Another Perspective on the Antiwar Activities of the ‘60s and ‘70s

Vietnam War photo by Larry Burrows, Life Magazine, Vietnam 1966, from “The 100 Greatest Military Photographs,” Number 4 on the list.

Imagine for a moment you are Wilbur Shirey, Clearfield Area High School Class of 1959.

Capt. Wilbur C. Shirey, U.S. Army, serving in Vietnam. Despite all that is around you, despite being away from your wife and family at Christmas time, despite feeling the sadness and loneliness within yourself, you continue to have enduring faith in your country and its system of government.

And then, in January 1967, a member of your family sends a full-page clipping from your hometown newspaper, The Progress, touting the antiwar activities of classmate Neil Buckley leading the antiwar protests and demonstrations on the Penn State campus.

The article is written by Daily Collegian Editor William F. Lee, another Clearfield High alumnus. The lengthy article states, in part:

What I would like to do,” Buckley was saying, “is to be able to sit down and read and write poetry and listen to good music and go for long walks by the sea. Unfortunately, there are things in this society which I see as wrong. In good conscience, I cannot allow these things to continue. I feel it is my moral duty to change them…

Buckley currently finds himself in the leadership of the Penn State chapter of Students for a Democratic Society. SDS is a five-year-old national student group which is at the apex of the New Left and which has led a successful community organization project in the Negro Ghetto of Newark, N.J. (and other less successful projects) and which is the primary student protest voice against the multiversity, the draft and the War in Vietnam (SDS sent a representative to Hanoi last year to get a first-hand look at the “other side” of the war).

From Bill Lee’s viewpoint, and perhaps the editors at The Progress, who chose to give the story full-page treatment, it all seems so romantic. So benign. In reality, so far removed from the military action in Vietnam.

What do you do? What do you feel? How do you respond?

Capt. Shirey pens a response, which is published by The Progress on Feb. 6, 1967.