A GREEN LIEUTENANT A memoir of a Vietnam veteran
				William Oxley Thompson Library on the Oval at Ohio State, 1965
	1966 arrived. The war was on the front page every morning and on the TV screen every night. I was in a bull shit session with some of my Phi Delt brothers and talking about how we (someone other than me) needed to stop communism somewhere (Vietnam) before it took over all of Asia. One of the brothers took exception, “You believe that crap?” Well, yes I did. I also believed that the freedom loving people of Vietnam did not want to be subjugated by the freedom hating people of Vietnam and shouldn’t we (someone other than me) do something about that? “If they want freedom why won’t they hold the plebiscite Eisenhower promised them way back in 1954? If they held national elections, who do you think would win, the Diem brothers or Ho Chi Mihn?” But what about all the people we saw streaming south to escape Ho in the movies they showed us in ROTC? I countered.  Didn’t that prove that people wanted to live in a democracy? “And they didn’t show you the people heading north did they? Did they tell you that the people heading south were Catholics, connected to the French?” It was an eye-opening discussion for me, raising facts and questions that I didn’t know. 66 was also the year that letters began arriving at the Phi Delt house from alums now calling Ft. Polk, Ft. Benning, Lackland Air Force Base, Camp Pendelton or Great Lakes Naval Training Station home. Once out of college there was no hiding place. Guys in the house began to think about getting married, going to grad school, developing a trick knee or having a sudden religious conversion. Next