For What It's Worth
Daniel Neumann was just your typical Texas fox, raised by a hard-scrabble farming family in the town of Round Rock, just a few miles north of Austin- trained in football, a hard worker, and a devout Longhorns fan. So when he graduated from Round Rock High School for college, there was almost no choice where he would go to college. His parents, though they supported the U.S. presence in Vietnam, as Ike had promised in the 1950's to protect Southeast Asia from Communism but they would much rather have seen someone else do the actual fighting not their son so they sent him to college for the fall of 1967. They had him enrolled for four classes, dealing mainly with agricultural studies and history- in short, the next four years would be about Daniel's mother and father, not about Daniel himself.
The orientation was pretty much a disaster for the college as new students came in to find a group of protestors of all species, carrying signs reading "UP AGAINST THE WALL" and "BRING OUR BOYS HOME" marching all throughout the campus. It just so happened that when Daniel excused himself to use the facilities, he was detained the police. Being young and wearing clothes that were a bit too colorful and head-fur that needed to be cut just a little, one of the campus policepigs pointed a loaded gun at the poor fox's head during one of the demonstrations and told him to stand against the wall. This continued for a few minutes until Professor Stinchfield, a boibcat with a degree in history told him that Daniel Neumann was not a hippie but a young graduate looking at the University of Texas as his new college home.
"Thank you, Stinchfield. I didn't know what I would do. I've never had a gun pointed to my head before", Daniel told the professor immediately after the interrogation.
"And for that you should consider yourself lucky. It seems some Vietnam protestors invaded our campus during its summer open house- just between us, they have some valid points," the bobcat would answer, taking off his tie. "Though we all know the only reason why people are going to college these days- they don't want to be drafted." That was something he knew and understood well, having seen many of his friends either willingly go off to die in Southeast Asia or be dragged their by the government.
Several weeks would pass at UT-Austin and classes would start for Mr. Neumann and he would soon get his paws on new knowledge, new textbooks, new ideas. He and his roommate, a buffalo who only went by the name of Springfield would often watch the evening news on their television to find out about the U.S. exploits against "Charlie"- the slang term for the Communist North Vietnamese militant groups deep in the jungles of that country. Just as every American at the time knew that Ho Chi Minh was a bad person and every person at the college knew exactly where Da Nang was, so too did this fox. But more important than the U.S. goals in Vietnam, Neumann wanted to know that his friends weren't dying. The war was ever-present- no class, not even the math classes went by without some student making a speech for (or against) it. None of these students or professors, for that matter were right- it seemed that as far as Vietnam was concerned every single person was wrong. There were protests at the school the first few weeks but the president put a stop to them almost immediately.
It was during an unseasonably warm September day with school several weeks old that the students, including Daniel and Springfield saw the marchers- the same kinds of people who caused such a commotion on the campus just a few weeks ago had returned to march through the capitol district of Austin. A thousand protestors of every imaginable species all carrying signs protesting the war from the place where LBJ, the man who many saw as the villain in this whole episode had his start in politics. Every single one of them made their cases and some of the students joined in, forfeiting their status as students and leaving themselves open to the draft- just like the people protesting outside.
"Have you ever thought of us getting drafted, Springfield?"
"My gut tells me to leave for Mexico if things get worse- these hooves are going to move if these things get worse. I just wish this war would end," the buffalo would say, chewing the cud from his meal, only a slight improvement from the meal itself.
"But Communism must be stop-" Daniel would say before being interrupted by Springfield.
"Open your eyes, this isn't about Communism! It's about making war for profit, it's about finding a bogeyman- sure Charlie will mistreat the people of South Vietnam but so will we- you can count on it. It's this damn war between us and the Russian bear fought by proxy armies. Does it have to bring the rest of the world down with the two of us?"
It was on a November day that the ROTC building at UT-Austin was Molotov cocktailed- it wasn't Neumann's fault, though it might have been Springfield who was at least partially responsible.
"FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ROTC OFFICE, YOU WILL BE KICKED OUT AND I WILL REPORT YOU TO THE DRAFT BOARD." That was the crackly voice of the president, a wolf with a hatred for uppity students and a hot temper. In no time, the campus police came and took Springfield away and within 72 hours, he was on a boat headed for Da Nang- in their short time, Daniel had grown to love this radical with the long hair and crazy beliefs. And it was that time, he too became distrustful of the lies he had been taught as a cub by his parents. Springfield's words during their last night together stuck with the fox.
"This is an age of paranoia for our country- we're all always running around afraid of what someone else will do. A country that's run by fear will make regrettable decisions every time and its citizens, you and I, we have to watch what we do. If we step out of line, like I have done they'll have their goons and they'll take us away." That would be the last Daniel would ever hear of his friend for Springfield's platoon was ambushed a week into his tour and the buffalo died his lonely death far from his home, in a country where no one would even bury him in a proper grave. And yet, we still live in a country whose policies are shaped by fear- we find ourselves fighting in our own Vietnam, we have our own incompetent leadership (with a war-mongering president from Texas just like they did), and we have many Americans needlessly dying in wars that were carried out for profit.
I think it's time we stop- children, what's that sound? Everybody, look what's going down!