Was DC Self-Immolation A Vietnam-Styled Political Copycat?

October 4, 2013, was the day that the 64-year-old African-American ex-Marine Vietnam vet John Constantino picked to immolation himself on the National Mall. Historically, October 4, 1965, is acknowledged during the Vietnam War as when LBJ began actually bombing Cambodia. Did Constantino know the significance of the date? Certainly, it cannot be ignored that Constantino would have been extremely aware of the role played by self-immolations as a form of protest by Buddhist monks in Vietnam in the 1960s.

The Mount Laurel, New Jersey, veteran who died by setting himself on fire in Washington, D.C., on October 4th, it was finally revealed, had served his country during the Vietnam War, officials said yesterday. John Constantino, 64, was an active-duty Marine from December 1968 until May 1973, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. President Richard Nixon ordered U.S. forces to withdraw in 1973, and the war ended in 1975. Constantino was also receiving veteran benefits, a Veteran Affairs spokesman said.

The Courier-Post reported earlier that property tax records indicated Constantino was a disabled veteran. It’s not clear at this time what that disability was.

In the book, Bombing Civilians: A Twentieth-Century History (2010) by Yuki Tanaka and Marilyn B. Young, they note the bombing of Cambodia began not with Nixon in 1970 but by LBJ on October 4, 1965. Lyndon Baines Johnson (born August 27, 1908 in Stonewall, Texas; died January 22, 1973 in Stonewall, Texas) succeeded John F. Kennedy as the thirty-sixth President of the United States, serving between November 22, 1963 and January 20, 1969, including the whole of 1965.

The name Constantino is Latin, and its meaning is "constant, steadfast."

John Constantine

Several individuals (Greg Taylor, Red Pill Junkie & Enki) have contacted me pointing out a deeper synchromystic link to John Costantino's name.

John Constantine is the character created by Alan Moore in the Hellblazer comic, noticed Greg Taylor. 

Recently there was some news that plans were being made for a TV series based on John Constantine.

Enki puts all these links in this context:

A character with a very similar name is also associated with flames and suicide. John Constantine is a character co-created by comics legend and magickian Alan Moore, and portrayed in the film Constantine by Keanu Reeves.
John Constantine first appeared in the DC comic Swamp Thing. This resonates with the nation's capital, where Constantino met his end, in two ways: There is the obvious DC / DC parallel; and there is a popular belief, although it is an exaggeration, that Washington DC was built on swampland. John Constantine later appeared in the fire-resonating comic Hellblazer.
In the film adaptation Constantine, the titular character completes suicide and spends two minutes in Hell before being brought back to life by paramedics.

Of course, as RPJ mentions, "there's the whole thing with Alan Moore & the Northampton clown."