62. The March on the Pentagon

In America the students' great cause was ending the Viet Nam war. What did drugs and beards and obscenities on the forehead have to do with it? Don't ask me. I was in East Asia getting steamed up over the Korean students' struggle to topple Syngman Rhee.

Very little of that Abbie Hoffman kind of side play had appeared, though, in the March on the Pentagon, at least in the part I saw. The leader of the OU group, senior Elaine Herrald, dressed straight and ran a pretty tight bus. Write down the schedule, show up on time, don't wander off at the potty stops.

Exuberance she left to her lieutenants, one of whom showed me what "counter-cultural" meant, at least at the time, with them. He got up and led a cheer. Only not a real cheer. It was a parody cheer, sending up the jocks and the school-spirit sophomores — the "establishment" they were against. Here's the way it went: "Gimme a G." "G. "Gimme an L." "L!" "Gimme an R." "R!" "Gimme a B." "B!" "Gimme a P" "P!" "Gimme an L." "F!" "F!" "Whaddya got?" And everybody turned themselves purple trying to pronounce GLRBPF.

In Washington we were turned over to leaders equally firm but much more knowledgeable than Elaine. They were veterans of the civil rights marches. "Eight abreast, men on the outside. Take off necklaces and bracelets, anything a hostile spectator might snatch. Hold hands. Don't respond to heckling. Keep going."

The immaturity I saw was touching. The demonstrators I was with knew little history. Those geezers on crutches falling in behind us at the reflecting pool. Who were they? The banner said, "Abraham Lincoln Brigade." What's that? They knew nothing of the Spanish Civil War. They used the word "fascist" with hardly an idea of its roots in Italy and Germany. It had become one of their words for "bad guys."

At the Pentagon, after the march across the bridge — serious, serious — I still couldn't be sure I wasn't seeing a mock. Some students knelt in the parking lot. Zen-looking. They were trying to levitate the Pentagon. They said.

The troops looked dead serious. The face I looked into, though as boyish as that of the students I was with, looked determined to follow orders. His bayonet was across his chest, as with others down the line. The orders would have come from his commanding officer, probably a captain. I, ready to cross the line he was ordered to defend, was a commander in the Naval Reserve, the equivalent of a lieutenant-colonel. I was tempted to do some mischief, showing him my ID card. Messing with his head. A surge of returning maturity stopped me.

I didn't have to cross the line; I found a way around it, and reached a grassy place, with small trees. Standing there I saw solders in the parking lot being formed into some kind of phalanx. They then marched toward the grassy place which, I saw, was filled with students who, like me, had found a way around, or broken through. The soldiers were in close order, taking tiny steps, their bayoneted rifles back across their chests. They marched in those bitty shuffling steps, the students having plenty of time to give way before them — the reason for the shuffle, I suppose — all the way to where I was. There they did a right flank, then another right flank, and shuffled back to the lot. The students resumed their position.

What was that about? I pictured the captain, thumbing through his tactics book. What the hell fits this situation? Ask the colonel, up on the roof. "Try the double-close-order sortie."

"Aye, aye," or whatever they say in the Army.

"Shit, that didn't work. Got any other ideas, major?" What a time to be an Army officer!

I made it to the steps of the Pentagon but didn't stay. It was impressive, the way people were sitting there silently in the half-dark, waiting to be arrested. It was too big a thing for me, though, and I had to get back to the bus.