What a sickening thought.
That car is a part of America past worth keeping. Reminds me of the song about riding with Private Malone.
Funny thing about 1970, youth truly does think it is invincible and lives mostly in the moment. I was a very sober minded young man but never gave much thought to the draft or going to Nam even as I watched the older guys go and not come back home. Six years earlier, in ‘64, I was just a Cub Scout. Sure, the war sobered me but the draft and even war’s end were just about non-events to me. I was never on campus though when the protests were ongoing. Maybe that is why it didn’t register so much. I was busy hauling hay in the summer, working at the pharmacy, working on my truck and racing to Tastee Freeze at lunch.
Unlike so many others just a little older than me I just missed it by a few years. Timing is everything.
There are a couple of guys younger than me down the side county road who look like 5 miles of board road and claimed to me they are Vietnam Vets. I enjoyed not pulling any punches in telling both of them they are liars and should hang their heads in shame.
My truck cost me $2,825 as a loaded ‘72 Cheyenne Super. Still have the truck.
Being a person of half-Asian ancestry, the Vietnam War was very personal to me. It was not a good time to be a lone Asian in a school full of kids who had fathers, brothers, and uncles in Vietnam.
I can’t tell you how many times I was called names like gook, Jap, Chink and every other epithet they could cull off the TV. Told to go back where I came from, but I already was.
I figured when I joined the Marines after HS, all that BS would stop, but it didn’t.
It was still alive an dwell in the marine Corps.
I even got crap from officers that were just as racist as their kids were........................