humanator wrote:
I am not political. Ordinarily. But this last presidential election made me think abstaining might be a mistake. Let me explain.
After I came home from Viet Nam in '68, hailed a hero by family and friends that I did not deserve, having been forever safe in my job as crypto-clerk in Saigon from any harm, like a Club Med vacation, I got very depressed. I was being given credit for men who had risked their lives and been wounded or died. The free drinks I was given in every bar in my neighborhood, had me leave my neighborhood to drink until closing. I did not know how to explain or did not want to explain that I was no hero. Three months after I returned I was going to a job interview when I bumped into an anti-war protest in Lower Manhattan. It was an event so I followed along, stopping for a hotdog and a bottle of coke. Two blocks later I was looking for a trashcan to dispose of the coke bottle when a NYPD officer ordered me to put down the bottle, hand on his weapon. I was not afraid of being shot but rather being charged with littering. I protested his demand. He shouted more shrilly and took a shooter's stance, gun still holstered but close to coming out. Just then this angel emerged and took the bottle from my hand and put it on the sidewalk, grabbed me by the arm and led me away. My wife of forty-seven years, a Quaker.
I think the Quaker Center was on 23rd Street but can't remember. Anyway, after talking with her I took the training and became a non-violent Marshall for the Protest movement. It suited my Roman Catholic beliefs of a pacifist Jesus. Going back, I volunteered for the draft out of a college scholarship for track and field deferment. My heart was in deep conflict about the war as a hero athlete who could move students either way on the issue yet felt I needed to make a stand one way or the other by my beliefs in a more realistic way. Could not do that hiding in college. In my gut I was anti-war: "Thou shalt not kill." Had to volunteer for selective service and be drafted to see if I could live my beliefs. And God took me out of harm's way entirely.
Will someone just please say hello or welcome?
I am not political. Ordinarily. But this last pres... (
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