I’ve been meaning to note this for the past few days.
Last Friday, the NYT ran an obituary for Donald W. Duncan. Mr. Duncan was a former member of the Special Forces in Vietnam: he became disillusioned after his return to the United States, and became a fairly prominent anti-war activist:
In an America torn by protests against the war in the late 1960s and early ’70s, Mr. Duncan was often in the news, although not as prominently as the pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock, the Roman Catholic priests Daniel and Philip Berrigan or the actress Jane Fonda, who was photographed laughing and applauding on an antiaircraft gun in Hanoi. (Daniel Berrigan died on April 30.)
But in 1966, well before the Tet offensive and the My Lai massacre stirred national discontent, Mr. Duncan was one of the first returning veterans to portray the war as a moral quagmire that had little to do with fighting the spread of Communism, as American leaders were portraying it.
Sergeant Duncan, who went to war convinced it was an anti-Communist crusade, ended his Special Forces duty a changed man. A 10-year veteran, he rejected an offer of an officer’s commission and left the Army. Back home, he became a fierce critic of the war, writing articles and a memoir and speaking at rallies across the country with the singer Joan Baez, the writer Norman Mailer and the comedian Dick Gregory.
But that’s not why I wanted to note Mr. Duncan’s passing. Remember I said the NYT ran the obit last Friday?
Mr. Duncan passed away on March 25, 2009. Yes, seven years ago. I can’t think of a longer gap between a death and an obit in the paper of record. Randall Dale Adams was about nine months, and I think he was the previous record holder.
Also, and more recent: William Schallert. There’s a photo and caption in that obit that make me smile: you’ll know it when you see it.