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When I first began to teach, I had many veterans from the war in Vietnam in my classes. Between my first year in 1969 and the revolutionary victory in 1975, tens of thousands of soldiers returned home. The college in which I taught was in the steel-mill town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and like most working class cities, Johnstown had more than its share of veterans.
Nearly all of my veterans proved themselves serious students. They were a lot like me—first generation college students, sons of factory workers and used to wage labor. Some had volunteered for the military and some had been drafted. Most had been rank-and-file soldiers and marines, but one or two had been officers. Quite a few had not done well in school. Almost all saw college as a new lease on life, a place where they could piece their lives back together and maybe grab a piece of the American dream. I enjoyed teaching them, and drinking with them too.
If the veterans were of one mind in making the most of their classes and eventually graduating, and if in this we were on the same page, the same cannot be said about politics. Some veterans were liberal and some conservative. Some were opposed to the war, but most were not, though only a few expressed this openly. I think that most just wanted to forget about it and get on with their lives. Radical veterans were rare, however; I don’t remember anyone who belonged to Vietnam Veterans Against the War. I, on the other hand, was the most radical teacher on campus, although that wasn’t saying much back then.
Most of the veterans didn’t mind that out politics differed and were often at odds. They had that kind of easygoing willingness to tolerate differences that working class people often have, as long as both parties had enough in common. We drank; we shot pool; we played basketball; we argued. Like my dad’s buddies in the factory back home. But sometimes the differences cut too close to the bone, and then things could get tense.