There were plenty of dumb stunts done to stop the Vietnam War and it never seemed to make a difference. John and Yoko had a full-page ad in the New York Times that said "The War Is Over If You Want It," which seemed to do nothing but give permission for people to ignore it. I sure that wasn't their intention.

If the Iraq debacle is anything like the Vietnam war there won't be much of a relationship between the people in the streets and the end of the war. I was there at the peace marches and candlelight vigils. People got angry, but mostly at us dirty hippies and commies. By the time I'd been in the army for six months it was common wisdom that things were going to wind down. Before they found out I could type I was going to be driving the deuce and a quarters over there. They were losing lots of truck drivers back then, the rumor being that they were moving things out, not in.

In November 1972, thanks to a lot of skullduggery, Nixon was reelected in a landslide. He had a plan. And most people still supported the war. And then through my last year in the army (1973) Vietnam faded farther into the background as Watergate crowded the death and destruction out of the evening news. Some of the non-com lifers would come up to me, a PFC known for his anti-war position, and admit that I was right about the war and that it was a failure. That was rather amazing. I got an early out to go back to college, finished in two semesters then went out to California. A recession, so I got a job at the VA Hospital. One night Nixon made a speech, me and a buddy sat in a bar on Clement Street and watched him get into a helicopter and fly away.

The next morning at the hospital someone had stolen his picture off the wall. Thus to tyrants.

And then I dated a few women and went to a few clubs and suddenly there were helicopters plucking people off the roof of the American embassy. And it was over. The anti-war demonstrations had been over for years. Somebody somewhere had decided the war was over.