The proverbial hippie in flared denim jeans and faded fatigue jacket was the badge of the sixties. Crowned by unkempt golden blond tousled curls blown by the gentle breeze, my husband, Walter Ruehlig, wore the badge well.

It was on a chilly afternoon in October 1969 when Walter and two fellow Peace Corps volunteers descended the tarmac to faint cheers from inside the building at Dulles airport. This was their last stop on a grueling 5,000+ mile journey that took 22 hours from Ankara, Turkey to Washington DC.

Visible through a glass wall that spanned the passageway through Customs and Immigration were makeshift signs floating above a boisterous crowd screaming “Turkey Three”, “Turkey Three”, “Turkey Three”.  The shouts grew louder and louder as they neared the exit.

The three expatriates were stunned by the scene that greeted them.  Their simple quest for the right to a vigorous protest that happened days before in Ankara became a fortuitous cause célèbre of the Vietnam anti-war movement.

The quandary started two years before, by the pernicious bite of the wanderlust bug.

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1969 – A Time For Peace, A Time For War

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