Far Out

The ‘60s weren’t like what you may think. And that’s what I’ve tried to convey in my Sunshine stories.

Take the Summer of Love, the summer of 1967. I’m sure that there were many hippies dropping acid and smoking illegal substances but in 1967 I didn’t know anyone who did that. At least, not anyone who admitted it. I remember someone at Michigan State University got expelled for smoking marijuana in his dorm. Back then, you could be expelled for drinking alcohol even if you were old enough to do it legally. But I never heard of anyone getting in serious trouble over drinking, which was as pervasive in college then as it is now. Maybe some of my peers were into free love, but I never seemed to meet any of those girls. And neither did most of my friends. Maybe we weren’t cool.

There was some really bitchin’ music coming out of California – the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and the Doors. But that summer the soundtrack mainly came from the Beatles. They released their iconic Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band at the end of May and a month later recorded All You Need Is Love, live, in the first worldwide TV satellite broadcast.

A few weeks later, when All You Need Is Love was rocketing up the charts, 43 people died in a “race riot” in Detroit. The term race riot comes from the Kerner Commission, appointed by Congress to investigate the urban unrest in the nation. The commission documented more than a hundred race riots in 1967.

Some summer of love.

The same week of the riot, armed with my brand-new degree in journalism, I started a job as an editor at the American Concrete Institute in Detroit. Okay, it wasn’t my dream job but I’d been assured that it was draft deferred. Apparently, the publications I’d be editing were critical for maintaining the nation’s building codes. And I believed that. Besides, I had car payments. My Plymouth Barracuda Formula S was a really cool shade of British Racing Green. It had wide oval tires with skinny red stripes. And it was fast. The riot was mostly in Detroit’s inner city and I worked out on Seven Mile Road. I cruised back to my apartment on Eight Mile Road racing Mustangs and 327 Chevies at the stop lights. Gas was 35 cents a gallon.

 The TV news about Vietnam was a little scary, and so were the stories in the newspapers. But I didn’t have time for newspapers or TV. My reading gravitated to J.R.R. Tolkien and Philip K. Dick, and I listened to all the albums I could finally afford on my stereo. The Tigers were in first place. Jimi Hendrix played the Grande Ballroom. And I had a job that paid well and came with a draft deferment. My life was outta sight! But near the end of the summer, I got a notice to report for my military induction physical. Bummer, but my boss told me not to worry. He said he’d write to my draft board and straighten them out.

Years later, I learned that the situation in Vietnam was actually much worse than what was on TV and in the newspapers. According to the American War Library online database, 449 Americans were killed in action in Vietnam in June 1967, followed by 458 in July, 466 in August and 460 in September. But in news stories, generals and politicians assured us that we were winning the war and turning the corner. They could see a light at the end of the tunnel. Today, it’s clear that a lot of generals and politicians were lying. Sound familiar?  Sound like a summer of love?

Summer ended. The Tigers faded to second place. The fall colors around Detroit were spectacular. So was my health according to my draft board. I was told to report for induction in November despite the danger this posed to the nation’s building codes. Major bummer.

Turned out that the most important thing I’d learned in 16 years of schooling was how to type. I ended up as the company clerk and an occasional door gunner in the 187th Assault Helicopter Company. This was airmobile warfare, the cutting edge of combat then. And it’s probably not what you’ve read about in Vietnam war stories. No slogging through rice paddies and collecting leeches in the jungle for us. We slept on mattresses in a base camp, ate hot chow at a mess hall and had electricity and running water. Okay, the water ran out of an old aircraft drop tank to a few taps and shower heads and had to be refilled daily. The generators providing the electricity often broke down. Call it comfortable camping.

However, helicopter aircrews had just about the highest casualty rates in the Vietnam War.  It was a strange, bizarre way to fight a war. It was far out. And the ‘60s were a decade filled with contradictions, polarization and those lies. Sort of like today, except I’d argue the music was better.

And that’s the setting for the Sunshine stories.