Reflections of An Uncommon Common Man

I was 14 years old when the supposed Gulf OF Tonkin incident occurred in August 1964 which gave Lyndon Johnson his justification for escalating the Vietnam War. Supposedly American destroyers were attacked on two separate days by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Johnson asked for and got what came to be a virtual declaration of war on North Vietnam in Congress called the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. The first day of the attack probably happened but the second days attack didn't. Johnson knew this but that didn't stop him from starting one of our longest wars in history. In 1964 I never imagined that I would be facing the possibility of being drafted four years later after I graduated from high school in 1968. That year would turn out to be the worst year of the Vietnam war and American troop strength was at it's height. There were half a million American troops on the ground by 1968. Most Americans my age were like me in that we all grew up with the Communist threat hanging ov...

 In May 1861 three escaped slaves from Virginia made their way to Fortress Monroe in Norfolk which was still under Union control. The Federal commander, General Benjamin Butler refused to return these slaves to their owners because they had had been building artillery positions for the Confederate Army along the James River. Butler coined a new term. He declared them "contraband of war". Under the Fugitive Slave Law passed in 1850 he was required by law to return these slaves to their masters. Virginia had recently seceded from the Union and he considered the state a hostile foreign country. Under the rules of war Federal law did not apply in this case. This decision by Ben Butler was at odds with Lincoln's view of the war. Lincoln didn't consider Virginia to be a foreign country. In his view Virginia was still in the Union and they had no legal right to secede. Butler's action, however; was the first step in the direction of the future Emancipation Proclamation. ...