Living in a Time of Momentous Change How the Dartmouth Class of 1967 Met the Challengesof Vietnam, the Human Rights Movement and O Mu H Lse
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Living in a Time of Momentous Change How the Dartmouth Class of 1967 Met the Challengesof Vietnam, The Human Rights Movement and So Much Else 1967 2017 Living in a Time of Momentous Change How the Dartmouth Class of 1967 Met the Challenges of Vietnam, The Human Rights Movement and So Much Else John Isaacs, Editor Sam Ostrow, Class President ©2017 Reunion Book production by David L. Prentice ’69 Publisher of Reunion Books for 25 Dartmouth Classes Malin’s Point 123 Tapp Road Sheenboro, Quebec J0X 2Z0 Canada (819) 689-2865 «[email protected]» «[email protected]» Produced on Macintosh computers Printed in U.S.A. Table of Contents Introduction Living in a Time of Momentous Change: Reflections on an Era and the 4 Dartmouth Class of 1967, by Sam Ostrow, President, Dartmouth 1967 The Times, They Were a-Changin’ — And They Still Are, by James E. Rooks Jr. 7 Momentous Change, Part 1: The Vietnam War A New Life Across the Border, by Andy Barrie 24 Interview with Paul Beach 30 Reflections on Indochina, by Robert A. Burka 44 Vietnam Veterans and Agent Orange, by Dick Clapp 46 My Vietnam Song, by Warren C. Cook 50 The Impact of Vietnam Upon a Naval Aviator, by Douglas Van Zandt Coonrad 62 A Tale of Two Cities, by Phil Curtis 77 Vietnam: A Defining Issue for the Class of 1967, by Jonathan P. Feltner 80 Impact of the Vietnam War, by John Isaacs 83 The Luck of the Draw, by Robert R. Kugler 89 Wondering Down the “Rights” Side of Life’s Crooked Roads, 92 From Vietnam to the Inner City of Baltimore, by Bill Lamb Interview with Beirne Lovely 102 Poem: On Being in Vietnam, by Gerald Magonigal 111 Delayed Recovery in the Civilian Male of the Vietnam Era, by John C. Rhead 112 Interview with David Sides 116 Essay About Duncan Balfour Sleigh ’67, 127 For a History Class Taught by Professor Jim Wright, by Annie Oppenheim Two Vietnam Experiences, by Nancy Smoyer 132 Interview with Cai Sorlien 137 My Year in Vietnam: September 1968 – September 1969, by William J. Thomson 148 CLASS OF 1967 1 LIVING THROUGH MOMENTOUS CHANGE Momentous Change, Part 2: Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, Sexual Orientation, Dartmouth College, and So Much Else What Happened Since 1967, by Tony Amriati 160 Conscience at the Crux, by Buff Arnold 163 Since Leaving Dartmouth, by Gary L. Atkins 165 Becoming a Father, by Bill Bogardus 168 The Civil Rights Struggle: A Border State ’67 Looks Back 60 Years, by Fred Cowan 169 Confessions from Behind the Lines, by Bob Davidson 175 Momentous Consequence, by Edward Kern 178 Momentous Changes at Dartmouth in the Last 50 Years, by Paul Killebrew 179 My Father, He Wrote Me a Letter, by Paul Killebrew 185 What Has Changed for Women? One Woman’s Thoughts, 186 by Susan Y. Manaras, Mount Holyoke Class of ’68 No Longer Our Daughter’s (nor Son’s) Workplace, by Joanie Millane 188 How I Came to the Momentous Change in My Life, by V. Bruce Pacht 192 Interview with John Steinle 199 Interview with Paul Stetzer 207 Reflections on the Cold War, by Jeffrey M. Zimmerman 220 LIVING THROUGH MOMENTOUS CHANGE 2 DARTMOUTH COLLEGE Living Through Momentous Change Introduction CLASS OF 1967 3 LIVING THROUGH MOMENTOUS CHANGE Living in a Time of Momentous Change: Reflections on an Era and the Dartmouth Class of 1967 Sam Ostrow, President, Dartmouth 1967 In the summer of 2002, I was in Washington with only his Dartmouth classmates would know them as my son with unexpected free time. I told Adam he did and understand how they had shaped almost that whenever I had time in Washington I would everything he did and experienced ever since. go to the Vietnam Wall and pay my respects to our Finding my commonality with Bill and Duncan and fallen Dartmouth ’67 classmates. Adam insisted we preparing my remarks for that dinner made me go, and when we arrived at the Wall, rather than think more broadly about those things that have hunt for Bill Smoyer and Duncan Sleigh’s names as made the Class of 1967 so close and so special. And, I usually did, I went to where the directory books thanks to my father, I did that thinking in terms of are placed and looked up their locations. I discov- our shared milestones. ered, first, that we were there on the anniversary of Bill’s death. Then I found out that Duncan had We were born as the greatest human-made cata- died on my birthday. My knees buckled. Adam clysm in our earth’s history, World War II, was helped me to the panels, we stood silently in front coming to an end. Our parents — the then young of each, re-walked the entire wall and went to a men and women who struggled through the bench to sit. Depression and then won that war — determined that the world they were going to make for us would Adam asked why, given I had known of their deaths be far different from the one they inherited. for so long, I was so shaken. I told him of the coin- cidences I had just learned. “It is not just their The creation of the United Nations and multiple deaths,” I said, “or even that we are here on the regional security organizations to keep a hard-won anniversary of Bill’s and that I learned that Duncan peace, and the drawing of new borders and spheres died on my birthday. It is that I now know that the of influence to support that goal, began in the closeness of our Dartmouth class is more than just meetings of the “Big 3” as the Second World War something we say. It is real, and I learned that again was brought to its end. And yet, as we were born, this morning in a very sad way.” pressures arising from the imperfect borders being managed by imperfect structures were already build- When, years later, I received the Dartmouth Alumni ing in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, leading Award for service to the College and was asked to to what became “our wars,” the wars that have make remarks at the ceremony at which many of changed the directions of our lives since before we Dartmouth’s senior administrators were present, I wanted to make certain that everyone understood why I do what I do for Dartmouth. I said that while I respected everything that there is to respect about the College and how it has evolved over the years, I serve Dartmouth for a personal reason. I need to repay Dartmouth for the simple act of making me a part of this Class, with whom I have marked so many milestones of our lives together, whose mem- bers have expressed such great support for each other in times of great sadness and great joy and who, together with Judy, Adam, and Rachel, have been for so many (now 50) years, the loves of my life. At that dinner I also recalled a discussion with my father, shortly before he died. I asked him why, given that he had often told me that when he was at Dartmouth in the early ’30s, he had few friends, now, near the end of his life, other than his busi- ness partners, the men he was closest to were the surviving members of the Class of 1935. “It’s simple, Sam,” he said, “together we survived the Depression and then, together, we won a war.” Those were the Jim Wright placing memorial in Vietnam to Duncan milestones of his life, and he was telling me that Sleigh in 2014 LIVING THROUGH MOMENTOUS CHANGE 4 DARTMOUTH COLLEGE graduated from Dartmouth and in each of the 50 Depression and then the Second World War. The gen- years since. eration that fought the Civil War and then used The great human rights movements of our adult the technologies that fought it to produce an lives gathered real momentum and the possibility Industrial Revolution that totally transformed this of success with the sacrifices of Nisei and African- nation were another of which it could be said, “they American troops on the slopes of Italy, and with the lived through momentous change.” And, perhaps, sweat of millions of Rosie the Riveters in the facto- for no generation is that characterization more apt ries of Detroit and Chicago. And yet, as we were than the generation that made and fought the born, racial and gender equality was but a dream American Revolution and then built a government, and the pathways to it strewn with roadblocks. a financial system, and a commitment to “improve- ments” that has made this nation exceptional from The great technological advances that revolution- their day to ours. ized how we do business, communicate with each other and gather and process information began in Why then, does the Dartmouth Class of 1967 the World War II laboratories where codes were audaciously choose to publish this book? We did broken and in the hidden locations where missiles not experience change as dramatic as did the gen- were designed and the secrets of the atom unlocked. erations of the Revolution, the Civil War, and And, yet, as we were born, neither the potential applications nor the risks of these unparalleled tech- We are of the generation that has both nological advances were actively considered. done Big Things and that has taken For each of these momentous changes, we were there the Big Things we were given and at the beginning, and our lives have remained inter- transformed them into acts of great value.