The Christmas Bombings of Vietnam 1972

I was 17 years old in 1972 and I was pissed off.  It was getting near Christmas and every day that I turned the news on the radio I would hear about another flurry of bombing raids on northern Vietnamese cities by hundreds of US bombers.  Hospitals were being bombed.  Civilian neighborhoods were being destroyed and Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger and the rest of the war pigs were getting ready for their particular holidays.  I recall going to a protest in downtown Frankfurt against the bombings.  Particularly galling was the targeting of the hospitals.  Indeed, Bach Mai hospital was attacked more than once, killing more than 25 doctors and an unknown number of patients.  Here is a recollection from Vietnam Veteran Against the War Barry Romo, who was in Hanoi during the bombings.
http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=2204

Let it Bleed

Let it Bleed was released in the US on December 5, 1969.  As I wrote in a piece that first appeared in the now-defunct Vermont Times (and later appeared in Counterpunch and other zines: "Musically, the Rolling Stones were touring the country promoting their new album Let It Bleed , another of their adventures in reworking North American blues and folk idioms into hard-driving rock and roll. The song of the summer had been Honky Tonk Women, which appeared on the album as a boozy country funk. Perhaps the most important song on the platter, however, was Gimme Shelter, a blistering indictment of the world of war and greed."