The Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC was getting ready to begin.
I was in the Army and TDY to Camp Drum, NY. I had made plans with Ms Smoke to come down to our little apartment just outside of DC and then attend the festival together. So, my platoon sergeant and another E5 and I all signed out on a 3 day pass and loaded up in the Sarge's car and began the drive south. Somewhere about a hundred miles into our trip, we heard the news flash that MLK, Jr had been shot and killed. Knowing that if we had turned around and went back to the Post, we would be confined to quarters, so we ventured on, agreeing that the radio in the car did not work. Little white lies that fortunately bore no bad fruit for us.
Instead of attending the Festival, which was cancelled, we sat in our little one bedroom apartment on the 3rd floor of a brick building and watched the TV, showing scenes of the rampage going on in DC and looking out the south facing windows and seeing the smoke rising out of DC from the burning buildings in town.
Our whole battalion had moved en masse from Ft. Lewis, WA in October, and since we got to Ft. Meade, MD we had been training for riot control. Personally, I thought that whole process was flawed. We would be issued no ammunition, but we would be instructed to affix bayonets, although we could not remove the sheathes. The concept was that we would form up so that at a one arm interval we would stretch across the street and march forward stamping our left foot as we went.
Some military genius firmly ensconced in the Pentagon for the last 20 years probably came up with that idea, thinking that would be effective against a hoard of seriously pissed off people. Yeah, right. Wonder what he was smoking?
Fortunately, our unit was never called upon to try that concept out. The CO commander did some pretty cool stuff. On Friday, as expected, everyone was confined to the company area until further notice. On Saturday at noon, they served hot dogs and hamburgers and brought out a keg of beer. In the afternoon, the CO notified the MP's that they should not patrol in our area and he organized an afternoon of drag racing. IIRC, the mess hall served up steaks for dinner and another keg of beer was brought out. So, all in all, the guys on post had a lot better time than those few of us who left early did.
So, that is how it was 56 years ago today. I cannot say that I really miss those days, but it does give me something to reflect back on.
John (Bigsmoke)
Topic: On This Day in 1968--- (Read 892 times)