Texas A&M University-Kingsville

Vietnam home front protests, battlefield tragedy subject of documentary Two Days in October

KINGSVILLE - November 09, 2006

Contact: Jason Marton
jason.marton@tamuk.edu or 361-593-4143

Free Screening at A&M-Kingsville’s Fore Hall Blue Room Tuesday, Nov. 14 at 4 p.m.

KINGSVILLE (November 9, 2006) — Sixty-one members of the Black Lions Army Battalion were killed in an ambush by North Vietnamese on October 17, 1967. On the following day, student protesters at the University of Wisconsin at Madison tried to stop Dow Chemical, the maker of napalm, from recruiting on campus.

These two stories and the resulting violence that erupted on the Madison campus are the subject of the documentary Two Days in October, to be shown in a free public viewing on the Texas A&M University-Kingsville campus Tuesday, Nov. 14, at 4 p.m. in the Blue Room of Fore Hall.

The film, told entirely by people involved in the events, is based on the book They Marched Into Sunlight by David Maraniss. In addition, the A&M-Kingsville screening will feature commentary from Dr. Scott Rode, assistant professor of language and literature at A&M-Kingsville, who was a student at the University of Wisconsin during the time of the protests.

Dr. Cathy Downs, associate professor of English and one of the screening organizers, said of the event, “As we reflect on history, it’s important to understand what we should be doing with our time today.”

For more information, call Downs at 361-593-2514 or Rode at 361-593-3503.


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