Reliving the madness of 1968

Probably not too many on DU lived through the turbulence of 1968. That historic summer I had just received my naval flight officer wings and was in a Navy survival school near San Diego. We were learning what to do if we, like John McCain, wound up in enemy hands. I was in a night class when one of the instructors broke in and unemotionally gave us the bad news about that had happened to RFK up the freeway in L.A. The few adult tears I had let myself shed had been for John Kennedy and that night I was in a setting where tears were not permitted. The surrealism of that experience will never leave me.

John McCain had already been captured for many months and his story was central to our preparation for Vietnam service. I was still bitter that many of my university classmates had not supported the war I was about to join. It was a time I would have gladly spit on someone like Hillary Clinton who mocked my service and never had to worry about being drafted. It took the revelations of actually being there to convince me that I had been duped about our cause in Vietnam.

Today that June nightmare is revisited by a blindly ambitious presidential candidate who, for some unexplainable reason, bared the darkness of her soul. Does she long for those halcyon times of burning cities, the nightly parade of fallen heroes and the insane minority changing history with a bullet? Why, when we are once again unashamed to talk about hope, does she raise the specter of how our hopes were dashed four decades ago?

This woman is mad with power she doesn’t even have. John McCain is not the hero we were instructed to believe in. I am hanging my hopes on the son of a Kenyan immigrant who was born when I was a senior in high school preaching to my peers about John Kennedy’s new frontier. It doesn’t get any stranger than this.

So I'm shaking my head today and just so disgusted.

Thanks for posting your thoughts.

I was 3 years old in 1968..without yours and others shared experience many of us would not know the grief of the country at that time.

When I heard what Hillary had said I was stunned.....but as Keith Olberman pointed out tonight....she has eluded to RFK and 1968 several times....2-3 times in March this year.....

Winning at all costs can cause a person to do and say unspeakable things as in this case...this may be the final straw that deservedly so ends her campaign.

I am 28.

THANK YOU.

and in Chicago in 1968. I wasn't old enough to vote but old enough to know that Vietnam was not something worth losing lives over.

I never demeaned the troops. My high school boyfriend and many other friends were getting drafted and being sent over to fight. Most came back, some in not so good a shape. A few didn't make it back at all. My high school boyfriend made it back though the trauma left him emotionally shattered for decades. He's 60 now. We keep in touch. I doubt he thinks much of this current fiasco.

I remember the assassination of JFK. His killer resides not far from me in San Quentin.

40 years. Am I really that old to be remembering this? Seems so unreal but oddly similar.

History much not be allowed to repeat itself. We must not allow John McCain, who seems to be channeling Nixon with his peace with honor bullshit rhetoric. Not again.

I salute you, my brother.

and some members of my family remember it like it was yesterday. It truly is sad that she had to bring this up, so close to the anniversary and in such a context that its frightening.

They told us Senator RFK was killed in LA. I didn't have access to any TV or radio then, and I didn't read anything significant about it until almost a month later, when I got hold of a Time magazine.

Same thing with the Dem Convention the next month or two.

I didn't see any of those events or any TV when they were happening. Only much later would I see them on TV.

thank you for sharing....very well written...

My neighbor was the chairman of the local party and I was dragged in to help. I was going into my senior year of high school and was kind of into politics that year, so I was watching the California returns when the announcer broke in with the news.

I just felt ice in my veins when I heard it. I had been in the seventh grade when President Kennedy was shot. I immediately ran in to tell my parents who had gone to bed. They were in shock and got up to watch the news. I remember both of them sadly shaking their heads and trudging back to bed. I'm a little younger than Hillary, but I don't know what would cause her to bring that up when we have a black candidate who had to have early protection because of threats.

I just don't know what she is thinking.

But now I can recognize a sociopath when I hear one...she is done, and the sooner the better, and the least harm at this point. No one should enter the race who is unprepared to lead, and she has demonstrated once again that she has no clue what it means to lead.

I do remember somewhat, in the roots and foundations of memory and thought, the "spirit of the times", if that is a name for it...

:hug:

One would think kids should have idyllic, blissful childhoods. Not for me, I saw rioting, the after-effects of FOUR assassinations, with parents afraid to even explain what the hell happened. I take what Hillary said personally. I don't want to live 1968 again!

My parents were in grade school in 1968, and while I've heard about it from my grandparents, your story is unique, and well worth listening to.

a lot of the quality posters come out at night, eh?

it was very painful time. All I needed was Hill's insensitive remarks to bring it all back. :-(

In June, just a few days after RFK was killed.

I didn't experience that year, but my life sure has been shaped by it.