Mea Culpa: I Was a Weekend Hippie
Yet another ME post. I’ve covered parts of this before here and there, but in honor of the various Occupiers it is time to distance myself from that lot once and for all.
1967: The Navy, in their wisdom, sent me to Mare Island Naval Shipyard for a school. It was the beginning of The Summer of Love in ‘Frisco. Needless to say weekend liberty found me, in civies, at the corner of Haight and Ashbury observing the nubile, female, dispensers of Free Love. I don’t recall exactly how many, but I spent several weekends doing the same. My opinion of the hippie culture was NOT in any way negative. Make Love Not War made perfect sense to me? And some of the music was outstanding.
1969: I once again found my self in San Fransisco. I’d flown into Travis AFB and was leaving via SFO. At the latter a group of hippie looking folks decided to spit at me and my brethren and/or our uniforms. Most of us had just came back from a war and were a bit testy – fun ensued . Interestingly none of those hippies looked particularly nubile or sexy?
I out processed and came home to West Virginia. I ran into some high school pals and found out they were heading to Cape Cod for the summer so I joined up with them, hopped into my newly acquired ’69 Buick and headed out. I planned to go to school in the fall, so why not? We had a nice house there, and I found a job renting sailboats and giving sailing lessons.
Then we started hearing about this concert down in New York. I bought two tickets, made arrangements to get that Friday off, loaded up my current lady friend along with another couple and off we went.
I won’t bore you with further details except that most of the hippies there were akin to those I’d first came into contact with and I wondered about those at the airport? I had to be back at work Monday so we left early Sunday morning walking behind the stage while the Jefferson Airplane was playing.
Aside: I tore up my two tickets when it was announced the concert was free. I’ve been kicking myself in the ass about it since.
A year or so later I hitched across country a time or two, was educated (disillusioned) about communes, and developed a even more jaundiced view of ‘hippies’. There were some good ones, but fewer with each encounter. I wasn’t sure if I was changing or they were?
Flash forward to 2007. Some friends and I organized some folks to go to DC to counter some “hippies” who said they were gonna target Our Wall. Some of us had met at The Kerry Lied rally on 2004 and had stayed in touch. At GoE I saw first hand what passed for hippies in the 21st century. There and at subsequent similar events I developed something more than simple distaste for what Jonn now calls hippies.
So I will maintain that there were some good, well meaning, hippies once… myself amongst them. Now they are just shitheads who call themselves hippies.
Category: Geezer Alert!, Pointless blather
Ah, Grace Slick and “Up Against the Wall MF.” Wonder what she looks like today. Hell, I wonder if she’s alive. Sorry, Zero, but that confession doesn’t rate penance. Unless you’re omitting critical information, that’s a terribly normal experience for the day. I will say that most folks sipped Boones Farm before, not after, their stint in the military but there are no hard and fast rules on that.
I am a bit younger that you, but I grew up at the “time of hippies”. It was a bad time in history…I tried growing my hair long, but didn’t really like it…so I cut it shorter. then I joined the Army in 74. I came home on leave and got to SFO…in my class A’s…where I was called a baby killer and they tried to spit on me, but I wanred them that they looked like babies to me and I would kill them.
They wer not very peace loving…and just seemed to be out for whatever made them feel good…..
Now, I hate hippies.
@2. I got out when you went in and I was never spat upon or accosted by anyone. And you are the first person I ever heard say that he was actually spat upon and called a baby killer to his face. Did that truly happen or are you repeating what you heard elsewhere?
2-17AirCav #3: Whoa there, if you please. I must not have been clear. I was spit at, and an Army guy behind me was spit ON. I saw it AND heard the words “baby killers” and more. We had a small scuffle that lasted less than a minute.
Yes it really happened! I can’t/won’t speak for anyone else, but it DID happen to me and about a half a dozen others THIS time.
CI Roller Dude #2: Sure I left out some details, but only to avoid writing a full bio.
You were clear, Zero, I just missed that line in your 1969 paragragh. I stand corrected. The spitting incidents were often told and heard back in the day but my personal experience was that I never heard anyone say it actually happened to him. It was always “I heard that….” I meant no offense.
As for the small scuffle you had, I hoped you and the GI kicked the ever lovin’ shit out of the SOB(s).
Ah the infamous spitting/baby killer incident! You are lying through your keyboard son and you know it. Please feel free to go apeshit insane and call me names because I had the temerity (look it up) to call you out as a liar. It is what liars do when called out. Cheers!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spitting_Image
Hey Vinnie you little lurker. It’s too early for you. When I said later, I meant like– 8 p.m. later. How’s the occupation going? Anybody urrender to you guys yet? As for the link, I doubt anyone here will be using it. Wikpidea, you know. Besides, if someone here says X happened to him and that someone has a reputation for veracity, then it happened. That it may not have happened to most of us VN era vets or that no one made an official record of each occurrence does not constitute evidence that it happened to no one. Keep moving now.
2-17AirCav #5: No offense taken… NONE! I’ve heard the point you made from other sources before and puzzled about it. I’ll speculate that there weren’t really all that many “hippies” that hung out at SFO. We were outbound and there were many gates for them to watch.
Ain’t no thang.
The scuffle I mentioned is an exaggeration, I’m afraid. Collectively we approached them… they were kinda behind a barrier, and they left rather quickly. No blood was shed.
Oh geez… We have a troll. I don’t feed trolls.
Oh yeah… fuck YOU. Anyone who cites Wikipedia without a caveat deserves to be ridiculed, mind you, but I won’t be wasting the bandwidth.
Wow, Zero. I can’t imagine how that incident didn’t make the SF Chronicle front page, thus providing acceptable contemporaneous evidence for the author of that book about how it’s just an urban legend. /sarc
Zero. Thanks. I’m sorry to hear that last part. On the other hand, if you had kicked them across the floor, there would have been an official record of the incident. Unfortunately, that would have been your arrest record!
The Occupy Indy rally was excellent and attended by many veterans stretching back to WWII. There were no ugly incidents that I saw. Just a large group of people that agree that there is far too much influence on our government from the powerful on Wall Street and from the oceans of corporate money that flood our electoral process.
Cheers!
Wrong blog Vincent. You want the one with the hammer and sickle emblem on its home page. And what’s with the “Cheers!” business. Are you drinking on the street or is that your favorite old TV show?
2-17AirCav #11: Yeah well… Have fun. He said, she said, and all that. Mine may have been the sole occurrence? Or is/was there an agenda in play. I described what I remember?
Reckon my memories of Cape Cod and Woodstock are equally flawed? Damn… My whole life is a sham.
Dismissive shrug from this seat.
Look, Zero, we should feel very, very guilty. Here poor Vinnie is striking a blow for whatever he is striking a blow for –and he’s doing it for us!–and where are we? Are we out impeding traffic? Are we wearing Che Guevera tee shirts? Are we indiscriminately bothering people and making nonsensical political statements? No. So we should feel very, very guilty. But I guess I am heartless for I suffer neither a twinge nor pang of guilt.
Well gee 2-17, I did not see a “think exactly like me or get the hell out” sign when I stumbled upon this blog. It seems rather boring to never be confronted with another point of view. Sort of akin to the ancient Chinese maxim about one hand clapping. If you feel performance anxiety when challenged with debate by an informed, educated adversary just say so and I will find more entertaining company.
Cheers! (a salute offered in good spirit and camaraderie
!)
Hey Vinnie,if you just happen to notice a white ,pudgy,balding, middle aged guy with soft hands,a puggle, and who is ghey…please ask him to call his wife,he needs to go by the grocery store on his way home,thanks in advance…BTW,remind him to pick up some more Calgon.
Zero et. al. I came back through Ft. Lewis. Didn’t get spit on but on the flight from SeaTac to O’Hare a woman and her (approx) 12 year old daughter were in separate seats. The girl was beside me. The woman got a Stewie…oops, flight attendant, and demanded her daughter be moved to another seat. Her exact words were, “I won’t have my daughter sitting next to “the likes” of him.” The Stewardess was embarrassed and someone else immediately volunteered to sit with me. It was an older guy who turned out to be a WWII vet. It was something I’ll never forget.
Honor and Courage
Hey old one! You mean like this dirty hippie?
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=249231541789602&set=a.136827719696652.25946.136805249698899&type=1&theater
Zero as a young man that has been known to just about anything to get a hot piece of ass, I can relat to the “before”. As for Woodstock I am sure there are more than a few that went and were in fact reputable. I won’t lie, they did have *some* good music.
Having said that being bornin 83 I only have knowledge of live in the Reagan/Bush years, and how utterly disgusting Clinton supporters got. My dad told tales how he would have to not wear his uniform off base, or he ran a very real risk of getting the shit beat out of him while the Barb was at mare island. (there was also a great story about a Cheif re-uping in a tiddy bar). I started off with a negative view of hippies, which my mom didn’t share.
Seeing Code Pink, IVAW, and Under the Hood brings up the worst of my dads stories. There are a few that come awfully close to spitting on soldiers, and are actively upset that most Americans actually (for some bizarre reason) like/love the troops. If anyone spat on me in uniform (to include the fucksticks in that one particular church that shall remain nameless) I don’t know if I could keep my military baring, and I do not think I could blame anyone that didn’t.
Hippies want peace? Who wants that more tha a soldier? Free love? No such thing, nothing is free, especially love. We here should know that Peace and Love are the most difficult states of human existence to maintain. No amount of wishing will ensure peace, nor good feelings love. Their naiveté would be laughable if it weren’t so utterly dangerous.
Gee, Vincent, I guess I missed the lines that revealed you to be informed and educated. Was it the citation to Wikipedia? If so, that was too subtle for me. Perhaps it was your expectation that you would be called bad names; yet, you were the only one to call someone else one–you called someone a liar as I recall. And now that you are resolved to find more entertaining company, please keep to that resolution. We aren’t here for your entertainment. Oh, one other thing. I am not your freakin’ comrade so the camaraderie is out. Now to make you feel all justified in your premature conclusions, I offer this: You’re a clueless, dick smoking, douchenozzle. I hope you feel better now. I know I do.
Vinney, I didn’t mention anything about hippies,we are just worried about one of our TAH Ninjas who is at the scene…
I’ve got news for Vinny the Whiner, I was called a baby killer in 1957 by being in SAC, you know, the people bombed villages and towns with our mean old bombers slightly before that little mattress stain was born. I was a VN ERA vet and I/we heard plenty of stories about getting spit on.
One of the funniest news stories I saw stationed at Travis in ’65 and ’66 was one afternoon a station in SF reported with video(or whatever) of a bunch of Vinnys from college marching down to the docks in Oakland to try asnd stop cargo ships from going to ‘Nam. When they got to the docks there was a line of Hells Angeles stretched across the street and the Oakland city cops backing them up!
It was the most beautiful sight I ever saw! The camera was panning across the line and one of Vinny’s uncles was standing in front of this one very large biker. When he panned back the biker had the douches sign beating him over the head with it. Absolutely beautiful!
My wife was sitting with me watching it, too.
Sometime after the,”stains” came to Travis and sat down ijn front of our main gate. Some drunk Airman ran over on, unfortunately not killing him. And that was the end of that.
The good days, ya gotta love ’em.
ZP: No need for a mea culpa. Even hippie chicks needed some loving from real men.
Vinnie & Alice:
You are clueless and naive. By the way, Foxtrot Oscar.
What? None of you are gonna take a shot at the WWII veteran at the Occupy Rally? Is he a dick smoking, douchenozzle as well because he was there exercising his rights as an American? One wonders if maybe the likes of the thrice divorced, heroin addicted, DRAFT DODGING, racist Rush Limbaugh would hurl a loogie at the man in the photo for asking that the 1%’ers on Wall Street pay for their crime spree.
Cheers!
Dammit, 1AirCav69. I liked the notion that the reports of such incidents were exaggerated. I heard about it back then but I didn’t want to believe that stuff. I am getting pissed off all over again. All I can say is that I am sorry for your experience and that of Zero and every other man in in uniform whose service to his country resulted in a “F you” rather than a thank you. I gotta break now. I am truly sorry.
2-17, don’t be down hearted because these stories are not true. They were dreamed up to attack the anti-war movement and are being regurgitated now for some bizarre reason. The fact is that returning veterans from Vietnam were very deeply involved in the anti-war movement and as of yet there has not been a single credible news account of any soldiers being spat upon. Cheers!
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/08/26/part-two-spitting-image-this-legacy-of-vietnam-is-a-myth/
As one who grew up in the Inner Richmond District in “San Fran”(note: tourists call it “Frisco”) and whose brother and sister were also born in the city, I went to school located at Geary and Ninth. I remember the theater down the street showing the Movie M*A*S*H. The prices (I’m not exact… but this was the range) Child $1.00, Adult $2.75, Military in Uniform $3.50. I’ll NEVER forget the price the last of the three on the bottom line stating “Military in Uniform”. That is not spitting on one in uniform, but it sure as hell a distinct disrespect to those. I will never forget that sign to the day I die.
Vinny is a fair-minded fellow. He likes rights. He likes lefty blogs. He likes tolerance, as all lefties do, but when you oppose them, bye-bye tolerance. Here’s Vinny (August 2007) in response to a comment Vinny didn’t like in Media Matters:
“I propose that Media Matters look into installing an IGNORE button in the comments section. Guys like TOMMY are here either because they are operatives paid to disrupt discussions using a host of methods including, and most importantly, strategically posting his responses so as to always appear on the first page of the comments OR he simply revels in the attention of hijacking threads and posting wildly off topic nonsense. IN either case, Media Matters could enhance the comments section dramatically by allowing users to, with a single click, make Tommy’s comments and observations disappear. What do you say Media Matters? Can we get an “ignore” button?”
Vinny wanted a kill switch. He didn’t get it. Even Media Matters recognized that that was a tad too tyrannical. And how about Vinny’s calling someone a paid operative? Is that rich or what? The commenter, by the way, was neither harebrained nor off topic. Vinny just didn’t like what he had to say. I also like the fact that VinnyFromIndy is cleverly disguised here as Vinnie From Indy. What an asswipe.
Beretverde #29: Remember a bar called Relax With Yvonne, or some such. Ran by black lady. She and I did have some fun. But that is another story…
Hmmm. Vinny did you spend some time as a Dead-Head?
Vinnie…go fuck yourself. My story is true.
2-17…on the upside of that story, in O’Hare I only had a minute to get from like gate A-1 to like X-32. I gave the ticket guy my dad’s number and told him to call him and let him know what flight I was on. He said he couldn’t do that. I told him I just got back from Nam, uniform and cane not a dead give-a-way I guess, and the same thing happened in SeaTac..no chance to call. My family had no idea I was home. He told me he’d call…get to the gate, they’d hold the plane. I gimped to the gate and got on board. Last seat. They then called my name and asked me to come to the rear hatch. I figured some hippy with a ticket just came back from Canada and I had his seat. Went back and it was the United people, when United didn’t suck, and they said…”you have to make this call to your family…they don’t want to hear from us. We’ll hold the plane, but hurry.” The flight home was only an hour, 15 min. My family lived 2 hours from the airport. They made it for the flight. My dad had a 69′ Charger R/T…440 Mag. My brother said the speedo was around 130+ the whole way.
Honor and Courage
Zero #31… Hack’s 540 on Clement! Neighborhood is all asian now. Many many moons ago!
#18 1AirCav69:
That’s the sort of stuff I experienced. Never was in theater, so never was at SFO which seemed to be where all the spitting occurred.
But cold shoulder (as I called it) stuff like that happened a hand full of times from 70-75.
Lots of great music in the 60’s for my taste, Zee. Jefferson Airplane, Stones, Tull, Black Oak Arkansas, Cream, Animals …
Vinnie as Americans, we also have a right to voice our opinions. As a retired Gunny, I know some veterans don’t deserve any more respect than those that didn’t serve.
@32. Thanks 1AirCav69. That’s the stuff!
@24 Yatyas – whoa there. Didn’t you see the /sarc tag (end of sarcasm) at the end of my post? Clueless and naive I may be, but on this point I am on your side.
You know, I once knew a hippie chick in college. She wasn’t a moonbat hippie, she was… um… a Moderate? She was into the whole peace and love thing, but didn’t really get into many protests. She had an awesome sense of style and there is nothing like a redhead in tiedye and bellbottoms that has a nice rack and loves hugging friends… not like side hugs, but full on in your chest hugs.
Not like the South Park style hippies that seemed prevalent around campus. The ones who believed that showering and shaving were a way the Man sought to oppress you…
I would take a bullet in another country for their right to free speech, but if the shooter were here? Well, they’d be buddy armor.
Vinny I have to repeat what previous people have said Go Fuck yourself. Followed by a long walk off a short pier, give a Beretta a blowjob and when you’re done with all that tell Jane Fonda she can crawl back into whatever hole she came out of for her “comeback”
Yes soldiers sailors airmen and marines DID get spit on. Yes they did get set upon by the unwashed masses of angry hippies. Yes some of those hippies were themselves Vets. Lastly every single American should be ashamed that it took almost 25 FUCKING YEARS to welcome them back. Further, when the war ended in ’73 RVN was still free. When the peace accords were broken the NVA could have been repelled, and many RVN citizens saved. “peace loving” hippies doomed many thousands to die. Further ARVN troops held them off for almost a year despite being outnumbered and outgunned. so again FUCK YOU.
the fact that the “welcome home” parades for DS troops, many Vietnam Vets were encouraged to participate should really fucking tell you something about the national shame hippies caused.
Doc #40: I was living on The Big Island (off grid for those keeping track)and my first parade was, indeed, with the DS troops. Ain’t no thing. I never expected much. Didn’t join to earn kudos.
Vinnie, surely you’re not serious, with “has not been a single credible news account”? Of course there hasn’t, there wasn’t any credible news media back in that day. And, yes, we will call you Shirley.
Now, in the spirit of, and to add to post #39, why don’t you go somewhere and suck-start a shotgun?
Folks, we are truly honored to have a sage, in the person of Vinnie, who not only cites wikipedia, but also Veteran’s Today, the home of the one and only, Gordon Duff. Wow, Vinnie, you really showed us. Now, don’t you have a public park you have to go take a shit in, or at least piss on a park bench?
My apologies Alice. I didn’t see the sarc at the end of your comments.
I cried when I walked into Atlanta airport coming home from OIF and the VN vets were there giving us the welcome home they never had. I was sad for their collective experience……..BTW…indyqueer…being a vet don’t protect you from being a dumbass.
Any guy that quotes teh Wiki AND Duff’s mental diarrhea from Veteran’s Today isn’t worth the effort it would take to throat-punch that mouth-breathing, booger-eating, sister-fucking waste of oxygen.
If you want SPIT proof, take it here..I’ve been telling my story for YEARS…
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2007/01/they_want_it_le.html
Zero, I don’t care for the Kudos either, in fact sometimes its a little embarasing when people gush thank yous for doing my job.
But Zero, if there is ever a “generation” of Veterans that is deserving is would be those that got stuck in Nam. Aside from the mean bush, and it being an actual you know war with at least a competent enemy, you had a POTUS that didn’t know what he wanted or why he wanted it, and pissed away American blood for no reason. Then another POTUS that was half way competent but couldn’t get people to rally for a W. Add that to the shame of a populace that for all accounts WANTED to lose. . . yeah Zero you guys deserved a parade. I feel slightly ashamed I got a parade intended for you.
Ok….And so Vinnie! Get yourself a new gig because this one isn’t working out for ya. *Cheers*
@ #47-Doc: Tighten up. You earned the parade you got, the rest of us (geezers as Zero puts it)are simply making sure that your generation doesn’t catch the flak that our generation did. As far as people thanking you, be courteous accept it for what it is, a sincere and decent gesture on their part.
Thank you Doc and welcome home.
There exist aplenty arrest reports of those vets targeted in and around San Fran for “assault” on folks who purposefully attacked them, then had “witnesse” arranged to conveniently forget that the vet was defending himself from attack.
But then we all know that it happened – different dgrees of severity of assault cycled during those years.
Gee, thanks, Vinnie, for your service to this community! It’s good to be reminded from time to time that there remain ignorant, misguided fools who still need to be protected from themselves.
As recently as two years ago a local overgrown hippie clergy type managed to call me a “baby kiler” on-air on a radio show. And he did it again some months later. Beautiful!
Not quite as good as him and/or members of his peaceful little group sending young children (one looked to be about 4) over to our side of the street to spit on us and yell words and terms at us that I as an adult do not use. They do seem to train them very young.
When my unit was deployed and I had to go to my BN HQ, I got spit on. 2/162 INF was HQed in Eugene, Oregon. That is the hippie capital of the state, right smack dab in the middle of the college. I had a guy walk up to me and say that I was a baby killer and then he spit on my chest…
Well, the police officer saw me “defend” myself from the potential attack (he could have had Hep). I only “defended” myself once to the guys face and he only lost three teeth. He tried to claim that I assaulted him, but dropped the charges after acknowledging that he spit on me first and was told the consequences.