Eli Greenbaum
When the Vietnam War began in 1955, Detroit native Eli Greenbaum, the author of “Hell No, We Didn’t Go – Firsthand Accounts of Vietnam War Protest and Resistance,” was only nine years old. Greenbaum graduated from Mumford High School in 1963 with his eyes on becoming a lawyer. He enrolled at Wayne State University to start his English Composition Degree and Political Science minor.
The military draft was in full force and Presidential Executive Orders kept widening the acceptance and deleting exemptions. Greenbaum registered for the draft when he turned 18. Even with a student deferment, he felt the pressure of the draft. Upon graduation in 1967, he started law school – keeping his deferment – briefly.
“I didn’t like it. I dropped out after a year,” Greenbaum said. “I lost my student deferment but failed my physical.”
After a gap year, Greenbaum worked in advertising as a copywriter but was convinced by his family to go back to law school. He did, passed the bar, worked in the industry for five years but decided to go back to advertising. Meanwhile, the United States was in the heat of the Civil Rights movement, drugs, sex and rock and roll as well as the sexual revolution on top of the strains of being in Vietnam.
Greenbaum took part in protests but wasn’t staunch or “a headliner” in his efforts.
“I was a protester but I didn't throw bombs. I didn't get arrested and I wasn't there overturning cars,” he explained. “I marched. Wayne State University was a hotbed. All of Detroit was a hotbed of protests and we weren't very popular for a long time. It was conservative America. It was America – love it or leave it.”
On a trip to Pittsburgh a decade ago to see a former classmate, the Bloomfield Township resident said their conversations weaved through those protests and names of other friends and their Vietnam-era stories.
“We started to wonder about what happened to this guy, what happened to that guy,” he said. “And we're driving home, and my wife, a freelance book editor, said to me, ‘You know, you ought to write a book about this.’”
He started talking to friends and gathering their stories.
“There were a couple in Europe. And Canada – people who had fled the country to avoid the draft. People who were conscientious objectors. People who enlisted to avoid the draft because that at least gave you some control over what happened to you in the military. I got a cross-section of people and the stories in the book, which are first-hand accounts. They're oral histories.”
About 40 of the 100 interviews make up the book, but in telling the stories, Greenbaum had one foundation in place.
“One thing I want to make very clear – at no point in this book do I diss the soldiers who did serve. They need to be respected. They served.”
His first draft was in his own words, “Crap. It was cramped. It was just crap. And my wife told me that.”
He decided to merge his own story with the others with historical context. Picked up by University Press of Kansas, the book is not a scholastic endeavor, but after four academic reviews, it was approved as accurate.
“They felt it was accurate. They felt the context was correct. It presents to a younger reader who picks this up and says, ‘I don't know a damn thing about this work and about this situation,’ at least they'll have some context to understand.”
The book is available on Amazon and through the University Press of Kansas website and bookstores. Greenbaum will be at Schuler Books in West Bloomfield on June 13th at 6:30 p.m. to discuss the book.
Story: Mark H. Stowers
Photo: Barbara Bloom
