Quite a two-week media barrage: “The Vietnam War” filmmaker Ken Burns and Donald Trump. They take me back to February and March 1972.

I was attending a hockey game at Colgate University. Prior to that game were the U.S. flag presentation and the playing of the national anthem. Suddenly, the “dawn’s early light” shone on a group of fans, seated. By the time the “bombs were bursting in air,” a good portion of the crowd directed loud, racist taunts and boos toward the seated, silent students.

Who was spelling respect? The 1960s claimed two of my heroes. The 1970s opened my mind to the America that we white folks don’t want to see – today made all too visible, again, by Ken Burns and Donald Trump.

Loren Hunter

Phippsburg


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