Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Robert Kennedy so I'm posting this essay from my book,"The Boy From Plastic City" in his memory. As far as the book goes it sold reasonably well given that it's self-publlshed. I'm going to put a revised expanded version shortly and tinker with blog and website. Watch this space, as they say. John.
The Season Of War
The year was 1967 and the season of war had come around again. It seems that there was a meat grinder in Southeast Asia called Viet Nam (which nobody had ever heard of) that was putting a lot of 19-year-olds into new wardrobes. Before the year was up I’d be “wearin’ the green” myself and not just on St. Patrick’s Day. This would, however, necessitate a flight to Fort Bragg, North Carolina for a fitting.
I’d drawn a low number in the draft lottery, passed a pre-induction physical and kept finding ominous invitations from Uncle Sam in the mailbox. Even though I explained that I was planning to shampoo my hair that year, he was not allowing me to gracefully decline. Unless something came along to change things, I’d be going bye-bye and very shortly too. Some guys were running off to Canada to avoid the draft but I knew I couldn’t do that—it actually sounded worse in a way. I asked my mother if I really had to go but she just shrugged her shoulders and reminded me that her brothers had served in WWII and did not wait to be drafted with patriotism running strong after Pearl Harbor. I guess I was hoping she would get me off-the-hook somehow: maybe call in and tell them I was sick or something. But after that conversation, I knew there was no hope. I was going.
At that time I was playing bass in a band called the Cavemen. I’d originally gotten the gig by filling in for the rhythm guitarist, Mike, while he was taking six-months active duty training as part of his requirement for the Massachusetts Army National Guard. Mike had since returned but I stayed with the group anyway when Pete—the former bassist—left. The only catch being that I needed to learn to play bass. The drummer, Paul, keyboardist Dennis and new member Lenny were all in the same Guard unit as Mike: Company B, 26th Aviation Battalion, the Yankee Division drilling in the Plastic City. They said they would keep an eye out for an opening and sure enough one eventually did come along. These Guard positions were in high demand because of the unpopularity of that war and I was lucky to get a jump on the posting.
Now it was my turn in the barrel. The deal was; you’d take basic training and advanced individual training with the regular Army, but rather than being shipped off to exotic ports-of-call, you went home and settled in to fulfill your six-year commitment—one weekend a month at your armory and two weeks at Camp Drum, New York in the summer. My fellow Cavemen threw me the obligatory going-away drunken bash to ensure that I would be ghastly ill for my bus trip to Boston and my flight to DC with connecting flight to Fayetteville, North Carolina for some hot fun in Joo-lie sun. It was on this, my first flight ever, that I encountered Robert Kennedy.
RFK
I’d seen Bobby and his brother Ted from the window of the plane as they were boarding at Logan. They had so much luggage that they were personally supervising its loading into the hold. Although Bobby would not officially announce his candidacy for president until the following March, there was a lot of buzz about him following in his brother John’s footsteps—something he would do in the most tragic way in June 1968. To put the events into perspective, I should note that JFK was revered as a near-saint in our house. His campaign, nomination and ascension to the Oval Office was a thrill ride for my mother who could relate well to his upbringing in another large Irish-Catholic family from Massachusetts (major economic differences aside). She also found him handsome. Truth-be-known, I think she loved him.
I’d seen Bobby and his brother Ted from the window of the plane as they were boarding at Logan. They had so much luggage that they were personally supervising its loading into the hold. Although Bobby would not officially announce his candidacy for president until the following March, there was a lot of buzz about him following in his brother John’s footsteps—something he would do in the most tragic way in June 1968. To put the events into perspective, I should note that JFK was revered as a near-saint in our house. His campaign, nomination and ascension to the Oval Office was a thrill ride for my mother who could relate well to his upbringing in another large Irish-Catholic family from Massachusetts (major economic differences aside). She also found him handsome. Truth-be-known, I think she loved him.
I was home sick from school when JFK was shot. My mother and I were watching two different television stations as the news began to trickle out of Dallas. She would come to my room periodically to compare reports with me. Finality came when Walter Cronkite lifted the horn-rimmed glasses from his watery eyes, looked a clock on the wall and announced that the president had died at one p.m., Central Standard Time. It felt like a personal loss. My mother was shattered. Now Robert wore the Kennedy mantle and seemed destined to lead the country.
Once our jet leveled-off, Bobby appeared at the door to the first-class section and struck up a conversation with the coach passengers in the front rows—doing a little campaigning I suppose. I was 10 or so rows back and could not make out what was being said. I only heard sporadic bursts of laughter. RFK made the cabin electric. Standing during the entire flight in the doorway he never stopped smiling with those big Kennedy choppers as he chatted up the passengers. He appears now in my memory in vivid Technicolor; white button-down shirt with repp tie, blue eyes, tanned by the sun, threads of grey mixing in with the famous mop of auburn hair. Bobby had sometimes come across as arrogant and tough in the media but it was nowhere in evidence that morning. He didn’t return to his seat until it was announced that they were beginning the final approach to Dulles. With a small wave and a smile he was gone.
After landing in DC, Mooney—another Massachusetts guardsman heading down for basic—went off to get some travel information for the next leg of our journey to Fort Bragg while I stayed watching our bags. I was standing next to what seemed to be a mountain of brown leather suitcases that turned of to belong to the Kennedy entourage. I knew because left guarding that stack was none other than the astronaut and Kennedy running-buddy, John Glenn—first American to orbit the earth. Glenn was a huge celebrity and national hero in those years and it seemed a little demeaning in my eyes to make someone of that stature stand there like a goon watching the luggage (well, like I was). He noticed me looking in his direction and I would swear he seemed a little embarrassed.
Coda:
There is a famous photograph of Robert Kennedy’s bleeding head being cradled by a busboy the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel as his life seeped out of him. It always makes me think of Abraham Lincoln. In my memory of that July day of the flight to Washington, I see him as he looked on the plane, bathed in brilliant sunlight. It was like seeing Lincoln alive again, standing, smiling and chatting in the doorway to first-class, all in vivid Technicolor.
There is a famous photograph of Robert Kennedy’s bleeding head being cradled by a busboy the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel as his life seeped out of him. It always makes me think of Abraham Lincoln. In my memory of that July day of the flight to Washington, I see him as he looked on the plane, bathed in brilliant sunlight. It was like seeing Lincoln alive again, standing, smiling and chatting in the doorway to first-class, all in vivid Technicolor.
