ON THE MOST SELF-ABSORBED AMERICANS: THE PEACE AND LOVE GENERATION

At the time John F. Kennedy was assassinated, we were just reaching an age at which we were old enough to think for ourselves. We were full of energy and hope, like our music. As the 60's continued, we fought and died in Vietnam; and we fought and died to battle "the man" over Vietnam, racism, and more.

In Vietnam we were draftees and volunteers, crackers and brothers, heads and juicers. We smoked a lot of weed and we challenged military authority at every turn. More than 2.5 million of us served in Vietnam. Nearly 60,000 of us lost our lives there.

There were no parades when we came home. After Vietnam I remember shouts of "baby killer" and "war monger" filling my ears. Folks have conveniently forgotten that many local veterans' organizations, like the VFW and American Legion, would not allow Vietnam Veterans to join because we "lost the war." With our hair and beards growing long we were unwanted among the heroes of WWII and Korea. Because of that treatment I have refused to even consider joining one still today. 

For those who stayed away from the war Timothy Leary's chant, "Turn on, tune in, drop out," drew many like a moth to flame. Our songs screamed protest as we marched in the streets, held sit-ins and love-ins. We even had an anthem.


[Click: Buffalo Springfield-For What Its Worth]

Candidates for President...Kennedy, Humphrey, McGovern, and McCarthy...ran boldly against the war.  Civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke out against it, as did Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali.

My generation, if anything, was progressive and to the far left in thought, if not deed. We marched for civil rights. We marched for women's rights. We marched for farm worker rights. We marched for the poor. We marched for "free love."

In the 1970's we turned that energy and focus toward the President of the United States, Richard Nixon. People who had never read a page of The Washington Post began reading it daily to learn what Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were reporting.

Folks who knew Senator Sam Ervin as the racist old guy from North Carolina now thought him a father figure. Claiming to be "just a country lawyer," he relentlessly questioned witness after witness in the Senate Watergate hearings. Lawyer Fred Thompson rode his daily TV appearance as Minority Counsel to a Senate seat and Hollywood career, including a long-running role on the popular Law & Order series.

In the end, Baby Boomers got their way. In 1974 the 37th President of the United States resigned in shame. We sent the President into exile.

We were a formidable bunch, the generation born between 1946 and 1964. We still are. Tomorrow I will discuss how we turned from a generation touting peace and love to a generation of perhaps the meanest and most selfish Americans to ever live.