Suffering

Many people who live now might wish they lived in the 1960s. However, I was 12 in 1960 and 21 in 1969. And mostly, those times were about real suffering more than anything else. People escaped the suffering of Viet Nam and President Kennedy and his brother and Martin Luther King and all the rest being assassinated around the world by committing suicide or getting stoned or going insane a lot. Some joined the army because they couldn't cope and died over there in Viet Nam or came back missing limbs or are still walking the streets alone talking to themselves today. Or they came home and shot their wives and children or eventually caused themselves to die in some way like driving drunk or on drugs trying to forget the horrific experiences like being ordered to drive over women and children with their army tanks in Mai Lai.

My Lai Massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre

Wikipedia

The Mỹ Lai Massacre (Vietnamese: thảm sát Mỹ Lai [tʰɐ̃ːm ʂɐ̌ːt mǐˀ lɐːj], [mǐˀlɐːj] ( listen); /ˌmiːˈlaɪ/, /ˌmiːˈleɪ/, or /ˌmaɪˈlaɪ/) was the ...

‎William Calley - ‎Hugh Thompson, Jr. - ‎Ernest Medina - ‎L. Mendel Rivers

 

I knew one of the guys talking about cleaning the pieces of the women and the children out of his tank treads after the war. He was never really right in the head again after that.

 

There was so much change that the social revolution broke up parents and children who often never spoke to each other ever again or never brought their kids to see their grandparents.

 

No. The 1960s were something you either survived or your didn't or you went insane if you were a teenager or adult when you went through them. 

 

You really didn't want to be alive then if you were serious about the true meaning of life. 

 

I am one of the survivors of those times. Many many of the people I knew either died in Viet Nam or died on drugs or died by driving too fast on motorcycles or cars. 

 

I survived those times. many many didn't.