"That Damn LBJ: A Short Story"

Sometimes fiction is the most effective commentary so here's a short story:

Except for the large screen TV set in the back where the bandstand had once been and the row of video games that had replaced the pinball machines, the Pit hadn’t changed much in thirty-five years.
It was still the same seedy off-campus watering hole for students who wanted something stronger than the soda pop sold at the Student Union. The same watered-down beer and cheap scotch, the same lousy menu of greasy hamburgers, undercooked French Fries and tasteless chili and the same bowls of stale peanuts sitting on the bar. The place even smelled the same for it had the same cloud of cigarette smoke with just a scent of marijuana mixed hanging in the air.
Not even the students had changed much, although the skirts, shirts and shorts on the girls were shorter and tighter and a few of the boys had shaved heads. The students still looked much like the kids who had enjoyed after school drinks here when the five alumni sitting at the corner table had been attending classes across the street at good old State U.
The only thing that had changed were the five at the table, they were older, fatter and grayer. Their leader a fat middle aged white man had gray shoulder length hair, a bald spot on top and thick glasses. He wore a tie died T-shirt and shorts that showed off his pale legs. His name was Quenton Forgill and next to him sat his wife Cynthia, a short middle aged Asian woman with thick glasses and short hair. Next to them sat Rodney Smith, a rather dignified man with a close-cropped beard and short hair who wore a polo shirt and slacks, he had the ease and relaxation of success. Next to Smith, sat Sandy Began, a short and very fat middle aged woman with thick glasses and long hair who wore a knee length skirt and a sweater that made her look dumpier than she actually was. Next to them, sat Andrew Byrd, a tall black man with long hair who wore a suit and tie.
The five were back at State University for the 35th annual reunion of the class of 1968. Like many alumni they had grown bored with the staged events on the campus and went in search of their old haunts, most of which were long gone. The record store having been torn down to make way for a Blockbuster Video and the old café where the hippies hung out having been turned into a Starbucks. Of the many establishments they had frequented in their college years, only the Pit remained and to their delight it had changed little.
“Did you see that asshole Kennedy on TV last night,” Byrd said as he nursed his light beer. “The speech he was giving at the LBJ monument.”
“No I didn’t I was at the game,” Smith said.
“Well, I did,” Sandy said. “It was disgusting he was actually praising Lyndon Banes Johnson calling him a great man. He even said LBJ did the right thing by invading North Vietnam.”
“You must mean John junior he’s a real ass kisser,” said Smith. Smith, a successful attorney who practiced law in Spokane, paid little attention to politics these days.
“No I mean Bobby, fucking Bobby Kennedy was on TV praising LBJ calling him a great man, saying he did the right thing by ordering the troops into North Vietnam,” Byrd said. “I coulda puked when I saw it.”
“You’re kidding,” Cynthia said.
“No he isn’t,” Sandy said. “I saw it on TV. Kennedy praising LBJ for crushing the revolution in Vietnam. Ending the hopes and aspirations of the Vietnamese people for freedom.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Smith said. “I visited Vietnam on business last year. It’s a nice place even Hanoi, they have democratic elections and they treat Americans real well. They have national health care and their economy’s doing real well.”
“Capitalist pigs sold out their own people,” Cynthia said.
“Yeah, I had an exchange student in my class from Hanoi last year, the kid didn’t even know who Ho Chi Minh or Nugyen Giap were,” Forgill, a professor of history at Cornell, said. “I asked him about the war and he said it was probably a good thing we invaded the North. Can you believe that, he said his family was starving before we occupied the place. He said American soldiers rebuilt the school and let his uncle out of a concentration camp.”
“What did happen to those guys anyway,” Byrd asked?
“Who,” Smith said.
“Ho Chi Minh and Giap, you remember the general who led the Vietnamese war effort, kicked the French’s buts at Dian Bien Phu,” Forgill said. “Ho died in Moscow in 1970, they buried him in the Kremlin Wall until President Gregorian had it dug up and the bodies pitched in 1982 when he declared Communism over, Giap still lives there I think. They gave him an apartment to live in.”
“That was the worst sell out in history,” Byrd said. “The fucking Russians didn’t do a thing to help the people of Vietnam. Not a damned thing, they didn’t even complain to the damned UN, whatever happened to Communist solidarity?”
“How the hell should I know,” Forgill said. “The damned Chinese didn’t help either. I mean Mao didn’t do a damned thing when our tanks drove through Hanoi and knocked over all of Ho’s statues. No wonder, the damned Soviet Union fell.”
“No wonder the corporate fat cats built a monument to LBJ he did their dirty work for them in Nam,” said Byrd.
“I can’t believe it,” said Forgill. “A big monument for that piece of crap right on the mall in Washington. Statue, marble columns everything. And a big ceremony to open it and all the damned Democrats are there Reagan, Clinton, Carter, Wallace even that shit head Bobby K. What did we ever see in that guy anyway?”
“How the hell should I know,” Sandy said. “I mean he backed McCarthy in the fifties for God’s sake. Then he opposed Nam, until LBJ invaded the place. Then he decided he liked the war after all. Even kept our troops there after he was elected President in seventy-two.”
“Well, I hate LBJ,” Forgill said. “Until he invaded the North we were getting through. People were paying attention to our marches, they were showing us on TV. People were listening man. Then LBJ goes and invades Hanoi. They show those pictures of that Hilton place on TV, all those torture implements and those concentration camps and suddenly nobody pays attention to us anymore. I mean people who had been marching with us didn’t want to be seen around us anymore.”
“Yeah and them pictures of all them Vietnamese people tearing up Ho’s statues and his pictures I couldn’t believe that,” Byrd said. “It had to be faked. Walter Cronkite had to be in on it with LBJ.”
“What happened to Uncle Walter anyway,” Cynthia asked? “He was the biggest broadcaster around in 68 and he just disappeared.”
“Way I hear it the CIA killed him,” Forgill said.
“No he’s s still alive teaching journalism at some cow college in Missouri CBS fired him after he said we were losing the war the week before we took Hanoi and that was the only job he could find,” Byrd said.
“Nah it was real,” Smith said. “My brother was over there, he was in the Marines and he saw it all. The people in Hanoi really tore up every symbol of Communism they could lay their hands on after we liberated the place. They smashed every picture of Lenin and burned every copy of the Communist Manifesto they could lay their hands on.”
“Then Westmoreland had to be behind it the troops forced them to do it at gun point,” Forgill said.
“No, it was spontaneous,” Smith said. “My brother said they lynched a lot of Communists too. They put ropes around their necks, set them on fire that sort of thing. A lot more would have died but our troops protected them.”
“But the Communists were helping the people,” Byrd said.
“That’s not what my brother said,” Smith said. “He got a look at their palaces. Those guys were living like kings while the kids were starving. They had limousines and champagne and wet bars right out of country clubs and all sorts of whores running around. At the same time you could see the ribs on the Vietnamese peasants. He said a lot of them came right up to his jeep and begged for C-rations.”
“Then your brother is a fascist pig,” Sandy screamed!
“No, he’s a Democrat,” Smith said. “He’s telling the truth. He wouldn’t lie about something like this.”
“All them veterans are liars,” said Forgill. “What’s happened to you anyway, Randy you sold out and joined the establishment?”
“No, I just grew up,” Smith answered.
“But you marched with us,” said Cynthia.
“I was a stupid young kid, I was wrong,” said Smith.
“You mean we were wrong about Uncle Ho,” said Forgill.
“Yeah I guess so,” Smith said. “Look we were dumb young kids. A lot of long haired professors sold us a line of bull. Let’s admit it was shit and grow up.”
“We marched to stop the war,” Sandy yelled!!
“Okay maybe that part was good, but you’ve got to see Hanoi it’s a real nice place today,” Smith said. “I mean maybe LBJ knew what he was doing when he invaded the North. I mean no American soldiers died after 68 did they? Draft ended in 69 and most of the guys came home. By April 1969 most Americans couldn’t find Vietnam on a map. The war ended didn’t it.”
“So maybe he was, but we were winning,” Forgill said. “I mean at the time of the Tet Offensive people were listening to us. Bobby even came out against the war. Uncle Walter was for us on TV. Then LBJ invades the North and presto, it’s all over. All the marching we did was worthless, the damned Viet Cong folded like a house of cards. LBJ wins the nomination and the Presidential election by a landslide. I mean you didn’t see Chicago in sixty eight, nothing happened there, we had less than a hundred people. The cops didn’t pay attention to us. The TV cameras ignored us, hell the only person who came over was some guy with a hotdog cart.”
“You were lucky you weren’t inside,” Byrd said. “You didn’t see all the speeches congratulating Lyndon on his victory. Especially Bobby, he was at it back then.”
“So he sold us out,” said Sandy. “What’s new they all did.”
“That damned LBJ,” said Forgill. “Why did he have to go and do that? I mean McNamara was against him until we won.”
“Who knows,” said Sandy.
“At least there aren’t any damned veterans here, I hate those guys,” Cynthia said. “It was bad enough that they killed all those babies over there. But the way the public talks about them these days.”
“Yeah, I mean what’s happened to this country, we tried to prevent a war and help the Vietnamese people,” said Forgill, “and who did they build a monument too.”
“That damned LBJ, that’s who,” the aging former leftists said.
“So is anybody up for another protest,” asked Sandy? “We’re going to be picketing against Bush’s war in Iraq next week.”
“Sorry,” Byrd said. “I’ve got a golf game.”
“Yeah me too,” Forgill said.
The five sat there looking at TV footage of the dedication of the Lyndon B. Johnson Memorial in Washington DC and cursed.
As they did a young student, a woman turned to the bartender, a fat middle aged man and asked, “what’s wrong with those old people anyway?”
“Ah anti-war protestors from the sixties, they get pissed every time they see LBJ on TV,” the bartender said.
“Why,” the student asked as he sipped his beer?
“Cause he won the war in Vietnam and kicked the commies out of Southeast Asia,” the bartender answered.
“But that was a good thing wasn’t it,” said the student.
“Yeah, but you miss the point,” the bartender said. “Once LBJ won the war they had nothing to protest anymore.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” said the student.
“Those people never did,” the bartender said. As the five aging radicals got up and left the Pit.