They've All Gone to Look for America

College is meant to be a time of learning about the real world, so it is sad when a generation has to have their college years during a war.  They don’t get to see what the big picture is all about.  All they see is people arguing on TV, protesters, anti-protesters, and inflammatory remarks thrown in every direction. 

During my first days of college things were really heating up over the Iraqi war.  Some were losing their best friends due to them being deployed, and not everyone was completely on board with the idea.  While walking from one class to the other, my friend and I came across a mass gathering of people, many in tie-dye shirts, sitting around listening to hippie-era music and a speaker speaking derogatorily about the government’s choices. 

Many people, including my friend, just kept walking completely ignoring anything the other people had to say.  I stood back near the rear, the safest neutral area I could find, and continued to watch what was going on.  It seemed, on a smaller scale, to resemble what had happened during Vietnam, except none of the protestors had a single cross word to say about the soldiers.  They were against the war, no doubt, but they never held the soldiers accountable. 

It kind of gave me hope.  The simple fact that after all these years we still practiced free speech, but had managed to learn not to blame people who didn’t make the choices, was kind of an inspiration.  The music that day included Imagine by John Lennon.  It’s amazing how that one song can bring up nearly the same memory for two different people who heard it three decades apart.