What Could I Have Been Thinking?
or
( I should have joined him )
29 March 1968
Often, when one is starting on a course of action that is the result of considerable thought new evidence is presented and one should take heed……
“Don’t let them take you! Stop the war machine!”
We all turned from the forms that we had been ‘pressing down hard upon’ trying our damndest to make to ‘make three copies’. A big, curly haired, bearded guy was standing where a stairway entered the room. He was wearing a dirty ripped T-shirt, faded Bell Bottoms, apparently ripped, patched and ripped again.
Within seconds he was also wearing a couple of fuzzy headed guys in Cacky that he tried to shed.
“Resist! Don’t let them turn you into killers!, his chest heaving and voice breaking in his fright.
Several more ‘Cackies’ started towards the guy. “Get him! Sonava Bitch!”, and seconds later there was sufficient Cacky on him to overcome his balance and, down he went. As they dragged him down the stairs I noticed his heavy leather sandals. Sandals…….in March……in New Haven!
Two hours later, I took the Oath!
………………….and, sometimes you don’t!
Had someone told me back in January That I would be entering the Army in March, I would have said stuff like, “Get outta here!” or, “No F’in way!”
I had been hit by a car when I was a kid. I broke my Pelvis in a bunch of places and dislocated my Sacro-something. I ended up walking a little funny and, (so far) with a lifetime of lower back pain whenever I have overdone walking, shoveling snow, or did a lot of bending or standing.
Consensus was that I was not Military material. I knew there was a war going on and that they were drafting young men who failed to have an association with a college. However, it was still a surprise when I got an invitation to attend a Pre-Induction Physical at someplace called the Armed Services Examination something, something in New Haven, in February.
As luck would have it the Selective Service was ordered earlier in the year to ‘Double’ the number of Draftees from 40,000 to 80,000 per month. The Physical I was invited too was the first one after that order and, they, apparently, decided to ‘cover their butts’ by finding anyone who could stand up, had a pulse and bend over and cough, acceptable for service.
(Early that year)
“All right! Line up and give us a sample!” a fuzzy headed, Cacky yelled.
We had spent the morning taking a Battery, or is it Batteries of tests and suffered the traditional poking, probing and, bloodletting. We were now standing in front of several trough type urinals, in our shorts, holding ourselves in one hand and a ridiculously small cup in the other, into which we had been ordered to pee.
Perturbed, I looked around at my urinal mates…….at their faces! To my further dismay they appeared to think that this was perfectly normal and the room suddenly sounded like rain on a metal roof for about 15 seconds. Almost everybody left and, shortly, even the few stragglers left having fulfilled their mission. Then, there was just me!
“I don’t have to go!”. “You gotta go, we need a sample!” “But, I already went earlier and I don’t need to go now”
I had gone earlier, but, even if I had just had a half dozen beers I wouldn’t have been able to deliver a ‘sample’ in a room full of people to save my life. Sensing my need for privacy they let me use a smaller bathroom, but, in spite of drinking a lot of water and listening to it run, I couldn’t conger up a drop.
“You’ll have to stay over and give us a sample this afternoon!”
They gave me a ’chit’ and sent me to the cafeteria. I had a cheeseburger, several sodas, went back upstairs and, reported to Urination.
Whatever valve controls these things was still on strike, so I dipped the cup in the toilet, turned it in, got on the train and went home.
Because of their unique method of passing anyone who could get there They let you know that you had been found ‘Acceptable for Military Service’.
I had some thinking to do. I had thirty days to appeal.
Things were not wonderful in my life. I was an unenlightened 19 year old spending time stuffing my face and trying, desperately, to get laid. In the parlance of today, I was ‘totally, without a clue’. I was suffering from a bad case of unrequited ‘Puppy Lust’. I was on the verge of losing my job. In the parlance of the day, ‘I just wasn’t in too it’. I wasn’t in school, I wasn’t into my job and I wasn’t getting into ‘What’s-her-name’ (or anyone else!).
Somehow, with the weight of all of the above on my teeny weeny brain the Military seemed like a reasonable solution. (I told you I was Clueless!)
I shopped around.
The Air Force was snagging all of the college dropouts the Coast Guard and Navy couldn’t use and declined the offer of my services.
I visited an Army Enlistment Officer who made a call and found that I was to get my ‘Greetings’ letter from Selective Service the following month. He told me I would probably be put into the Infantry and sent to someplace called ‘Vat Nam!’.
Realizing that he meant Vietnam, I was thinking how much I didn’t want to go there when he suggested that if I joined, I could avoid the Infantry and go to school. Sounded good to me.
“Group 70! Administration! That’s for you, son!”
