REMFs for Peace
This came up while I was trolling around the Left side of the internet today about a guy named Richard Hendrick, a member of the Veterans for Peace, as an introduction to his past in anticipation of his talk at some private hippie high school in New Hampshire;
I was drafted at the end of my sophomore year because of an administrative error on the part of Princeton, where I was an undergraduate in Politics. Because my brother was in Vietnam at the time, I was not sent there, but rather to Germany, where I worked in a Corps headquarters. This army experience tended to radicalize me politically and when I returned to Princeton three years later, I participated in many anti-war demonstrations, including those which culminated in shutting the university down for the rest of the year in April of 1970.
Yes, his experience in a Corps Headquarters in Germany radicalized him. Probably from testing all of those microphones, sharpening pencils and running the mimeograph machines. Those three-day weekends in Bavaria and touring the wine fests would drive anyone to radicalism. Poor, dirty little hippie.
I’m sure the “administrative error” at Princeton had something to with his failing grades and the loss of his student deferment. If he’d been drafted, why was gone from Princeton for three years, since the draft only required two years of service.
And, oh, yeah, Princeton students went on strike May 1st, 1970, not April, so the school shut down two weeks early for summer break. Big whoop. Big, tough hippie standing up to the Man.
I guess the worst thing about him is that someone thinks he has something of value to tell high school students.
Category: Antiwar crowd, Liberals suck
This does really bug the shit out of me. Like you say, some dweeb thinks that we need a bunch of radicals to further indoctrinate our kids… like everyone has to be effing Holden Caufield. I mean, seriously, I was as anarchist as the next kid in high school….but at least I had the benefit of Adults to resist this tendency in me- and freely laugh at my trench coat and my uncle’s jungle boots (with a skirt.. see, even I laugh.)
And- I never have understood the hero-ization of whiners. Why embellish the truth? If his story was- I was a kid, and I let my GPA drop and the Man SCOOPED ME UP AND SENT ME TO EFFING VIET.. I MEAN.. GERMANY… I think the story would play just as well to the lefties… don’t you?
It absolutely makes my day when I sign on in the morning to see a “liberals suck” tag.
I thank you for that ray of sunshine, Jonn.
Jonn, don’t forget, it’s “radicalizing” to have to continually set up and throw the switch on the coffee machine.
Yeah, Germany in the late 60’s-early 70’s was just, like, you know, totally radical, dude.