Neighbor News
1968 - What a Year!
The incidents of 2017 seem dire, but to those living forty or fifty years ago, it has a certain sense of deja vu.
At a planning committee for a Veterans’ Park in Lake Forest, a half dozen veterans of the Vietnam era were casually relating how they entered the military, and what they did. The year 1968 seemed to be a pivotal year for a lot them. That was some year:
Briefly:
Jan 23, USS Pueblo captured by the North Koreans. The one American was killed in the attack, and 82 others taken prisoner. After about a year, they were returned to the United States. The ship remains a tourist attraction in North Korea.
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On Jan 30 and into February and March, the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive. The United States won the war, but Walter Cronkite reported it otherwise, and it was the beginning of the end of the efforts to keep South Vietnam from being captured by the Communists. Cronkite, known as a reliable voice, lied to the public, and not too many military veterans had or have much use for him.
On March 30, Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election. This opened the field for a lot of democrats interested in the presidency including Bobby Kennedy, Jr., Eugene McCarthy, and Hubert Humphrey.
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On April 4, Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee by James Earl Ray. There is still a lot of controversy about the assassination, and not all are convinced the conspirators were all identified and captured.
On June 5, Robert F. Kennedy, shortly after winning the California Democratic Presidential primary was killed by a Palestinian/Jordanian immigrant.
On August 21, members of the Warsaw Pact, namely the Soviet Union, invaded Czechoslovakia. More than 130 Czech civilians were killed in the attack.
On August 28, eight Democratic supporters, including Tom Hayden (who was married to traitorous Jane Fonda at one time and a leader in the California General Assembly), rioted and caused civil disobedience at the Democrat National Convention in Chicago.
These incidents were indicative of the stress across the United States: as difficult as it seems in 2017, 1968 was a year of attacks by North Korea, civilian riots and unrest in the United States, attack in a war, and attack on an ally.
Those of us who were involved will always have our memories of those moments.
