It doesn't fill the news reports much, but it's there. Once in a while we hear things and names that are hard to pronounce. We saw a Buddhist monk set himself on fire right out in front of everybody, and there are rumors that President Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA and others in our government because he was going to have our soldiers come home.
President Johnson has vowed to continue the fight over there. Our soldiers are over there, but they're not called soldiers, they're called "advisers". They get killed no matter what they're called.
The people themselves don't seem to know what they want. The government we support keeps changing all of the time. Generals come and go, taking over in something called coups. Diem, Minh, Kahn - one by one claiming they are the next savior of their country.
We don't talk much about the place, not even in school during current event days.
But it's there all of the time.
Green Berets and Viet Cong. Hamlets and fire bases and helicopters and the Ho Chi-Minh trail.
Hanoi and Saigon are cities we hear a lot about now, and the Mekong is a river and bombs are falling in a country called Laos.
It's there all of the time, just a little noise in the background, but it's there.
It's a patrol in the jungle and a village head man being hung for all to see.
Water buffaloes and rice paddies and napalm dropping from the sky.
American planes and artillery backing up the soldiers from the south as they try to control their country from the communists from the north.
It's there all of the time, just a comment or two on the evening news.
Like a clock ticking that you barely even notice.
Vietnam.........
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