Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio Happy Friday.

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio Happy Friday.

I'm Tracy B.

I'm Tracy B.

Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.

Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.

We uh spent the whole week talking about the Vietnam War and draft board raids. This was an episode that when I started thinking about it five years ago and in the times that I've thought about it since, I was like, is there gonna be enough information about this because it seemed kind of scattered and a lot of what you find unless you're going through like news reporting as it happened, of every single thing, which I did do a lot of reading of the news reports of what happened. A lot of times things are summed up in just a couple of sentences. So it's like twenty eight people broke into this place and they did this to the draft records. So I was like, is this really gonna work? And then as I got into the Camden twenty eight story and was like, this is wild. We had these people do this, they have their their friend informing on them, we have this trial that needs its whole section. I was like, maybe it's a whole episode on just the Camden twenty eight, and that felt like it was not doing justice to the fact that it was part of a much bigger movement, and then talking about the much bigger movement needed a lot more explanation of why we were even having this happen, which meant discussion in more detail of the Vietnam War than I think you and I have ever gotten into on the show on purpose. Yes, a topic I have not been comfortable really getting into. Yeah. Me, my dad served in Vietnam. He was deployed to Vietnam in nineteen seventy one, so during that period that you know, removal of troops was happening, but people also being sent over there for the first time. I also have more extended a member of the family who was killed in Vietnam and then growing up in the you know, latter half of the nineteen seventies and into the nineteen eighties and just kind of being steeped in what the culture of the United States was like at that point. I've always been like, yikes, we have plenty of other stuff to talk about. Don't really need to get into that.

We uh spent the whole week talking about the Vietnam War and draft board raids. This was an episode that when I started thinking about it five years ago and in the times that I've thought about it since, I was like, is there gonna be enough information about this because it seemed kind of scattered and a lot of what you find unless you're going through like news reporting as it happened, of every single thing, which I did do a lot of reading of the news reports of what happened. A lot of times things are summed up in just a couple of sentences. So it's like twenty eight people broke into this place and they did this to the draft records. So I was like, is this really gonna work? And then as I got into the Camden twenty eight story and was like, this is wild. We had these people do this, they have their their friend informing on them, we have this trial that needs its whole section. I was like, maybe it's a whole episode on just the Camden twenty eight, and that felt like it was not doing justice to the fact that it was part of a much bigger movement, and then talking about the much bigger movement needed a lot more explanation of why we were even having this happen, which meant discussion in more detail of the Vietnam War than I think you and I have ever gotten into on the show on purpose. Yes, a topic I have not been comfortable really getting into. Yeah. Me, my dad served in Vietnam. He was deployed to Vietnam in nineteen seventy one, so during that period that you know, removal of troops was happening, but people also being sent over there for the first time. I also have more extended a member of the family who was killed in Vietnam and then growing up in the you know, latter half of the nineteen seventies and into the nineteen eighties and just kind of being steeped in what the culture of the United States was like at that point. I've always been like, yikes, we have plenty of other stuff to talk about. Don't really need to get into that.

Yeah, yeah, here we are here, we are.

Yeah, yeah, here we are here, we are.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean my dad is career military and served in Vietnam. We have never talked about it. Yeah, that was made very clear to me as a kid that that was an off limits subject. Yeah, so I don't have a lot of information.

I mean my dad is career military and served in Vietnam. We have never talked about it. Yeah, that was made very clear to me as a kid that that was an off limits subject. Yeah, so I don't have a lot of information.

I have one story about my dad's time in Vietnam, and it is about when he was preparing to go home and how everyone was when it was approaching time to go home. People were terrified because it was like, if something's going to happen to me, now is when it's going to happen.

I have one story about my dad's time in Vietnam, and it is about when he was preparing to go home and how everyone was when it was approaching time to go home. People were terrified because it was like, if something's going to happen to me, now is when it's going to happen.

Right.

Right.

Apparently he had to pass everybody had to pass a drug test to be able to go back home, and if you didn't pass your drug test, you could only get as far as Okinawa and you had to wait there for I don't know what. And so in the midst of just this anxiety about what was going to happen, he hadn't really had anything to eat or drink, and so the sample he gave was not valid for his drug test. He had to do it over and he's not He's not ever told me much more about it beyond that, but having been kind of a pacifist person from my early childhood generally feeling that war is bad, and then growing up through the years of stuff like Operation desert storm, and like people's responses about that still being cut by what had happened with the anti Vietnam War movement, which, as we said in the episode, way broader than hippies and college kids. Yeah, anyway, it was just it was a weird time to grow up.

Apparently he had to pass everybody had to pass a drug test to be able to go back home, and if you didn't pass your drug test, you could only get as far as Okinawa and you had to wait there for I don't know what. And so in the midst of just this anxiety about what was going to happen, he hadn't really had anything to eat or drink, and so the sample he gave was not valid for his drug test. He had to do it over and he's not He's not ever told me much more about it beyond that, but having been kind of a pacifist person from my early childhood generally feeling that war is bad, and then growing up through the years of stuff like Operation desert storm, and like people's responses about that still being cut by what had happened with the anti Vietnam War movement, which, as we said in the episode, way broader than hippies and college kids. Yeah, anyway, it was just it was a weird time to grow up.

For sure. And I feel like part of the reason that it was always off limits in my family for discussion was because not just of my father's service, but my mom, who I would not say was anti war or a pacifist, although I don't really know. We never talked about it. Was very Catholic, and so I wonder if there was some like just like, we don't want to start peeling this onion. It is too complicated. There are too many issues in play. Yeah, Like, I think it was just a let's not have a potentially tricky conversation. I'm making, you know, the following items for dinner. Yeah, yeah, not necessarily a fan of nuance my mom, right, Yeah, I think that was part of it too. So for all I know, my dad would have been like, yeah, I'll talk about it. My mom was like, let's not. I don't know, I can still ask my dad, but you know, I kind of don't want to bug a dude in his eighties about stuff like that, right, right, Yeah, he's never volunteered anything, so right.

For sure. And I feel like part of the reason that it was always off limits in my family for discussion was because not just of my father's service, but my mom, who I would not say was anti war or a pacifist, although I don't really know. We never talked about it. Was very Catholic, and so I wonder if there was some like just like, we don't want to start peeling this onion. It is too complicated. There are too many issues in play. Yeah, Like, I think it was just a let's not have a potentially tricky conversation. I'm making, you know, the following items for dinner. Yeah, yeah, not necessarily a fan of nuance my mom, right, Yeah, I think that was part of it too. So for all I know, my dad would have been like, yeah, I'll talk about it. My mom was like, let's not. I don't know, I can still ask my dad, but you know, I kind of don't want to bug a dude in his eighties about stuff like that, right, right, Yeah, he's never volunteered anything, so right.

Yeah, my dad also worked in a motor pool, so he was not in a like frontline kind of combat position.

Yeah, my dad also worked in a motor pool, so he was not in a like frontline kind of combat position.

Anyway.

Anyway.

I had a couple of things that came up in the research for this that didn't have just a good place to go in the episode, so I kind of wanted to talk about them and behind the scenes now that I have talked about my profoundest comfort of trying to talk about Vietnam on the show. One the flower Power image. Love that photo. I really do. The person in the photo George Harris, really George Harris the third later known as Hibiscus, so I think he was eighteen or nineteen when that picture was taken. Had a theater background or from childhood, like theater family and like doing plays, the siblings and all of that. After the war, went to the San Francisco Bay area and helped found an avant garde drag performance group called the Cockettes. Other cocattes include Divine.

I had a couple of things that came up in the research for this that didn't have just a good place to go in the episode, so I kind of wanted to talk about them and behind the scenes now that I have talked about my profoundest comfort of trying to talk about Vietnam on the show. One the flower Power image. Love that photo. I really do. The person in the photo George Harris, really George Harris the third later known as Hibiscus, so I think he was eighteen or nineteen when that picture was taken. Had a theater background or from childhood, like theater family and like doing plays, the siblings and all of that. After the war, went to the San Francisco Bay area and helped found an avant garde drag performance group called the Cockettes. Other cocattes include Divine.

Yeah, I know of the Cockettes. I did not realize this was the connection though.

Yeah, I know of the Cockettes. I did not realize this was the connection though.

Yeah, So Hibiscus, one of the founders of the Cocattes, also one of the founders of the Angel of Light Theater Troop, one of his fellow performers in all of this, in an article about him in The New York Times, described him as quote, he came out of the closet wearing the entire closet. I love that so much. It's also very clear that his gender was pretty fluid. But everything that I have read about him has used him pronouns for him. He had a relationship with Alan Ginsberg, like a relationship, right, like a physical slash romantic relationship. So tragically he died of AIDS related diseases in nineteen eighty two. That was so early in the AIDS crisis that the terms human immune deficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome had not even been coined yet to describe it. He was only thirty two. I'd want to go back in time and with his consent, hug him. That was thing number one. I just I wanted to talk more about Pybiscus and all of that and kind of you know, where his life went from being in this famous picture the other thing father Michael Doyle. Yeah, this requires a little bit of context. So in a number of Christian denominations on ash Wednesday, there is some kind of like observation or service right that is usually done with the palms from Palm Sunday the previous year. So Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus coming into Jerusalem and people waving palm branches, and there's usually something with palm branches at the church service, and then those branches are saved. The next year, they are burned to make the ashes for ash Wednesday, and then on ash Wednesday there's something that often involves a person getting some of the ash on their head, often on their forehead in the shape of a cross. YEP, A lot of different Like I was, I was raised Methodist. We didn't really do this.

Yeah, So Hibiscus, one of the founders of the Cocattes, also one of the founders of the Angel of Light Theater Troop, one of his fellow performers in all of this, in an article about him in The New York Times, described him as quote, he came out of the closet wearing the entire closet. I love that so much. It's also very clear that his gender was pretty fluid. But everything that I have read about him has used him pronouns for him. He had a relationship with Alan Ginsberg, like a relationship, right, like a physical slash romantic relationship. So tragically he died of AIDS related diseases in nineteen eighty two. That was so early in the AIDS crisis that the terms human immune deficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome had not even been coined yet to describe it. He was only thirty two. I'd want to go back in time and with his consent, hug him. That was thing number one. I just I wanted to talk more about Pybiscus and all of that and kind of you know, where his life went from being in this famous picture the other thing father Michael Doyle. Yeah, this requires a little bit of context. So in a number of Christian denominations on ash Wednesday, there is some kind of like observation or service right that is usually done with the palms from Palm Sunday the previous year. So Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus coming into Jerusalem and people waving palm branches, and there's usually something with palm branches at the church service, and then those branches are saved. The next year, they are burned to make the ashes for ash Wednesday, and then on ash Wednesday there's something that often involves a person getting some of the ash on their head, often on their forehead in the shape of a cross. YEP, A lot of different Like I was, I was raised Methodist. We didn't really do this.

Oh, yes, I've had I've had the ash face many times.

Oh, yes, I've had I've had the ash face many times.

Yes, Catholics do. I think Episcopalians do not. Just broadly speaking, I'm not saying every single Catholic in the world has done this.

Yes, Catholics do. I think Episcopalians do not. Just broadly speaking, I'm not saying every single Catholic in the world has done this.

You do you.

You do you.

I'm not given commands here. So Michael Doyle, at some point during all of this, I think it might have been after the trial, made the ashes for ash Wednesday by burning a copy of the Pentagon papers.

I'm not given commands here. So Michael Doyle, at some point during all of this, I think it might have been after the trial, made the ashes for ash Wednesday by burning a copy of the Pentagon papers.

Yeah, I had heard that, but I did not know if that was true or not.

Yeah, I had heard that, but I did not know if that was true or not.

I think there's a picture of it he's burning.

I think there's a picture of it he's burning.

Oh, I believe you. I just mean I never looked it up like I heard it like a non verified source. Was like, oh, yeah, that happened, and I'm like.

Oh, I believe you. I just mean I never looked it up like I heard it like a non verified source. Was like, oh, yeah, that happened, and I'm like.

Burned the Pentagon papers in an army helmet. Uh. And then you know, told the congregation about like this, this ash Wednesday ash was like a peace demonstration of he did get in trouble uh with the you know, the the more the higher up church authority in the Catholic Church for doing this. I don't I didn't write down like what specifically, whether he was reprimanded, exactly what happened, but I was like the ash Wednesday ashes out of the Pentagon papers. I don't want to step on anyone's religious convictions, but I was like, I am be this actually in just a philosophical way. I cannot speak to it from a religious way because again, it's not part of my religious tradition. Right, I will say this, right, although he may have gotten in trouble for that, he was a mon senior when he died, Okay, which is a title that you get that's bestowed on people for extraordinary service by the post.

Burned the Pentagon papers in an army helmet. Uh. And then you know, told the congregation about like this, this ash Wednesday ash was like a peace demonstration of he did get in trouble uh with the you know, the the more the higher up church authority in the Catholic Church for doing this. I don't I didn't write down like what specifically, whether he was reprimanded, exactly what happened, but I was like the ash Wednesday ashes out of the Pentagon papers. I don't want to step on anyone's religious convictions, but I was like, I am be this actually in just a philosophical way. I cannot speak to it from a religious way because again, it's not part of my religious tradition. Right, I will say this, right, although he may have gotten in trouble for that, he was a mon senior when he died, Okay, which is a title that you get that's bestowed on people for extraordinary service by the post.

Okay, yeah, the bishop. You know, the hierarchy of the church is very political, but the priest bishop has to recommend them, but then the pope typically is the one who gives them the actual title of monsignor. So while he may have had brushes with being reprimanded, ultimately he was recognized for his service.

Okay, yeah, the bishop. You know, the hierarchy of the church is very political, but the priest bishop has to recommend them, but then the pope typically is the one who gives them the actual title of monsignor. So while he may have had brushes with being reprimanded, ultimately he was recognized for his service.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He died only a couple of years ago. Yeah.

He died only a couple of years ago. Yeah.

Yeah, So a lot of the people who were involved in this some way died in the period sort of between the nineteen nineties and now, and some are presumably still living, especially the younger people who were part of these demonstrations. So so many like were already living a life that was really focused on service and was focused on social issue shoes and went on to continue to do that after the war for the rest of their lives. The book that I mentioned that recently came out about the Camden twenty it kind of talked a little bit about the Catholic left movement and some of the things that happened in the years after this, like people who had been part of the Vietnam the anti Vietnam protests and really dedicated to that work were not necessarily of the same mind as about things like abortion, right. And then also there was the massive uh you know, sex abuse within the Catholic Church that came to like after all of this, and so like all of those things played a part in uh, you know, how people continued to do work or demonstrations and all of that afterward. I sure do you find the Berrigan brothers fascinating, utterly fascinating. One of them I do not remember, which went on to get married to a former nun but still called himself a priest afterward. Apparently they just did a lot of very dramatic work related to a number of causes, including the anti nuclear weapons movement after all of this, And there's a I think fairly recent book just about them also.

Yeah, So a lot of the people who were involved in this some way died in the period sort of between the nineteen nineties and now, and some are presumably still living, especially the younger people who were part of these demonstrations. So so many like were already living a life that was really focused on service and was focused on social issue shoes and went on to continue to do that after the war for the rest of their lives. The book that I mentioned that recently came out about the Camden twenty it kind of talked a little bit about the Catholic left movement and some of the things that happened in the years after this, like people who had been part of the Vietnam the anti Vietnam protests and really dedicated to that work were not necessarily of the same mind as about things like abortion, right. And then also there was the massive uh you know, sex abuse within the Catholic Church that came to like after all of this, and so like all of those things played a part in uh, you know, how people continued to do work or demonstrations and all of that afterward. I sure do you find the Berrigan brothers fascinating, utterly fascinating. One of them I do not remember, which went on to get married to a former nun but still called himself a priest afterward. Apparently they just did a lot of very dramatic work related to a number of causes, including the anti nuclear weapons movement after all of this, And there's a I think fairly recent book just about them also.

That seems correct.

That seems correct.

So yeah, this episode was about stuff that's a little more recent than we often talk about. I sort of have realized recently, I'm turning fifty, which means, stef that happened before I was born happened more than fifty years ago. And I know that seems obvious so jarmy, But you know, having started working on this podcast more than a decade ago, it feels a little different stuff that happened forty years ago versus stuff that happened fifty years ago in terms of like how much historical remove do we have on this at this point? Right? So yeah, anyway, yeah, I was. I was alive during this, so yeah, yeah, I was. I was born in nineteen seventy five, so just afterward. But I still feel like the Vietnam War really dominated so much socially and politically. Oh yes, through my whole upbringing.

So yeah, this episode was about stuff that's a little more recent than we often talk about. I sort of have realized recently, I'm turning fifty, which means, stef that happened before I was born happened more than fifty years ago. And I know that seems obvious so jarmy, But you know, having started working on this podcast more than a decade ago, it feels a little different stuff that happened forty years ago versus stuff that happened fifty years ago in terms of like how much historical remove do we have on this at this point? Right? So yeah, anyway, yeah, I was. I was alive during this, so yeah, yeah, I was. I was born in nineteen seventy five, so just afterward. But I still feel like the Vietnam War really dominated so much socially and politically. Oh yes, through my whole upbringing.

Oh yes. So anyway, yeah we're old. I don't know what to tell you.

Oh yes. So anyway, yeah we're old. I don't know what to tell you.

Yeah, aging, aging is happening. It was really working on this episode that I I kind of like, we don't It's not like we have a demographic survey of our entire audience, right, we do have some indications of a little bit of like the demographic trends of our audience, and I was like, we really are at a point where most of the audience probably did not live through the sixties, seventies and eighties. Yeah.

Yeah, aging, aging is happening. It was really working on this episode that I I kind of like, we don't It's not like we have a demographic survey of our entire audience, right, we do have some indications of a little bit of like the demographic trends of our audience, and I was like, we really are at a point where most of the audience probably did not live through the sixties, seventies and eighties. Yeah.

I mean, one of the things that I have loved seeing about our audience, and we have heard it from people when we've done live shows and whatnot, is how many of them, you know, started listening to the show as part of like school curriculum. Oh yeah, but then continued to listen after they had finished their education. So they're aging up, but that still means that they were much younger when we were, you know, initially talking to them and yes, yeah, way outside the time window, right, and this would have been really actively going on. Yeah yeah.

I mean, one of the things that I have loved seeing about our audience, and we have heard it from people when we've done live shows and whatnot, is how many of them, you know, started listening to the show as part of like school curriculum. Oh yeah, but then continued to listen after they had finished their education. So they're aging up, but that still means that they were much younger when we were, you know, initially talking to them and yes, yeah, way outside the time window, right, and this would have been really actively going on. Yeah yeah.

So whatever is happening on your weekend, boy do I hope it is as great as possible if you're able to take a little time for yourself, have a moment, take a breath, maybe take a walk outside the weather's nice, Maybe just a look outside if the weather's not nice, or if you don't want to go out there. We'll be back with a Saturday classic tomorrow and something brand new on Monday. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

So whatever is happening on your weekend, boy do I hope it is as great as possible if you're able to take a little time for yourself, have a moment, take a breath, maybe take a walk outside the weather's nice, Maybe just a look outside if the weather's not nice, or if you don't want to go out there. We'll be back with a Saturday classic tomorrow and something brand new on Monday. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.