Iwas only in grade school when the Vietnam War hit me where I worship. It’s not that I hadn’t paid attention to the world around me at the tender age of 13. It was unavoidable with front page newspaper stories and in-your-face live coverage of the war on the nightly NBC news with Chet and David. Those two commenters were in our living room as much as the old hound dog who laid in front of the fireplace while the news was being aired.

It wasn’t unusual for the girls in my class to sing at funerals in our Catholic church located right next door to my St. Michael’s Grade School. And so on at least two occasions that I can recall, we experienced the loss of a soldier parishioner killed in a land we only knew on a globe. And we sang the holy songs that accompanied our soldiers into the arms of

See Full Page