My Story
This may not be the story of heroic deeds or personal sacrifice, but it is my story of how the Vietnam War affected my life.
It was the summer of 1970.The summer between my Junior and Senior year of High school. I was working as a mother’s helper on Nantucket island when I met and fell in love with Rich. Rich had been attending Harvard when the protests began. Protests not just against the war, but kids against parents, students against schools, radicals against the government and blacks fighting for their freedom. There had been demonstrations at college campuses across the country but none as horrific as Kent State. On May 4th, 1970 four Kent State students were killed and nine injured when the Ohio National Guard opened fire during a demonstration against the war that had gotten out of hand. With tensions at an all-time high and students walking out of classes, Harvard closed their campus for the rest of the semester. I was at a vulnerable point in my adolescence when we met and my view of the world began to change. Rich did not return to Harvard but like many, left the country, their “student status” no longer a deferral for the draft. With two friends from his youth, he went to Australia, bought 450 acres up in the mountainous rainforest of North Queensland, applied for Citizenship, and began to carve out a life abroad. We had continued to keep in touch after he left and when they decided not to return to the U.S. he asked me to join him. I was a Senior in High School and began to dream. I told my family I was going to Australia and no one took me seriously until my passport arrived and the application for a visa. After much discussions and tears, came the resignation that I would soon be turning 18. They eventually gave me their blessing.
I joined Rich in Australia, where I lived an “alternative life style” for 3 1/2 years. To us it was a farm. Rosebud Farm. To some it was a commune. To my parents it was a nightmare. What I am certain of is that the Vietnam War changed the direction of my life forever. When I returned home in 1975 the war was over. I could no longer find meaning in the life I had grown up with. I joined many of my peers as we began a migration to less inhabited regions of this country in what would come to be known as “the back to the land movement.” For forty years my husband Art, a lobster fisherman and I have lived off the grid in a log cabin we built from the cedar logs on our land. We raised two sons who are both drawn to the serenity of nature. Many lives were lost and dreams shattered, but I remain grateful for the influence this turbulent period had on the course of my life.