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By Jack O'Connell '81
 Oct.
24, 1954: President Eisenhower pledges $100 million to build
up the military forces of newly installed anti-communist
leader Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam.
Dec. 20, 1960: The communist-controlled
National Liberation Front, labeled "the Viet Cong" by President Diem, is
formed.
May 1961: President Kennedy approves sending
special forces to South Vietnam. Dec. 31, 1963: U.S. troop strength in
Vietnam reaches 16,500.
June 10, 1964: President Johnson receives an
honorary degree at the College's Commencement. Johnson's
speech focuses on "three problems which menace man's welfare
today . They are the problems of poverty, of disease, and
of diminishing natural resources."
Aug. 2, 1964: North Vietnamese torpedo boats
attack the U.S. destroyer Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin.
July 1965: Draft notice calls are raised
to 35,000 per month.
Dec. 7, 1965: Sgt. Philip J. McCarthy '52 is Killed in Action
in Vietnam.
Dec. 31, 1965: U.S. troop strength in
Vietnam reaches 184,000.
July 15, 1966: Michael
A. Cunnion '67, quarterback on the varsity football team, is Killed in Action
along with 12 other Marines when his helicopter is hit by Viet Cong fire and
crashes in Quange Tri province.
Sept. 27, 1966: Rev. Daniel Berrigan, S.J.,
co-chair of Clergy Concerned about Vietnam, speaks on campus
about the escalating war.
Dec. 31, 1966: U.S. troop strength in
Vietnam reaches 385,000.
Feb. 8, 1967: A
petition against the war is circulated on campus by Brian Connolly '69 and
James Winn '67. Ninety students and 25 faculty members sign.
March 18, 1967: Lawrence
J. Celmer '62 is Killed in Action in Vietnam.
Aug. 22, 1967: Lt.
Thomas E. Gilliam Jr. '65 is Killed in Action when his helicopter is
shot down. Sept. 12, 1967: Marine
photographer Maj. Richard R. Kane '64 is aboard a RF-4B Phantom jet shooting
night photos above Da Nang when the jet disappears.
Sept. 23, 1967: John
Baldovin '69 and Shawn Donovan '70 announce a "Negotiation Now" campaign
to stop the bombing of North Vietnam.
Oct. 21, 1967: Large-scale demonstrations in Washington
D.C., against war escalation. Fifty thousand congregate to protest.
Among the
protestors are Professors Trowbridge
Ford and Robert Martin. Sophomore Mike Hopkins is arrested during
the march
on the Pentagon. Nov. 27-28, 1967: Vietnam
Film Festival held on campus. Films include Vietnam: Journal of a War, Testimony
of Truth, and Victory Will Be Ours.
Dec. 31, 1967: U.S. troop strength reaches 500,000.
For the year 1967, 9,353 U.S. soldiers are killed in action.
Cost of the
war to taxpayers
for one
year is estimated
at $21 billion.
Jan. 12, 1968: Protest organized against visit
by Dow Chemical Co. recruiters. Spokesman for the Student
Action Committee condemns Dow for the "immoral production
of napalm." Jan. 31, 1968: The Tet Offensive.
Feb. 5, 1968: Marine
Capt. John J. Burke '65, a helicopter pilot, is Killed in Action.
Feb. 20, 1968: Marine
1st Lt. Richard J. Kelley '66 is Killed in Action in Quang Nam while attempting
to recover enemy weapons.
Feb. 26, 1968: Presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy speaks to a capacity
crowd in Hogan, condemning
the war as being "against U.S. traditions."
March 12, 1968: One
hundred thirty students forego Kimball in a "Fast for Peace."
March 16, 1968: The My Lai Massacre.
March 24, 1968: Rev.
Philip Berrigan '50 homilizes at a Mass on campus, speaking against "the U.S.
military establishment."
March 30, 1968: 1st
Lt. Timothy J. Shorten '64 is Killed in Action. Shorten posthumously receives
the Bronze Star Medal and the Silver Star Medal.
May 2, 1968: Capt. Joseph M. Loughran
Jr. '55 is Killed in Action while participating in search and
destroy operations with his battalion. In 1978, the Major Joseph
M. Loughran USMC Memorial Naval
and Marine Corps Reserve Center is dedicated in New Haven, Conn.
May 12, 1968: Peace talks begin in Paris.
May 15, 1968: Army
1st Lt. Robert M. Donovan '67 is Killed in Action.
May 17, 1968: Frs. Philip and Daniel Berrigan burn draft
files in the parking lot of the Selective Service Office
in
Catonsville, Md.
October 1968: A chapter of Students for a Democratic
Society (SDS) is formed at Holy Cross.
Joe Cerretani '70, spokesperson for the chapter, emphasizes the group's nonviolent
nature. Over 40 students attend the chapter's initial meeting.
Oct. 7, 1968: Fr. Philip Berrigan sentenced
to three and one-half years in prison for the burning of
draft files in
Catonsville.
Oct. 27, 1968: Thomas
A. Biddulph '67 is Killed in Action.
Dec. 20, 1968: Richard
G. Morin '66 is reported Missing in Action when his Phantom 4 jet disappears
over the jungles of Laos. In 1973, his mother promotes a Memorial Day "lights
on" program, asking people to drive with the car lights on in memory of the 1,346
soldiers listed as Missing in Action.
Dec. 31, 1968: American troop strength in Vietnam reaches 540,000. In 1968,
14,314 U.S. soldiers are killed in
action.
Feb. 23, 1969: In
Vietnam less than a week, Eugene J. Garrity Jr. '66 is Killed in Action in Quang
Bam Province.
March 6, 1969: Lt.
(j.g.) John E. Martin Jr. '67 is killed when his patrol plane crashes during
practice maneuvers at Lemoore Naval Air Station in California.
March 18, 1969: Secret bombing of Cambodia
begins.
March 19, 1969: Marine recruiters are met by protestors when they
arrive on campus. Thirty members of the Holy Cross chapter of SDS
organize
the demonstration. Nearly
200
students crowd the lobby of Hogan Campus Center.
June 15, 1969: Lt.
Thomas G. Kelley '60, serving as Commander of River Assault Division 152, is
directing a column of eight river assault crafts through the Ong Muong Canal
in Kien Hoa Province. Kelley is attempting to extract a company of Army infantry
troops from the east bank of the canal when, simultaneously, one of his armored
troop carriers reports a mechanical failure and Viet Cong forces begin to attack
from the opposite bank. Kelley issues orders for the crippled carrier to raise
its ramp manually and for the remaining boats to form a protective cordon by
circling the crippled boat. Kelley then maneuvers his own monitor to the exposed
side of the cordon, in direct line of enemy fire, and attempts to provide cover.
The monitor is hit by an enemy rocket that penetrates its armor plating and sprays
shrapnel in all directions. Kelley suffers a serious head wound but disregards
his injury and continues directing his boats. Unable to move from his deck and
incapable of speaking into his radio, Kelley manages to relay commands through
one of his men, staves off the enemy attack and leads the column to safety. The
following May, President Nixon presents the Congressional Medal of Honor to Kelley
for "brilliant leadership, bold initiative, and
resolute determination."
July 8, 1969: Nixon announces first troop
withdrawals.
Aug. 29, 1969: Marine
Lt. Michael P. Quinn '68 is Killed in Action on patrol, 29 miles south of Da
Nang. On Patriot's Day, April 21, 1986, a memorial plaque honoring Quinn is dedicated
on the footbridge that leads to the swan boats in Boston
Public Gardens.
Sept. 3, 1969: Ho Chi Minh dies.
Sept. 23, 1969: Eight anti-war leaders (including Worcester native Abbie
Hoffman) go on trial in Chicago for disrupting
the Democratic National Convention.
Oct. 10, 1969: The
Crusader publishes a "Resolution on Vietnam Moratorium: A Day of Prayer and
Action for Peace." Signed by 65 administrators and faculty members, the proposal
condemns continuing American military involvement in Vietnam and calls for the
withdrawal of all American forces.
Oct. 15, 1969: Moratorium Day at Holy Cross
features campus lectures and panel discussions, a concelebrated
Mass on the library steps, a march into Worcester, and a
rally at City Hall where Rev. Raymond Swords, S.J., president
of Holy Cross, addresses the crowd with a rousing speech.
Nationally, the largest anti-war demonstrations in American
history take place.
Nov. 15, 1969: In excess of 250,000 people
protest the war in Washington, D.C.
Dec. 3, 1969: Three
Holy Cross students - James Byrnes, Thomas Donnelly, and Lee Merkel - all of
the class of 1970, are attacked in their College Street rooming house. Five men
break into the house and, according to The Crusader, "pummeled . the victims,
who had been asleep, with fists and a large stick." The attack is thought to
have been triggered by the National Liberation Front flag flying in front of
the house.
Dec. 10, 1969: At 8:30 a.m., 65 students block
the entrance to the Hogan Campus Center to prevent 19 fellow
students from interviewing with General Electric Co. recruiters.
Charges are brought against 17 students by the College Judicial
Board.
Dec. 12, 1969: Two days after the G.E. incident,
Ted Wells '72, spokesman for the Black Student Union (BSU),
citing charges of racism in the sentencing of the G.E. demonstrators,
declares that members of the BSU will withdraw from the College.
Dec. 14, 1969: Fr. Swords grants amnesty to the suspended
students in an effort
to reunite the College community.
April 14, 1970: Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman
lectures at the Fieldhouse. In his speech, Hoffman calls
Holy Cross a "minimum penitentiary" and though he complains
that
Chicago 8 prosecutor Thomas Foran '45 is an alumnus, he allows that the College
can also boast Timothy Leary as an attendee.
May 4, 1970: The Student-Faculty Senate votes to hold a weeklong strike of
classes to protest
Nixon's deployment of troops to Cambodia.
May 4, 1970: Four students killed by National
Guardsmen at Kent State.
May 6, 1970: More than 100 colleges closed down due to student
protests and riots
over Kent State killings.
June 1970: Chief
Warrant Officer Dennis J. Brault '70, a helicopter pilot, is killed by enemy
ground fire in Cambodia three days before the last U.S. combat troops withdraw
from that country.
Oct. 5, 1970: An ad hoc committee on the future of ROTC on campus delivers
its report to
the College's Educational Policy Committee. The report calls for the phasing
out of the ROTC program over a three-year period.
Oct. 12, 1970: The Faculty-Student Assembly votes 89 to 60 to retain ROTC
on campus.
Nov. 11,1970: No American soldier is killed in Vietnam for the first
time in five years.
Nov. 16-17, 1970: Marine recruiters return
to campus for the first time since the General Electric incident
of the previous December. Though there are organized protests,
the College's "Open Campus" policy prevails. A group of students
led by Rev. J. Kevin Packard, S.J., fasts from Wednesday
morning until noon on
Saturday in protest of the Marines' visit.
Nov. 23, 1970: An attempt is made to burn down
the AFROTC building. At 3:15 a.m., a security guard finds
one room of the building flooded with gasoline. Closer inspection
reveals a broken window and doused matches and cigarettes.
Campus building
supervisor Henry Maccini comments, "We were very lucky the whole building
wasn't gutted."
Nov. 27, 1970: Director of the FBI, J. Edgar
Hoover, appears before a closed session of the Senate Appropriations
Subcommittee and charges that the Berrigan brothers are leaders
of a plot to blow up Washington power lines and kidnap a
high White House official.
Dec. 31, 1970: U.S. troop strength in
Vietnam in reduced to 335,000.
January 1971: The
Holy Cross Quarterly publishes its "Berrigan" issue, a 30-page special edition
devoted to the anti-war actions of Frs. Philip (HC '50) and Daniel Berrigan.
The issue will go on to win national awards, be expanded and republished as a
paperback book, and draw so many letters that the entire subsequent issue of
the magazine will be devoted to pro and con responses
to the Berrigan issue.
Jan. 1, 1971: Congress outlaws U.S. troops
in Laos or Cambodia.
Jan. 12, 1971: Attorney General John Mitchell
indicts Fr. Philip Berrigan '50 and five associates on charges of plotting to
kidnap Henry Kissinger and blow up the heating systems of federal buildings in
Washington, D.C.
March 29, 1971: Lt. William Calley is
convicted in the My Lai massacre case.
April 29, 1971: Famed philosopher Herbert Marcuse speaks before a capacity
crowd at Holy Cross and endorses the efforts of the Berrigan brothers,
whom he sees
as "fighting
for what everyone of us should fight for - the immediate termination of
the war."
May 7, 1971: Frank
W. Bengston '71 is Killed in Action.
Oct. 27, 1971: Students gather 750 signatures on a petition to postpone
the upcoming visit by Marine
recruiters. The petition is presented to the president's advisory committee on
campus recruitment. The committee advises the president to proceed with the recruitment
visit as scheduled.
Nov. 1, 1971: Marine recruiters arrive at 10 a.m. and take seats at
a table in front of the Hogan Center. Protestors begin to block access
to the table.
Dean
McClain orders students to disperse. The recruiters leave campus
at 3
p.m. That night, students hold discussions toward organizing a protest
against
the second
day of recruiting. Twenty-five students begin to chant and parade
through residence halls. By the time the group reaches Mulledy, it numbers
300. The crowd then
moves to Loyola and requests a meeting with President Brooks. The
students
are confronted by Frs. Fahey, O'Halloran, Harman, Manning, and Lapomarda. Fr. Fahey
informs the students that Fr. Brooks is hospitalized. The crowd shouts Fr. Fahey
down. Some students begin attempting to tear down a light pole. At 10 p.m., Vice
President Rev. Joseph Donahue, S.J., arrives and confers with other administrators.
At 10:50 p.m., Fr.
O'Halloran asks the students to move to the Hogan Ballroom and wait for a decision
on postponing the recruitment visit.
Nov. 2, 1971: At 12:50 a.m., Fr. Donahue announces that the second
day of Marine recruitment
has been postponed.
Nov. 8, 1971: Rev. Joseph Fahey, S.J., and
Rev. William O'Halloran, S.J., file indictments against four
students -Felix S. Betro '73, Robert G. DiLallo '73, William
H. O'Brien '73, and James D. Regan '74 - for "manufacturing
an atmosphere
of potential violence" and "threatening the use of violence as a means of influencing
college policy" during the Nov. 1 incident.
Dec. 10, 1971: The College Judicial Board announces the finding of its hearings
on the Nov. 1 incident. The board
finds the four students "not guilty" of all charges.
Dec. 31, 1971: U.S. troop strength reduced
to 156,800.
March 10, 1972: The Crusader announces the return to campus
of Marine recruiters. "In the past," says Captain Michael Collier of the Marine
Corps recruiting office in Cambridge, "Holy Cross has been one of the best
producers of officer candidates in both number and quality."
April 17, 1972: At 9 p.m., two firebombs are thrown into
the AFROTC building, causing fire, heavy smoke and water
damage. Firefighters report the blaze was caused by two gallon-size
bottles filled with gasoline or kerosene, plugged with oily
rags. A security guard and several students from the karate
club were in another wing of the building at the time of
the incident.
April 18, 1972: Eighty-three demonstrators converge in front
of the Hogan Campus Center to protest the arrival of Marine
recruiters. The recruiters arrive at
10 a.m. An unidentified student attempts to block the Marines' entrance. Pushing
and shoving immediately erupts through the crowd and Dean of Students Donald
McClain is assaulted. The Marines manage to gain entrance to the Hogan Ballroom
and 200 students rush the building. At 12:30 p.m., a call is placed to the
College switchboard warning that a bomb would explode in Hogan between 12:45
and 1 p.m. McClain evacuates the building. The Worcester bomb squad arrives
and searches the building but no bomb is found.
April 21, 1972: A planned campus-wide strike to protest the war fails to
materialize as only one-fourth of the student body refrains from attending
classes.
May 1, 1972: Twenty members of the RSU stage a sit-in at the NROTC Office. The
Crusader reports that "Gunnery Sergeant Tozzi and Major Sage accepted the
action and spent the afternoon chatting with the students and continuing their
work."
May 3, 1972: At 1:45 a.m., 80 members of the BSU seize the Fenwick-O'Kane complex
and hold it through the early afternoon to dramatize grievances against the
College's administration.
June 28, 1972: Only volunteer draftees will be sent to Vietnam.
Aug. 11, 1972: Last U.S. combat troops withdrawn from Vietnam leaving
only 44,000 American soldiers in the country.
Aug. 25, 1972: Michael W. Doyle '64, flying just south of Hanoi on his third
combat mission of the day and 250th mission of his career, is hit by a surface-to-air
missile. Doyle ejects from his jet, along with radar intercept officer Lt.
Jack Ensch. While Ensch is taken prisoner, Doyle is declared Missing in Action.
Doyle's parents, Jere and Ruth Doyle of Philadelphia, wait 13 years for answers
regarding their son's fate. Not until the summer of 1985 are Doyle's remains
returned by the Vietnamese government. Doyle is buried in Arlington National
Cemetery. A memorial Mass is offered at St. Joseph Memorial Chapel in November
1985.
Dec. 31, 1972: The United States ceases bombing north of the
20th Parallel. U.S. troop strength is reduced to 24,000.
Jan. 27, 1973: Paris Peace Accords signed. The draft ends.
March 29, 1973: Last U.S. troops leave Vietnam.
April 1, 1973: Hanoi releases 591 American POWs.
Aug. 5, 1974: Congress cuts amount of military aid to South
Vietnam.
Sept. 16, 1974: President Gerald Ford offers clemency
to draft evaders and deserters.
April 12, 1975: South Vietnam President Nguyen Van
Thieu resigns and leaves the country.
April 29-30, 1975: Saigon falls; Americans evacuated.
Sources: The Holy Cross Archives at Dinand Libarary; The
Crusader; The Holy Cross Quarterly; Crossroads; Vietnam:
A History by Stanley Karnow; Vietnam: An American
Ordeal by George Donelson Moss; The Vietnam War:
Opposing Viewpoints, edited by Dudley & Bender. |
