Unc mentions "knowing in '67 what he knew in '70" and Little John also mentions the marine Vietnam vet...........In starting this thread, Rick suggested the importance of the "last person" someone talked with. All this to bring this thread back around a bit to that point.

The returning vets who became active in the resistance were a special lot. Again, not all of their stories were the same, and I believe the motivation for coming out against the war differed from person to person. For some, I know, it was a kind of self therapy to get past what they had experienced. Others perhaps had a more political bent, but the bottom line is that they were generally held in high esteem for obvious reasons. When a guy with several medals says, "This war is horseshit, don't go," you do tend to listen.

I can't say that any one person influenced me more, but over a period of time it became obvious that what I once believed was flawed and that someone was lying. McGrath brings up the Vietnamese people and I reached the point where I began to wonder how much a great threat they were. We were told they were, but again, the gray shades began to take over. Its hard not to remember Muhammed Ali's line, "I ain't got nothin' against them Congs."

What I am trying to say is that more than one person, it was a case of where I was and when. In another place or maybe with a few months difference, I might have decided to go, or to apply for CO, or to go to Canada, or whatever. Like other things in our lives, a special set of circumstances falls into an order and we act upon it. Looking back now, I recall that one of the drawbacks to going to college where I did was the lack of an ROTC program. A few years later, I'm in jail for refusing to serve. We may be who we are, but that "who" is affected by fates we don't control in some cases. One thing is sure.......We were all there and most did what they believed in, but we were kids. Some of us never got any older, but most got wiser and 30 plus years later we all have a strange bond that exists because of having to make those choices and not in spite of the choices we made.

Spaw