220103 Sentinel, The Sixties

My favorite songs came from the sixties.

The sixties, for those of us who lived through them, were turbulent times in America.

They began well until 1962. I was 16 in 1961, bought my first car and was out on the prowl for several different good Catholic girls that I hoped to change that good girl into one I was looking for. In 1962 the Cuban missile crisis occurred and we were on the brink of nuclear war for 13 days in October. I was still in high school and only read about that.

In 1963 I was in navy boot camp and graduating on November 22nd, the day president John F. Kennedy was killed. My favorite song that year was the following link, "Hey Paula" She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen until I met Joyce.

In 1964 the Vietnam war became official, when it was claimed that N. Vietnamese torpedo boats fired torpedoes in an attack on the USS Maddox. It was proven later that that never happened, but it was used to ramp up the war in Vietnam.

In 1965, the troop buildup reached 184,400 in the country and in the gulf of Tonkin.

By 1966 there were 514,000 in the war. All told during the war until 1974 there were 58,000 killed.

In 1968 the democratic convention in Chicago was mobbed by anti-war protesters. That same year Doctor Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. A week after that Joyce and I moved to Millington, Tennessee for my advanced electronics training, just a few miles north of Memphis. Our parents were concerned that we would be in danger passing through Memphis, but we were okay.

In 1969, there was the largest anti-war protest in history. It happened on August 15th in Washington, D.C. The Vietnam war went on until 1974 and when it ended the reason for the war was said to prevent the takeover by communism in Vietnam and cause a domino effect throughout Asia.. Vietnam ended up controlled by the north and things went back to what started it all.

I began writing this on Jan. 2nd, 2022 when I was in a shitty mood, unable to control my sadness over losing Joyce this last September. I will get better as time goes on. At least the sixties bagan well for me in 1961 and then started its downhill slide in late 1963.

Long live this beautiful country of ours, of which I am proud to have served. One good thing in the sixties was being able to see how people lived in other countries. That made me realize how wonderful this coountry is, despite all the problems and some of the poor living conditions we have here. Few people want to live elsewhere.