My Brother's rant on FB

[RVN VET71]

31. I remember the concerns about the bomb

Johnson’s famous commercial with the little girl picking daisies when, in the background, there’s an explosion and mushroom cloud. But I remember him saying, basically, that we would either be all in or all out. So the subject of nuking Vietnam -- god what a thought! -- was left hanging. But I really felt at the time that his path would have been “all out”. We’ll never know.

And I’ve mellowed a shitload since Nam about Johnson. I regard him now as an extraordinarily complex man, a compassionate son of a bitch who honestly cared about the underclass, Mexican, African American, and white, and managed to cajole enough Republicans to pass a civil rights bill and get medicare started. His legacy is mixed because of Vietnam and I think he died literally broken hearted because of it.

(And, yeah I felt unimpressed by Humphrey and felt there wasn’t much genuine sincerity in him. I think I was wrong and have since regretted casting my first ever vote for the 2nd most infamous president of the last hundred years, distant 2nd at that.)