ATIT Reheated: An open letter to my teenage son

By Jack Brummet, Music Editor

[From All This Is That, Friday, January 06, 2006]


No wonder we were crazy in the 60's. This "song" was a big hit on AM radio. A lot of parents thought it was a smart piece of writing (as opposed to, say, smarmy, reactionary claptrap). It was just flat depressing. But then that's the way it was. I remember a lot of heated arguments with angry adults, and teachers and Sunday school teachers over the war and protesting and burning draft cards. I even witnessed an actual father-son fight over the war.   It was especially strange since this song co-existed on the radio, and the charts, with a lot of amazing music.

The first part of the song, you think, "yeah, this guy is talking sense here."   But then, after a couple of minutes, he gets down to business.  And it is ugly business.  



An Open Letter To My Teenage Son


by Victor Lundberg

Dear Son:

You ask my reaction to long hair or beards on young people
Some great men have worn long hair and beards
George Washington and Abraham Lincoln
If to you long hair or a beard is a symbol of independence
If you believe in your heart that the principles of this country
Our heritage, is worthy of this display of pride
That all men shall remain free
That free men at all times will not inflict their personal limitations
Of achievement on others,
That demands your own rights as well as the rights of others
And be willing to fight for this right, you have my blessings

You ask that I not judge you merely as a teenager
To judge you on your own personal habits, abilities and goals
This is a fair request and I promise that I will not judge any person
Only as a teenager if you will constantly remind yourself that some of my
generation judge people by their race, their belief or the color
of their skin and that this is no more right than saying all
teenagers are drunken dope addicts or glue sniffers
If you will judge every human being on his own individual potential
I will do the same.

You ask me if God is dead
This is a question each individual must answer within himself
But a warm summer day with all its brightness
All its sound, all its exhilarating breathiness just happened
God is love. Remember that God is a guide and not a storm trooper
Realize that many of the past and present generation
Because of a well intended but unjustifiable misconception
Have attempted to legislate morality
This created part of the basis
For your generation's need to rebel against our society
With this knowledge perhaps your children will never ask
Is God dead?
I sometimes think much of mankind is attempting to work Him to death

You ask my opinion of draft card burners. I would answer this way
All past wars have been dirty, unfair, immoral, bloody and second-guessed
However, history has shown most of them necessary
If you doubt that our free enterprise system
In the United States is worth protecting, if you doubt the principles
Upon which this country was founded, that we remain free to choose our religion
Our individual endeavors, our method of government
If you doubt that each free individual in this great country
should reap rewards commensurate only with his own efforts
Than it is doubtful you belong here

If you doubt that people who govern us
Should be selected by their desire
To allow us to strive for any goal we feel capable of obtaining
Than its doubtful you should participate in their selection
If you are not grateful to a country
That gave your father the opportunity to work
For his family to give you the things you have and you do not feel pride
Enough to fight for your right to continue in this
Manner than I assume the blame for your failure
To recognize the true value of our birthright

And I will remind you that your mother will love
you no matter what you do, because she is a woman
And I love you too son
But I also love our country and the principles for which we stand
And if you decide to burn your draft card
then burn your birth certificate at the same time
From that moment on, I have no son.
---o0o---

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1972: Facing the Selective Service System, and The Draft

By Jack Brummet
Unexplained Phenomena Editor

It's hard to remember now what we faced in the late 60's and early 70's, when involuntary conscription was still the law of the land.  It wasn't so much the draft per se, as the fact that there was a bloody war raging in Vietnam (and vicinity) and every single day, the 'papers and news were filled with body bags and body counts.  And very little of the news was good news.  Before the war was over more than 58,000 American boys would die in Vietnam.

The debate over the war was constantly raging--between parents and sons, teachers and students, police and protesters. . .it happened constantly, and everywhere.  It was absolutely exacerbated by other changes in the "youth culture": drugs, sex, rock and roll, underground newspapers and radio stations, long hair and beards, strange clothes, rock festivals, gigantic marches, people dropping out of society for communes, and people joining political and action groups like the Students for a Democratic Society, The Yippies, The Panthers, The Weatherman, The Draft Resistance, and hundreds more.  It was a strange and wonderful time.  And always hanging over our heads (I turned 18 in 1971) was the draft, and being sent to Vietnam, or at the best, enlisting in the Navy or Coast Guard to avoid 'Nam.  When you were drafted, they did not send you to dig ditches in Omaha.

In 1970, the the Selective Service System instituted a national lottery for draft numbers.  The target draft age was 19.  In 1972, the picked the numbers for people born in 1953.  My birth date came in at 182; I was safe.  That guy born on March 6th--he was No. One.  If you were born on Christmas Day, you were No. Six.

The draft (not just the lottery) ended on July 1st, 1973.

This list shows the number of inductions into the military over the terrible arc of the Vietnam War.

Year   Inductees

1962     82,060

1963   119,265

1964   112,386

1965   230,991

1966   382,010

1967   228,263

1968   296,406

1969   283,586

1970   162,746

1971     94,092

1972     49,514

1973          646

---o0o---

Draft Resistance pamphlet from Seattle in the late 1960's

By Jack Brummet
Seattle History Correspondent

I worked part time as a draft counselor in a community center in 1970-72.  We worked mostly with people trying to file for conscientious objector status, took part in marches, letter writing campaigns, and distributing literature about the draft.  We weren't really part of the hard-core resistance movement (meaning we didn't perform acts of sabotage and most of our customers did not want to go to jail.), but we were fellow travellers and, really, just different branches of the same tree.

These pamphlets and posters remind me that everything was hand-made/analog in those days.  You can see in this flyer that they used three different typewriters (or different IBM type balls).  Maybe it was commercially printed, or maybe it was typed on mimeograph stencils and then duplicated.

---o0o---

An Open Letter To My Teenage Son

No wonder we were crazy in the 60s. This "song" was a big hit on AM radio. A lot of parents thought it was a smart piece of writing (as opposed to, say, smarmy, reactionary claptrap). It was just flat depressing. But then that's the way it was. I remember a lot of heated arguments with angry adults, and teachers and Sunday school teachers over the war and protesting and burning draft cards. I even witnessed an actual father-son fight over the war. I tracked the song down to http://www.fugly.com. You can listen to it on your PC, or download it... Click here to listen.


An Open Letter To My Teenage Son
by Victor Lundberg

Dear son:

You ask my reaction to long hair or beards on young people
Some great men have worn long hair and beards
George Washington and Abraham Lincoln
If to you long hair or a beard is a symbol of independence
If you believe in your heart that the principles of this country
Our heritage, is worthy of this display of pride
That all men shall remain free
That free men at all times will not inflict their personal limitations
Of achievement on others,
That demands your own rights as well as the rights of others
And be willing to fight for this right, you have my blessings

You ask that I not judge you merely as a teenager
To judge you on your own personal habits, abilities and goals
This is a fair request and I promise that I will not judge any person
Only as a teenager if you will constantly remind yourself that some of my
generation judge people by their race, their belief or the color
of their skin and that this is no more right than saying all
teenagers are drunken dope addicts or glue sniffers
If you will judge every human being on his own individual potential
I will do the same.

You ask me if God is dead
This is a question each individual must answer within himself
But a warm summer day with all its brightness
All its sound, all its exhilarating breathiness just happened
God is love. Remember that God is a guide and not a storm trooper
Realize that many of the past and present generation
Because of a well intended but unjustifiable misconception
Have attempted to legislate morality
This created part of the basis
For your generation's need to rebel against our society
With this knowledge perhaps your children will never ask
Is God dead?
I sometimes think much of mankind is attempting to work Him to death

You ask my opinion of draft card burners. I would answer this way
All past wars have been dirty, unfair, immoral, bloody and second-guessed
However, history has shown most of them necessary
If you doubt that our free enterprise system
In the United States is worth protecting, if you doubt the principles
Upon which this country was founded, that we remain free to choose our religion
Our individual endeavors, our method of government
If you doubt that each free individual in this great country
should reap rewards commensurate only with his own efforts
Than it is doubtful you belong here

If you doubt that people who govern us
Should be selected by their desire
To allow us to strive for any goal we feel capable of obtaining
Than its doubtful you should participate in their selection
If you are not grateful to a country
That gave your father the opportunity to work
For his family to give you the things you have and you do not feel pride
Enough to fight for your right to continue in this
Manner than I assume the blame for your failure
To recognize the true value of our birthright

And I will remind you that your mother will love
you no matter what you do, because she is a woman
And I love you too son
But I also love our country and the principles for which we stand
And if you decide to burn your draft card
then burn your birth certificate at the same time
From that moment on, I have no son
---o0o---