One of the many heroes of the peace movement that came out of the Vietnam War experience was Vietnam veteran S. Brian Willson. Just like millions of other draft-age Americans, law student Willson had been drafted into that illegal and genocidal war - against his will - and came back disturbed and angry. For reasons discussed below, he joined the anti-war movement after witnessing the Reagan/Bush Central American war after he traveled to Nicaragua and saw peasants being murdered by US-backed Contras (aka “freedom fighters”). Willson joined the antiwar movement in 1986 and has protested vigorously against America’s aggressive war policies ever since.

But his real life change came on September 1, 1987 in Concord, California,where Willson was part ofa gathering of antiwar protestors that were symbolically trying to stop the transport of weapons from a U.S. Navy munitions base. The weapons were destined for Nicaragua and El Salvador as part of the US-backed war in Central America.

I have been hoisted on my own petard. For decades now, I have assiduously ignored ninety-nine percent of all the rap music–an oxymoron if ever there was one–out there. And then came the publication of Notorious RBG. I immediately knew it was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the late rapper, Notorious B.I.G., but what I didn’t know was if he and Biggie Smalls were the same person. For those readers uninitiated in rap music, they were.