Howard Herron Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Howard Herron 7 6
and everything, and there's no, it didn't seem like it was organized
right.
They talked guns and butter. It finally got so that there was plenty of
butter and they had plenty of guns too and yet there, they didn't go into
Vietnam to win. And that's why a lot of those boys didn't go and I've
heard several other elderly fellows say if I had it to do over anything
like that, I wouldn't go either. Because there wasn't, it's proven--that
one thing I thought was going to hurt Nixon and that was because he said
it was a just war in one of his speeches. Well, it wasn't a just war
because what'd we ever get out of it? They just walked out, left the
guns and airplanes and everything else there, that's it.
Q: That war rather hurt our image towards the world, didn't it?
A: Yes, it did. In a way we were fighting Russia more in a sense
because Russia was supplying and China was supplying Vietnam. That was a
bad place. The terrain was either of mountainous or it was swampy.
Q: And those people over there, they had been in war most all their
lives.
A: Yes, France tried to whip them out and France withdrew and pulled
everything back to France. Then United States took it up and I think
Eisenhower was the first one that sent the troops in there. Then I was
Cold one time that that's the reason that Johnson didn't run for
reelection for President was because on account of that war and he knew
he'd get beat. I just heard that, that's not my opinion. I heard that.
Q: What kind of a war do you think we might ever have if we are in one
again?
A: It'll be an atomic war. It will be over pretty fast and that's just
my opinion.
Q: Well, that's what we're asking you for is your opinion. Howard,
let's talk a little bit about--it occurred to me that there was a Ku Klux
Klan in Auburn. I never knew anything about that, have you ever seen one
or know anything about that?
A: Well, I never belonged to them but they'd meet out here south of town
and they didn't do any. . . .
Q: They weren't violent?
A: Well, that was nothing but a political organization to elect Glen
Small governor of the state of Illinois. That was all this Ku Klux Klan
was for. That's the way it looked.
Q: And was he governor?
A: He was elected governor.