Wednesday night at Tripp Commons in the Memorial Union, acclaimed journalist David Maraniss silenced an auditorium with tales of social upheaval as part of the Spotlight Series sponsored by the Wisconsin Union Directorate.
\He wrote about an era that has come to define this campus,"" said Renee Gasch, director of the Contemporary Issues Committee.
Maraniss, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of biographies on Vince Lombardi and Bill Clinton, discussed his newest book, ""They Marched Into Sunlight,"" a chronicle of the events of October 1967 and their effect on America and Vietnam.
""I wanted to define the moment of awakening,"" said Maraniss, ""moments where all of a sudden the world opens up.""
For the American side, Maraniss focused on the anti-war protests that swept the UW-Madison campus on October 18, 1967. Maraniss was an eyewitness to the incident, where the police forcibly subdued protesters.
""I remember the protesters coming up Bascom Hill, the police arriving with their riot clubs, students with bloodied head, and tear gas--the first time ever in UW-Madison,"" said Maraniss of the fateful day.
Maraniss then turned to the day before a battle between the Black Lions infantry and Vietcong soldiers waiting in ambush in Vietnam, causing the deaths of 60 Americans and the wounding of 60 more.
""The battle was just a blip ... barely accounted for in the histories of the Vietnam War,"" Maraniss said.
Maraniss pointed out the parallels he saw between the Vietnam War and the situation in Iraq, showing in both cases administrations believing they were in the right, a war on the other side of the world, and soldiers and civilians dying every day in questionable incidents.
""Everything different and everything the same,"" Maraniss said.
Individual cases were a key point of the presentation, as Maraniss took the audience through his most poignant experiences writing the book. He recounted to a silent crowd the story of a chancellor left powerless as the campus fell apart, a soldier paralyzed by the death of his friend right in front of him and his own travels to the battlefield with Vietcong and American veterans from the engagement.
""They respected each other in a way that surprised me,"" Maraniss said. ""That moment is really what that book is all about.""
Students said they were moved by his speech.
""It was so incredible, the way he paralleled Vietnam to Iraq and showed the lessons of how things were,"" UW-Madison freshman Brian Shactman said.
UW-Madison Nick Barbesh concurred.
""It was really powerful and there were a lot of lessons for our time,"" Barbesh said.
