The Point Man and the Peacenik

The United States nearly ripped apart at the seams in 1968, the most tumultuous year of Twentieth Century America. History herself seemed confused as she zigged and zagged and changed course several times.

Who were you in 1968? A hippie? An army draftee? Maybe you weren't born yet, but you wonder about those flower children with bell bottoms and long hair. Or, you wonder about your uncle who grows silent at times. Maybe it was your grandparents. "Ok boomer," you mutter to yourself.

Choices. It's all about choices. The Vietnam War, and one's reaction to it, defined the generation that came of age in the turbulent '60s. From the novel's opening paragraph, the moral ambiguity of this war confronts a raw recruit in the mountainous jungles of central Vietnam. Does he shoot first and ask questions later? Meanwhile, his high school buddy is bloodied by a policeman's baton as he protests the war.

Time and place are central to the narrative, and the novel transports the reader to the tempestuous year of 1968. By depicting actual events in an artful manner, the novel shares aspects of narrative nonfiction. Creative and entertaining re-creation of historical events serves as an entryway into racial, class, cultural, political, and military history. The novel re-creates historical persons and events from an eyewitness perspective so that the reader feels the moment as a lived experience. The events of 1968 are revisited, not as stale historical remnants, but as presaging the issues of today.

The novel features a pair of high school classmates from a small midwestern town who follow different paths. One is off to Vietnam as a combat infantryman, and the other joins the anti-war movement. To add spice to the stew, they are in love with the same woman. Each faces hard choices as they come of age: sex and relationships, drugs, hopes and disillusionment, and the dilemma of compulsory military service in a war of dubious purpose and questionable strategy and tactics. Race and bigotry challenge them, as do class and privilege.

From New Year's Eve 1967 to the conclusion on New Year's Eve 1968, the novel follows a chronological pattern of alternating chapters between the two main characters. Along the way, the characters weave in and out of the major events of the year and interact with actual, historical figures: the Tet Offensive, Eugene McCarthy's shock-the-world candidacy in New Hampshire, the siege of Khe Sanh, young John Lewis recounting the early civil rights movement, urban riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy's assassination in Los Angeles just as it appeared he might be the next president, the rise of hippie counter-culture, the riotous Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and segregationist George Wallace spouting grievances and mesmerizing a raucous crowd at Madison Square Garden.

It is often stated that the arc of history bends toward justice. Was that true of 1968? Did the pursuit of a more perfect union move forward that year? Or, is the coping slang of the Vietnam soldier--It don't mean nuthin'--more accurate? Half a century later, we are left to ask, did that turbulent year mean something or nothing?

For readers from the generation now enjoying Social Security, the novel invites remembrance of the times, the tunes, and the tribulations. For the Vietnam vet, the novel offers a belated, "Welcome home!" Perhaps younger readers will say, "Ok Boomer, I understand you a bit better."