7: The Turmoil of 1968 and Meeting My Mentor

Many books have been written about 1968 (Kurlansky, 2004) and so many events from that year still remain clear in my memory. Vietnam had become a huge issue with marches and protests. That January the Viet Cong started the Tet Offensive. Although it failed militarily, it had a huge impact on public opinion in the United States. It was clear America was not winning the war, which was a stalemate costing thousands of American lives and causing countless Vietnamese deaths. In February, Senator Eugene Mc-Carthy ran on an ant-war platform and did surprisingly well in the New Hampshire primary. Bobby Kennedy then entered the race as a candidate for the Democrats. At the end of March, I watched when Lyndon Johnson shocked the nation by announcing he would not run for re-election.