A chilling milestone

During my youth, television  news came of age during the November weekend in  1963 when JFK was assassinated in Dallas. I recall becoming riveted to our console on Lawndale street as Walter Cronkite and Chet Huntley and David Brinkley told us repeatedly of the details surrounding the snuffing out of Camelot, the swearing-in of LBJ on the tarmac at Love Field in Dallas,  the stone face of Jackie, and the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald on Saturday morning before our eyes by Jack Ruby.

We stayed riveted to the TV for the rest of the '60s through more assassinations, marches, urban insurrections in Detroit and Los Angeles, and the killings of students at Jackson State and Kent State in the spring of my senior year at St. Louis University.
I can't recall when it started, but every night on the TV news there was a chronicling of the death toll and casualty toll in Vietnam. The President or General Westmoreland or Defense Secretary Mc Namara would present the latest plan for victory, lie to the American people, and then we'd see a number of killed, missing or injured. Guys were drafted, got married, became ministers, joined the National Guard , went to college, fled to Canada all in response to this War.
The Viet Nam War tore this nation apart.
We became deadened to seeing the daily death toll.

58,220 Americans died in the VietNam War.
2657 Michiganders died in the VietNam War.
As of today, 60,438 Americans have died from COVID 19.
As of today, 3567 Michiganders have died from COVID 19.

The Viet Nam War lasted a generation.
The COVID Pandemic began two months ago.

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