Bring On the Tear Gas

On October 12, 1969, knowing next to nothing about the situation, I accompanied three college friends to a demonstration. It was the first one I had ever attended and they convinced me it was about time, since I was after all a pot-smoking hippie with a navy blue pea coat, blue jeans, long straight hair and granny glasses who had been to Woodstock just two months earlier. 

I didn't want to go, being a hard-core pacifist and a coward, but my friends assured me that it wouldn't take too long and that afterwards we'd go get pizza. That sealed the deal since New Jersey pizza back then was astoundingly good, and as NYC residents we rarely crossed the river for anything.

The cause was named "Free the Fort Dix 38." Apparently some 38 soldiers stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey were being held in horrendous conditions on the army base there, and the demonstration was to make a scene and get them justice. Of course I had no idea what they had done in the first place to land them in army jail, but still it sounded unfair. 

"The Fort's information officer, Colonel A. J. Nealon said "it was the first time in his knowledge that demonstrators had entered Federal military property anywhere in the country." They were repelled by some of the 1,000 MPs on guard who moved into position with tear gas and fixed bayonets The demonstration ended peacefully and there were no arrests." --Wikipedia

So we got there, parked the car in a grassy field and walked onto the Army base. After standing around for awhile staring at a line of armed soldiers dressed for combat, suddenly there was tear gas everywhere. Specifically, in my eyes. It was bad. Really bad. It was a nightmare. I decided that no pizza, even one with anchovies and black olives as had been promised, was worth this horror.

Somehow we ran fast enough to escape the toxic clouds and got back to the car. I never joined another demonstration. Now I'm wondering -- why don't they simply unload some tear gas on all those anti-Israeli protesters on college campuses and be done with it?