Growing up, probably like most kids, I paid little attention to world events. Until in the mid-1960s, when the threat of a war with Cuba, our school held bomb drills in the hallways. We’d be ushered out of our classrooms, then be told to sit on the floor, facing the wall. Cross our legs, bend over so that our foreheads touched our legs and cover our heads with our arms.

            We’d sit there, in fear, until the drill was over.

            With my active imagination, I pictured my annihilation. Over and over. Nightmares occupied my nights. I’d get up in the morning, brain dead and barely functioning. In the middle of the crisis, my family moved to California. My dad rented a home in Sacramento, without air conditioning, a miserable experience.

            I don’t think my dad visited the home long enough to understand that it was below the flight pattern of the air force base. Night and day bombers flew overhead, their distinct roar blotting out all other sound.

            I’d stand in the front yard watching them, imagining the crew going off to war. And the enemy, Russia, sending planes here to destroy America. Scenes of death and destruction haunted me.

            When the crisis ended, my fears eased somewhat, but it took many months before I slept all night long.

            We were involved in Vietnam toward the end of my high school years. The draft had begun. My brother’s number didn’t get called right away, so he was able t begin college.

            I was now watching the news, keeping myself aware of world events. Something about the war bothered me. While I couldn’t identify any facts that supported my misgivings, I continued to believe that America didn’t belong in Vietnam.

            My brother had to enlist or leave the country. He debated both. Escaping to Canada seemed a good choice, except that, like me, he had been given a state scholarship to use toward any college in California. If he ran away, he’d lose the money.

            He was sent to an army base in the Midwest for basic training. When he called home, he told us about how often he was beaten by the drill sergeant. How he was punished by excessive chores or being forced to run in the heat and humidity until he fell ill.

            When he refused to carry a gun or clean a gun or even carry a fake gun in parade, he was beaten so badly that his jaw was broken and placed in the brig. When his time ended, the army sent him home. He never had to go to Vietnam.

            Meanwhile I was fixated on the news. Every night we were bombarded by gruesome stories coming out of Vietnam, reinforcing my belief that America had no business being there.

            After a year at the community college, I transferred to the University of Southern California. I never skipped a class or turned in a late assignment out of fear of losing my scholarship. Without that money, I’d be lost.

            About mid-year, groups began organizing protests against the war. I went to several town hall meetings in which information was presented that made me cringe. I hated seeing the pictures of injured civilians and soldiers, but couldn’t turn away. I helped make signs and write protest speeches for other, braver students to deliver.

            In between classes I’d join marches on campus. We’d chant as we walked past classrooms, causing quite a fuss.

            The activists planned a mass day of protest for a weekend. Like hundreds of other students, I sat in the grass in what was known as the quad. I listened to speaker after speaker, all who said the words that I didn’t have the guts to say.

            About halfway through the morning, men in black suits appeared, standing along the edges of the quad. They looked the same with their military-style haircuts and ridged postures. Without being told, I figured they were feds, there to spy on us.

            I didn’t see cameras pointed our way, but fear overtook me anyway. I snuck off, afraid of being identified, labeled, and arrested.

            Later on, I learned I left just in time, for there were arrests, mass hysteria as students tried to escape, and injuries from falls and being beaten with cops’ bully clubs. I never attended another town hall meeting, but I did still participate in campus marches.

            For another month. Then, the group behind marches declared that they were going to set fire to the on-campus ROTC building. That was the demarcation line for me, a step I refused to cross.

            Because I don’t have a political background and took few classes in government or history, I can’t site instances or details. For this reason, I’d never win a debate or convince someone that their perception is wrong.

            Since then, I have consciously followed the news, but don’t join protests, unless you count sharing information of social media.

            I grouse with friends and family, but that’s it.

            My political experience was short-lived, but something I will never forget.

            I admit to obsessively reading stories and listening to news on public radio and television. To fear being left out, of not witnessing an important event that changes history or our government, and there’s a lot of that happening, every day.