Fifty-Six years ago today..
"Greetings:"...
It was Our Dear Old Uncle Sam with an invitation to take a physical for the U.S. Military Service. In the hills, when your country called, you did not ask why -- you went.
I remember walking out of that dark hollow on an early October morning of 1966 to catch a bus that would take a bunch of us to Fort Campbell, Kentucky. I was then 19 years old and I had matured a lot since graduating from High School the year before. Still, it was an unpredictable, anxious feeling walking down that unlit dirt road of the hollow, with all my clothes in a large paper bag. Thoughts raced and crowded around in my brain. The future was uncertain.
The next morning -- still in our civilian clothes -- we played touch football as we anticipated our progression from a "recruit" to a "private" in the U.S. Army. Off in the distance, I could hear Loretta Lynn's voice coming from the nearby EM Club -- singing something about Uncle Sam being a "busy man" and sending her man to "Viet Nam". It all sounded like a very distant drum.
However, in a few short weeks, after AIT and a short stint in Officer Candidate School for me many of us were given our orders alongside a 30-day leave. Wine, women, and song were only denial mechanisms for the realities that lie ahead. The leave went very quickly. Fort Lewis, Washington was to be our point of departure from the United States of America. Our next stop was to be South Viet Nam.
Most of us had friends that were able to get out of the "draft". We had no ill feelings toward them -- they were simply considered "lucky". The Bill Clintons, Newt Gingrichs, Steve Forbes, the Rush Limbaughs and Donald Trumps -- and millions like them -- were common. They were not exceptions. It was a political reality. Either they went off to college or joined the National Guard or received some type of medical deferment or they accepted the likelihood of going to Southeast Asia to serve our country. We were not looking for deferments and we were not looking for parades. It was simple -- our country called and we went.
As the Northwest Orient jet took off from Japan, on the last leg of the journey, we were all alone with our thoughts. Will we be attacked as soon as the jet lands? Will we have to run for foxholes? Will I be able to kill another human being? Reality fades as the journey begins. Emotions were stuffed into a faraway corner.
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Mine is very similar, except I got my "greetings" in May of 66. Then Fort Benning, GA, Fort Benjamin Harrison, IN, and after 30 days' leave, Fort Dix, NJ, to (eventually) Nha Trang, Vietnam, just in time for Christmas. And you're right: Here in the southern Appalachians, when your country called, you went.
