I didn't know Billy well, just enough to know he was a good guy. What a shame our rather idyllic childhoods and adolescence would end with Viet Nam.
I passed the little railroad grocery evey day on my walk home from Reinhardt, and walked close enough to it coming home from Gaston jr Hi that I'd swing by occasionally. Lost all thought of it once I got to BA. I must confess I was thrown out of it one day when I didn't have any money but just went in there to read the cartoon stories printed on the back of some of the cereal boxes. I gathered up a bunch of boxes but had no idea where to put them back or in what order.
I was drafted the year after Billy was killed. The army trained me for Viet Nam as an infantryman, but as they used to say, the army, like God, works in mysterious ways. Crazily, I never received orders for Viet Nam and so stayed right here in the states for my two year commitment. What a crap-shoot life was for those of us who got our draft notices -- I held my breath for my two year stint, dreading the day the orders would come. But they never did and I processed out in 1971 thinking of Billy. It was all so random. THANK YOU BILLY !!
