By Bob Connor

                                               Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

I know that many of my readers did not experience the 1960’s and 1970’s personally; but I respectfully ask that you give me a chance to interest you in this pivotal year in the history of our country. It was the Year of our Lord 1968.

January, 1968 - The Tet offensive was launched by the Viet Cong in Vietnam. It dramatically demonstrated that the U.S. was not winning the war and that the U.S. was probably not going to win it.

February, 1968 - The U.S. casualty rate reached 543 American soldiers killed in just one week. That averages almost 78 per day or over 3 per hour.

March, 1968 - The My Lai Massacre atrocity occurred in which American soldiers systematically slaughtered almost an entire Vietnamese village of innocent men, women and children. President Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election, mainly due to the growing opposition to the war.

April, 1968. - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed. Anger over the murder incited major rioting in the streets of major cities in the United States. Buildings and vehicles were burned, stores were looted, and people were injured and killed.

May, 1968 - 2,371 American soldiers were killed in Vietnam – an average of almost 77 per day. It was the bloodiest month of the war which began in 1964 and would rage until 1975.

June, 1968 - Robert F. Kennedy, the leading candidate for the nomination of the Democratic Party for President, running on an anti-war platform, was shot and killed. His brother, President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated less than 5 years before.

July, 1968 - South Vietnamese opposition leader Truong Dinh Dzu is sentenced to five years hard labor for advocating the formation of a coalition government as a way to move toward an end to the war.

August, 1968 - Riots broke out at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago after confrontations between anti-war protesters and the police.

August, 1968 - Soviet tanks and troops rolled into Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring reform movement.

September, 1968 - The Soviet Zond 5 spaceship is launched, becoming the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. The Soviets take the lead in the Space Race.

October, 1968 - The United States Department of Defense announced that the United States Army and United States Marines would be sending about 24,000 troops back to Vietnam for involuntary second tours.

November, 1968 - Richard Nixon was elected President. The war would rage for over 6 more years until April 30, 1975 when the North Vietnamese captured Saigon, ending the Vietnam War.

December, 1968 - The National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, charged with studying and reporting on urban riots, had formed a Chicago Study Team headed by Daniel Walker, to investigate the Chicago disturbances. This month, their report was released, concluding that the disturbances were “police riots”.

Anti-war demonstrations on college campuses continued. Administration buildings were seized by students. Fires were set. Two years later, 4 students would be shot and killed by national guardsmen at Kent State University in Ohio during a demonstration.

The Vice President of the United States would resign in 1973 as a result of a tax scandal. The President would resign the following year over the Watergate scandal and the subsequent cover-up.

It was a discouraging time. Where was hope?

Well, I was going to find out. I was going to isolate myself so that I could think and resolve all issues. I was going to ascertain the path to follow to discover myself.

Like Thoreau, I was going to the woods to find the truth.

I had just graduated from college and I believed in books! Those pages held the wisdom of the ages. Mastering their contents would result in good grades… which would result in boosting my pride, pleasing my family and securing a good job after graduation. I had faith in books! And, if I only read enough books, I could defeat “Art the Anti-Christ” in debate!

So, I gathered up a collection of books which surely would guide me to wisdom. They would be my “yellow brick road” to lead me to the “wizard of understanding”.

With my books in tow, I set off on my journey to camp in the woods at Huntsville State Park until such time as I understood myself and the world in which I found myself.

It was there that I would encounter the “Magic Deer” - and I would never again be the same.

To Be Continued in the next issue

Bob Connor is a continuing education teacher at St. Ambrose Catholic Church. You can reach him at bobconn@earthlink.com

(The Banner, August 7, 2009)