I remember those monks, too. My parents subscribed to Time and Life and I used to read them voraciously, especially Life, which had really good photos.
So much of what I remember about current events is based on photos in Life magazine. Photos of Dr. King and his group being hosed down and attacked by dogs in places like Selma Alabama.
Remember the photo of the girl putting a flower in the barrel of the rifle?
The screaming girl on one knee at Kent State?
The little naked Vietnamese girl, running and screaming?
The photo of the general shooting the VietCong man in the head?
I remember the peace vigil after the mining of Haiphong Harbor because visually it was so compelling, a sea of people, young, old, students, professors, holding candles in the middle of the parade ground on the LSU campus. My mother was in graduate school, and one of the professors was a close personal friend. I was standing near him and he was talking about "madness." That is Vietnam to me in a nutshell, my favorite philosophy professor telling me that the war was "madness."
Oddly, that same year I heard William F. Buckley lecture on subsidiarity and began my journey towards conservatism.
I went to some SDS meetings but all I remember is men jockying for position. I would bet that a lot of the leaders went on to become lawyers. Probably very few engineers. |
