"Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh... the Viet Cong are going to win!"

Now there is a stupid phrase from a 1969 march I participated in. There were also many shouts of "Fuck Nixon" and I can guarantee you there was at least one non-FBI plant participating in the chanting and the shouts. I mean me. And it was wrong and stupid, but I won't deny it. It was a betrayal of people like Steve and Mick, and I won't deny that either.

I will not justify my actions at the time by claiming some high and noble belief. I enjoyed my free unfettered life, sleeping with my girlfriend, playing frisbee in the park, all-night rap sessions about the war and the meaning of life,etc. Sure, I celebrated the sanctity of life...don't most 19 year olds? There was a song popular at the time that said "I got this need, the need to stay alive/ Not ashamed of my creed...I want to survive/ Leave all your loving, your long blonde hair/Don't let them take me cause I'm easily scared". It was only partly tongue in cheek when we all sang along.

Should I have been excused from the War because I disagreed with the government's policy? Or because of my concept of the "sanctity of life"? I don't think so. I eventually got out because I showed high blood pressure on my draft physical.

My point is this : in the full shadow of conflict, when to serve may very well mean to die, it is easy to come up with high ideals to justify the fact that you just plain don't want to risk it. For the thousands who were like me in the day, it's just plain bullshit. For those who were like Spaw and had a true and abiding belief in the rightness of their action, the refusal to participate is justified.