Notes About The Poem

We need to treat each other better. Washington contains our Federal Government. I does not contain our lives.

1968

1968
By Franklin Price
11/13/2018

The year was nineteen sixty eight, fifty years have passed since then
When I got to Vietnam, we still were there to win
Then Chinese New Year happened, Tet Offensive was its name
The regulars and Vietcong came in force to change the game

We beat them back but was for naught, back home the people spoke
The unrest and the riots were far from any joke
The people turned against the war, and were marching to the beat 
The casualties began to mount, in Vietnam and on our streets

Draft cards and our precious flag were burning every day
Soldiers being spat upon when they came home to stay
Radicals ran rampant. It wasn't looking very good.
MLK and RFK were shot down where they stood

Solidarity Day, in middle June, sought freedom, jobs and peace
Thousands marched on Washington to have discrimination cease
Was also an election year and the parties were beset
The National Guard was called out. How much worse off could we get?

Near the ending of December, Apollo eight was such a boon 
It left the earth and returned again, sending three men 'round the moon
I came home in January, returning on a Freedom Jet
I look back and I ask myself, “Have we gotten better yet?”
Copyright © | Year Posted 2018


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Date: 11/13/2018 1:21:00 PM
1968 ended with a bang and a whimper
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Date: 11/13/2018 10:24:00 AM
nice job. I'd forgotten much of that until I read your work.
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