This young GI met Donald Sutherland in a bygone era. RIP to an original

News of Donald Sutherland's death at age 88 took me back to a day in 1971 when he was protesting the Vietnam War onstage with Jane Fonda, and I was one of about 1,000 off-duty soldiers in their audience.

I hoped (in the spirit of John Lennon's anthem) to give peace a chance.

We were outside Fort Lewis, Washington, now known as Joint Base Lewis-McChord, where I was stationed as a draftee waiting for Vietnam orders that, as it turned out, never came.

The show was a traveling review organized with Vietnam Veterans Against the War, who enlisted Fonda, Sutherland, and other stars in their effort.

They called it "FTA," a spoof of the military's recruitment slogan, "Fun, Travel and Adventure." The troupe, which later would perform near bases around the Pacific Rim, officially called themselves "Free the Army" in their publicity materials-- although GI jargon quickly replaced "Free" with another F-word to describe their disgust at the continuing quagmire.

More than five years had passed since the first combat troops arrived in Da Nang, Vietnam, and morale, as my Marine friends would say, was lower than whale blubber.

I really wanted to meet Sutherland, which I managed to do for a brief moment backstage. He was a friendly fellow, as I had been told he would be, and remarkably soft-spoken like some of his more enigmatic characters.