Edward Weber:  

A different senior trip. Way back when, I once counted 200 faces of classmates I could associate with names. Hoover 1970. I thought of us as the last normal class. After us, the dam would break. As for me, the conversative who kept his rebellious spirit under control, I left one institution to join another. I enlisted in the navy reserve and served on active duty 2 years. Since I was consistant to the point of madness, I volunteered to go overseas, specifically including Vietnam, as a hospital corpsman. As a lab assistant, not with the Fleet Marine Force. Needless to say, I never left California. Oakland and San Diego were my exotic destinations. I ran into Susan Beatty when she was working in a record store in San Diego. A guy from our class, who was in the navy as well, recognized me in downtown San Diego. Larry Hedges, Steve Wallet and Jim Kurck were at UCSD and I visited them sometimes. After a semester at FCC, I went to Cal. Why? My dad had told me, before I enlisted , that he would pay for my studies anywhere except Berkeley. I instantly knew where I would go on the G.I. Bill. Let us just say that I spent 3 years in Indian country. On April 30th, 1975, I saw thousands of people in the streets celebrating the communist victory in Vietnam. All that blood and treasure in vain. As some of you may remember, my Dad was a Greyhound bus driver who would sometimes take us on class trips. I often traveled by bus.One day, I was beside a middle-aged black lady pontificating about the war. She touched my left arm and asked me to tell her why her son had died there. I could only come up with the standard answers. I knew the emptiness of my words confronted with a mother's grief. In the summer of 1974, I went to see our Swedish exchange s...Expand for more