The U.S. was involved in war in Indochina long before anyone seemed to know (unless they had, perhaps, read Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, published in 1955). There was ample time for us to have paid attention. But, in 1961, three years before I graduated from high school on Long Island, when William Lederer, already known as the co-author with Eugene Burdick of The Ugly American, published A Nation of Sheep, he –like many others—expected that hostilities would rage in Laos, not in neighboring Vietnam.   But, ironically, that wasn’t Lederer’s point.  His aim was to underscore the extent to which most U.S. citizens were ignorant of what their government was doing abroad in their name.  He put responsibility squarely on the people, to influence their leaders knowledgeably and proactively.

By then, it was increasingly clear what we were doing in Vietnam, if one wanted to know, and protest slowly grew. But, for the most part, it really had little effect, so that, by the end of 1966, American forces in Vietnam had reached 385,000 men (not counting an additional 60,000 sailors offshore).  It was in October, 1967, that we finally marched on Washington, surrounded the Pentagon, in a demonstration that Norman Mailer wrote about in Armies of the Night, for which he would win the Pulitzer.  But, the war, the deaths, the destruction, continued for many more years.

If I try to remember what turned me against it, before almost anything else, I think it was a song by Simon and Garfunkel, on their album, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, released in October, 1966.  It was called “7 O’Clock News/Silent Night.”

We, at The Porcupine, offer it to you this Christmas season, over 40 years later, as our president commits more troops to a senseless war in Afghanistan.  Put aside the politicians’ platitudes about the nobility and devotion of our soldiers, many of whom will tell you that they want the war there to end.  And, as you sit down to dinner on Christmas day and the days that follow, as the snow spreads an agonizing beauty over the bloody mountains of that distant and wretched country, listen to a song by Simon and Garfunkel that, unfortunately, is as meaningful today as it was in 1966.  But, know that, if we listen and if we act, there is no reason it has to be.

And, then, send it to the White House.