Ground Hog Year

[FightingIrish]

Forty years ago I was a naive young naval officer intent on earning my wings and barely paying attention to the world I was about to enter for real. I was in class on a naval air station in Texas when we got the word that a badly conducted Vietnam war had made Lyndon Johnson a lame duck president. The bad news of the capture of the USS Pueblo arrived in that same setting. A few months later I was in survival school near San Diego when they added to the horror of our mock POW experience by telling us that a charismatic young candidate for president had been gunned down a few miles to the north. We had seen a very unpopular war blow up in the faces of that generation’s Rumsfelds and Wolfowitzes with the Tet offensive and we were training for our turn in the barrel. John McCain was already rotting in a Hanoi prison. Randy “Duke” Cunningham was also earning his Navy wings and Richard Calley was committing the most notorious atrocity of that war.

Of all my years, 1968 is indelibly etched in my memory. 2008 frankly scares the hell out of me for its parallels and its similarities. That was the year I first began to question the country whose uniform I wore. I find it ironic that I am once again ready to hope and to believe in a country that has let me down for four decades. It’s like we are getting a “do over” and I’m ready to take it. Please give me the chance to vote for a leader I truly believe in and not another Hubert Humphrey.

[Radio_Lady]

1. Recommended. What else can I say? I share your concern.

In 1968, I was living with my former husband in New York City and pregnant with my daughter. During the summer of that year, I worked in TV and radio production jobs for various organizations, and finally, in August, for the Ford Foundation in a beautiful office building.

I recall wondering whether I was wrong to bring a child into a world fraught with war, assassinations, and other unspeakable violence.

My daughter now has a daughter of her own. Gabrielle just turned 10 years old, her little brother Solomon is seven. It's hard not to be worried about them, too.

I agree with you, Fighting Irish. Our future as a country is at stake this time. I honestly believe that.

Cordially,

Radio Lady in Oregon