changed. Maybe their causes have changed some. 33:43 SM: I am going to ask a question about trust. When I had a conversation with Senator Muskie, about five years ago, when I took students to Washington, and during the conversation, we were talking about the (19)68 Convention. And at that juncture, I brought up a question about the lack of trust that young people at that time had in people like him, vice presidential running mate, United States senator, you name it. And I wanted him to respond to that. Because I think a lot of people in my generation still do not trust because of what the government did during the Vietnam War. Certainly, the Watergate, everybody knows about Watergate, but the lack of trust, and we see it even amongst the Boomers who do not even vote. Boomers do not vote, and their children do not vote. And a lack of trust and authority already because they were lied to in many respects during the Vietnam War and the-the enemies list that Nixon- all these things have added up and kind of left a psychological imprint into the minds of many of the Boomers not to trust or to ever trust. What is your commentary with respect to that issue of trust am I right on when I am talking about that, and the effect it has had on this generation? And is that, is that one of the lasting effects of those people born between (19)46 and (19)64? Because they went through these experiences they cannot trust and thus they carry that out of their kids, and they do not trust leaders as well. 35:17 JG: I would you know. The strange thing is-is that it is, it is those lower middle class, and lower-class kids who were drafted and shipped first to Vietnam to fight and die, who ought to have less trust in situation than almost anyone, and yet maybe they have more. They still send their children to the army. None of the others do. The army is as a volunteer force, even more isolated than it was as a draftee force by far. Recruitment is all from probably seven Southern states, 80-90 percent of it. 36:10 SM: Oh really? 36:11 JG: Sure. Who sends their kids to the army? There is an economic force and there is, to a lesser extent, sort of familial pressure, there is a 30 percent of them are black. So, there is an economic thing. And there is also the fact that, that, surprisingly, the army may have the most level playing field in American society. If you are a person of color, you go in and if you can meet the standards, you get promoted. So those people who probably have less reason than anybody else to trust- 36:56 SM: Trust more. 36:57 JG: Still trust their children, in the hands of the army in the hands of government, if you will, in the hands of Bill Clinton, who uses the army more readily than any president I have ever known. 37:12 SM: That is an interesting observation. Because- 37:16 JG: Wh-What has happened? The peaceniks are shipping armies. This guy moves, troops at the drop of a hat. It is almost like he does not know that a military course is the last card you play, not the first card. He also does not seem to understand when he was standing out in front of the embassy in London, demonstrating because we were trying to be the world's policeman, what the hell is he doing now? We have an army that is a 911 reaction force. You call we haul? You got someone starving in Rwanda, being killed in the millions by their own government? Hey, we will go fix it. You got a problem in Bosnia? We will send 20,000 American soldiers in there. That is because there is nobody on Capitol Hill. There is nobody in the upper half of your generation, who has a kid in that in that force. 38:35 SM: It is true. 38:36 JG: I do not even know someone who has a kid in that force. If-if war starts tomorrow, there are precisely two people in the US news and world report building who have ever heard a shot fired in anger, and I am half of that force. And the other is a guy who was out in LA who was a grunt. 39:06 SM: Oh, my goodness. How many people were in there? 39:08 JG: Well, there is 130 or 40, editorial side people. But hey, they come out of a different place. They come out of the elite. So, I, you know, basically, their right to be suspicious. Are they right to turn their back on democracy as a system? I doubt that. I would say they are very wrong on that. You know, you have a duty to vote. You have an obligation. It is the simple obligation of citizenship. You live and the freest country on the face of this earth. I think you also have an obligation to defend it, but we will leave that aside. You at least have a minimal obligation to care about who governs it. How it is governed and go down and vote. If you do not do that, you are not much of a citizen are you? 40:11 SM: You are not, definitely. I have seen that amongst college students today. Statistics show that only 18.5 percent of today's young people in entering classes over the last three years have any interest toward being involved in politics, but over 85 percent of them have been involved in some sort of volunteer activity. Now, I am asking myself, and I will ask you the same thing. Is this a sign that students do not feel empowered that their vote does not count that they cannot make a difference? number one, but they feel they can influence other people's lives with their volunteer activity. So, like, an interesting, they can help others. But they are really not feeling empowered to help themselves. 40:54 JG: I do not know the answer to that, I do not know what moves there- they, you know, we are talking, we are sitting here, you and I talking about the Boomers. And, and I can kind of get a fix on them. But I have not got a clue when it comes to the one below them, generation and generation X, whatever you want to call them, you know, these are, these are, this is, this is the generation that-that that is non literate, is the word I am reaching for. But that is not quite it. They are, you know, they do not read books. They are- their information is absorbed visually- 41:31 SM: Fast and sweet. 41:34 JG: Fast, quick. It is computers, it is TV, it is the sort of stuff, and they are not readers. And I do not understand anyone who is not a reader, because it is, it is the very basis of my life. I fell onto it at an early age and-and I have devoured books constantly since then, and it is amazing how far ahead of you they can stay the publishing industry. And now I write books. And I do not know who is going to read them in another 20 years. 42:12 SM: Well, I know that we have computer ages upon us, and in terms of preparing for the future, young people know that they got to be schooling computers, or they are not going to be able to have a decent job, a decent salary, raise a family, you name it. Two good books I would like to recommend for again, in the next question, have you had a chance to read Our War, which is David Harris new book. 42:33 JG: No. 42:34 SM: It is a very good book, for Steven Harris was a protester at Stanford, and went, went to jail for protesting against the war. He was sent to jail for refusing to serve, right. You read the draft; he refused any [crosstalk]. 42:50 JG: A guy that stood up, standup guy. I am not going to go do what I think is wrong. And I am willing to pay the price. I got all the respect in the world, like them as much as I do. 43:02 SM: He was in jail, two years, two plus years. I think. 43:06 JG: Good. That was where he should have been. That was where all the rest of them should have been too. 43:10 SM: Schlesinger has written a book called The Noble Land, which is a very good book, James Schlesinger. Oh, excuse me, James Michener. He has written a brand-new book, This Noble Land, and it is reflecting his 93 years on this earth and talking about the problems of American. It is a good book. 43:28 JG: I will give you a good one that that if you have not read, you should, and it is The Living and The Dead. Robert S. McNamara and Five Lives of Lost World. 43:39 SM: I saw him on footnotes. I have not read the book. Yes. 43:42 JG: Just a splendid book. It is a splendid book. 43:46 SM: There is a person who was touched by the war, who did not serve. 43:51 JG: Yeah. Well, he is a young guy. 43:53 SM: I think he is in his early 40s. I am going to mention a few names here of people that were well known to all boomers in America at the time in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s. And I just like to have your comments on them as a person from your own perception and maybe their impact on history, if there is such a thing. I got about 20 different names here and we will be short and sweet. Your perceptions of people like Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda. 44:25 JG: You would start with the word the top, the top dogs there. Well, Miss Fonda is an accomplished actress. Mr. Hayden is a pretty good, far left politician in California on local issues. And I do not have a lot of respect for either one of them for the simple reason that they are prime among those who have not balanced the books. When she issued an apology to the “veterans” that was no apology. It was a politician's apology. If I have offended someone, I apologize only because I have offended them not because I did anything wrong. 45:17 SM: What year did you do that? 45:20 JG: Four or five years ago, five or six, the VFW was breathing down her neck and-and she issued a statement. That was ingenious, disingenuous. disingenuous all of those things and did not apologize to anybody. 45:41 SM: I tried to get an interview with her in Atlanta and she rejected an interview. 45:45 JG: I am sure she did. She has made known to be a housewife. 45:55 SM: Then second would be Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. 46:00 JG: Clown princess. The great court has to have some gestures and they were in. 46:12 SM: Dr. Benjamin Spock. 46:16 JG: Well, Spock raised them. He wrote the book. Ask him if he is happy. The way they turned out. How did his kids turn out? I do not know. 46:28 SM: He has written a brand-new book. He is not too happy with some of the boomers. He is reevaluating- 46:34 JG: Who is he blamed? Their mamas did not read his book, right? 46:42 SM: The Barragan brothers, the two Catholic priests who are. 46:47 JG: Very principled men. They never wavered in their convictions. They were willing, like Harris to go to jail. And did. All I ask is that you be a standup guy, that you make a decision based on your consideration of the evidence, the preponderance of the weight of evidence and stand up and say your peace. And if in the saying of it, you must violate a law then be willing to take the punishment for it. 47:29 SM: It is almost like the same thing that Dr. King was professing during the nonviolent protests. He could not understand why people would not be willing to go to jail for protesting he was, and others said “I do not want to go to jail.” But that is part of being a nonviolent protester. 47:42 JG: I spent three years covering the last days of the Soviet Empire. And it was evil. Reagan got one thing, right. It was an evil empire. I covered the trials of Anatoly Sharansky and Ginsberg and guys like this, and I saw them stand up in the face of certain destruction, and yet clinging to a principle stand there and defy the weight of the most awful dictatorship operating on the face of this earth. And they brought tears to my eyes with their statements. Sharansky’s statement, he was convicted in this kangaroo court, without evidence without anything, he was just convicted. And they asked him made a terrible mistake. They said, “Do you have anything to say?” And we were not allowed in. His brother was there, committing to memory, the words that Anatoly Sharansky was saying to these people, and he walked out and spilled it. And he was crying, and we were crying. And it was it was this is my definition of a standup guy. If more people had done that, the dictatorship would have fallen a lot sooner. 49:19 SM: It is almost like getting back to the Vietnam War in terms of the healing. If there is more of an accountability right now on the part of those who did not serve, where they would be up front of and it is not like Jane Fonda, but they were upfront as to watch. And at the same time, show praise for those who did there could be even a greater healing here in America. 49:39 JG: Sure, you know, I mean, most of the Vietnam vets push to it will tell you “You did not go, you did not want to go. I did not want to go either. If I have been smarter, maybe I would have my folks had a little more money and could have kept me in college.” A lot of what ifs but essentially, there was not a lot to be learned in Vietnam from having gone. The only thing really to be learned there was the nobility of the guy in the hole next to you. The best people I ever met in my life; I feel sorry for people who did not go. Reporters and photographers. Sure. If you are my age, and you were not there, I look at you. And I wonder why. Did you ask to go? Did you try? Did you want to go but you could not get your boss to send you? That is one thing. But you were afraid of your life. And so, you did not go to the biggest story in the last half of our century. You did not go? This is, this is the movie of our generation. And when it happened, where were you? You were out buying popcorn or taking a pee? Where were you? Well, what did I get by going? The only the best friends of mine. The most loyal people that I know, guys, that if I made one phone call, would have a phone tree working like this. And if I needed 200 people out on my farm, for whatever purpose, they would be there tomorrow afternoon. And there are not too many people in this country that can say that. 51:34 SM: Not in 1996. 51:37 JG: When my wife died in January, and I took her home to Texas to bury her. And I was crushed. And I was standing in the family home, and I looked out the window and there stood a dozen Hispanic veterans in Vietnam. They heard they turned up. They had stood beside me before and they were there to stand. 52:07 SM: They care. 52:08 JG: They care. You want to know one other thing? 52:12 SM: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 52:12 JG: The United States Army, the 1st Cavalry Division and the 7th Cavalry Regiments and uniformed delegations to my wife's funeral. So, if you did not go, what you missed was that what you missed was the most important thing in life. And I am sorry, I can forgive you. But I cannot give you that. You got to earn that. Where were you standing? Who were you standing beside? If you are in the mood in the mob, can you make a call today and have 200 people turn up to help you? You would be lucky to get one. So that is how it is. 53:09 SM: The Lyndon Johnson. How about Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara together in there? 53:17 JG: No, let us take them separately. Lyndon Johnson, I mean, it is hard to talk about the man. It really is. There was so much right about him and so much wrong about him, all in the same skin. He was the biggest bundle of contradictions of anybody I have ever seen. He was a liar. He was the quintessence of a Texas dealmaker. He would sell his mama, if it got him what he wanted. He wanted a lot of very interesting things. He wanted an into segregation. He wanted a fair deal for poor Blacks or Hispanics. He wanted somehow to lift them up. But he did not understand the basics of it. He did not understand that you have got to give the guy the tools with which he can lift himself. If you are pulling him up, he does not learn anything, it does not. You know, the heart of this city in the heart of every city in America is a legacy. It is the legacy of Lyndon Baines Johnson and the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Hey, Nixon did not do that Anacostia, go over and take a look better have some door gunners. 55:14 SM: With those bad sections of town. 55:16 JG: Yeah. How would they get there? How come they are still sitting there? Where are they going? They got there because of Lyndon Johnson. Then that is the good part about it. The bad part is Vietnam. Where he started a war on the installment plan. “We will put a dollar on the table now and a dollar on the table tomorrow and $2 later, and we are going to defraud the American public. We know how many men we are going to send. But we are not going to tell them because they would not like it. We know how many billions upon billions of dollars we are going to spend. But we cannot trust them with that information, because then they will not vote for my programs in Congress, the Great Society programs. So, I am going to flim-flam then.” And nobody a better flim-flam artist than Lyndon Baines Johnson from Johnson City, Texas. So, what does he do? He sends divisions off to war to under strength. He knew early as November of 1965, that he was sending 500 to 600,000 Americans to Vietnam. And yet he could sit there and in his State of the Union speech in January of 1966 said, “We have no plans to increase the force.” He lied, he lied, he lied, and you go to hell for lying the same as you do for cheating and stealing. Robert McNamara-McNamara goes to the same lower level of hell that Lyndon Johnson goes to, and his sin is not only mendacity his sin is arrogance. He lied, he cheated, and he was proud of himself. This guy brought generals to their knees, whipped on them so hard they cried, and he did not have a clue what was going on, or how to make it change. He was a bean counter and he counted beans good. 58:06 SM: Body count, body count. 58:09 JG: Body count, every pernicious influence that Vietnam had tracks right to his fingers you know, I can almost forgive Lyndon Johnson just because he was at least entertaining. McNamara was not even entertaining. He was just evil. 58:33 SM: Bottom line, would you consider him just a bottom-line person? 58:37 JG: Oh, worse because the biggest bottom line of all he got wrong. What do you do if you if the-the accounting-accounting firm that is doing the books of Ford Motor Company or General Motors comes in? Wrong? What-what we do to him nothing? We gave him a nice fat job at the World Bank for 10 years. The son of a bitch that tried to throw him over the rail of the ferry boat to Martha's Vineyard. They should have left him go, okay. All he needed was another 10 seconds and old McNamara had been floating down there. 59:18 SM: That was in Hendrickson’s book, I believe. 59:22 JG: Yeah-yeah. There is a baby boomer who acted on his information and impulse and opportunity and more power to him. 59:31 SM: Couple other people, George Wallace. 59:36 JG: Well, on Wallace, another Southern politician, always far more complex than they appear to be on the surface of it. Doing stuff to get elected when they do not believe in it. Wallace, you know, came on like the biggest seg this country ever saw. And he was not that. He has got a whole lot of black friends and people are forgiving him right and left. 1:00:08 SM: What about Eugene McCarthy? 1:00:15 JG: McCarthy, white guy, smart guy, literate guy you know. The trouble politics in this country is if you want to want win, you got to get down in the mud with the pigs. And Gene McCarthy would not do that. Never did it. Well, he is neither did Adlai Stevenson, these kinds of cerebral guys do not usually win elections. 1:00:45 SM: What about George McGovern? 1:00:49 JG: McGovern, to me is the definition of one too many damn lawyers. 1:00:57 SM: But he was not a lawyer, though. He was a- he had a PhD in history. 1:01:04 JG: McGovern? 1:01:04 SM: Yes. 1:01:06 JG: Becoming lawyers around this town. He has gotten a law degree from somewhere. 1:01:10 SM: He is at the Middle East Studies Institute right now. That is where he is. But he got his PhD in South Dakota. He was just on our campus this past week, he was talking about his daughter, Terry, who died of alcoholism. And he got his PhD in history from University of South Dakota. They are building a library in his name right now there. Then he went off to Congress as, after he got his PhD. ran for office, was a congressman. Then he went on to become a senator. And so, he has, he has a PhD in History. Actually, no one ever calls him Dr. McGovern, because he is a senator, but he was a doctorate. 1:01:44 JG: Damn, I thought he was a lawyer. Sure looks like one. 1:01:48 SM: He is a pretty nice guy. 1:01:49 JG: Well, I have to give him a pass on being a lawyer then. 1:01:55 SM: Some of the other people from that era, Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. 1:02:00 JG: Once again, you are putting two guys together that ought to be considered separately. But Martin Luther King, the greatest orator or this country ever had. Spoken beautifully, thought beautifully. I wonder, what do you would think of the situation today? I wonder what Dr. King would think of Mayor Marion Berry. I wonder what he would think of a generation of black politicians who are the most pernicious influence [audio cuts] 1:02:47 SM: Dr. King? 1:02:49 JG: I wondered what Dr. King would think of a generation of his disciples who are now Black political leaders in the cities of our country. People like Mayor Marion berry of Washington, DC. And when I say they are political leaders, I am on being very kind. People like Barry and the Blacks who administer this city, are more pernicious influence in the lives of the poor Black people of this city than anything else I can think of. How does this come to be? How do the sons of Martin Luther King wind up wheeling and dealing and selling their own people down the river? In this city, there are about 90,000 people on a waiting list for public housing. And the waiting list is years long. There are at any given moment 30 to 40,000, empty public housing units, that this administration cannot manage to quit stealing the money long enough to fix so that those units can be put back in service. They are either so corrupt or so inefficient, or both, that they cannot do a simple job like fixing apartments so that poor woman and all our kids has a place to live. Now who are they hurting? Who are they hurting the most? They do not hurt me. They do not hurt you. They are hurting that woman and her kids. I think Dr. King would condemn them all to a hell they richly deserved and in ringing tones. 1:04:54 SM: And these are boomer African American leaders that are around the city now. 1:04:57 SM: You got it. 1:05:00 JG: I do not know Marion Barry, but I am disappointed in him though. 1:05:03 JG: Well, you have got a situation where they have to declare, essentially declare the District of Columbia School System, bankrupt, where they take it over and put one of my best friends as the CEO, General Julius Becton, find soldier. So, nowhere near a boomer generation, the man is 70 years old, joined the army in 1945, was a company commander in Korea was a battalion commander in the 101st airborne in Vietnam, who was fixed stuff, all his life. He is a builder. And they got to reach out and pull this man out of a richly deserved retirement to take on what is arguably the worst job in America. 1:05:57 SM: This gets off my questions. I will get back to the names again, we will talk about Malcolm X. You said a builder, this man who is coming into the city as a builder. When you look at the boomers, now you are talking about some of the African American leaders here in this city? Are boomers’ builders? Are they the people that bring people together to unite for a cause for the betterment of society? That is very generalistic terms? But though, that was the mentality on the college campuses, and we are going to- 1:06:26 JG: That was what they set out to be, but they did not end up that. They set out with ringing calls for change and revolution. And they do not even make good caretakers. 1:06:43 SM: Look at the life of Malcolm X, what are your thoughts on him? 1:06:48 JG: I do not think much about Malcolm X. I do not know that he was much of a force for good for his people. If his legacy is-is the guy out in Chicago now. If that is his legacy, what is it worth? A man who divides conquered by division. 1:07:18 SM: At the end of his life, though, a lot of young people, they look at his life as a person who changed because everybody knows that Malcolm was at one time in jail. He was a pimp. Of course, he was a follower, and he was also actually white men are devils that type of mentality. But then the last part of his life he changed when he went to Mecca, so some people look at that life as a person who liked change and he saw the good in everyone as opposed to just-just in black people. 1:07:51 JG: What did it get him? 1:07:52 SM: Got him killed. That was what it got. So, well, a couple of other people here and I have got I have got so many on the list, but these are kind of people from the era. 1:08:03 JG: Keep rolling. 1:08:06 SM: Ralph Nader. These are all names the boomers talk, and this is part of their life. These people were part of their life. 1:08:15 JG: Nader is quixote, I guess, still tilting at windmills? He has been consistent. The Soviets always admired consistency. They said, you know, “We do not care what you are as long as you are consistently that. We have a hard time shifting our view you know, so if you are, you are a son of a bitch as long as you are consistently a son of a bitch we can, we can live with you. It is when you-you bounce from side-to-side.” Nader is consistent. I do not know what his ultimate [inaudible]. He balanced the books on him at the end of his life, what he will have achieved in the long run. 1:09:15 SM: What about the people that were the musicians of the era? Certainly, even in Vietnam and music was played over there. People that have the generation, the Bob Dylan the Jimmy Hendrix, The Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, you name it the list go on and on. What-what are your thoughts about those people who performed the music delivered the messages. I know Country Joe and the Fish, boy, is he unbelievable. You know, when he came to Vietnam memorial, a couple of years back and he performed at the top of the wall and you probably there that day and-and I want to interview him, I am going out to California in the summer. And I want to interview him out at Berkeley because I think he has got an awful lot to say. Have you got his Vietnam album too? 1:09:45 JG: no. 1:09:46 JG: Oh, it is beautiful. He actually wrote a whole album on Vietnam. He has beautiful music and I think he did in the last four years. It is all music for the last four years. What are your What are your thoughts on them? 1:10:11 JG: Well, that is the soundtrack of our generation. That was the music that we heard in Vietnam, it was the same music that was heard in the streets here. Music and Musicians are a powerful force. Almost, I should say, as powerful as poets. Not quite, but almost, you know, the older I get, when I want to find truth, I look in the volumes of poetry not in the volumes of history. So, the musicians, they are out there. When I look at them, it is with a certain amount of sadness. Because so many of them burned their lives out so quickly on drugs. Their messages were mixed. They took their own advice too often and-and it killed a lot of them. 1:11:09 SM: Phil Ochs killed himself. Yeah. So, upset. He is disappointed in life, and he just did himself in. 1:11:18 JG: And that should not be, you know, the bar, just the poet's the musicians, they should be our optimists. They should be giving us a message that allows us to go forward, carry on. If they cannot find in their own music, hope what is there- 1:11:51 SM: If you think about, I do not think there has really been anything written on the musicians in depth, individual books, but looking at the musicians and their impact that time. It is just a couple other ones and that is Daniel Ellsberg. 1:12:10 JG: Ellsberg certainly performed a great service by leaking the Pentagon papers, documentary evidence of the lies that had been told of the bankrupted policy of which he was one of the architects. So, his one great act, was an act of leakage. 1:12:40 SM: Of course, Richard Nixon. 1:12:43 JG: Ah now, Nixon is such a complex man. He is one that I have a hard time forgiving. At least as hard as time as I do McNamara. This is the man who came to office to end the war and yet another 20-25,000 men died while he played politics, he and Kissinger, they all end up in the same level of hell with McNamara and Johnson. They really do. Their whatever contributions they made are so outweighed by the evil that they did. 1:13:34 SM: Do you feel that strongly about Kissinger too? 1:13:37 JG: Yeah, oh, more so with Kissinger. Kissinger was so smart. And then, and yet he would sacrifice anything for his own ambition for His own glory. I think about I really, when I went to Indonesia, the ambassador there was a man named Marshall Green, who had been in the Foreign Service all his life. A very honorable, decent man. He started his career in in the Embassy in Tokyo before on the eve of World War II. And he was the assistant secretary for Far East affairs, the year that Nixon and Kissinger decided to begin the secret bombing campaign and in Cambodia and to do the invasion- 1:14:43 SM: That was 1970, yeah, April 30th. 1:14:46 JG: Yeah. And they ran it by him. Sort of pro forma, you know, and he argued with, he said, “No.” He said, “This is wrong. This will achieve no purpose, except to destroy the Cambodian people. It will not alter the end of the Vietnam War in any measurable fashion, not by one day, not by one body. And it will not make the difference between winning and losing. It will be gratuitous offense against a bunch of people who are kind of a sideshow, they are out of it. Do not do it.” And they said, “Fine, Mr. Secretary, your objections are noted, we are going ahead.” And he said, “Wait a minute, maybe I have not been eloquent enough.” And he argued with them. And they said, “Okay, you have had your say, shut up.” And he went back and argued again, at which point they fired him. They made him the ambassador to Australia and made and finished his career as the ambassador to the World Population Planning Council. They destroyed a man, they destroyed millions of men, by their acts. Where do you find forgiveness for this? Where do you find a little wiggle room for a man like Kissinger or Nixon? 1:16:39 SM: It is amazing through the actions of all these politicians. And the effect they had on the young people who were growing up at that time, not only veterans who fought in that war, and everybody who lived in saw the war was run was against the war. And, of course, the Civil Rights Movement was going on at that time, too, so cannot forget about that. But the lasting psychological impact of this has had on us as a nation as well as Senator Gaylord Nelson said, the body politic. And he said, I interviewed Gaylord Nelson, who was against the Vietnam War, one of the first senators and he said “He does not know anybody who walks around with lack of healing on their sleeve was a boomer about the Vietnam War. But he did say that that war destroyed the body politic. And it has never been the same sense. 1:17:35 JG: It has not, quite right. You know, if you have to go back in our history, the only other event as-as divisive and corrosive to the American way of governing and being governed the body politic, as the senator said, you go to the Civil War, and there is the same depth of division, anger and bitterness in Vietnam than there was in that. Excuse me. And I do not know, you still get in a pretty good fistfight down the south over the Civil War. And we are 120 years past it. So how long does Vietnam last? How long is it an influence in the life of this country? You know, it could be long past, our lifetimes, our lifespans, and probably will be. I participated in the making of a documentary film. We took a dozen Vietnam veterans back to Vietnam and walked our battlefield in the company. 1:19:01 SM: I saw that. 1:19:01 JG: The man who tried to kill us, but when they were doing in studio interviews, I met [inaudible] daughter was one of the people carrying [inaudible]. And she gave the story of her father and what his death in battle did to her life. And at some point, Forrest Sawyer said, “Well, the book has been written, it is this close the circle.” And she looked at him like he was crazy. She said, “The story is not over. It is not over as long as I draw breath. That war killed my father when I was 17 months old, and it will not be over for me during all my life, nor will it be over during the lives of my children. So how long do we reach out? How long does it go? 1:20:07 SM: Last name I have here is actually two of them. Your thoughts on Spiro Agnew and what he was doing back here as the vice president and Gerald Ford, the partner. 1:20:22 JG: Oh, Agnew. He was he was such an inconsequential person. You know, I do not even think about it. He just does not matter. He did not matter, then he does not matter now. He was not even a good puppet. Who else was it that you asked about? 1:20:53 SM: Gerald Ford. 1:20:54 JG: You asked Gerald Ford, Gerald Ford. You know? I thought Gerald Ford was good man. I thought he was probably the right guy to be the caretaker president after Nixon. I wish he had not given out any pardons. I think Nixon, Kissinger should have been in a cell right down the road from John Mitchell and the rest of those guys. But you know, there was a cartoon that somebody good drew the day that Ford left office. And it was maybe Herb Block, I do not know. But it was very interesting. What he did was he had Ford up a ladder cleaning the seal of the President of the United States wearing a painter's hat. And when he started this, he was encrusted with filth and grime and-and it had him finishing up it was, it was back in shape. It was looking pretty good. And I thought that was a pretty fair, pretty fair estimate. You know, you can just as you cannot say anything about Spiro Agnew, because he was inconsequential. You cannot really say much bad about Jerry Ford. He was decent. 1:22:41 SM: He was a bad golfer. 1:22:42 JG: He was a bad golfer, but a decent man, a decent human being. And have we had a Spiro Agnew as the successor to Nixon? I am not sure that we would be sitting in the United States of America, the place might have come a fight. 1:23:00 SM: It would have, they hated him on college campuses. With one quick question here today, two the interview, the Vietnam War ended. Why? 1:23:13 JG: Why did it end? 1:23:14 SM: Yeah, why did the Vietnam war end? 1:23:16 JG: Because the American people had had it right up to their epiglottis. They had it with the coffins coming home. They had had it with the lies of the politicians they had it with the body count. Hey, we won. Because we killed 10 of them for every American, they killed. It is not a bargain; the American people knew. They knew it was not a bargain. And-and they wanted, they wanted it stopped. Not for what the kids were doing in the streets but for what that war was doing to our country. It stopped because the American people stopped it. They did not want it anymore. 1:24:13 SM: There are two or two or three issues that define a generation. Boomers, I think historically will always be attached to the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement, even though the Civil Rights Movement was really strong in the (19)50s and the early (19)60s. 1:24:29 JG: Yeah, exactly. I would say- 1:24:30 SM: And actually- 1:24:30 JG: They had less to do with the Civil Rights Movement. What that was, that was a- 1:24:37 SM: Is not it interesting though, that a lot of movements came about at the time of the Vietnam War, the Women's Movement came about at that time. Of course, the whole you know, what happened about the Vietnam Memorial now. We have got the nurses being recognized at the wall. There were so many, I mean, the Native American Movement, the Hispanic Movement, there were so many movements happening all at the same time. And they were all protesting against what was going on in America. But it is like- that protest mentality really came about because of the Vietnam War and a few of the things that were happening on college campus respect to administration and not being allowed to do political activities on campus. So, there were some things in school too. But what is the lasting legacy? What do you think the lasting legacy will be of the boomer generation who are now reaching 50? Do not forget, they are, they are 50 years old, or from 34 to 50 right now. 1:25:30 JG: Yeah, well, there is still time for him to get their shit together. There is still time for them to leave some kind of legacy dividends for the stockholders of the Volvo Motor Company you know, I read the financial papers and I see them talking about “Well, the Boomers did not, have not saved any money but that is okay. Because their mamas and daddies are dying now. And they are inheriting their money.” And thank God their mamas and daddies did save. Is thisthis what you are going to say at the end? Well, they-they inherited some money. So, they were able to live okay. Even though Social Security went down the tubes and so did Medicare. You know, they got to get their shit together and get to work and fulfill some of their promises. You want to you know, it. I am 55 now. And for the last five, six years, my thoughts have really turned to trying to leave a legacy of a little better world for my sons who are 16 and 18. I would really like them to inherit a kinder, gentler world. And I pray every day that they will never know war as I have known it. That they will never see a young man dying in their arms as I have and see the life flow out of him, and you are helpless to do anything. I do not want that for them. I do not want that for any son and any daughter in this country. So, you know, what I guess I am saying is that- very good friend of mine died about three years ago, a guy named B. T. Collins. He was a California politician. He had been Jerry Brown's Chief of Staff. He was Pete Wilson's great friend. Now if you can do those two things. He was also a double amputee, lost a leg and an arm in Vietnam with Special Forces. Had his 100 percent disability pension. He could have walked out of Valley Forge Hospital, a bitter-bitter man and never contributed anything. Instead, he went off to law school and spent what was left of his life really, working harder than any three men I knew toward healing the body politic. Toward helping the helpless toward making the system work. Now nothing wrong with that. Nothing to say that the boomers cannot do that. In fact, what I am saying is that they should, and they ought and if they want to leave a legacy somewhere beyond that is something more than the headlines, sex, drugs and rock and roll, then they got to bend down and do it. They picked up somewhere along the way a reputation for selfishness. And it started at the beginning. They were too good to go fight in this war. That was the work of poor people, the children of poor people and the disadvantaged. We have a president in the White House today said” I will not risk my viability as a politician in the future by going to Vietnam where I might get killed.” So, we have them, the worst of the yuppie movement. And it was pernicious and is. “He who dies with the most toys wins.” These are not legacies. These are things to overcome. And I do not mean get out there and hug trees. I mean, get out there and do something for people. 1:30:41 SM: Good point because we talked about the yuppies. They live in certain sections of cities, a lot of them are boomers. Yeah, one of the basic premises, if I remember correctly, and when I was in college, “Money does not matter.” I heard that over and over again, it is not about money. It is not about it yet. 1:31:01 JG: And there they are. 1:31:02 JG: Yeah, some of them are still “Money is not meant anything to me. I have stayed in higher education my whole life, because-because of what happened.” 1:31:08 JG: Good thing it does not mean anything to you. 1:31:10 SM: Yeah. 1:31:10 JG: Yeah. 1:31:11 SM: But I am guilty. We had Congressman Penny on our campus. And he said that “The boomers just do not save.” And he said, “You know, something, Steve?” He said that “ I have not saved either.” Remember, Congressman Penny, you left a couple of years ago, a Democrat from Minnesota. He, he is not poor by any means. But I am saying he is raising five kids. And he says, “I am just part of the legacy. I do not save either.” And so, there is some truth to that. Nope, they do not save. 1:31:35 JG: They do not save. 1:31:45 SM: As if there is no tomorrow. And I do not know if that says something about the boomers that “I am going to live for today. Because there is no tomorrow,” I do not know. So. 1:31:45 JG: Well, then you get to be over 50. You better rethink your position. 1:31:51 SM: The last question, I am going to ask then we will be finished here. I might go over into the next little section here in the tape, that is getting back to the wall. In 1982, I think it was (19)82 for the opening? Are you pleased with what the wall has done for America? Not the Vietnam veterans now what it has done for America as a whole? Because it is pretty well known fact that anybody who comes to that wall, whether they were in the war, family members of someone who served in that war, or someone who died in that war, or someone who remembers their college experience during that war, or if they were working in a factory during the war, and did not go to college, all those flashbacks of where I was, come back, and then then the little kids are right there. And they say to their dad or mom, “Dad, what did you do?” Kids will always ask those kinds of questions. And I am wondering that-that is what it means to me. I have to keep going back because when I was a college student, you know, I guess there might be some sort of guilt that I wish I had served, but I could not serve because I had a severe asthma. And, and it was 1970. And I was in the hospital during the Cambodia invasion. I was graduating in 1970 at State University in New York at Binghamton. And I broke my arm and it was a very serious arm break, and I almost had it amputated and I was in the operating room for five hours, about two weeks before graduation. And everybody in my whole family was in the hospital and the Cambodian invasion was happening, April 30. That was April 30, 1970. I was in the hospital for two straight weeks, two days before I went under graduation. It was a magic moment for me, because the doctor who came in and after he had operated and saved my arms. And he said, “I wish they would shoot all those damn kids; I wish they would kill them all.” And I said, “As a college senior, who saw the tremendous divisions in America, I want to do something in my own small way to bring people back together again. So, I get real emotional about the Vietnam War, even though I did not serve because I care about Vietnam veterans. I have been working with them in Philadelphia since 1983. So, when I worked with him on the wall in Philadelphia, and we help raise money, it is a long story. But I wanted to do something in my own small way. As I said this to Jan once too. And I really said it to Lewis, when we took our students to the wall, to try to do the next phase to assist the process that began at the wall. And that is to write some sort of a book about this very complex era, in this very complex time. Pick some of the best people in America and ask them the tough questions and just let them reveal so that we can kind of heal as a nation, even beyond the Vietnam veterans. And I actually have an ultimate goal beyond this. The ultimate goal is I have been thinking that I may even go to Oliver Stone because I know Robert Groden, who was a consultant with the movie JFK, to get financial backing to bring to the university campuses of America and maybe to the town halls of America in two years, symposiums over a nine-month period, one per period, bringing back those who were for and against the war, people who serve in the war, just to try to bring them together to try to understand. Almost like the Jimmy Carter concept when he does have the Carter Center to bring the sides back. Just do something to help and assist. And I always quote in my own small way. So, my final question is-is this such an effort worthy of the effort number one? And just your overall thoughts, again, the overall impact that the wall has had on America beyond the veterans, because I know what-what the effect is had on the veterans? 1:35:56 JG: Well, it reaches far beyond the veterans for the simple reason that that I saw someone did an estimate that there are 40 million Americans who have some personal connection to a name in the wall. They were a college classmate, or- 1:36:17 SM: Me, too. 1:36:17 JG: They were a high school classmate, or you know, an in law, a sibling, whatever. 40 million Americans care about at least one of those names on that wall. So, they care about all of them. And what has its impact. The other thing that is operating there, and operated, you know, when they were doing the welcome home parades for the Gulf veterans, and they went far overboard and out of proportion in doing this, and I, you know, a lot of my friends called up and said, “I think I am angry about this.” And I said, “Do not do that. Because what they are doing is they are overcompensating because they did nothing for you. So, this is as much for you as it is for them. And so, you go on down to the parade. And, and you watch because this is America saying 20 years too late. Welcome home all of you. Welcome Home Vietnam veterans too.” And that was the way it worked in the parades. The young troops would reach and pull the veterans off of the curbs and into the parade. So, my counsel was “Let go of the bitterness, it is misplaced. The American people know what they did not do. And they are ashamed of it”. And the thing is where we come to, is that here we have a country where only three million win. And today, I would bet you that out there in the land, there are 10 million wannabes who are pretending that they did go. 1:38:32 SM: Really? 1:38:32 JG: What does this say? 1:38:34 SM: There are those types of people that say they are a veteran. 1:38:37 JG: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Any number of them. We detect them all the time. And then- 1:38:45 SM: That is the worst. 1:38:46 JG: That is, in our view, imitation is not any sincere form of flattery, but-but here today in this country, there are a lot of people who pretend to be Vietnam veterans. Now, this is not a sea change of attitude. I do not know what is. 1:39:09 SM: I had never heard that before. 1:39:12 JG: Oh, there are guys who specialize in debunking these frauds. And they turn up in amazing places, not a federal judge, but a high-ranking judge in Chicago, was presenting himself as a Vietnam veteran and Medal of Honor recipient and got an AO. 1:39:33 SM: People do not speak- 1:39:38 JG: The publisher of The Arizona Republic, Dan Quayle’s family newspaper, presented himself as a Vietnam veteran fighter pilot. False, got caught, got fired. 1:39:54 SM: Put it on the resume and the whole- 1:39:56 JG: Yeah. 1:39:56 SM: Oh my goodness. 1:39:57 JG: Yeah, politicians do it all the time. But worse, yet you have the guys who put on the kameez and put on medals to which they are not entitled, and-and go around presenting themselves and their opinions as those of Vietnam veterans. But what a distance we have come. 1:40:16 SM: Gosh. Yeah. 1:40:20 JG: To put Vietnam veteran on your resume would have been a guarantee 20 years ago- 1:40:25 SM: No job. 1:40:26 JG: That you were not going to get that job. 1:40:27 SM: That is amazing. Yeah, I just go to the wall. I have gone now seven times. And I call Jan's office and I get the pass. I take students there now. I am probably going to take some students there on Memorial Day, this next year, because we graduate late, I took three to Veterans Day last year. And I took students to meet- 1:40:46 JG: You have got to watch them. They have got a lot of frauds down there. 1:40:49 SM: Oh, at the, at the ceremonies themselves? 1:40:52 JG: Oh yeah, the wall. A couple of- three years ago, up turns a young lady, quite striking and attractive, who said that she was the daughter of Oliver Stone’s Sergeant Elias. And Sergeant Elias’s name is indeed on the wall. And she came to a meeting of the sons and daughters, the organization for children of men who were killed in Vietnam. Told her long and sad story and went down to the wall and full Apache regalia and did the burning of the feathers and all of this crap and-and I think she even made it onto the platform the year, the year after, and then shortly thereafter, it was discovered that the whole tale was just that, a tale. 1:41:52 SM: Oh my God. 1:41:54 JG: So, this is one more strange story in a town full of them. 1:42:02 SM: My goodness. I see a lot of people there every year. It is packed every year. I see the people talking, "Where did you serve," and everything. And they ask me. And everybody asks every time I sit there, except when I was with the students, they knew I brought students. And I said, "I did not serve." But I know back in 1983, when I first came to Philadelphia from California because I worked out there at another university, that I got to know the Vietnam veterans. Because we were going to do a program on the posttraumatic stress disorder with Dr. Harry Schwartz, who was at Jefferson Medical School. And I got to know Harry Gaffney and Dan Fraley, and Dennis Best, some of the Vietnam veterans are well known in Philadelphia who did the markings. And Harry said, "Steve, I am going to tell you right now, you are not one of us." But you have to gain the trust of the Vietnam Veterans. So, all the people that I invited, I met with 20 of the top Vietnam veterans, Wally Nunn, CEO in Philadelphia who was close to, I forget who it is, Mayor Rendell, whatever. But I had to be very open and at the outset, that I did not serve, and I told them why. And they said that was very important, first, to be honest, and open, and upfront about it. And then, the second thing is to try to put this program together and to show you care. And so, what we did, we did that program. And I got it on tape, too. It was a very good program. But it got to be so darn political, because Don Bailey would not shake the hands of the Vietnam veterans that were there, who worked so hard on the Wall. And I could not believe that here is a guy, a Purple Heart winner, and Don Bailey was a Purple Heart winner, yet he refused to go up into the room with Harry and Dan. And I could not understand the bitterness there when all they cared about was creating that Wall in Philadelphia. And I do not know if you have been to the Wall in Philly, but it is a beautiful wall. They have had a lot of problems with graffiti. People try to destroy. There is a lot of roadblocks to getting that property as well. Of course, Edison High School has the most people who died in the Vietnam War. So, it is a- 1:44:03 JG: A good guy you may want to go to go look up. I am reading the story. Someone handed it to me at the wall. It is a Denver Post story about a Vietnam veteran. He was one of McNamara's Project, 100,000 guys. These are the people where they went out and they lowered the standards. So, they were taking people with an IQ of 60 and below and making drafting them and making them soldiers and sending to Vietnam where they died at a rate three times higher than the average draftee. This is by way of they said, "Bootstrapping. We are going to help these guys out of poverty and out of the inner city. So, we are going to send them to the army." Well, this guy out in Pueblo, Colorado is one of those guys. And he is 100 percent disabled, unable to work. Launched a personal campaign five years ago, basically around the malls and the grocery stores with a can collecting dimes, and quarters, and dollars to build a Memorial. 1:45:23 SM: In Denver? 1:45:23 JG: Stones in Pueblo. 1:45:25 SM: Oh Pueblo, okay. 1:45:26 JG: With the 680 names of the Coloradoans killed in Vietnam, and this guy is barely functional, but he managed to go around to companies and get them to agree to help. He got someone to agree to engrave the names, somebody else to donate the stone. He went to the city council and made a presentation and got them to cough up 15 grand and bang they dedicated it last two weeks ago. 1:45:55 SM: An article in the Denver Post? 1:46:00 JG: Yeah, and on the day, they dedicated the Veterans Administration cut his pension in half because if he could do such a project surely, he could do a job too. 1:46:12 SM: Is that where we are today? 1:46:13 JG: Is that where we are today? You bet your ass. 1:46:17 SM: Yeah, I have got to get a copy. Do you know who? Is it the Denver Post of- 1:46:20 JG: Denver Post- 1:46:22 JG: People probably know by calling to get the- 1:46:23 JG: Call him. They got it. 1:46:27 SM: Any other lasting words of advice? Any thoughts on the boomer generation? 1:46:32 JG: No. I will let what you have got stand. I probably said too much too bluntly. 1:46:38 SM: No-no, that is what I wanted. 1:46:38 JG: And all I do is say what is in my heart. 1:46:41 SM: When I met with Jack Smith, I asked him “Who should I interview?” And he-he just said one name, you. That is unbelievable. 1:46:51 JG: Jack is a wonderful man. I do not know how he retained his sanity going through what he went through. I went through some stuff but nothing like that stuff. 1:47:09 SM: Yeah, he is, he is unbelievable. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Description 2 Microcassettes Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Joseph Lee Gallaway Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Gallaway, Joseph Lee ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource War correspondents; Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- Journalists; Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988 -- Journalists; Iraq War, 2003-2011 -- Journalists; Authors; Gallaway, Joseph Lee--Interviews Description An account of the resource Joseph Lee Gallaway is a veteran war correspondent and an author. In his writing, Galloway covered conflicts all across the world, including the Vietnam War, the first Persian Gulf War, and the Iraq War. He is the co-author of the Vietnam War book <em>We Were Soldiers Once... and Young</em>, which was later adapted into a movie, <em>We Were Soldiers</em>. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1996-11-18 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.5a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.5b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-01 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 107:13 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/e27f2dc53b45ef8f06ea8ef171ca17df.jpeg 48dc3521a08a7081264f0c89eb45f8e5 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/7834a42ac41cd495dd8afd4f66a0d4fa.MP3 5c356abfdd34f052f109147af336991a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 19 November 2019 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Joseph Lewis Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:31:26 Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text Joseph Lewis, originally from Massillon, Ohio, is a survivor of the Kent State shootings. Lewis was an 18-year-old freshman, studying pre-professional social work when he was shot while attending the student protest rally in 1970. He quit school in 1972 and moved to Oregon, where he has resided ever since. Lewis retired from the Scappoose, Oregon Public Works Department in 2013 as supervisor of the water treatment plant. He also served 16 years on the Scappoose Board of Education. Keywords Cleveland; Boomer generation; Civil Rights Movement; 1960s; Woodstock generation; College campus; President Nixon; Vietnam War; Student activism; Kent State shooting; Trust. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Joseph Lewis Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Eden Lowinger and Lynn Bijou Date of interview: 2 December 2021 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: 00:01 All right. My first question, Joe, is where did you grow up, and what were your parents’ careers and backgrounds in your early years? And when you talk about this, also describe your elementary and high school years. JL: 00:18 Okay, that is a good question. I grew up on the near west side of Cleveland. I think a part of town used to be called the old Brooklyn. It is where the Christmas story is set kind of SM: 00:32 Oh, that one. JL: 00:33 [inaudible] from long ago. And, and I grew up I went to the elementary schools in Cleveland from the from kindergarten to the fourth grade, and I will name the schools and you will, you will see commonality I went to kindergarten at St. Mary's kindergarten. And I went to first to fourth grade in Cleveland that Our Lady of Good Counsel school, and then we moved just outside of Parma, Ohio, and I went to fourth to eighth grade at St. Francis de Sales school. And then my family moved to Massillon, Ohio, just 50 miles south of Cleveland, because my dad was a traveling salesman, and that was more centrally located because sales area, where I enrolled at Central Catholic High School in Canton. So, you will see the commonality there. I went to all parochial schools, as did all my brothers and sisters. I was the oldest of eight kids, seven who survive. And my dad, my dad was a salesman for a couple of different lumber wholesalers, United States plywood, and then later warehouse. And my mom was a homemaker, you know, in those days, you could get by with one income. SM: 01:57 Right. During those first- do you want to add anything more? JL: 02:06 Always. But go ahead. [laughs] SM: 02:08 During, the question? I think you are a Catholic then, right. [laughter] JL: 02:13 Oh yeah, oh yeah, that is true. SM: 02:17 During those- JL: 02:19 Good deduction. [laughter] SM: 02:21 I can put two and two together there. During your first 18 years of life, did you identify with your generation called Boomer, I mean- JL: 02:34 Oh, I am so stereotypically boomer. I mean, I was a boy scout, an altar boy. I was a kind of a goody, goody, I did not, I did not challenge too many of the rules in those days. So, it was like the Eisenhower era, you know, and things were- it was post-war, booming as they say and, and everything was-was kind of like growing. And I was very stereotypical of the era, I would think. SM: 03:06 Did you did you in your neighborhood, at your schools, your parents’ friends, were a lot of the parents World War Two veterans and if they were, did you ever, did they ever talk about World War Two? JL: 03:21 I grew up on the, when I was on the near west side our-our community was a lot of immigrants from different parts of the world. We had, on my street we had, my grandparents came from Slovakia, my maternal grandparents. So, there were Slovak people. There were Polish people. There were Italian people. There were Puerto Rican people, and German people all on our street. And so, I do not remember too much of the parents discussing World War Two. And I think that my parents were a little bit younger. They were too young for World War Two and too old for Korea. My dad, he was born in (19)30. So-so he himself was not, was not a Vet. And I do not remember too much discussion about it. Although you remember the, I assume you are a boomer too? SM: 04:20 Oh, yeah. I am front edge. JL: 04:22 Remember, remember our entertainment was all about I mean, World War Two movies and heroism: and patriotism: was-was all over the entertainment world at that time. But as far as the discussion of World War Two Vets, I did not I did not get exposed to that too much. Now, my grandfather lost a brother in World War Two. And, and he would, you know, they call it cursing. But what it really is-is when cursing is really when you invoke the names of the dead. When he would get really-really mad, he would say, "Oh, for the love of Mike" and that would be his brother who was killed in the war. SM: 04:59 Wow, yeah. Yeah, I grew up in, in a community where there were a lot of vets, but they never talked about the war, it was nothing, it was just raising- JL: 05:08 Yeah. SM: 05:09 -a family going to work. Mom was at home taking care of the kids, dad was out making the money. So that is kind of that happened to a lot. JL: 05:17 Yeah. SM: 05:18 You know, as far as you know, the boomers themselves, you know, you have you lived long enough now to be a young boomer and an older boomer. When you were young through say, 40, what were some of the qualities that you admired in your, in your generation, when they were younger? Especially the front edge boomers that were born between (19)46 and say, (19)57, because boomers go up to (19)64? JL: 05:46 Well, you know, I do not know, if I really reflected on-on that, that much. I am proud of the things that, that our generation has-has done, I think that we brought attention to the environment and, and to war policies and, and to treatment of minorities. You know, and we, of course, I think what impressed me most was the was the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King was the greatest American of my lifetime. And, and the effort he led to you, get equality for all, I think, is what-what I am kind of most focused on as a positive of our time here and in the USA. And there were struggles, you know, it was a struggle of the new the new appreciation of what was real and who was being treated fairly and who was not. SM: 06:50 Yeah, it is interesting, because when we were young boomers, there was a summer of (19)64, which is when all those young people, a lot of African Americans, but a lot of white Americans who went down the south to try to get African Americans to vote, and risked their lives in doing so. And that was in (19)64. So, and that was- JL: 07:11 Yeah-yeah. SM: 07:11 -right at the time when we were in high school. JL: 07:15 Right. SM: 07:16 So, there was a lot of that, that that happening as well. And, and, you know, there was a lot of books being written now on the boomer generation, because we were now the oldest generation- can you believe it? It is hard to believe that this generation that, you know, when they were young thought they would probably never grow old. But when you reflect on this whole generation, as a whole now as a person, and probably in your early 70s, what are, did they succeed? Or did they fail in their kind of their, you know, when we talk about the protest movement, and talking about the-the amount of activists that were probably only about 7 or 8 percent, of the 74 million, who are truly activists in their lifetime. But when you look at that, their accomplishments over time, there is a lot of commentary now, some say they were, they were no different than any other generation, what made them different, in your view? JL: 08:14 Well, the unique opportunity. I think we had to, to live in a country at a time when it was booming economically and when there was a great growth of free time. And we-we did not have to struggle just to stay alive. So, we could experiment with thoughts, ideas and practices that before were not, I do not think they were within the reach of, of people, some of the things that we had the opportunity to do like travel and, and just experiment with different ways of thinking in organizations. And I think we benefited from, from the relative peace after World War Two that allowed us, allowed our families to thrive. And give us give us stability you know, in our, in our daily lives. I think that, I think that in many ways we-we did succeed and opening, opening the discussion for like, we talked about the Civil Rights Movement and the environmental movement, American Indian Movement, anti-war movement, and I mean, those were struggles that are more, I would say more or less successful at least in drawing attention to the problems- not in solving them, but at least in pointing them out is an important thing I think. SM: 09:52 You raise something very important, Joe and then it is, you know what, when you are, we had time to be able to discuss these things with our peers, with their teachers with even our parents. And, and so it is like the sense of kind of, we were around people who talked like we did about the things we cared about- civil rights, ending the war, whatever, as a kind of sense of community. There was a sense of some sort of a community, which is also often times divide, it is part of a quality of being an activist. JL: 10:31 Yeah, I, you know, well, my sense of community is, I mean, I am the oldest of eight. And so, I tend to be an extrovert and kind of a bossy to brothers anyway, so I had a lot of networking in high school, and I had the friends in all different kinds of groups and, and people who thought like me, and people who did not think like me. But eventually going to college for a while, and then and then kind of, kind of identifying with like, the anti-war movement and cultural, certain cultural appreciations, focused my-my group identity even more, and so. So, in a way that is good, in a way it is bad and the way it is good is that I did get great discussions about ideas, and feelings and sentiments that I had. But it also, we see from the developments recently with the Facebook algo- algorithms and things that it, kind of is an isolating in a way to be around people who think like you. SM: 11:43 It is true. JL: 11:45 So-so I had both of those effects. But yeah, I definitely felt a sense of community and in those heady days of (19)68, (19)69, (19)70, when it seemed like, you know, the Woodstock generation. I mean, it seems a far cry to say the boomers are the same as the Woodstock generation, but I guess we are and, and it seemed like there was a change on the horizon for the better. And it was just about to flip to where appreciations would be modified away from profit and more for the, you know, the desire to do right and be good and fair. And just and. SM: 12:33 Did you- JL: 12:33 I think there was a part of the community I recognized. SM: 12:36 Yeah, did you feel, yes, you personally, you are, you are a young person. This is I am feeling [inaudible] myself here, too. I felt, it was great to be young. I cannot explain it. JL: 12:47 Oh, yeah. SM: 12:47 Yeah, I could be. I could be on a bus. And I would see a beautiful girl or a woman and she was part of my generation. I could I could go over and talk to her. And I did, [inaudible]. But I could talk to her. I felt good. I mean, there was I felt good about myself. And my generation. JL: 13:07 Yeah, you know, there was a commonality. I mean, if your hair was a little bit long, or if you had on, if you have on bell bottom pants, or beads or something, you had identifiers that kind of gave away some of your thinking. SM: 13:24 Right. JL: 13:25 Which meant-meant you were thinking like me. So, there was like an automatic network evolved for based on sight clues, I guess you would say. SM: 13:36 If you have any, you know, there was a talk back then about what they call the generation gap. There is, in fact, one of my individuals I interviewed wrote the book on the generation gap and his father and person he worked for- was there a generation gap in your family? JL: 13:53 Oh, definitely was, yeah, definitely was. My dad was, I think, voted for Nixon, at least once. And, and he was, he was not a powerfully strong conservative, but he you know, was, was a, this was the time, and I do not need to tell you, before Watergate. So, before Watergate, the people did not question what the government said as to being truthful or not. And so, there was I think there was an [inaudible]- and I did, I questioned the truth of the reports going back from Vietnam about how hard we were winning that war and, and our purposes for being there and so forth. And so, we did have a generation gap, my dad, after I was shot at Kent State, he assumed that I had done something wrong, which in fact, I did not. I mean, I-I did give some men with the rifle a finger, which is a bad idea, but it is not a crime. And it took some convincing for him to, to get to that way of thinking. So, we did have a bit of a generation gap and, and I mean I was his first, his first child and it is challenging one I am so sorry dad, rest in peace. SM: 15:20 Well, I am going right now to your undergraduate school. Why did you pick Kent State to go there as your undergraduate? JL: 15:28 Well-well, I will finish my I finished my, my monologue about the different schools I attended. And I will tell you the colleges I applied to. When I was a junior in high school, I started to apply to colleges. And I applied to Gonzaga University in Spokane. Xavier University in Cincinnati, St. Louis, Washington University in St. Louis, Notre Dame in South Bend, and Kent State, all of them being Catholic schools, except for Kansas State. And I had good SAT scores, I was accepted to all of them. But I could not afford them because I was paying my own way and working full time and going to school full time. So, I actually applied for and received a partial award to go to Notre Dame from the Rocco foundation in Canton, Ohio, but it was still not within my means to attend Notre Dame. So, I wound up going to State University, Kent State, which in those days was unbelievably affordable, unbelievably affordable. SM: 16:45 Could you describe your college years, I am going to certainly get into the May 4th situation? JL: 16:52 Yeah. SM: 16:52 -but could you describe your college years at Kent State both before and after, I do not know how to say this, before and after April 30th, to May 4th, 1970? JL: 17:06 Oh, yeah. Well, for me that is a college year. [laughs] SM: 17:11 Yeah. JL: 17:12 I started school in September of (19)69 at Kent State, and that was a month after Woodstock. And you know, it was a few months before the assassination of Black Panthers in the apartment in Chicago. It was after the Beatles broke up but so going to, I got into the dormitory, Johnson Hall. And it was, as I said, I was the oldest child in my family. And so, I have done my share of babysitting and kid watching and it was the ultimate freedom to be free from my-my parents' home not that they were ever, it was ever a bad home. But I had to, you know time to come and go at the times I chose and of course, I had to do my own laundry. But I had a meal plan and two roommates in the dorm room where I lived and I was just really free to experiment with life and learning. And I loved learning. I was taking biology and French and anthropology and English in lots of different, you know, curious, and sociology was my major. And I just loved learning but I also loved freedom so that in the spring of spring of (19)70, in March, my friend and I hitchhiked around the East Coast, we-we hitchhiked down to see his cousin in Kentucky and his cousin was on spring break. So, we went on down to Georgia. We hitchhiked you know, back and forth and different places and visiting friends in Ohio and elsewhere. And it was just an enormous, enormous glory of freedom. And the, one of the things I remember most is walking around the campus that fall and the music coming out of the windows- people you know, were free now from their parents' strictures of "Turn that thing down" like I was. And then there was there was high volume music coming out of every dorm window. It was like, it was like the new bands were Led Zeppelin, Crosby, Stills and Nash, you know, McCartney's solo album, the Dead, the Stones, you know, the Beatles, a whole anthology, it was amazing. I mean, and just think, you know, to think the first time you heard Led Zeppelin blasting out of a dorm room window as you walked along, you know, it was just-just to transportive to a whole different, you know, like, this is our time now. SM: 19:54 Yes. JL: 19:55 Rock and roll was blasting and it was it was exciting. It was very exciting. I, you know, I did, I had tried smoking a little weed and taking a little psychedelic and, and, you know, that was, that was also added a twist of interest to things and drinking, you know, drinking the three-two beer that was available [crosstalk]. Geez. So, there was lots, of lots of new things, you know, and then the relationships with, with both guys and girls. I was making friends from with people from all over the country, meeting beautiful girls from all over the, over the country. And, you know, it was just a vibrant, exciting time. And it seemed very hopeful and the future was full of prospects. Because, you know, if you had a college degree in the (19)70s, you were going to get a job somewhere and hopefully doing something you liked. And I was exploring different, different courses. And I really liked anthropology. But mostly, like I said, my major was pre-professional social work. I wanted to do something to change the world for the better. I guess that was my goal. SM: 21:13 Yeah, you said when you when you look at Kansas State when you first got there, did you think that was more of a tranquil campus before (19)70 or did you sense that it was an activist campus from the get go? JL: 21:26 I knew that there had been some political activity there. But that was not really what the focus was on. In fact, I remember very clearly my, my freshman orientation the summer before I went to school there, they, they were quick, quick to point out that there were 28 bars in five blocks. And that there was live music, live music almost every night and every weekend and [inaudible] and the ratio of girls to boys at Kent State was two to one. And people came from all over northeastern Ohio for the nightlife scenes on the weekends. I mean, the James Gang, Joe Walsh was the house band- SM: 22:05 Oh yeah. JL: 22:06 -and local bars and, and there was other, you know, musicians would come through Kent and have shown there that were fantastic. So, the activism: was not the first thing that that that anyone thought of at that time. Although I really had not been tuned in to some of the Black United Students activities- SM: 22:26 Right. JL: 22:26 -and the occupation of the music and speech. I did not. I maybe had read about it, but did not focus in on it so much. SM: 22:34 You know, it is interesting, because the history books I have written this for a years when they talk about the tragedy, I as we all say, as they all need to say, the murderers at Kent State and-and- JL: 22:47 Yeah, absolutely. SM: 22:47 -so, I have been corrected to make sure that not the tragedy, more the murderers at Kent State. But the word on the street and on many of the history books that have been written is why did this happen, why did this tragedy happen of all places at Kent State? Why not Ohio State, why not Ohio University, which was at the time I worked there. Was one of the most liberal campuses, where massive protests were taking place or a place like Columbia, or Berkeley or even Harvard or Wisconsin, but four were killed at Kent State and the perception was in the media coverage is this tranquil campus in the Midwest. JL: 23:28 Yeah. SM: 23:28 You know, that it happened there so now the war came home to America. Your just, your thoughts on that? JL: 23:36 Well, that is, that is kind of a hard to analyze, given what happened there after all, but there was a real town and gown division in I think, a lot of college towns and that was certainly true at Kent, we had, you know, old time farmers, farmland all around the town and, and there was definitely a difference in opinion between the people who lived in Canton, families had lived there for a long time and the students who had come from all over the northeastern United States to attend there. But I think that one source for good background is Tom Grace's book which talked about the history of Northeastern Ohio and he- SM: 24:23 Yes. JL: 24:23 -he reminds us of some things we kind of forgot about. My grandfather who came from Slovakia, got a job in Republic steel mills and worked his whole life I mean, in the steel mills as a union steel worker and Akron had both Goodrich and Goodyear Tire and Rubber, the rubber capital of the world and in Pittsburgh and Youngstown all had steel mills and steel manufacturing plants. And it was it was a place where there was, there were many working people who had been organized into unions and who had learned how to-to speak for their own rights and stand up to the to the bosses and ask for fair wages. And so, there was a background of political activity. It was not exactly antiwar activity, and it was not necessarily student activity. But this area was booming, it was just going through a huge, a huge growth, you know, of employment and workers and families rising from rising from the lowest level of working class up into some kind of middle-class comfort, buying homes in the suburbs. And-and I think, you know, I do not know if that explains anything, but what the situation was very dynamic there. SM: 25:45 Yeah, I have read that book. And, and I will be, I will be interviewing him as well, in the next couple of weeks. JL: 25:52 Good, [crosstalk] SM: 25:52 Because he has agreed to be interviewed. He is very busy, I think helping with Alan's archives and other and other things and speaking, and he is a professor, so he has got a lot on his on his table. JL: 26:04 Yes, he does. SM: 26:04 Yeah, you know, the whole thing of what created the tension, you were not easy to describe some of the things there because the town gown relations are terrible, even at the school that I went to here in Binghamton, New York. It was terrible. And that, what would you say, created the tension at Kent State leading up to Nixon's speech on April 30th, of (19)70? Because as a nation, not only at Kent State, but Ohio State where I went to grad school, I know what happened on that campus. The campuses erupted after that speech. Did you hear this speech? JL: 26:42 Yes, I well, I did not actually hear it. I read about it on a ticker tape machine at Taylor Hall on Kent State campus. I do not know, you probably know what a ticker tape machine is. SM: 26:54 Yes. JL: 26:54 Some folks, may not [laughter] and, and I read it as it was news that night, April 30th, 11 or something that night, I was walking around with my girlfriend and we were in Taylor Hall. And read that news there for the you know, when it was still hot off the presses. And then you know, saw the follow up on the in the TV evening news and news the next day. And the reaction around the country of the expansion of the war where Nixon, I blamed President Nixon and Governor Rhodes for the murders at Kent State because they set the scene. Nixon said that he would bring us together and had a secret plan to end the war and he was just lying to get elected and to hold on to power and the same thing was happening with Governor, Governor Rhodes who after the RTC building was burned, he made a huge, huge speech, inflammatory speech with the with the guard already present on the on the university campus, about the terrible terrorists who were organized and behind this, which was hyperbolic to say the least. He was really giving the-the antiwar movement a lot more credibility than it deserved at the time for their organization, their ability to create violent resistance and, and I think they painted a picture that was far more dire than was necessary at the time and resulted in the overreaction, and murder and wounding of students at Kent State and other places, in Jackson State around the country. SM: 28:39 In your own words, because it is very important that that I do interview all the people that are still alive that were wounded at Kent State, I am actually going to be interviewing a person who was a professor at Westchester who was a student at Kent State and she was witnessing everything from her residence hall right next to the, where the it all happened. But when you, if you could describe in your own words, you. What you were doing between the 30th of April and May 5th, the day after the tra- the killings happened, just in your own words. What you saw, witnessed, experienced, were involved in, people students you spoke to, what, how did all those students come to that, the green by the bell? Because people that are going to be hearing your interview are people that are not even alive yet. They are going to be studying and doing your research on the (19)60s and Kent State is a watershed event in that era. JL: 29:50 Well, on the Commons at Kent State there is what they called the victory bell which was supposed to be used for athletic victories but it was more commonly in those days used to-to call crowds together for assemblies. And-and so for the period that you are talking about from the time of the Cambodian incursion, until May 5th, I was not present for Friday demonstration of burying the Constitution because they said Nixon had killed the Constitution. I did not witness that but I read about it in the campus paper later. And they said that they were planning a follow up demonstration for Monday afternoon. And so, I read about that, but had not really thought much more than that about it. And Saturday, I also watched from my dorm room, which is Johnson Hall, which is immediately adjacent to the commons and Taylor Hall and the pagoda. And I watched as some, crowd assembled around the ROTC building, which there had been rumors that it would be targeted because of the presence on campus as a as a, you know, as a supporter of the war, of the war in Vietnam. And so, I went outside of my dorm and watched from the grass in front of the dorm, from a distance as some people kind of attempted to set the building on fire, unsuccessfully, several times. And they threw a safety flare on the roof and it rolled off without doing anything and they broke a window and, and lit drapes on fire and it flamed up and burned out. And then somebody in the front of the crowd- I do not know who, it was dark, and I did not know people. Somebody said, "Let us go get some more supporters." And so, the crowd marched around the whole campus, which is pretty large. And so that took, you know, 45 minutes or so. And we, I followed along behind the crowd. And we marched around the campus to a couple of the other dormitories asking people to join us and then forward to the front of the campus, past the president of the university's house, which was a well-guarded by people at the driveway and out onto the highway that connected Ravenna and Kent, and actually stopped and stopped traffic and people in the front of the crowd were blocking traffic with, they pull like construction equipment out onto the road and blocked traffic and compressors and trailers and stuff. And then people will shortly behind them would move them back out of the way. It was kind of like we do not want to really cause that much disruption. And I followed along behind and watched this happen until we got back to the front of the campus and we started to turn and go back towards my dormitory basically, which is back towards the ROTC building. And as we turned and headed back onto campus, that is when the Ohio National Guard arrived from the east, from Ravenna in trucks and jeeps and-and armored personnel carriers. So, they came rolling down the highway. And so, I turned in hightailed it back to my dormitory. And when I got there, that building was fully engulfed in flames, which I always thought was suspicious since it seemed like the attempts to ignite it previously had been unsuccessful. So, the so I went to my dorm and my-my dorm window faced the other ways. So, I went across the hall, to my friend Tom's room, and we watched out his window as the ROTC building went up in flames and burned and, and I know it is super cliché, but I have to say that while this was happening, the radio station from Cleveland, I think it was WMS was playing for what it is worth, you know, "Something is Happening Here." SM: 34:07 Wow. JL: 34:07 This building is just flaming up and I am thinking, wow, what-what the hell you know. And so, the next day, Sunday there was, the guards who had arrived on campus that night, Saturday after the building was burned. 900 members of the Ohio National Guard were bivouacked on the Kent State campus. And they were positioned in front of the different administration buildings and different places around campus. But it was a fairly nice spring morning in northeastern Ohio, it can be pretty that time of year and-and so students and Co-eds and people were walking around having conversations with the guardsmen who were in you know, their-their steel helmets with-with their rifles and bayonets fixed on the end. And it was just a very, very bizarre to be occupied by your own army, is how it felt and-and it was very much a feeling of the war has come home. You know here-here you are at school and here are these people ready for war and so-so Sunday was just a real mix of strange feelings until the governor came to the came to the firehouse in Kent and made the most inflammatory speech, banged his fist on the table, talking about the worst people in American history of being present here, these organized student rebels and-and he gave, like I say he gave the antiwar organization a lot more credit than I thought it deserved for being effective and organized and bloodthirsty. It was not, there was not any of the way he described it that way. But I think that the guardsmen were inspired by his hatred. And there was also a rip came down that there would be no assemblies allowed of four or more people. And that the National Guard will be breaking up any assemblies of groups of people. But they also said that Monday there would be classes as usual. So, you have quite an irony there when you are having students go to classes and guardsmen breaking up you know, groups of four. Well, Sunday I, I was on, I stayed in the dorm area. But friends of mine went down to protest against the curfew. And it was a 10 o'clock curfew in the streets of Kent and 11 o'clock on the campus if I am not mistaken. And some friends of mine went to go talk to the university president and the mayor about lifting the curfew so that we could you know, go about our schooling business. And nobody ever came to talk to them, although they were promised that they would, they just sat down in the street and said, you know, wait here, we will get them to speak to you which they never did come but after the curfew time arrived, the National Guard who had surrounded these demonstrators who are peacefully sitting in the street and singing songs of the era, at a curfew time, they surrounded them and started lobbing tear gas into the group. And so, there was pandemonium, I am told and students ran and some were bayonetted that night and others were chased and beaten. And it was from my view at the dorm, it was one of the scariest sights I have seen where there were helicopters, three helicopters with search lights, hovering overhead and [crosstalk] tear gas on the campus with platoons of guardsmen shoulder to shoulder, bayonets at the ready, herding students into dormitories because they were out past curfew. And I spoke later that night with my-my resident counselor Lou, who said that he had witnessed, he was trying to conduct students to come in the end of our, of our dorm and escape the guardsmen, and they can go through the building and out the other way to their dorms. And as he got the last student, in the guardsmen behind him lunged with his bayonet and he, Luke pulled the door shut on the guy's knife, as he lunged to try and get the students and so it was a very ugly scene. SM: 38:34 Wow. JL: 38:35 And he and I stayed up talking that night for a while and discussed whether or not those guns would be loaded with live ammunition. And we have kind of concluded there was really no need for them to be loaded with live ammunition. And I do not know if we suggested they had blanks, or why we would think that but we were pretty sure there was no need for live ammunition in those guns. But we also said it was hard to tell who was wearing the white hats and who was wearing the black hats because while students were throwing things out their windows at the dorms at the guardsmen, the guardsmen were also throwing rocks at the students' windows in the dormitories and-and it was it was just real ugly, it was a real ugly scene that night. So, Monday was classes as usual, with guardsmen all along the burned-out ashes of ROTC building. And I went to a couple of classes actually and the sociology professors and two messages one was the "Keep safe, stay low and stay out of sight" and the other was, "It is a participatory democracy and if you want your voice heard you need to get out there and do it" and I, I kind of took a second tack I wanted to support the-the protest, protesting the presence of an invasion and occupation of our campus by- SM: 39:56 Yes. JL: 39:56 -the National Guard. But I wanted to do it in a peaceful way, you know, the way Martin Luther King showed us and the way Mahatma Gandhi showed us that, you know, collective action peaceably with a large number of people can get can get results. And so, I was headed for, I kind of think of it now as a, I was headed for some kind of street theater demonstration, but the National Guard were coming to war. And so, this was not going to be a good, good, good mix. And then, so I watched, I watched the National Guard, you know, tried to tell the students to disperse. And they said, "Students this is illegal assembly, return to your dormitories." And they said that a few times with more cat calls and more upraised fingers, and-and finally, when the students did not disperse upon the command, they fired tear gas into the crowd, from far distance with like, like, like a grenade launch modified rifles that would shoot across 100 yards. And the wind was such that it was not very effective. So, students could get wet cloths over their mouths, pick up the tear gas canisters and throw them back. And it was it was a back and forth that seemed almost theatrical, at this point, without a sense of doom, which was a mistake on my part, definitely a mistake. And so, when that did not disperse the crowd, they moved forward with their tear gas masks and helmets and bayonets at the ready and split the crowd up that way. And so, I of course, retreated between Taylor Hall and Johnson Hall, which is my dorm. I mean, I was never more than 50 yards from my room actually. I retreated between the two buildings and off to one side and the guardsmen followed up the hill and down on the other side onto the practice football field. And then myself and the students near me reassembled on the hilltop by Taylor Hall overlooking the guardsmen and then watched them take a kneel, and aim their weapons at a vocal part of the crowd, towards the Prentice Hall parking lot where Alan Canfora was with his black flag. And where other activists were yelling at them, and some people threw gravel at them. You know, there was a big deal about throwing rocks, well, they were not rocks, they were gravel, and no guardsmen were injured. But I think it irritated the guardsmen. And that was the part of the crowd where most of the dead were later on. And so, after they kneeled and aimed for a while, a small group of guardsmen gathered in the middle of the field, and then they headed back up the hill the way they had come. And so, what this meant was, they turned and walked directly towards me because of where I had moved to, after they passed by. And so, I of course, moved out of the way again, but I was very near to them. And I could see them jostling, hear their equipment, kind of rattling as it came up the hill. And they kept looking hard back over their right shoulders, which was back in the Prentice Hall parking lot area. And I have always suspected that they were picking targets at this point. And so, when they got to the top of the hill, they were very close to me, kind of right in front of me. And the first three riflemen, turned and leveled their rifles in my direction, as they had knelt and aimed previously down below. And so, I thought this was, again, a gesture of, you know, of a threatening gesture. And so, I gesture back at that time with my middle finger, my right hand up raised, and they had their guns aimed at me. And, you know, I thought it was kind of a theatrical stand up as I, as I said, I came, I came ready for street theater, but they came ready for war. And so, it was not too long, a few seconds passed. And then I saw the ground and I heard, started hearing sounds popping, saw the ground in front of me turn up and I realized that there was actual live ammo in those guns. And simultaneously to that thought I was shot. The bullet hit my right hip, and threw me to the ground where I collapsed on the ground on my back. And I learned later that a second person shot me after I had been on the ground through the lower left leg. And so, as I lay on the ground, there was 13 seconds of solid gunfire. And then it stopped and there was just a heartbeat of unbelievable silence. Before people started screaming about what had happened and what they had just seen. I was laying there and a person, persons came up to me, a person came up to my left. And it turned out to be a brother of a high school classmate of mine. He saw my ID and put it back in my pocket. And then I asked him how bad the wound was. And he said, I think it is just a flesh wound. Because he had seen the exit wound in my left jeans pocket where the bullet exited. I had an entry wound, I had an entry wound to my right front pocket like where your coin change pocket is in your jeans, that was the size of a nickel. And I had an exit wound on my left rear jeans pocket the size of a Coke can. SM: 45:48 Wow. JL: 45:49 And when he saw he said it was a flesh wound, I was relieved, although there, that was not really true. I could not get up, and I could not, I could not move. And then a girl came from my right side and held my hand and I just squeezed the heck out of that girl's hand and she stayed with me the whole time until the ambulances came and loaded two of us into an ambulance. I was in an ambulance with John Cleary. John was shot through the lungs, apparently, and he was in terrible agony. It was a very, very difficult ride to ambulance, we, we both were very uncomfortable, I thought I was going to die. I said, as I said, you know, all the Catholic training that I had, I said a good act of contrition, asking God to forgive me for my sins. And, and I kind of thought, you know, I am only 18 I really have not committed, done too many things wrong. But just in case. Just in case, I said that prayer and got into the ambulance, got over to the hospital. And amazingly, I was semi-conscious this whole time. Even seeing high school classmates come up to the ambulance window and give me that high wave. But when I got to the hospital, the last thing, I remember, and it is comical. I love my mom and she was very strict with eight kids, you got to be strict. I got to the hospital, they said we were going to have to cut off your clothes. And I remember thinking to myself, my very last thought was, Mom was not going to like that. And then I went into, went into surgery for six hours and got several pints of blood. Went the intensive care for, unit for a week or so, the first couple of days I was 50/50 live or die I got the last rites night. Some of my friends from high school came and visited me I do not know somehow, they found me and I do not remember that but in our 50th reunion last in 2020, became an, retold me the story and it was it was very moving to hear from these seventy-year-old people about what moved them most of them were 18 and it was very touching. And I was in the hospital with Dean and John Cleary, we were all tall, I was the shortest one at 6'3" so our feet stuck out of the ends of the ICU beds. And we got to [inaudible] and friends forever. Then after a three weeks and a day, I got out of the hospital and went back to my parents’ home in Maslen and shortly thereafter read an article in the newspaper, the local Maslen evening independent which said that it had a story about the Kent State shootings and I thought well this this should be interesting so I read it and it said that students attacked guardsmen with bricks and bottles and overturned cars. And none of that was true. Not a word of that was true. And I thought, oh my god, you know my parents’ friends my neighbors here in Maslin. They think that is what is real? So-so for me the takeaway was you know, you cannot believe the media or the government. When it suits them, they are going to lie? So, I-I recovered at home, I did not really have too many long-lasting injuries although I do have to say that I have had my right hip replaced three times which is right near the in the entry wound of that 30-caliber rifle bullet. There has been no actual medical connection made between it but I suspected that it is connected. And then the story goes on, trying to get, trying to get accountability with Arthur Krause and the parents of those four kids dead. We tried to get accountability. And, and, and that was a tough climb because the first, the first legal gathering was the Portage County grand jury which indicted 25 students and professors and no guardsmen. In fact, I was, I was shot twice, and then I was arrested. I was indicted for fourth degree riot by the Portage County grand jury and later the charges were dropped for lack of evidence, but it gave me an understanding of what some people in America experience where they were victims of what was called Law Enforcement crime, and then they were charged with the crime themselves. So, I have a deep sympathy for, you know, for Breonna Taylor and- SM: 49:30 Yeah. Yes. JL: 51:09 -Michael Brown, you know, George Floyd, because to me, this is this is a story I have had a deep insight into. SM: 51:19 When, I want to mention the bond, did you know any of the people that were wounded with you or killed before this this murder? JL: 51:34 I did not, I did not know anyone. The only person I had a passing acquaintance with-with was Alison Krauss. Because she was the girlfriend of my mailbox partner in my dorm. Barry Levine, our-our names were alphabetical [audio cuts] box at the dorm. And so, I would see Allison and Barry almost every day and-and what I will say about Allison is she was attractive in every way. Vivacious, and smart and beautiful and involved and just really, really struck me as a beautiful person. But I did not know any others until we got together for different legal purposes years later. SM: 52:24 Can you describe the, I guess the one thing, I have learned something from this interview? I know you were wounded. I did not know the seriousness of your wounds. As you go over the years, Joe, have you, have you had any flashbacks, do you had on that day? How has your mental and physical health been over the years? JL: 52:49 You know, I do not really have flashbacks, like nightmares. I and I do not know, I have spoken with ant-war vets over the years a number of times. And a couple of times they pointed at me and said "PTSD!" because they've seen me cry when I talk about the incident. And-and of course I have I have huge reservoirs of emotion for the sorrow that I feel. Now that I am a parent and a grandparent for those families who lost, Allison and Jeff, Sandy and Bill that day, for no good reason. They did not do anything wrong. And-and so that that, to me is heartbreaking. But I do have, you know, very close bonds with the other families, the other eight guys who were wounded- well there was only, I think six of us left now but yeah, so I do not. As far as physical results, I think that my problems with my right hip may be related to my injuries there. And mentally, like I said, like, I do not believe the government or the media. SM: 54:09 Right. JL: 54:10 But I am not alone in that respect. I know. SM: 54:14 When you, I want to flash back now. Now, obviously you went back to school, when did you go back to school to continue your education and when did you graduate? JL: 54:28 I went back to school, and I think it was the winter of (19)71. But I never finished, I left. I was I was trying to go to school full time and work full time. I was under, under indictment waiting for trial. And I was self-medicating. And so, it was not a good, was not a good mix. It was not successful for me I-I managed to stay in school and work until the summer of (19)72. And so that was really just like a couple quarters more. And then I-I moved from Kent to Oregon where I am now. SM: 55:17 Did you realize, you probably did the-the massive coverage of this of the murders that took place the following week, you and I- we were talking about the impact it has had on the people who were there, the students that were alive at Kent at that time, the families and so forth. Are you aware of the impact that this event had on college students and people all over the country like yours truly? The tragedy-? JL: 55:48 Yes-yes, yes. The largest student strike in American history. And, and I know, and I know that it was a formidable time, I mean, you know, it to me, to me, of course, is much more personal. But frequently in historical movies or, or stories, or even just, you know, magazine articles, the Kent State shooting comes up as a pivotal reflection of the time and the desperation and just the, the peak of resistance to the war. SM: 56:23 A lot of people that have written, that have written about this event, and then actually in books, too, that said that, when the tragedies at Kent State and Jackson State hit, that, then the War at Vietnam now came home to Middle America. JL: 56:41 Right. SM: 56:42 And that the war was going to end because of it. The a, and because there was still at that time, a lot of people that supported the war. And Nixon always had his group that, you know that, you know that they were supporting him. But it is what happened at Kent State, it just had a tremendous impact way beyond, it changed careers. And one of the things I had had to talk with Alan about because he came, and I had real good long conversations with him. And he knew I went into higher education because of the tragedy. I wanted to do my small part, as a college administrator to make sure this never happened again on a university campus. And I am saying this now for Alan, Alan. All the years that he talked when he came to West Chester University to speak, one of his ultimate goals was to get truth and justice for those who, you know, suffered because of this, but also to make sure this kind of an event never again, ever happens on a university campus. A free speech, protest, where students died expressing their free speech. So, it was- JL: 56:59 Yeah-yeah. SM: 58:00 -it is there is so-so much here. And, and, of course, you know, what Alan did all throughout the years to make sure that we never forget it as well. When you as a, as a young person, I want to question some of the things that you have already brought up because of what happened at Kent State, the qualities of distrust toward government, distrust toward the system, distrust toward leaders. There was a slogan back in the (19)60s that, that the boomers that were involved in activist in the antiwar movement, and the impact that it had on them was that they did not trust leaders. And-and, and we were talking all leaders. University presidents, politicians, ministers, rabbis, anyone in a position of leadership could not be trusted. Did that affect you that way? JL: 59:01 You know, to me, that is an extreme point of view, and I try to be rational. And so to me, that would be like, I call it jumping to confusions and I, I have respect for leadership, but I have to understand that they are, they are working for the common good and not for personal, you know, financial or power dictates that-that just, they are trying to keep maintain their power, their influence, and, and so I do not, I would not say that I take that kind of a broad brush with all leadership. I would, I would evaluate, I would evaluate the things that a leader does and says and judged by their actions. It is more than their words. But the blanket statement that I made is true. I distrust media and government. The government lied to us about Vietnam and the media lies to us constantly about different things. But I would not say that I challenged all leadership, I was distrustful. And I always looked for like, what is the reason someone would want us to believe this way, I was questioning, I was questioning but I was not completely full of distrust for all leaders. I would not say. SM: 1:00:25 This is important question, Joe, that I want to ask, what are the lessons of Kent State for not only, for future generations of college students? What is the lesson you want them to know? Not only from college students, that are, young people that are alive today that are yet born, because through research and scholarship at our center, we are hoping that we will find people who were going to study the (19)60s and early (19)70s, get their PhD in this area and teach the (19)60s the way it should be taught, from all points of view, conservative liberal and everything in between. What are what do you feel were the lessons of Kent State that you want to pass on to future generations? JL: 1:01:13 I just think that there is, there is hope when-when people recognize their common ground. And I still believe in nonviolent resistance. I believe in direct action using nonviolent methods. Although it is a hard, hard slog, sometimes you get where you are going. I do not believe you can fight violence with violence, I think we need to be, we need to be peaceful and rational and, and respectful of each other, even especially those who disagree with. And it is hard. That is a, that is a hard, hard assignment. But that is what I tried to do. And as far as the overall lessons from Kent State, I-I hope that we have learned that we have to allow for dissent. We should not be attacking people who do not agree with government policies, we should be, you know, I actually, you know, remember the Nixon administration was all talking about law and order. Where most of those people were convicted felons, in the Nixon administration, and protesters at Kent State did not, you know, as far as I know, did not break any laws. I mean, we were peacefully protesting we, we did not have weapons, we did not assault people, we did not damage property that day. And so, to me, we need to have room in our, in our society, for disagreement, for peaceful disagreement. And not to quickly jump to conclusions. Like I know, I have some people I know in northwestern Oregon, who, who assume that since you know, you are kind of a lefty liberal that that you should be destroyed. SM: 1:03:05 Right. JL: 1:03:05 I think there should be real tolerance for-for both of us to exist in the same in the same geographic location with opposing points of view. SM: 1:03:15 It is amazing. Yeah, that is what you said is one of the issues in America today. JL: 1:03:20 Yeah. SM: 1:03:22 You know, not listening to other points of view. I mean, it is my way or the highway, it very good observations. I want to be clear on this. Who were the villains of Kent State and who were the heroes? JL: 1:03:39 I am not sure about the heroes. I know. The villains are Nixon and Rhodes. The heroes are the heroes are Glenn Frank, who begged students after the shooting to not confront guardsmen a second time because the guards said they would shoot again, if needed. The heroes are Glenn Frank who saved lives by doing that that day. And those-those people who are brave enough to speak the truth about Kent State, Alan Canfora and Dean Kahler, they have done enormous work by staying in the area whereas I, in (19)72, man I was gone, I am out of there. But they stayed and confronted it. And I mean, Dean, it is escapable, it is a conversation he could not avoid having. And so, they are the heroes for continuing to tell the truth about what happened that day and, and trying to avoid a recurrence of that and-and I think anyone who stands up to, stands up for the rule of law. I mean, because Nixon said he was the law and order people but really Law and Order would not have allowed the shootings at Kent State to happen in our civil trial they talked about the even the Army's rules of engagement do not allow people to turn on fire on-on agitators or protesters. The designation as the commander will point out specific targets for individual snipers to shoot at, it is not turn and fire when you when you feel like and, and the fact that the guardsmen all said they were afraid for their lives after being sequestered for 30 days is to me very questionable. SM: 1:04:19 Right. Beyond Kent State, which is the obvious answer to this question, but is there another specific watershed event that was really important in your life? Either an event or happening or a death? JL: 1:05:40 Yeah, there have been. My first wife was a paralegal assistant with the Kent State Trial, and I fell in love with her when I first saw her, she died of cancer in (19)91, after we were married 15 years together. But my first, my first inclination to, to answer is, when I was eight, my little brother, who was hydrocephalic, who had water on the brain, died when he was five. And the moment of, and my grandma was babysitting me because my mom and dad and nur- and aunt who was a nurse, said they were taking Peter to the doctor. And so, grandma was babysitting me that night, and I stayed up later than I was ever allowed too before. But at a certain point, a certain moment in time, I burst into tears. And I realized that that was the moment my brother died. And so, to me, the most important lesson in life I have ever learned is that we are all connected. We are all brothers connected in life through a way that we do not understand. And-and so this is carried with me from that day on. And it is, it is hard, not too hard not to respect people who you are related to. And so, I tried to, I tried to live my life with that lesson in mind. Lately, lately, political events, the-the Standing Rock protest was very important, I think, for people to stop the prostitution of our land for the benefit of profiteers. And the protection of our drinking water, I have, my career, my working career, I am retired now as of (20)13. But in my adult life, I have spent 20 years from (19)80 to (20)00, as a union president and shop steward for our public works employee’s union for the city where I live. And then from (20)00 to (20)16, I spent four, four terms on the local school board- SM: 1:07:57 Oh. JL: 1:07:58 -administering, administering to the school districts needs from kind of a management point of view. So, to me, working people are where it is at, they are the people who make our country strong and good. And we need to respect them and give them, acknowledge the work that they do and help them however we can to be successful and happy. SM: 1:08:19 That is really great, Joe, because that is giving back. It is giving back- JL: 1:08:26 Well, when I got here to Northwestern Oregon, I was damaged, I was very damaged goods. And so, the people here and they, that natural beauty, helped me to recover. And so, I feel like I owe it to my community to give back and that is, that is exactly my intention is I love it here. And I want the folks to know that I will do what I can to make it a better place. SM: 1:08:49 It is amazing, because that is what Alan did all his life was kind of is giving back- JL: 1:08:53 Most of the guys- SM: 1:08:54 Yeah, and Dean is all about that. JL: 1:08:58 Most of the guys are really nice guys, you know that? SM: 1:09:01 Yes. JL: 1:09:01 I sometimes wonder how can the, how can shooters find nine nicer guys? I mean, it is I guess there is something humbling about being shot too being, but-but yeah, I am really I am really proud to have acquaintance of mine, I call them my blood brothers. And we, we are connected in a way no one else really wants to be or can be. And so, for me that recovery, the reunions are bittersweet. They are horribly sad and-and wonderfully warm and, and welcoming because when I get together with these folks, and our supporters, our families and friends, it is just an amazing time. SM: 1:09:50 Well, I know at one of the Kent State remembrances a few years back, you and another person who passed away were together. JL: 1:09:59 Oh, Jim Russel. SM: 1:09:59 Yeah Jim Russell and I am, I do not know if you remember, I took your pictures and I gave the pictures to I think Alan because they were real good close up shots. You were sitting at a panel in the auditorium there and they came out really great. And so, and I remember you were very close to him, and then the tragedy that he passed away. JL: 1:10:20 Yeah, I convinced him to move to Oregon after our civil trial. He, he kept me sane during the civil trial, because he was a genius. He was, he had multifarious interests. And he was he was actually deeply involved in all of them. Um, and I was, I had moved to the forested hills outside of our little town in (19)72. So, in the (19)75 trial, when we were all going back to Cleveland for 14 weeks in the summer, for uh, four days a week of trial. Um, I was just out of my element as the press cameras and interviewers would follow us around the street. I was really out of my element coming from the woods, where I had been when Jim-Jim just talked to me. And he talked and he talked and he talked because he [laughs], he had all these interests. And he kept me from-from freaking out, really. And so, I feel like he saved my, saved my uh, sanity. And uh, so we became close. And then he- I invited him to move to Oregon when I came back home. And uh, after 25 years went by the local Oregon, Oregonian had an article about us, the 25th, you know, anniversary of the Kent State shootings. And after that, two professors and teachers started inviting us to come to their classes. And we were, we were very reluctant activists, Jim, especially, very reluctant. But what we found was that by telling the truth of our story, that- it kind of was cathartic, that it lightened the load on our hearts. Although I do feel it was obvious from observation that it was causing some sorrow for the students who heard us talk about the truth about Kent State. And so, we bonded that way for years. We did that at colleges and high schools around Oregon until (20)07 when Jim had a heart attack, and as he would have, as he would have designed it, had a heart attack and died in his wife's arms. At his home in Rainier, Oregon. It was a heart heartbreaking [inaudible], for me to think about him being gone, we- we had, an extremely close relationship. In many ways we were so different that we were like, uh, two poles of a magnet. And it just drew us together, we could tell the Kent State story because we had each been at different places at different times, in a way that was so thorough, and uh, we were just like, kind of walk into each other's uh, monologues smoothlessly, smoothly. And uh, and it was it was just a it was a very powerful, very powerful sort of when we told it together. SM: 1:13:21 Well, he is, he is another one of those, of the nine. One of the good guys and why, [crosstalk]. I had- Oh man, he, was also, worked for the city- [laughs] I-I want to mention the Vietnam Memorial, you know, the whole thing happened in 1982. When Vietnam veterans came back, they were treated pretty poorly and, [crosstalk] and really poorly. No, not by me either. But, then in 1982, the wall opened and everything's changed. Now the question I really want to ask you, Jan Scruggs wrote that historic book, "The Healing of a Nation." And of course, he, he wanted to make the Vietnam Memorial, a nonpolitical entity, as a remembrance for the 58 plus 1000 who died, and are, certainly all Vietnam veterans who have served and their families. The question I want to ask you is, the Vietnam Memorial has done a great job in terms of healing amongst the veterans themselves and their families and now many, men, have seems like more Vietnam veterans are dying faster than even the World War Two veterans died from post-traumatic stress disorder but certainly Agent Orange and cancer and everything. I remember asking this to three United States senators. I asked this to Senator Eugene McCarthy, I asked this to George McGovern, and I asked this to Gaylord Nelson and it was Gaylord Nelson's response, which was the best one. But the question is, is it possible to heal, as a nation, from a war that tore us so much apart? [silence] Are you still there? JL: 1:13:30 He was an engineer, he was, he was into the detail of [chuckles] of the radius of curbs and shit like [laughter], are you kidding me? I mean, I think, he, he annoyed the hell out of me and I think I have amused the hell out of him so, [inaudible]. So, it was the perfect relationship. SM: 1:13:31 Yep. JL: 1:13:49 You are breaking up, Steven. Yeah, I-I kind of missed the first part. SM: 1:15:13 Is it, is it possible to heal, have-have we healed, as a nation from the Vietnam War? JL: 1:15:38 Oh, good question. Um, [coughs] that is a good question. I-I do not know. I-I do not know would say we have made attempts to heal, I-I, I-I do think of one thing that we have not talked about, that is a very important element to response to the war in Vietnam was the Veterans for Peace, the antiwar, that is actually where leaders, even more so than the student antiwar groups, in opposing the war in Vietnam. And I think without them, we would not have gotten to the memorial into the place where we are now. [crosstalk] But, I-I think there is, I think there is still existing divisions that go back to that time. And I am not so sure that they are only about the war, they may also be about the philosophy of governance, the approach to authority, the relationship that men have with their fathers [laughs]. SM: 1:16:37 Right. JL: 1:16:38 You know, I-I think we should have learned to be more forgiving and more compassionate, but I am not sure that all of us have. [crosstalk] The other thing I would add, as you talk about the fifty-eight thousand, lives that were sacrificed, we also have to remember the 3 million- SM: 1:16:57 You are right. JL: 1:16:58 -Asians who, SM: 1:16:58 Yes. Mhm. Right. Yeah, I-. Mhm. Yes, you are darn right [crosstalk]. Yes. Yes. Because, when you go down to the Vietnam Memorial, and um, you know, it is not only seeing the faces of those who-who are no longer with us who served their nation, but it is also the 3 million who died, the Vietnamese themselves. I-I know that from working in a university and advising the Asian American organization, of which most of them were Vietnamese students, whose parents were both people and survived, on the boats to go to certain islands. And then of course, they ended up meeting, they fell in love. And a lot of the Vietnamese have done very well in this nation. And, but a lot of them are from the boat people that survived that war, just survived. And, I know President Bush in 1989, you may remember this, said "The Vietnam syndrome is over." Remember when he said that? And uh, and-and I said, he has, he has got to be kidding me. Because it kind of gets into what they call, "The culture wars." And the culture wars from the (19)60s are still happening right now in the year 2021. JL: 1:16:59 -who died. Well, you know, I belong to a, an internet, internet, message group that is called, "Full Disclosure." And it was, it was, it was started a couple years ago, maybe more than a couple of years ago, to correct the historical revisionism: that was trying to make it sound like, Vietnam was a glorious war. And, these are mostly veterans, their outspoken antiwar veterans, who, share emails, you know, not every day, but frequently, with their comments about the way things are going now. And-and some of them I-I have met, a great group of antiwar vets in the Portland area similar so my best friends who I hear from pretty often and, and they are still active in doing what they did and opposing war and telling the truth of war to, to people who will listen, students and the public whenever they can. And we went on some speaking tours with them, Russell and I and, and it was very moving. It was very moving. One of this, one of these friends is a, was a Vietnam era medic, a combat medic, and-and he-he has a vague resemblance to Dana Carvey, and [crosstalk] his speech is so honest that he will have you laughing, and then crying within 20 minutes of telling his story about, uh- SM: 1:19:46 Wow. JL: 1:19:46 -about-about his experiences and those of the-the guys the young men around him, who you know, who were wounded and dying and some of them dead and, it has just been uh, hm. I-I am very grateful for their friendship, let me say that. I-I have met some guys whose-whose friendship means a great deal to me because they support, they support, our Kent State experience and a motivation we had that time. So, it means a lot to me. SM: 1:20:20 Oh really? Wow. Mhm. The, we only got a couple more questions here. One of them is, as you as we were in, especially the front edge boomers when they were in junior high school, there were some major events that happened. And I would like to know your thoughts on what happened in, on November 22nd of (19)63, where were you when JFK was killed? JL: 1:20:41 I was in seventh grade, I was seventh grade, in Mrs. Lakely's class and our [inaudible] Ohio at St. Francis De Sales. School. And of course, since it was a Catholic school, and this was our first Catholic president, everybody was heartbroken. It was, it was just a tragic, tragic event. And of course, in (19)68, then we lost RFK and Martin Luther King. And it seemed like we had entered a period of history where assassination was going to be the rule rather than the exception. And that was damn frightening, I think for us. SM: 1:21:08 Yes-yes. Right. And even Malcolm X got killed in (19)65. JL: 1:21:21 Yeah-yeah. SM: 1:21:21 Yeah-yeah. Oh, this is really well addressed in Tom Grace's books. He calls it, "The Long Sixties." And-and I think there is a connection between the, late (19)50s, labor movement and the early (19)70s, repression, government repression that kind of tamped down the-the, mobilization of-of antigovernment activity. So, I guess, I would guess, late, late (19)50s and early (19)70s kind of really defined something like the (19)60s. But, um, yeah, I-I do not know I-I am not a very well, I am not a very learned person I have going on as I have learned through life, but not through, formal education. So, I-I do not really know. You know, and, and, of course, of course, we all know that Gandhi, was murdered as well, way before, but he was a role model for Dr. King. It is amazing that, you know, you met-, you mentioned about why did the nine might in the four, who were killed, cannot stay in the nine who are wounded. Why did it happen to good people like this? Well, you know, same thing you can say for politicians who a lot of people believe we are doing good deeds for others, and then others did not like them. So, let us eliminate them. So, it is kind of, that is part of the experience of, I think of the boomer generation-generation as well. I got two more questions. This question is when do you think the (19)60s began? And when do you think it ended? If it did? You know, that the personalities of the, when you look at the, your life, from when you were young and now older, as a boomer, who were the personalities that you just simply admired? And, and then the personalities that you did not admire? JL: 1:23:32 Well, I loved my grandma. My grandma was from Slovakia. She always stood up straight. She always spoke clearly. She was a very well informed, she was a democratic precinct woman and would be at a voting ballot place every, every election. She was kind and sweet. And I know she, she was very quiet about those things that troubled her. And as far as someone to [silence] look up to, I think it would be Nixon. People with ulterior motives who would lie out the side of their mouth to get what they wanted. That was not really legitimate. You know, he-he got into politics by answering a one ad by some California businessman who wanted to voice for them in the, in the legislature in California. So, he was like a prostitute from the beginning, I think. Jagger Hoover, you know, he was a brutal, brutal, and evil person. And the more we know about him, the less I like him. He, he caused suffering and death. You know, um, I had I had the opportunity at one of the Kent State commemoration is to meet Bobby Seale, who, who I admire I mean, he was at the forefront of the Black Panther Party when, they rose up and challenged the government with the rifles on the steps of the courthouse in Sacramento, which is brilliant and also fearful, [laughs] fearful tactic. But, you know, he was not perfect, he-he did have some, he did have some shortcomings, but he was faced with an unbelievable situation that Black Panthers and that time and, and I guess I also looked up to people who I met like Reverend John Adams, he was a minister for the board of Church and Society, the United Methodist Church, he was like a chaplain for us during our Kent State Civil Trial, as well as a, the only white man to cross the lines in (19)75, between the FBI and the occupants' occupiers at Wounded Knee. So, to me, he is like a chaplain for, for causes that were important. I do not know. I am happy to have the friends I have, who support me and who I support, and, I feel very lucky to be where I am. SM: 1:26:09 And how important was the music of the (19)60s and early (19)70s to you? JL: 1:26:15 Oh critical, oh critical. SM: 1:26:17 -during, during everything? JL: 1:26:18 -It was life, music of the music then, and the lyrics. I mean, they are they define, to a large extent they define, define those moments more than anything else. SM: 1:26:33 Yeah, they were they were something that is for sure. And-and are there any? Uh, I only got-finishing this up. Um, the movies, there have been many movies that have come out trying to describe the (19)60s or the Vietnam War. What are the movies that you really, think are good ones to watch? If you want to try to understand the era when the Boomers were young? JL: 1:27:02 I do not know. My friend, my combat veteran friend, says that, uh, "Platoon," was the most realistic one that he thought for being in combat. I do not know. I do not know if there is movies, if a movie has-has captured, has captured the spirit yet. I-um, yeah, I am not. I do not have a really great memory anyway. So, I do not know. I cannot answer that. SM: 1:27:32 I will end with this. You know, when-when I asked that question about when do the (19)60s end, everybody has their own kind of answers. But to me when (19)73 hit, I do not know, you probably remember this point, it probably happened at Kent State as well. It is when the people were stripping. Remember that started happening again. They were running all over the campus nude and all that other stuff. I-I, I [crosstalk] was at Ohio, I was in my first job at Ohio University. And I got a call from Jones graduate tower on the Ohio State campus where I lived when I was a graduate student. And they said, Steve, you got to come back to campus, why? The (19)60s are over. I said, "What?" Just come back to the campus for Friday night and I will explain. I drove back to Jones tower. I read the paper that that that people in different residence halls are going to strip off and run across campus. They were feeling free. [laughs] And they did not care about anything political. And, uh, so I go behind the Ohio State Law Library and go and behold, they were doing the Rockettes [laughs]. Some-some women are coming out doing Rockettes things nude and then the guts the guys were coming out wherever they were. And then, then all of a sudden, people were taking their clothes off and run across campus. And then they said, come the next day, because they were going to run down High Street. And so, it was a weekend. So, I came to High Street sat at the corner of Mercian auditorium [laughs]. And here they come [laughs]. JL: 1:29:03 Wow. SM: 1:29:04 And I and I said, and I said to myself, "This, is this the end of the (19)60s?" [laughs] "Does this mean? [crosstalk] that fun, has now returned to the college campus?" [crosstalk] So I-I do not you know, I have always, I have mentioned that I remember I mentioned that to Rodney Davis and he laughed. And uh, when he said there was some sense of truce there because it was kind of people were going into communes at that time. They were, kind of, it was, -a it was a long story. I want to, and I want to thank you very much for spending this time with me. Yeah, I have learned a lot. JL: 1:29:38 Sure. SM: 1:29:38 -for you and, uh, and my admiration for you is always, higher, now it is even higher. You know, I, I will be there at the remembrance event this next year. I hope you are there because I am I am going to come back. I have to be there for Alan because I think they are going to do some things for him. But, are there any final thoughts, that you would like to mention that you feel, that you did not say? Anything in connection with your-? JL: 1:30:03 Oh, no. [laughs] Yeah, I do not know. [laughs] Sure. Well, you know, I have been to most of the commemorations I have missed a few. But usually someone will come up to me and they will say, and they will find, after they find out who I am and my connection, my experience, they will come up to me and they will say, "This is my first time back," and then they will start to cry. And so, what I often say to people is, you did not have to be shot, to be wounded at Kent State on May 4th (19)70. In fact, I think the whole country, the whole country had a wound that day. SM: 1:30:07 I agree. JL: 1:30:35 And I think we are all still trying to heal from it. SM: 1:30:41 That-That is, what a way to end the interview. Thank you very much, Joe. JL: 1:30:46 Thank you, Steven, for what you do. SM: 1:30:47 Thank you. And I will make sure that the university will send this, um this CD, it will be on your CD, it will be sent to you once they digitize it. For before it is finally approved. JL: 1:31:00 And, uh send me a link to look at the other interviews. SM: 1:31:03 I will do so. JL: 1:31:04 if there is a way you can do that alright, thanks. SM: 1:31:05 Yeah, I will do that- when I get [inaudible] I meant, um, I am-yep. Thank you very much. Be safe, stay healthy. And keep doing what you are doing. JL: 1:31:15 All right. You too, Stephen. Thank you. SM: 1:31:17 Have a great day. Bye now. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Joseph Lewis IIIF Item Metadata UUID 179c73b8-5e05-46c8-8899-9dccdf7ab99f https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/2ed57e20ff708551da3157ae3a3e8921.jpg ef749c7ec55504af22e07f4c688ffde3 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/b4ee3217d63fe8521477f757e1bcfb6d.mp3 8566fafd4a41a7ef5dba9cff73855a38 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2007-07-15/17 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Judith Campbell Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Judith Campbell is a sister of a Vietnam Veteran who died in the war. She is linked to the group of families of the Vietnam veterans whose names are inscribed on the wall. Campbell is an active participant in The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) ceremonies and programs, as well as a strong supporter of the Education Center at The Wall. Judy C. Campbell lives in Wilmington, Delaware, and works on behalf of Gold Star Families everywhere.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:13311,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:1},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,16777215],&quot;5&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;6&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;7&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;8&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;9&quot;:0,&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">Judith Campbell is a sister of a Vietnam Veteran who died in the war. She is linked to the group of families of the Vietnam veterans whose names are inscribed on the wall. Campbell is an active participant in The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) ceremonies and programs, as well as a strong supporter of the Education Center at The Wall. Judy C. Campbell lives in Wilmington, Delaware, and works on behalf of Gold Star Families everywhere.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;The Nineteen sixties; Nineteen seventies; Vietnam War; Flag etiquette; Post-traumatic stress disorder; Activism; Government trust; Robert Mcnamara; John F Kennedy; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. &quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:13228792}}">The Nineteen sixties; Nineteen seventies; Vietnam War; Flag etiquette; Post-traumatic stress disorder; Activism; Government trust; Robert McNamara; John F Kennedy; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. </span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 113:55 Subject LCSH Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Sisters; Campbell, Judith--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Judy Campbell Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 7 July 2007 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:09): Okay, thank you very much for doing the interview. First question I would like to ask is, when you think of the (19)60s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? When you think of the (19)60s and early (19)70s... And again, the (19)60s and early (19)70s, that period up to about 1973 is still considered part of the (19)60s, a lot of people in the history books consider that. But what comes to your mind when you think of that era? JC (00:00:45): Well, when I think of the (19)60s, I immediately think of Vietnam. It was a teenager during that time and the evening news was, "Vietnam-Vietnam-Vietnam-Vietnam." And friends, and loved ones, and family members went to Vietnam, so the first thing I think of is Vietnam when I think of the (19)60s. I know there has been a lot of emphasis on the Vietnam era, the Woodstock era, and the hippies and everything, but to me, I think that was really a small minority of people, it was just that they were in the press. I mean, there was a large majority of people who were not involved in that, but I think there was an unfair assessment that was the typical person growing up in the (19)60s, was a hippie that went to Woodstock, the love generation kind of thing. SM (00:01:59): Was there one experience for you that set up, the (19)60s began for me, your personal experience? And also, when did you know that period was over based on a personal experience in your life? JC (00:02:18): For me, the (19)60s began in (19)67. As I said earlier, I was just a teenager, I was a kid, I was wrapped up in my school life, my friends. But in (19)67 my brother left for Vietnam, and I remember vividly standing outside the circle of Washington National Airport now Raegan Airport. And it was beautiful January sunny day, we did not even have coats on it was so beautiful. And I took my brother to the airport, and we stood outside the circle, he had on his Green Beret uniform, and he would not let me go into the airport with him. He embraced me, patted me on my fanny, and told me three things which I will never forget. One was, "I am doing this to keep you free. Men with wives and babies should not have to go. My medic skills are needed." And then he turned and he went into the airport, and that was the last time I saw him tragically, 19 days later he was killed. Interestingly enough, my husband and I recently took a trip back to Washington and we went to go to that very spot, as my husband never knew my brother. However, over the years, Richard has often said to me he knows him through me, but based upon the timeframe of when my brother left, Richard said, "I probably checked him in." Because Richard was working at United Airlines at the ticket counter. So we went back to the airport, and it was really funny because the airport's totally different. And we went to the ticket counter, we were hesitating to go to the ticket counter to speak to these ticket agents at their line behind the counter. And we looked at one another and we said, "They are so young, they are not even going to know what we are talking about." Well, a police officer who was very young as well saw us, and came up to us, and evidently they must train the police officers who work at National Airport about the history of the airport, because we told him specifically the spot we were looking for and he directed us to it. And we told him a reason and everything, and he was very gracious. We went to the very spot, and we were able to stand in the spot where I last saw Keith, and wanted to walk through the door that he had walked through, which is now boarded up. The construction crew were working on the door, and they said, "Sorry lady, we just boarded this up. We cannot take the board down, but it is a good thing you came when you did because it is going to be concrete pretty soon, and you are not even going to see the board." So we were able to stand in the doorway per se, with a board behind us, at the exact space where my brother walked through. And the ticket counter is now a storage closet, and the gentleman allowed us a tour of the storage closet. So we went down memory lane, it was a nice venture. But to answer your question about... That was the biggest thing to me, because it was such a rude awakening to me to get out of my own little world, teenager, school, friends. I had a rude awakening to what life was really all about. SM (00:05:42): When did it end? JC (00:05:49): I do not think there is an ending, I think the boomers of the (19)60s' generation have a tremendous impact on the youth today. There seems to be a perception even in the workforce, that there is not always the respect there for the boomers, but there is a two-sided story there. You tend sometimes to have the younger generation think, my education, my knowledge, I may be your boss someday, which sometimes often is very much the case. Your boss is much younger than you are, and sometimes the age of your own children. And then boomers sometimes tend to have that attitude, "Hey, look, I have been here longer than you have. I have climbed the ropes." And there is a lot of truth to be said for both, but there needs to be a respect between the two. And I think with my generation, I really felt that there was more family time. I have a friend of mine who runs a daycare center, she was having the worst time getting the children to sit down for lunch, she could not figure out why she could not control these children to sit down for lunch. So she finally sent a survey home to the parents about, "What time do you have dinner? Where do you eat dinner?" And 99 percent of the responses came back, "Hey, I do not get home from work till 7, 7:30 at night, the kid is almost ready for bed." Bottom line was the children do not have that family time, that quality time, sitting down and eating meals together. Whereas I think there is a lot to be said for the generation where I grew up, it was very important, family time. I mean, my mother was a single parent with four children and worked three jobs, but there were certain routines in our family that she never allowed to not take place. i.e. Sunday night was always popcorn night, The Ed Sullivan Show, and curling up with mom, and time together. And I do not think there is enough of that anymore, I think the younger generation today raising their own children can really learn a lot from us. And our generation as well, we were children of parents from the depression, and our parents wanted to provide for us the things that they did not have. And we were financially, that timeframe in our country, economy wise, I think probably in one of the best shapes we were ever in. And I think the youth today need to understand that it is important for them not to live on credit, but to strive to work to own something, be it their own home, or car, or just to learn the value of money, and not this perception that things should just be handed to them. And I would even go a step further with that, with our freedoms. I think there is just a perception by so many people sadly, that we just assume we can get up in the morning, and go to work, and go to the gym, and go do our extracurricular activities, and not think about anything else. And I am reflecting on a conversation I had with a Gold Star Mother just earlier today, because she had written a letter to the editor, and I was calling her on a different matter. But recently she had a letter to the editor about we are having some warm weather here lately, in the (19)90s, which is a little unseasonably hot for us. And she was saying, "People are complaining about being in this hot weather." She said, "Think about our men and women overseas carrying all their gear and it is 130 degrees." I just think there is a lot... Now that we are in a war again, there is a lot that people do not appreciate and value. And one of the main things that I think they should really appreciate the value of is our freedom. They affectionately call me at work flag lady, because I keep them straight on the flag etiquette issues. And they affectionately call me that, but they also know why I am a flag lady, because it is not a piece of cloth. SM (00:10:42): A very good thought. So what are your thoughts on the boomer generation? And again, when we define the boomer generation, some people will say it's individuals that were born between 1943 and 1961, and then others will say it's those individuals born between (19)46 and (19)64, but basically in that basic timeframe. There has been a lot of criticism by critics like George Will, and Newt Gingrich, and others complaining that the boomer generation is really a lot of the ills of our current society today, we can blame right on that generation, their lifestyles, the way they lived, all the characteristics, their activism, and so forth. What are your thoughts on those individuals who criticize the boomer generation for creating the problems we have in our society, and what are the problems? Again, defining the issues on drugs in our society, the issue of broken families, divorce rates being higher than they have ever been, just the overall characteristics of some of the ills of our society today, and blaming it on the generation. JC (00:12:11): I actually think that that is a real misconception, because I think as I said earlier, the percentage of people who did the drugs, and the love movement, and the hippie movement, and all that, were a minority. And I think it is a very unfair assessment to say that the boomer generation was creative of all these negative things. I do not know if it was, because that generation, there was so much. If you look back at film clips from the (19)60s and (19)70s in the news, you will see so much about Woodstock, and the drugs, and the hippies. And I think even my own children probably thought I drove around in a VW bus with peace symbols on it, that was not true. I think it really... Maybe it is a media to blame, I do not know. But there was just too much emphasis put on that, and I really think it was maybe 5 percent of the people were in that category. Actually, I think it's unfair and unjust to say that, because the boomers I know turned out to be very productive citizens who have good jobs, work hard to provide for their families, and are successful contributing citizens. So, I just do not fall into that acceptance of that. SM (00:13:44): When you think of... JC (00:13:44): When you think of specific individuals, as you mentioned, I think that was a small percentage of people, I truly do. And I just think people tend to sometimes... You want to look at the glass half full or half empty, I am the type of individual that wants to look at it half full. And I think a lot of people then when they're looking at this, are looking at the negative and the half empty glass, and pulling into these individuals. I really do not think that they have the impact that people tend to say that they do. SM (00:14:19): It is interesting because this is 2007, and all you are hearing about in some of the higher education materials is the Summer of Love of 1967, which this is 40 years ago. JC (00:14:30): And you are still hearing that. SM (00:14:31): Yeah, you are still hearing it now, anybody who was in the Bay Area knows that was big. That was big, the Summer of Love, and the music and everything, so there is definitely an impact here. But how many people were actually part of the Summer of Love when you really think about it within the... JC (00:14:59): Geographically, you could not have even gotten all those people in Woodstock if you tried. SM (00:15:01): Right. Yeah, they were kind of happenings for the people that were there and all. But if you look at the boomer generation now, and again, when someone who might counter what you just said in terms of, "Well, the boomers were 70 million strong, and maybe 15 percent were involved in activism and involved in some of the activities, anti-war movement, civil rights, women's movement and so forth." And some of the interviews I have had come up with that 15 percent as well. But the 85 percent who were not involved were subconsciously affected by this. So, when you look at the bloomer generation as a generation, what are the positive qualities that you see in this generation, and what are some of the negative qualities that you have perceive? JC (00:15:52): Well, I would say some of the positive qualities were there was more family time, more openness and communication. And maybe that is why somebody can come back and say all this hippie stuff, whatever, but that was their way of expressing the openness and the feeling of freedom. There was more openness and honesty, and even if there was an era of disagreement, there was a respect with that disagreement, and an acceptance of difference of opinion and values. I would say the least admired, who were rebellious, and tended to lead the forefront for generations. I keep emphasizing that, I do not really think that there were that many of them, I just think there was more emphasis put on them. But I really think our generation had more values, and I think one of the downfalls for some of the values is when they took prayer out of school, I really believe that. I mean, heaven forbid if they ever say, "In God we trust, take that off of our money." I mean, what is next? I mean, when I said there was more openness, I mean, I have friends and still do who were of many different religious persuasions, and they are respecting of my own religion, I am respecting them theirs. But when I was in school, it was a common practice to open the day with prayer, Pledge of Allegiance. And I vividly remember Mrs. Brown, my sixth grade teacher, having the Bible on her desk. I mean, you would never see that today. I remember recently attending a luncheon and there was a veteran there, and we were commenting on the patriotism, " When did you learn how to fold a flag?" We were talking about that. And he said, "I never learned how to fold a flag until I was in the military." And my husband would always ask me, "Where did you learn to fold the flag?" And I said, "In school." In elementary school when we got to school, we stood around the flag pole, we raised the flag, and at the end of the school day we went outside and we sang the song, Day is Done, Gone the Sun, and we dropped the flag down and we folded it. I have been in different buildings, there was a gym that we used to belong to, and they raised the flag every morning. And the gentleman had not raised the flag, and I watched him go to get the flag, and it was in one of those postal plastic mail bins just thrown in there. It just got under my skin to think when they took the flag down at the end of the day, they just balled it up and threw it in there. And then one day I was on the exercise equipment at the gym, and I hopped off, I went running over to the guy at the counter, and he said, "What's wrong?" And I said, "My goodness. Find whoever's responsible for the flag and get it corrected immediately." They had it hanging upside down. And he said, "What does that mean?" And everybody saw all this commotion, and saw how upset I was, and they came running over, and I said, "The flag is upside down." "Well, what does that mean?" I am saying to myself, "You are a veteran." I mean, these are mature people who do not know common things like flag etiquette. I mean, if a flag is upside down it means you are in distress. I mean, that is a very serious situation, especially now we are in a war on terrorism. SM (00:19:57): During that timeframe, if you remember, some flag was burned at times. JC (00:20:03): Oh, my goodness, nothing gets under my skin more than that. And I think that, again, is something that we need to stress to the new generation. When you talk about the flag, and that that happened, that was despicable. When you talk about things in that area that would get under my skin, that would be that. I had friends after my brother was killed who would come into our home, and say months after he was dead, "I cannot come into your house, it is like a shrine." I said, "What do you mean it is like a shrine? We have not changed anything." His picture was on the mantle. I said, "Do you think we are going to take his picture off the mantle because he is dead?" There is an expression, and I am not going to quote it correctly, you may know what it is, it is something to the effect, "You are not dead until you are forgotten." To me, that is the worst thing that we can do, is to forget. So the current generation can learn from us, and could learn from the Vietnam era. And they are building the center down in Washington to help educate the youth of tomorrow, which is vital, and very important for the continuation of our history because we can learn. Yes, a lot of people get upset about the Vietnam War, it can be a very controversial war. I have several coats, and jackets, and things that have been presented to me over the years that I treasure, and some of them have patches on them. And one has a patch on it, "If we lost the war in Vietnam, we would be speaking Vietnamese." I have had friends say to me, "My gosh, why do you keep talking about your brother and everything. The war is over, it is dead. We have lost that war, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah." And I am like, "The worst thing you can ever say to me is that his life was a loss." I hear that and I cringe, almost as much as somebody burning the flag. I cannot go to the Vietnam Memorial wall and look at over 58,000 plus names and say, "That is a loss." It is not a waste, it is not a loss, those are men and women who sacrificed the ultimate, that war was not lost on the battlefield. I am not into politics, I do not care to be into politics, I am thankful that I have the freedom to vote for politicians, and I hopefully pray and trust that democracy will continue to lead us in the road to continue to have the freedoms to express. I will leave the politics up to the politicians, but I will defend and perpetuate the memory of my brother and his brothers as long as there is breath in me. And I think that it is our duty to do that for the citizens today. SM (00:23:10): I am in a hundred percent agreement with everything you are saying here, one thing that really upsets me in a similar vein is you cannot even talk about Vietnam today. I work on a university campus. JC (00:23:23): Now I agree with you, I think that bothers me a lot too. SM (00:23:26): And I work on a university campus, and I go down to the Vietnam Memorial, I put the pictures up in the glass case. I put it up only because it is an educational tool. Every time I go to the Vietnam Memorial on Memorial Day or Veterans Day, I put the pictures up two weeks later after they are developed. I put them in the glass case. I show the pictures, and it is as an education tool, I have been doing that for 15 years. And when we brought The Wall That Heals to our campus, and we had speakers back in 2000, 2001, I keep hearing amongst fellow boomers that this is a new generation, they had different issues. "Just remember, Steve, when you were young, were you talking about World War II?" It upsets me, because I think we have to really make sure that history is never forgotten. And what is interesting is, if students do not know it, then it is our responsibility to be educators too. We have to be educators here, we all have to be educators. And so, what you are talking about, about your brother, is your brother can never be forgotten, that he did give the ultimate price. Those 58,000 names... When I go down to Washington now, I always go to the Vietnam Memorial first, it is my generation, but I am also going to where my dad served in World War II, who did not live long enough to see that wall. So, I go there and I go to the Pacific War section, and I take my dad down, and I take my dad's picture, and he is with me. And I go over to the Pacific and my dad is there, and so it is about serving your country, it's about giving the ultimate. And that is why Vietnam vets, you always say welcome home to them. I do not care who they are, where they are, I welcome them home. Even though no one said it to them in 30 years, I am going to say it to them. JC (00:25:46): We were up in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, and we were at a store, friend of ours has a store there. And this gentleman had come in the store, and he had on a Vietnam cap. And we were talking, and then we left about the same time, and I was parked on the side of the street, and he was walking across the street. And as he left to go across the street, I said, "Thank you for serving." He got to the island of the street, he turned around and he came back, and he got right in my face, and he said, "What did you say?" And I got a little skittish. I mean, here I am on the street alone in Upper Darby, with this man in my face. And I said, "Thank you for serving." And he said, "Nobody has ever said that to me." So, I echo your sentiments, that it is our responsibility to show the example that we are to thank our veterans of all wars, of Korea, of World War II, Granada. I mean, there are a number of conflicts that people have forgotten about, Beirut. There's all kinds of conflicts that people tend to forget about. When people talk about the Vietnam War, and a negative concept that they have of that timeframe of life. Forget it, get over it. I have something that I always give back to them, and I share this with Vietnam veterans. And there is one Vietnam veteran who is very dear to our... They are all dear to our hearts. But I remember being at a reunion in Rochester, Minnesota, and I remember vividly being in the Fellowship Room hospitality suite, and this veteran who resembles the country western singer... Oh, what is his name? SM (00:27:43): Current? Willie Nelson? JC (00:27:46): Willie Nelson. Actually, without having this man's permission to use his name, I will not use his name, but he knows who I am talking about. I call him Willie, because he is the spitting image of him, he could be his twin. We went in deep conversation, this group at our table, about PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, which a number of youth today do not even know what that means. And I looked at him and I said to him, "Do you remember the best things that ever happened to you in your life? You have got your college degree, you got married, you have had your children, in whatever order." We all start laughing. I said, "Think about the most positive things that have ever happened to you in your life. Have you forgotten them? Of course not, so how in the world can anybody expect you to forget the most difficult, the most painful, the most challenging times that have happened to you in your life? You cannot forget it, it is what molds you, and shapes you, and makes you who you are. And for people to tell people, forget it, it's passed, it is just not possible, you cannot do that." I was talking to Gold Star Mother, [inaudible]. JC (00:29:02): Yeah. I talked... Was talking to a Gold Star mother, several Gold Star mothers this morning. And one lost her son in Iraq in December of last year. And she told me she does not go out of the house. Now is not that awful? And we are going to work on that. We are going to change that. And these are the kind of things that the generation today. With this current war, you have some men that are being deployed five, six times. Who is cutting the grass? Who is fixing the broken garbage disposal? Who is helping with the leaky roof? We need to be banding together to help these families. And I think this is the thing that we can learn so much from the Vietnam Era, and the Vietnam veterans are doing that. They never want the veterans today to be treated in the manner in which they were. I think another area that is very sensitive but strongly needs to be addressed. Very strongly I believe. And this is our churches. Our very churches who profess love and forgiveness have slammed the door, many of them, on our veterans. I have spoken to a Vietnam veteran who... well, I did not personally speak to him, but I know someone that did. And I value this person's words, so I know it is true. This Vietnam veteran came back from Vietnam, bought a motorcycle in California, drove to Indiana to see his mother. It was Easter Sunday morning. Obviously he was very dirty and grubby. He had just driven across country. And the deacon stopped him as he is going into the church and said, "You cannot go in there looking like that." And he said, "You do not understand. I just came back from Vietnam. It's Easter Sunday. My mother's in there. She does not even know I am home." And the deacon said, "You do not understand. You cannot go in there looking like that." Well, I will give to this generation this. No, I do not agree in today's attire. If that would happen today. The way kids dress today. SM (00:31:04): I know it. JC (00:31:04): He would be welcome church I am part of. I wear blue jeans to church now. But there is... We have to have this ability to embrace one another and accept one another. And I think too back in the era when I grew up. There was a lot of unjust things done to African Americans. I never understood that and I still do not. Because when I grew up. I grew up in Arlington, Virginia. And I went to Washington Lee High School. To the same high school Sandra Bullock went to. The brother and sister. I cannot think of their names. Warren Beatty. Shirley McClain. SM (00:31:53): Oh, wow. JC (00:31:56): Of course I graduated much after their time. Much. SM (00:31:59): Yeah. JC (00:31:59): They graduated way before me. But anyway. I used to walk home from high school and there was a development near us called Halls Hill. Only African-Americans lived there. Only whites lived where we lived. But my girlfriend and I, Kathy Clark, we would walk home together. We would walk through my development first. I would go home and she would walk on her merry way. Kathy to me was not black, African American, whatever. Even today, if I get an application in a store or a survey or whatever. They will have the question on there. What your race is. SM (00:32:41): Yeah. JC (00:32:45): I always cross it out and I go, "Why does this matter?" And I will put, "There is one color and it is red. It is blood red." And that is the way I was raised. I have never understood this black and white issue because it is not the way I was raised. Now our daughter, when she was in college. Consequently, our children were not raised that way. She went to college in the south. She had a job off campus and she called me. Waitressing. And she called me. She said, "Oh mom, you would not believe this." She is 32 years old, so this is not that long ago. She said, "You would not believe it. We are having lunch break. And the blacks are sitting on one side of the room and the whites are on the other. So my friend who I really talk with them all the time is over with the blacks. So I walk over there to sit with them. And they say, 'You want to sit here?'" She said, "Well, why would not I want to sit here?" Now this is still going on today. This is despicable. SM (00:33:53): Yeah. This is a big issue. Again, in higher ed. Because of the fact that... If Dr. King were alive today. Always say if Dr. King were alive. But it was all about integration. And now we have the decision of self-segregation. And to me, it's shocking. And the Boomers who went through this era of the Civil Rights Movement and all the things that happened. And again, a lot of the young people of color and people who were not of color who did not experience this when they were young do not know what it was like. And I do not know what the parents have done to educate their kids. It gets into a question then. When you were young and a lot of people I was around felt that era, the (19)60s, early (19)70s, was a time when as a young people we could change the world. JC (00:34:52): Oh, yeah. SM (00:34:54): We were going to be the most. And there was this feeling. It's almost an arrogance. But at that time, it was just a feeling, I do not even know if we thought about arrogance. But a feeling that we are the most unique generation in American history. And we are going to end racism, we are going to end sexism, we are going to end... We are going to have peace in the world. We are going to do all things. Your thoughts on that kind of an attitude that was held by a lot of people in the Boomer generation. And just your thoughts on... Thank you. They were the unique generation. Looking at it from when you were young and looking at it today. JC (00:35:33): You know I agree. We were a unique generation. And I think it was the values and the principles that we were raised with, and we are willing to stand behind those values and principles. SM (00:35:53): What are the values? When you mention the values and the principles. What are the values and the principles again that you felt that... JC (00:35:58): Respect. There was no way I would go over to a friend's house and... Say the mother's name is Diane Smith. There would be no way I would say, "Hey, Diane. How are you today?" It would be, "Hi, Mrs. Smith. How are you today?" And we had chores we had to do. Again, as I told you my mother was a single parent with four kids. And we had a bulletin board going down the steps. And we each had our list of chores. And you better bet your sweet bippy those chores better be done, or you were not going to have any extracurricular activities. Be it to the football game or going out for hamburgers on Saturday. My mother always took me out for hamburgers and milkshake on Saturday. I do not recommend doing that today. You have got to spend in another way for that today. But they are... I think today's generation and the... I look at the youth in my office. I do not know when they have time to spend with their children. I am fortunate. I have a very brief commute to work. But some of these people have... Are on the road 45 minutes, hour, two hours a day just to get to work. How can you really have quality time with your children when you get home? I do not know how they do it. And then again, I think... I get back to the values of not living on credit. I look at some of these kids in my office today and hear where they live and go, "My goodness. How can you afford to live there? How can you afford those taxes?" And they keep wanting more and more and bigger and bigger. Some girl in my office working on... She and her husband are working on fixing up their house. And I said, "Oh, that is wonderful. You are doing all this work around the house." Oh, yeah. We are selling it. Buy bigger and bigger. They want bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And how are they paying for this? I think they can learn from... Our generation, as I said earlier, had the parents from The Depression. And there was almost an extreme there because they had nothing. SM (00:38:06): Right. JC (00:38:15): And then they want to provide for us and give us. They need to learn the values of saving a buck. Having respect for their elders. How many times I have been at work carrying a... They are not necessarily work, but some of. Because I do have a wonderful office. I do not want to give that perception. But I am sitting there loaded with grocery packages or whatever. And this 25-year-old to 30-year-old kid walks out the door and left the door kicking in the face while you are standing there struggling. And I am like... I come home and I... Next time I talk to my son, he is 34, I give him the big lecture. "Mother, what are you giving the big lecture for? I did not slam the door in your face." My point is you see a lady carrying groceries, you open the door for her. Now it is amazing to me that one time I said thank you to a gentleman for doing that. And he said to me. I could not believe it. It was at the post office. This was just a couple years ago. And he said to me, "Well, I hesitated doing that." And I said, "Well, why did you hesitate doing that?" And he said, "Because one time I did that and the woman [inaudible]." I got to pay this eventually. He just kept... And now they have the soda machines with the... We were out a couple weeks ago with our kids and we walked by a soda machine. And my son said, "Oh, you want to bottle of water?" I said, "Sure." I started to go in my purse to get out of dollar bill or whatever it was. He said, "Oh no, mom. I will get it." And he gets out a credit card. Flashes it in front of the screen and goes. SM (00:39:53): Yeah. JC (00:39:53): And I said, "I do not understand. Why did you do that? Why do not you use money?" He said, "Nobody carries money anymore." SM (00:39:53): Yeah. JC (00:39:53): And I said, "Well, does this mean then that you are managing money well? Because you can keep track of even every dollar you spend for every bottle of water or soda you buy?" SM (00:39:53): And what was his answer? JC (00:39:53): Yeah. He said, "I can." That is okay. He has got two kids. SM (00:40:19): Getting back to this. We talked about the percentage of people involved in activism. I want to ask you about your thoughts on activism as a whole. Activism is defined as... Who defines it? A history professor said this to me yesterday. He says, "Whose definition is this?" And I said, "Well, [inaudible] would say that activism is basically individuals who want to make a difference in this world." People who want to make a difference in the world is to me what the definition of activism is. But there seems to be a... In higher education today, a fear of activism. And looking at activism as a negative activism. Because they kept perceptions of what it was in the past. They think of the (19)60s. They think of disruption. They think of shutting things down. They think of nothing but negative. What is your thought on... When you think of the anti- war movement, how important were the young people of the Boomer generation in ending the war in Vietnam and basically their involvement? What are your thoughts on their involvement in the anti-war movement? Knowing that your brother served and died, yet there were young people that were out there protesting that war. The anti-war movement itself. Your thoughts on those individuals. I have had some conversations with people down at the wall. Some other mothers who have lost their... JC (00:41:38): I even watched recently more protests going on in our area. Off of two and two. And I... It is very emotional to me when I see people protesting war. And I just want to go up to them and really get involved. And I know that I should not act on emotion, so I do not do it. I tend to be a very emotional person anyway. I look at it as... Because of men like my brother. Because of men and women that are on that wall in Vietnam. The Vietnam Memorial Wall. And the men and women that died in Iraq. Because of what they did for our freedom and our democracy. It is all for them and afforded these people the right to protest. I do not agree with them. With the current war, nobody wants war. I do not know what the answer is with this war. I just heard today, 10 more Americans were killed. I find sometimes I cannot watch the news anymore. And I know that is narrow minded. Putting on blinders that way, going to that extreme. It is a reality that we are in. I read something one time, and... I read that the dreams we shared as a family, referring to when my brother was killed. The dreams we shared as a family were changed forever on that fateful day. But as the years progressed and grief lifted its ugly veil, I found continued healing. A belief that he is watching every step that I make and [inaudible]. It has not been easy along this journey, and oftentimes it's very painful. But just as my mother taught us, if you believe in something give it your all and always remember to do good for others. [inaudible]. But what really counts in man's heart is the ability to have freedom to express that heart. Your life, the life of my brother, [inaudible]. You will always be missed and we will never forget you. [inaudible] SM (00:44:11): Here we go. It is back. The batteries were getting low. I could tell. JC (00:44:16): Getting back to what I was saying. Their activism tends to have a negative connotation I think. When people think of activism, they think of... I think most people probably get a negative conception of what the word means. But I tend to agree with you. Activism is giving your all to something that you believe in. And I have an incredible tenacity about me to do that. If I believe in something, I do not care how bad somebody stomps on me or hurts me. And believe me, it has happened. If I still believe in something strongly, I will continue to pursue it with my all. That is the way I was raised. That is the way my brother was raised. That is why my brother did what he did. He heroically... He was an American hero. First of all, he had his honorable discharge. He had already seen combat duty during the Dominican Republic crisis. He served with the 82nd Airborne Division. 11th Special Forces. He had his honorable discharge. He had no reason to even go back into the military. But he too was raised with strong values and principles that one person can make a difference. They believe in something and they know it is right. Give it your all. And that is what he did. He reenlisted because he was a good medic. One of the best. And we have heard this over and over and over. They recently renamed the Fort Sam Houston Library in his memory. It is now the Keith A. Campbell Memorial Library. At the library dedication. After the dedication, we were all at dinner. Keith Sergeant from the 11th Special Forces shared a story about us that we had never heard. And that was when they were out on maneuvers. And Bob had walked into a tree branch. And if it had not been for Keith's medical treatment on site, Bob would have probably lost his eye. Now mind you, he was a teenager. I look at my own children and go, "Can my kids do that?" So, this kid was a phenomenal medic. He was not the kind of kid who liked going to school. Do not give him a clock and say, "What makes it... Do an essay on what makes it tick." He would be taking it apart and putting it back together to figure out what makes it tick. He was a real hands on person. And everything he learned, he learned the hard way and he did a dad gum good job. So, when he went off to Vietnam to save lives, he did do exactly that. And I feel very blessed that I have met two of the men that he died saving. How many people are that fortunate? To me those... SM (00:47:17): Those people. Did he save them in Vietnam? JC (00:47:20): Yes. SM (00:47:20): Wow. JC (00:47:22): Yes. One gentleman. Keith's body laid on him for five hours. There was a firefight. A very bad firefight that came up overnight. They were actually in the planning stages for Operation Junction City. And lo and behold, they had to put everything on a screeching halt for Operation Junction City because here comes Operation Big Springs. You will find very little on Operation Big Springs. Very little. Which is very interesting. But all of the medics were down with this one company. And Keith and his buddy Ken were with another company and heard it over the radio. Keith left the safety of his perimeter to go. And as he started to go, Ken pulled him down and said, "Do not go. Whoever goes is not going to come back." And Keith pushed him down and said, "I am going. You have a wife and a baby." Now remember what he told me before he left Vietnam? One of the things? Men with wives and babies should not have to go. Ken literally told me that Keith save his life by doing that. Keith crawled through a hail of grenades and bullets. Now mind you, this is just three days after getting the Bronze Star for another battle. He was not stopped in 19 days. I do not know when that kid slept. I look at the geographic location of these different battles he was in, because I have been really doing a lot of research since (19)99. I cannot believe the adrenaline that kid must have had or how he ever got done what he did. I just do not know. I have talked to veterans that would tell me... It is funny. I do not even know why I was thinking about that this morning because I guess I was talking. These conversations I had with all these Gold Star mothers that is reflected. Brought a lot of stuff back to me. But I was thinking this morning about how these men did not sleep when they were over there. And one told me. All the monsoons and the rain they had, but they had ponchos. But he never took his poncho out because it would rattle and make noise. Think about a man over there who probably was a snorer. He would probably be afraid to have fallen asleep. SM (00:49:47): Oh, yeah. JC (00:49:47): So these men were in jungle with you name what. And he was just nonstop. But anyway. (00:49:56): Keith picked up a rifle of another man that was killed along the way. Took that with him. Shot a sniper in the tree. I have the original article from The Evening. SM (00:50:13): Okay. JC (00:50:14): There used to be two newspapers in Washington DC. The Washington Post and the Evening Sun. SM (00:50:18): Star. JC (00:50:19): Star. My mother always... Despite the hardships of being a single parent with four kids, she managed to subscribe to both of the newspapers. Because she always told us, "There are always going to be many sides to a story. You need to read them all." And you would. You would see the same story on the news. And you would read The Post and you would read The Star and you could hear three different things of the same thing. But anyway, I have the original newspaper article that said there was a sniper killed in the tree. One Viet Cong killed. Da-da-da-da. And then I knew that was the Viet Cong that Keith had killed. I had mixed emotions about that too because did not that young man have a mother? SM (00:50:59): Right. JC (00:51:00): But anyway. Keith reached Eddie Taurus. Drug him to a nearby... Gave him enough medical aid to stop his bleeding and then drug him to a nearby tree where he literally... Because there were more snipers. The guys used to... Snipers used to tie themselves in the trees. He knew there was not enough coverage for the sniper in the tree. That up in the tree. In the tree where Keith had drug Eddie to for that tree to protect him. So Keith used his body for the other portion of Eddie to protect him. And in doing so, he got shot and he fell on Eddie. And it took them another five hours to pull the two of them out of there. Now I was blessed to meet Eddie back in (19)99. Flew out to California to meet him for the first time. Had a wonderful, warm... You can only imagine. Incredible meeting. But the whole weekend if he were facing me, he just clammed up. He could not look at me. He could not talk. And I did not get it. I could not understand it. It was the house. The owner of the home where we were staying who brought it to my attention. She said, "You do not get it. He sees your brother in your eyes." SM (00:52:19): Oh, wow. JC (00:52:20): So, I approached him and I said, "Eddie, we have come this far to find you after all these years. You do not even look at me." And he said, "Vicky's right, you do not get it. Your brother was on me for five hours. I see Campbell. I see you. I cannot look at you." SM (00:52:38): Oh, wow. JC (00:52:42): And even at the library dedication. As long as I was not looking at him. But I kind of got off the path a little bit, which I tend to do. But to answer your question about what I think about the people who protest and the activism and everything. I think the men and women who died have given them the freedoms to exercise their opinion. And though I may not always agree with them, we should have the opportunity to respectfully disagree. And I am thankful, very thankful, even though I disagree with some of them. Very thankful that they have that opportunity to have the freedom. There was an email exchange going around for a while. And I do not like all this tit for tat email stuff that people send you. And sometimes emails can... You can go to the office and you do emails all day long. I do not want to come home and do them at night. All this nonsensical stuff sometimes that comes around. Do not waste my time with it. If it is more than a paragraph, do not bother sending it to me. But anyway, I got this one email that was interesting to me about what's your favorite color? What is your greatest fear? What is this? And it was interesting to see family members and friends respond to some of these things. One of the questions on there. What is your greatest fear? It was very interesting to see what people said their greatest fear was. My greatest fear is to be sitting at a sidewalk cafe in America, having a cup of cappuccino, and having somebody drive by and throw a bomb. And that is something that has always been a fear of mine. See this is the difference. Even back in (19)67. Even though my mother. My mother was an extraordinary woman in the process of educating us. We understood even back then what communism meant. We understood that there were people on the other side of the world that did not have refrigerators. That if they wanted milk or eggs or perishable items, that they literally were standing in blocks long to get those things. And then they would have to consume them because they did not have a refrigerator to put it in. We knew that there were people who lived on the other side of the world that could not go into a church or a synagogue or whatever of their choice. We were raised with that. In other words, the values we were raised with were so strong. That our freedom and our democracy is such a gift. It was so instilled into us. That is why Keith did what he did. And that is why I continue to perpetuate his memory. Not only because he was an American hero, which he really was. A true hero. I did not even realize what a hero he was until (19)99. It is because I call it grief lifting its ugly veil. I related very much to this mother today who said she did not go out of the house. I went out of the house because I had to. And I was a sibling. I was not a mother. A Gold Star mother. I was merely a sibling. Then I talked to another mother this morning who told me her 42-year-old daughter will not talk about it. Her son that died. And I explained to her. I understand that. That is the way I was until (19)99. And I called it grief lifting its ugly veil. And I went through all my brother's memorabilia at that time. And then that is when I realized what he really had done. Oh my gosh, this man was a hero. And he would never want to tell you. He would be... He would be sitting here right now saying, "Judy, get off it." And the majority of the men that I know that went over there feel the same way. Point being, he did a job that they were sent to do and they did it with their all. And that is the same for the men and women today. And a lot of these kids today go to the workplace who... We had the draft back then. People are not understanding. These people that are over there today enlisted. SM (00:57:21): Right. JC (00:57:22): What a sacrifice. They know what they are getting into. Maybe some of the National Guard did not know they were going to have five or six tours. SM (00:57:31): What you are really talking about here is... Considering the next question I have is about healing. One of the things. One of the most... Two or three of the most important questions I have been asking every individual in this interview process. We know that the Vietnam Memorial when it was built in (19)82. We know the purpose. To heal a generation as Janice Brooks' book talks about. But we knew it was about a healing. The Vietnam vets. Healing their families. Paying tribute... SM (00:58:03): The Vietnam vets healing their families, paying tribute to those who served people who gave the ultimate price, remembrance. And healing... I am asking a two-part question. How much do you feel that wall has done to heal the Vietnam veterans and the Vietnam generation, which includes the 70 million boomers? It includes the individuals who did not serve. It includes those who were for and against the war. We all know about the unbelievable divisions that took place at that time, as some people have said, historians have said, we came very close to a second civil war in with all the things that were happening with the cities up in flames and dealing with issues here at home. And then the war itself had really divided families, generation gap. Just your thoughts on healing, because you are talking about dealing with your brothers, your loss of your brother. So just your thoughts on the whole healing process where- JC (00:59:24): The Vietnam veterans. The Vietnam Memorial Wall, you will have to forgive me for choking up, was the greatest gift that America gave the Vietnam veterans. The Vietnam veterans were treated in despicable manners. Spat on, had to change their uniform when they would come home. I know Vietnam veterans to this day that will not tell you they were a Vietnam veteran for fear of the way that they are going to be treated. That is just incomprehensible to me. Men who, good night, look what they ate, look what they slept. Look what they went through for 12, 13 months, whatever, had their buddies blown up right in front of them. Come home and get told horrible... I have not even had Gold Star mothers tell me that their son deserved to die because he was a baby killer. Now, first of all, were you there to see them kill a baby? I remember one veteran telling me, "I came home and I was on the elevator in the Pittsburgh airport and there was this little old lady who had an umbrella and she turned around and she started waving that umbrella at me. And it was one of those ones with a big point on the end of it and said, you baby killer, you a baby killer." And he said, "You know what, ma'am? I never killed a baby and I never hit an old lady. But if you do not get that umbrella out of my face and quit threatening me, I am going to do it." Where do people get off making these assumptions and treating people in such manners when they themselves were not even there? And this conception of all Vietnam veterans did drugs. They did not do drugs. I know Vietnam veterans today who are successful MDs, successful lawyers, professionals. Yes, it is like anything. You have some people who cannot pull themselves up from the bootstraps and move on with their lives for whatever reason, or try to milk the system and do not want to go to work every day. So, they try to get somebody to pay their way of the rest of their life. That is with anything. Look at car accidents. People do that with car accidents all the time, milk the system with that. But the majority of the Vietnam veterans I know are respected human beings who not only gave to our country then but are continuing to give back to our country today. And the Vietnam Memorial Wall is the only safe haven that they could have to go to where they were not judged, where they could pay their respects to those that they were with. And the thing that is the most painful I think for them though, I cannot walk in their shoes and say, what they feel. I can only imagine because I listen to a lot of them, talk about that survivor guilt. They go to the wall and they often think, look at the reflection and think, "Why is it not me on there? Why am I standing here and you're there?" And it was funny, I have always heard everybody talk about the wall with reflection, reflection, reflection. I am like, I do not get it. I do not see the wall in reflection when I go. And people look at me like, "Huh, how can you not see it?" It is because my go, Keith's name is way up there and I am looking up at a name so I am not looking straight ahead. So, I do not see a reflection. But then I have also heard the wall described as angels’ wings, which I think is beautiful. A beautiful description. So, I think the Vietnam Memorial Wall is the great, again, I reiterate that, the greatest gift our nation has ever given to not only our country for future generations, but specifically to the veterans themselves, were so mistreated. Now for healing for me personally, and again, it can only be spoken on a personal level because I do a lot of work with Gold Star Families because it is really where my heart is. Every time I hear of another family who has joined the Gold Star Family ranks, my heart shatters. It shatters because I know their lives have changed forever. I have been privy to the conversations from some Gold Star Families that I will not repeat the conversations, but I can say was certainty that people have no concept unless they are a Gold Star Family of how traumatic it is, and the worst thing we can do is forget. I remember a friend of mine years ago, her son was six years old and he died of Reye Syndrome, which is taking Aspirin and you have a fever and they do not do that anymore. And it was just up here around the corner at the card store. And I saw her in this card store. It was shortly after her son was killed. SM (01:05:12): Died. JC (01:05:14): Died, I am sorry. Died. And I [inaudible] my way in and out of the aisles to get my cards and get back out of there. And I come home. It's not a half hour later the phone rings. "Judy, it is Carol Lee. I know you saw me in the card store. Why did not you talk to me?" I said, "Carol Lee, I would tell you I did not know what to say to you." And she said, "You know what the worst thing you can do?" And it was a good thing she was a friend because only a friend can get away with this. She said, "The worst thing you can do is what you did. It is like Kevin never existed. Kevin was my only son. If you do not know what to say to me, simply say, I am praying for your broken heart, which I know you are, but do not act like I do not exist." So that is what I tell people. You see Gold Star Families because I think 90 percent of the time people do avoid people for the very reason that I did. You do not know what to say. You have mixed emotions because you think, "Oh, they are having a good day. If I say something, it is going to make them feel bad." But what people do not understand is we never forget anyway. So, if we are having a good day and you think you are going to bring us down by bringing it up, I got news for you. We will never forget. We were blessed to recently be at our daughter's for the birth of our first grandson. Even my husband does not know this. I am holding this beautiful baby to my breath and loving him and praying he may never see more. That he may grow up in a country of freedom and that he will someday learn through going through the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center the sacrifices made for him to have the life that he hopefully have. Okay? And then my next breath was, "Keith, why aren't you here to hold him? Why are not you here?" We never forget holidays and Christmas. There is always in our mind's eye, in our heart and at place at that table always. And there always will be. And this is for all of these families. And I would like to encourage people to realize that it's okay to say something because when I talk about this Gold Star Mother today, the only thing she says she does is she goes out in her garden and plays with her flowers and that is it. She does not go any... She send me the invitation again about the luncheon. I lost it. I do want to come. And then she said this to me, "I do not go anywhere by myself." And I said, "Well how is your husband with all of this?" "My husband does not talk about it." And see, this is why it shatters me when I hear about another Gold Star Family, because I know this. It divides families. They not only lose their loved one, but it shatters relationships in walls of the family unit itself. Because the biggest mistake we all make when we lose somebody we love, no matter what the circumstances is. I have done hospice work in the past and this is what I will tell the hospice people, the families. Grieve together. We do not do that. Grief has so many facets to it. You have guilt. You have, why me? Shock. You have all these different emotions with it and you stay so... I remember vividly when Keith died. I mean, so angry with my mother for years over it. I remember laying on the living room sofa, we used to have a picture over the fireplace. It was of a seascape and had a warm wood frame to it and a picture light on it. And that was like the nightlight because our house was the revolving door. Everybody came from campus and back then, you did not have to lock your doors. We never did lock our doors. It was always the revolving door. You never knew when Keith was coming home. You never knew when anybody was coming in the room. But after Keith died, I remember laying on the sofa screaming at the top of my lungs. Now it was a small house, much smaller than this. You cannot tell me my mother did not hear me screaming. Never came downstairs. No, we never grieved together. My sister never grieved together. My sister still has not gotten over it. I have not gotten it over yet. I remember Nancy Reagan recently saying on an interview about President Reagan's death, of course things must be getting better. And she looked right at the reporter and said, "Actually it gets worse." She is absolutely correct. The only thing time does is help with controlling your physical outside emotions. In other words, helping you to get a grip and not be a blubbering idiot in front of people. That is the only thing time does. Healing will never happen in the respect. Totally. Because a piece of you has been taken out and cut out. I had a double mastectomy almost 15 years ago. And I remember going to a counselor about it and before it happened, because that was part of the protocol I was in. I went through Hopkins and they're really top-notch. And that was part of the protocol, you had to do that. This breast cancer surveillance unit program. I went through and I went to the counselor and she said, "Well, I will be perfectly honest with you, I do not know..." Kudos to her because she was honest. She said, "I do not know what to tell you what you are going to expect." She said, "But I do know that from what you told me about your brother, you have experienced loss in your life. And so, I am here to tell you, you are probably going to experience the same thing as you did in the loss of your brother. Why me? Guilt, was it something I ate? Was it where I lived? Disbelief, shock. So that is what happens." And she was absolutely correct. You were telling me about a family member in your life having a health challenge and to a certain level, they too will experience in that way. It is a normal chain of events for all people. And like I said earlier, you do not forget the best things that have ever happened to you in your life. Do not anybody tell me to forget the worst because I cannot. But it is my obligation and responsibility to go about living my life in a positive way so it does not demean and bring other people down. I think if enough of us can do good things by educating, and this is my goal in life, educate every American that they know what a Gold Star is. A Blue Star, a Silver Star. They do not know. Even people in the military do not know. SM (01:12:59): See, when I met you in Washington, I mentioned to you and the person who was the national director of the Gold Star Mothers. Yeah. I think it would be fantastic to have a program at a university where Gold Star mothers came in and spoke. JC (01:13:14): Absolutely. SM (01:13:14): Because you never see that. And obviously we are in another war now, but the mothers who have lost... And there is also, I think it is Mrs. Zaalberg, you may have seen it on the national news. She lost her son in Iraq last year. She goes to the Arlington every day and sits in front of the stone in Section 60. Now she is the only one that does it. Everybody comes every day. And she was on the national news because here it is, the middle of the winter, it is almost like a blizzard out there. And she is sitting in front of... They let her in even in days when they are closed, because she has to be in with her son. That might be a good person to link up with. I forget what channel, I think it was Zaalberg. I have been to Section 60 twice, just there last week, I think her last name was Zaalberg. But obviously to be there every day, 365 days a year is unbelievable. JC (01:14:15): That is unbelievable. SM (01:14:17): And she is the only one. Everybody else comes there. But I went into the Section 60 there and I saw it is very sad. JC (01:14:25): Oh, gosh. SM (01:14:26): Again, the healing for you, the healing for the vets, but how about the nation? The nation was torn apart with the war and a lot of things. JC (01:14:36): Nobody wants to be torn. SM (01:14:38): Do you think we are still divided from that era? Do you think you still have the divisions from that era based on- JC (01:14:44): I do, but I do not think to the degree that we did then. If you look back then on the news reports and you would see all the protestors, you would see mobs and mobs and mobs of them. I just saw a news clip the other day after Lady Bird Johnson was killed with President Johnson standing in the White House. And you could hear in the background all the protestors and the things they were saying to you, "How does it feel to let another family lose a son?" You could hear that because that is how close the sidewalk. But you do not see that protesting on the news like you did back in the (19)60s. So, to answer your question, yes, but not to the same degree. SM (01:15:34): I have always had the thought that, and like your opinion on this too, that those individuals who were in the anti-war movement, who were, whether they be in college or not in college or whatever, that when they bring their kids now and their grandchildren to the wall... But all kids say, "Dad or mom, what did you do during that time?" And then of course the 85 percent who supposedly never was involved in the anti-war or any activism or served, that whole generation, you are- JC (01:16:15): I would like to know what they say to their kids as they come to the wall. SM (01:16:19): I think that if you have ever sat down in Janice [inaudible], I think this is a story that really has not been discussed. JC (01:16:24): I think you are right. SM (01:16:26): Because I think the wall is become... To me, it is such a symbol to everything. It is about healing. JC (01:16:36): It is. SM (01:16:39): And it is about caring for those who gave their lives. There's no room for politics here. It is a time to reflect. It is a time to think. And it is also a time to reevaluate what you did when you were young. And I think that wall does that to every boomer. JC (01:17:04): Yeah. That is- SM (01:17:05): No matter who they were or where they were at that time. And there is millions of stories, oral histories that need to be told on this. JC (01:17:11): I think you are right. SM (01:17:12): And hopefully I am going to be part of it because I got to devote the rest of my life to a lot of these things when I leave higher education. The wall, I go down there on my own a lot. I was just down there last week and I go to the wall and there's no ceremonies happening. I just sit there on the bench and reflect. JC (01:17:28): See, that is my dream to go in the middle of the night. I have this punch list of things I want to do before I die. One was go skydiving, I did do that. That was the best thing I ever did. SM (01:17:41): Wow. JC (01:17:42): That was awesome. One is to ride into Washington DC in the middle of the night on a Harley. And I do not even own a Harley, I did not even have a motorcycle license and go to the wall at night when nobody was around. Because when you go during the day, there is all these people there and you just do not feel like... I worry too much about what other people think. You see some kid who is like 12, 13 walking down towards you. You do not want to be standing there, blubbering idiot. And my husband will say, "Well, why do you care? If you want to blubber, blubber?" And sometimes you cannot control it. But I want to be there in the middle of the night. Just by myself. SM (01:18:26): I have been there around 12 midnight. But the one thing about they say about the area, it is not safe because there has been some murders at the Lincoln Memorial and that is why they actually closed off the back area there. Because two years ago there were two murders. As you look at Arlington, people had wandered around the back and then they were murdered there. So, I cannot believe... There should be a lot more security there. I think the security should be in that whole area should be increased so people cannot- JC (01:19:02): Oh, I remember when 9/11 happened. Of course, it's like President Kennedy's death. We all know where we were and what we were doing. But I remember when that one plane was not quite accounted for. I remember vividly walking into the lady's room, going into the stall and just praying with all my strengths. Dear God, do not let them destroy [inaudible]. I was so afraid of that. SM (01:19:31): One thing about the wall that I now know is that if anything ever did happen to the wall, they have backups for the wall. They are made already because those are not the originals. So, some of the originals, I think there is at least one or two of them taken out already. They wear out. That is why they do not allow people to walk on top anymore. Nothing will ever happen to that wall. Because they know in time that certain sections will have to be replaced. The names will all be on there, it will just be replaced. It is there forever. JC (01:20:11): Good. SM (01:20:12): Just like the World War II memorials. So, they are there forever. They have backup plans. And that is the first thing I ask because that is why they stopped the people walking because in the early years- JC (01:20:21): Personal etchings. SM (01:20:23): Yeah. Do you want to take a break here or I got a- JC (01:20:29): Oh no, I am fine. If you are fine. SM (01:20:30): I take a... Maybe, well- JC (01:20:33): Why do not you take a break? Because you are the one that is in there. SM (01:20:35): Oh, this has been fascinating because it allows you to be able to share your thoughts. And certainly, before I leave, I do not know if you have a picture of your brother, picture of you with your brother, because that is very important. And certainly, when I go down to the Vietnam memorial- JC (01:20:52): Yeah. He lives this with me. SM (01:20:57): I guess about the healing. This business about healing, just your thoughts, do you think that many members of the generation are having healing problems that were not veterans? JC (01:21:10): Yeah, and I think I am thinking about it more after what you just said. I bet there is a lot of guilt from some of those people that protested. I bet they never envisioned the Vietnam Memorial Wall being the most visited memorial in Washington DC. And I would be very interested in going back and talking to some of them myself to see how they are raising their kids. Oh, yeah. I think there's guilt with... We all have guilt for whatever reason. SM (01:21:41): I have always thought, and I have had this from some of the people, do you like them or not that when you think of the people who served, and when you think of the people who protested, who were sincere in their protests, and then you think of the 85 percent of the 70 million that did nothing. How are those 85 thinking? Because those people that protested the war may not change one bit. You do not treat a veteran poorly, but they will be very solid in their beliefs against the war. But the question I have is, I am a little child with a father or mother. Mom and dad. What did you do? Did you serve or did you protest? JC (01:22:32): I remember my mother worked at the Pentagon when Keith was killed. And she would periodically, not all the time, but sometimes on her way to work, stop at Keith's grave before coming to work. And she went to Keith's grave, now I remember I grew up in Arlington. So that whole section where Keith was buried was nothing but a grassy field when I was a kid. I watched them turn that grassy field into... When Keith was buried, those green berets were in mud up to their knees. Precision. Because it was not grassed over and they were all the temporary markers. SM (01:23:13): Right. JC (01:23:14): But my mother came to work and she saw this tarp laying over Keith's grave, and she thought, "Well, they are digging more graves and everything." She said, "Maybe one of the workers left this tarp." She walked over and she kind of pushed it and there was somebody in it under, it was a kid. He was sleeping. SM (01:23:35): Oh my gosh. JC (01:23:36): My mother said, "What are you doing?" And he said, "I am here as a war protestor and I needed a place to sleep." And she said, "Do you know where you're sleeping? You are in a national cemetery. You are on my son's body." SM (01:23:52): Oh my gosh, that is terrible. JC (01:23:54): Then he told my mother that he was given $25. He was up from New England someplace. He was paid $25 to get on a bus and come to Washington to protest. These kids were paid money to come into Washington. SM (01:24:13): They did not really care? JC (01:24:14): Did not even know what they were doing. SM (01:24:16): Unbelievable. Can I use your restroom? JC (01:24:19): Oh, absolutely. SM (01:24:25): Here we go. Next question is dealing with the generation gap. There was a tremendous generation gap for the boomers because there was a lot of parents were split from kids during that era. And there does not seem to be today... I work with college students though there seems to be a real closeness between parent and child today because there's so involved in their son or daughter's education. Could you comment your thoughts on the generation gap that happened in the (19)60s and (19)70s? Did you see it? Did you sense it? And you have already said that your family was pretty close in the values and maybe your family- JC (01:25:17): Well, my parents were divorced too, and so I did not know my dad, so in that sense. And I would say the majority of my friends, gosh, I think [inaudible] of my friend's parents, if I remember correctly, were married. Phil, my boyfriend, he was killed in Vietnam. His parents were divorced, but they were cordial to one another. His dad lived in Taiwan most of that time. His mother lived in Arlington. But I do not really see that. SM (01:25:50): Because the generation gap, there is a Life magazine cover, which showed a young boy. I have it in my office at work and the whole magazine is all about the generation gap. JC (01:25:57): Well, I have remember people talking about that. Yeah. SM (01:26:04): Do you sense that today's families are closer than maybe they were in the- JC (01:26:15): I think they are striving for that now. I think they got along the way to go. But I look at people that I know who have kids in college, and you're right. When they are in college, all the paperwork you got to fill out and all that. I do not know. I do not- SM (01:26:38): What do you think will be the, as time goes on, what will be the legacy of the boomer generation? JC (01:26:48): Everybody is going to think of Vietnam. I really do. Vietnam will be a big issue, but hopefully it will be a learning experience. SM (01:27:02): The issue of trust is something that. SM (01:27:03): The issue of trust is something that... I will use my myself as an example. When I think of, when growing up of... When I was very young, I had a minister. My grandfather was a minister, and we would go to church every Sunday as a little boy, and I looked up to my minister. I looked up to my teacher. I looked up to people in authority. I looked up to even President Eisenhower, even though I was a little boy, and John Kennedy. Heck, I met John Kennedy when I was a little boy at Hyde Park one Sunday. Something happened in that era of... With the Gulf of Tonkin, if you read about that, was that contrived, the body counts? Then we ended up in Watergate. Then you had presidents like Nixon with the Enemies List, and there is a lack of trust, and I think it affected a lot of people in the boomer generation. Could you comment on whether trust, how did that whole issue, how important trust is with you as a member of the boomer generation, and your peers, your thoughts on the whole issue of trust and trust in leaders? JC (01:28:20): I think trust is something that has to be earned, and I think people have lost a lot of trust along the way for some of the very issues that you have mentioned. I mean, you would think that your leader that you trusted to run the country or whatever would do it in an honorable way. I mean, you just look at Enron and all of that. I mean, you have major individuals who are overseeing corporations, who have stripped people of their future. Their retirement's gone, and I think people have lost a lot of trust in a lot of people, and I think trust is something that is really in a bad way right now. SM (01:29:16): Do you blame the boomer parents for maybe their kids not trusting, or do kids trust today? What effect does this lack of trust have on the kids? JC (01:29:30): I think the effect it has on people, people pretty much do their own thing anymore. They feel like that they do not... That is why I do not think they look up to leadership with respect anymore because they just feel like... Oh, I mean, I look at a recent incident that was in the news, when the iPhone came out here. Here, you have a mayor, who's mayor of a city that people are dying constantly on the streets, and he is sitting in a lawn chair behind an iPod. When you trust that that leader would be working to make sure people are... I mean, send an assistant to sit in the lawn chair. I think it's not only trust, it is just there is kind of that sense of accountability is gone, and respect, but no wonder. I mean, look at some of the things that you see. SM (01:30:25): As a young person, and when your brother passed away, did you put any blame on President Johnson and President Nixon, depending on the year? JC (01:30:37): Actually, maybe I was one of those rare birds from the (19)60s. I actually did not get into that accounting of blame. I really did not. I do not think any human being would have a pulse if they did not feel the pain and the loss for each and every casualty that comes across their desk. I look at President Johnson. I look at President Bush. I know we have a letter from President Johnson. Maybe it was just a form letter, who knows? I would have to go back and look at it again, but probably was. But I am sure when he had that stack of letters on his desk, and if President Bush still does that today, if that is still done, they still have to be thinking when they are stroking that pen, and it has to affect them in some way. It truly does. I never did blame Nixon and Johnson. I read books, and McNamara and all of them, and again, there were issues that happened that I am not pleased with, but I really... No, I do not. If it had not been Vietnam, it would have been perhaps another conflict. Nobody wants war, but it's inevitable. I went through a phase in my life where I was almost that generation of peace, peace, peace, but then I realized that that was an immaturity. It is naive to think we're never going to have war. I mean, just look how history repeats itself. Of course, I do not want war. Nobody does, but unfortunately it happens. The thing that scares me is the fact with the technology we have, the weapons get more powerful. SM (01:32:50): I have come to the section now where I am just going to read some names from that little section toward the end where you... Just quick responses, they do not have to be any in-depth, just your initial, quick response on your thoughts on these individuals. JC (01:33:03): There is one that I am already getting a little blood pressure up. SM (01:33:06): Okay-okay. Yeah, Tom Hayden. JC (01:33:12): No comment. SM (01:33:14): Jane Fonda. JC (01:33:16): I do have strong feelings about Jane Fonda, only in the regard that I have seen how Vietnam veterans have responded to her. I was not there. I did not see her palm pass what has been rumored that she passed. I have heard her say in recent years that she was a born-again Christian, but her definition of born-again Christian must be a little bit different than mine because I recently saw her on David Letterman, and that was not my depiction of what a born-again Christian is. I do truly feel if Jane Fonda really is sorry for the wounds that have been created between her and Vietnam veterans, if she truly is repenting of that, that she should spend some time going to different veterans' organizations and trying to have healing before any more veterans pass, and even before she passes because I think there is a strong bitterness there that it would be nice to see healed. I do not know if it will ever happen though. SM (01:34:38): Robert McNamara. JC (01:34:45): Had a lot of power. SM (01:34:51): Does it upset you that he knew in (19)67, as he states in his book, In Retrospect, that we should have left Vietnam, that it was a losing war, yet he did nothing to do it, and then he left. That is getting into politics again. JC (01:35:11): I know, but you know what? In the very end of things... You were talking earlier about somebody going to their grave not liking somebody. In the very end, all of these people who have an accountability, I believe that, [inaudible] threefold. SM (01:35:29): How about Lyndon Johnson? Again, just quick comments on him. Bobby Kennedy? JC (01:35:43): I thought he was very energetic and had potential there. SM (01:35:49): Eugene McCarthy. JC (01:35:54): Again, powerful. SM (01:35:58): How about John Kennedy? JC (01:36:02): I thought he was very powerful. When you hear about the Camelot era and all of that, I think a lot of that was just... There was a lot of grace during that era, a lot of grace and respect because I too remember growing up, and it is Mr. President, Mr. President. You hear the youth today talk about Bill, Billy Boy, and that what's-its-name guy in Texas, who cannot even speak a complete sentence. I mean, there is no respect. Even if you do not like the person, even if you do not like any of these names of these people that you are talking about, to me, there should be a respect for the office. SM (01:36:51): Is this working? Yes, it is. All right. JC (01:36:55): When you are naming all of these names and everything, as I said, and I am not sure if it was on the tape or not, I really think the offices are offices that need to be respected, and even if I do not agree with some of the things that they do, I still need to... As an American, I think it is my obligation. I need to respect the office, and if I have a negative feeling or negative comment about somebody, I am not doing the office any service by expressing that negative attitude. And I think it tends to tear down when we do that because, as I said earlier, I remember it was the president, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and now it is all these anecdotes, these flippant names about Billy and the Texan, and that is disrespectful, to me, and I do not want to be a part of that. SM (01:38:02): Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. JC (01:38:05): I think Dr. Martin Luther King really did bring to the forefront that there was a definite civil, I mean, a civil rights issue between Blacks and whites. I do believe strongly, though, also that sometimes it has taken to the extreme, and people take advantage of it. I think it is very, very wrong that people talk about people in a Black-white issue, anyway. I think people should be spoken of as an individual, period. Why does it matter if somebody is white or Black? If you are going to do that, we are going to have Black history month, why do not we have Caucasian history month? I mean, where do you draw the line? SM (01:38:58): How about Malcolm X? JC (01:39:10): There is a concern about, me with certain individuals, that their power to project negative thinking really does impact people. That is why it is that much more our responsibility and duty to project the positive. SM (01:39:33): Gets into the next group, which is the Black Power people like Huey Newton and Bobby Seale and Angela Davis. JC (01:39:40): And part of it... Yeah. You talk about some of those people, they get radical, and they get extreme, and there is this... To me, if anybody has to scream all the time to get a point across, there is something wrong with that. I just do not like it when there is all that screaming. Do not know how to word that. SM (01:40:03): Were you fearful of the Black Power movement, or did that affect you in any way? JC (01:40:10): Well, I remember a visit, being at National Airport. It was a wedding, and it was right in the heart of all the clashes that were going on. We were in Roslyn. First, we went to National Airport, and we were expecting people into the plane, and then I had a friend of mine put his briefcase down, and he told me, "Put that briefcase by you, and do not let it out of your sight for a moment." So, I actually straddled it between my legs because he was so adamant about, "Do not let go of this." It was heavy, so I did not want to hold it. Then when he came back and we went to Roslyn to drop the people off at the hotel, I said, "What was in that suitcase?" He said, "Guns." Of course, you could not do that today. We were right in the midst of all the shootings and everything that was going on when Martin Luther King was killed, and I remember all of that. I would just like to express to these people, where does all this hatred... I think sometimes people take... I started to tell you earlier that I think sometimes the Black-white issue is taken to the extreme. Like anything, people try to milk it, take advantage. I mean, where are all these white people who are never mentioned that never grew up with this Black-white issue? I mean, people make it sound like everybody made the Blacks sit on the back of the bus. Well, they only did back then. Well, we do not do it anymore. That was wrong, and so Martin Luther King made a difference there. He really did. SM (01:41:50): How about Dr. Benjamin Spock? JC (01:41:53): I laugh when I hear about Dr. Benjamin Spock because I think my kids were raised okay. He was raised on their book, but you do not hear about him anymore, do you? I did not get involved into his politics. I just only read about him with raising babies. SM (01:42:07): He died in (19)98. He died the same week my mom died, and I remember being with my mom and showing her a magazine where he had passed away. And it was interesting because the week my mom died, he died before my mom died, and Frank Sinatra died two or three days later, all in 1998. So, it is hard to believe it has been that long. JC (01:42:32): It sure is. SM (01:42:34): How about the Berrigan Brothers? Did you know anything about Daniel and Philip Berrigan? JC (01:42:37): No, I did not. SM (01:42:38): The Catholic priests who were... We have had them on our campus, and one just passed away. How about Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, the yippies? JC (01:42:48): Yeah, they were yippies, all right. Again, they probably got their little groupies together for all their bus trips and everything, but do you ever hear about them anymore? Here today, gone tomorrow. SM (01:42:59): Yeah, though they both passed away. Ironic that Jerry Rubin died illegally crossing the street. JC (01:43:09): Really? SM (01:43:09): Yeah. That was in Los Angeles. He had actually become very conservative and part of the establishment, so to speak. Yeah. JC (01:43:15): Well, I think a part of that, that whole thing was just a matter of maturity, this rebellious way. I mean, all kids go through that, even today. SM (01:43:30): Well, they were way out. I saw Jerry Rubin when I was in college, and he came to speak. The place was packed. He was a great speaker. Daniel- JC (01:43:39): Oh, that is scary. SM (01:43:41): Yeah. Obviously, great speakers can really inspire. How about Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers? JC (01:43:48): Oh, yeah. Yeah. SM (01:43:51): Or Ralph Nader? JC (01:43:54): Well, Ralph Nader actually helped me unload a car, so I cannot say too many bad things about him. SM (01:44:00): Oh, he did? JC (01:44:01): We had a car that got off the assembly line without any inspection. It was an Omni, and I remember turning the corner, and in fact, my son was in an infant seat, and the car door flew open. And I remember driving the car when my father-in-law was here and thinking, "Oh, it just handles all the bumps so well," only to find out it did not have the right shocks and everything. And his office literally helped me unload that car without having to pay extra. SM (01:44:32): Excellent. Yeah, he wrote a book on that around the (19)70s. How about Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon? JC (01:44:44): Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon. Well, I see Richard like this. I remember my brother saying he wanted to be 21, so he could vote. So, when I think of Richard Nixon, I think of the fact that my brother never got to be old enough to vote. SM (01:45:00): Oh. Well, what year did your brother die? JC (01:45:03): (19)67. SM (01:45:03): Yeah, (19)68 was the first election that he could have. Yeah. JC (01:45:14): Damn that liar. SM (01:45:16): How about Muhammad Ali? Because he is very well known in terms of as an athlete, but he was against the war. JC (01:45:23): Yeah. Again, I am glad that he had the right to express his feelings, with democracy, about his feeling against the war. I am glad people afforded him that opportunity. SM (01:45:37): Yeah. Right here I am going... Spiro Agnew, I have to mention that name. JC (01:45:40): Oh, yeah. I remember Spiro Agnew. SM (01:45:41): Yeah. I do not know what you think about good old Spiro. JC (01:45:43): Spiro. SM (01:45:49): And the Watergate Committee, any thoughts on Watergate and that whole... JC (01:45:55): Again, it helped people to lose trust, which is a sad commentary. SM (01:46:05): Now, these are just some terms from the period, and just quick responses. Woodstock. JC (01:46:13): Hippies. SM (01:46:13): Communes. JC (01:46:13): Love. SM (01:46:21): Black Power. JC (01:46:23): Fist up in the air. SM (01:46:26): SDS. JC (01:46:28): Yes, was that a drug? SM (01:46:29): No, Students for a Democratic Society. JC (01:46:33): Oh-oh, yes. Yes-yes. SM (01:46:35): Started by Tom Hayden. JC (01:46:37): Oh, that is right. That is right. Brainwashed. SM (01:46:42): The Weathermen. They were the ones that blew up buildings and stuff. JC (01:46:50): Oh, that. Oh, yeah. SM (01:46:52): They were a take-off of the SDS group, and that is how it died. How about the word the counterculture? How about, let us see, Chicago 8? JC (01:47:09): Where is all this today? Hopefully, you do not hear about it. SM (01:47:13): Remember the Chicago 8 trial, the (19)68 convention? Kent State. JC (01:47:18): Yeah, yeah. I had a girlfriend whose sister was there, who knew that [inaudible] one. SM (01:47:24): Kent State and Jackson State. Any thoughts on Kent State? JC (01:47:30): I just remember my girlfriend's sister being there. It was not her. SM (01:47:37): How about the Beatles? JC (01:47:39): Never did like them. SM (01:47:40): Never did, huh? What about the music of the (19)60s, Jimi Hendricks, Janis Joplin? JC (01:47:46): I never liked- SM (01:47:46): Motown, the music. JC (01:47:49): I used to always play back my brother's favorites. I liked Buddy Holly and Ricky Nelson. I always thought the Beatles were too twangy, (singing). I truly never understood the big hype for the Beatles. SM (01:48:07): How about the Rolling Stones and all those groups? JC (01:48:13): Very energetic. SM (01:48:17): Let us see, the Missile Crisis of (19)62. Where were you when the Missile Crisis happened? JC (01:48:31): Oh my gosh, I was a kid. I remember the Bay of Pigs. We were sitting around the dining room table talking about that to the wee hours. SM (01:48:38): How about the astronauts, (19)69, walking on the moon? JC (01:48:45): Oh, I remember that. That was my first... I thought that was phenomenal. SM (01:48:47): Still remember the astronauts? JC (01:48:49): Glenn? SM (01:48:51): Well, the three that were on that mission. JC (01:48:54): I do not remember all three names. No. SM (01:48:58): That is why we do these trivia questions. JC (01:49:00): Oh, my husband... You're missing it, Richard. This is your best part. He would have answers to all of this. SM (01:49:07): I guess that is about it. I do not have any other questions to ask. I guess the one thing I want to ask you is, you have mentioned the loss of your brother as obviously the event that has touched you the most. But is there another event not linked to your brother or to your family that you remember more than any other that had an effect on you, a specific event during your youth? JC (01:49:47): Our housekeeper passing away, she was very dear to us. She was like my grandmother. Actually, I was not really a youth. I was married then. Wait a minute. Let me see if I can... Now when you are saying an event, what kind of an event? SM (01:50:04): Like the assassination of John F Kennedy or something that really... JC (01:50:09): That really rocked my world back then. I would say that, Kennedy. That was one of those moments in time that you can remember exactly where you were, who was with you, what you were doing. Oh yeah, I can remember that. SM (01:50:26): Can you tell me what... JC (01:50:27): I was in history class when they came over the loudspeaker. It was the end of the day, and I remember walking home with the same group of friends that I would walk home with, and we were all talking about it. SM (01:50:38): Were you around your family like most people were that weekend? Because he died on a Friday. JC (01:50:44): He did die on a Friday, yes. I walked home, and the whole family was home. SM (01:50:54): It was an unbelievable time. JC (01:50:55): It was. It really was. And it was a disbelief, I mean, to come home and turn on the TV and see it over and over and over, replaying that, and Oswald coming through. SM (01:51:02): Were you one of those individuals that happened to be seeing Oswald live when he was actually shot? JC (01:51:09): No. SM (01:51:09): I was. I saw him live, right when the shooting happened. I still remember, Jack Perkins was the announcer for NBC at the time. Yeah. Are there any final thoughts that you would like to mention, that maybe that you thought I was going to ask that I did not ask regarding... JC (01:51:33): Well, fortunately, I had copied your questions beforehand, and that was good. I mean, I do regret that I did not go back and look at some of these names, really. I mean, I really did not pay attention to that. I saw them on here, but I did not even look at it, really. SM (01:51:47): Yeah. Some people have, during the interview, that- JC (01:51:52): Oh, Gloria Steinem. SM (01:51:54): Oh, yeah, the women's movement. Some of them have responded in... The gentleman yesterday that I interviewed, he was fantastic. He could not, he said, "Steve, when you mention a name, I cannot just give a quick two-second response." Nixon... JC (01:52:12): Barry Goldwater. SM (01:52:13): Yeah. Well, yeah. He talked about Barry Goldwater, but he said Nixon was... Nixon has gotten an unbelievable response from just about everybody because of the fact that when you look at the Vietnam Memorial, and you see the fact that when he came in at (19)68, he had a plan to change the war and bring the troops home. Over 29,000 people died after he became president. So that is quite a... And then there is all kinds of things being written about the peace talks, of Paris, and what was really going on there, and that if he really did have a plan that- JC (01:52:57): Why did not he enact it? SM (01:52:58): ... it would not have been in time for your brother, but it would have been in time for 29,000 others. JC (01:53:02): That is a lot of people. SM (01:53:06): Yeah, because the people were dying through [inaudible]- JC (01:53:07): What is your feeling on now, on Iraq? SM (01:53:10): My feeling on Iraq? I think it's another Vietnam, and that is the gentleman I spoke to yesterday, but you cannot even bring up... Early on, I felt it was the same. And because we are part of the boomer generation that remembers Vietnam, to even bring the name Vietnam or quagmire up in a discussion is... You just could not do it. JC (01:53:37): But have we learned anything from Vietnam? I mean, if this is another Vietnam, did we learn anything from that? SM (01:53:45): See, I am going to end right here, and I am going to turn it off. Thank you very much. JC (01:53:51): Thank you. (End of Interview) Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Judith Campbell Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Campbell, Judith ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Sisters; Campbell, Judith--Interviews Description An account of the resource Judith Campbell is a sister of a Vietnam Veteran who died in the war. She is linked to the group of families of the Vietnam veterans whose names are inscribed on the wall. Campbell is an active participant in The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) ceremonies and programs, as well as a strong supporter of the Education Center at The Wall. Judy C. Campbell lives in Wilmington, Delaware, and works on behalf of Gold Star Families everywhere. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-07-15/17 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.61a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.61b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 113:55 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/5781dc81c746e671dd6a48210cd1b6a9.jpg 29d4ab8a488ac75e89c11c8355beed34 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/2b7be8e337d2094696aa1f32692240b6.mp3 da7f47f783aa92f14aae48ec6b888eaa Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview ND Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Julian Bond, 1940-2015 Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Julian Horace Bond (1940 - 2015) was a social activist and leader in the civil rights movement, politician, poet, educator and author. He attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Bond is best known for his fight to take his duly elected seat in the Georgia House of Representatives. He later served as the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the NAACP. Bond died in 2015 at his home in Fort Walton Beach, Florida after a brief illness.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15105,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">Julian Horace Bond (1940 - 2015) was a social activist and leader in the civil rights movement, politician, poet, educator, and author. He attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Bond is best known for his fight to take his duly elected seat in the Georgia House of Representatives. He later served as the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the NAACP. Bond died in 2015 at his home in Fort Walton Beach, Florida after a brief illness.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Baby boom generation; Women's Rights Movement; Activism; Public education; Vietnam War; Race; University Campuses; Martin Luther King Jr.; Malcolm X, Robert Kennedy; John Kennedy; Hubert Humphrey; George McGovern; Muhammad Ali; Richard Nixon; Spiro Agnew; Gerald Ford; Angela Davis; Affirmative Action; Individualism; Tolerance; Cooperative Action; Healing; Vietnam Memorial&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:2,&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14281427}}">Baby boom generation; Women's Rights Movement; Activism; Public education; Vietnam War; Race; University Campuses; Martin Luther King Jr.; Malcolm X; Robert Kennedy; John Kennedy; Hubert Humphrey; George McGovern; Muhammad Ali; Richard Nixon; Spiro Agnew; Gerald Ford; Angela Davis; Affirmative Action; Individualism; Tolerance; Cooperative Action; Healing; Vietnam Memorial</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 99:33 Subject LCSH African American politicians--United States; Political activists--United States; Civil rights movements—United States--20th century; Bond, Julian, 1940-2015--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Julian Horace Bond Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Bond, Julian, 1940-2015 ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource African American politicians--United States; Political activists--United States; Civil rights movements—United States--20th century; Bond, Julian, 1940-2015--Interviews Description An account of the resource Julian Horace Bond (1940 - 2015) was a social activist and leader in the Civil Rights Movement, politician, poet, educator and author. He attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Bond is best known for his fight to take his duly elected seat in the Georgia House of Representatives. He later served as the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the NAACP. Bond died in 2015 at his home in Fort Walton Beach, Florida after a brief illness. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource ND Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.24a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.24b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 99:33