Checking mail at the Kabul, Afghanistan, American Embassy I received my second draft notice in April 1965. I had been on the road for 12 months, hitchhiking through Europe, crossing North Africa, and through the Middle East.

Accelerating my travels I flew to New Delhi, India, Nepal, Thailand, and Singapore and on. Stopping in eight countries in the Far East before I arrived home after thirteen months of budget travel through over forty countries and three continents.  One stop was Saigon's Tan Son Nhat airport.  While landing I noticed billowing clouds of smoke around the airport, soon to learn it had been bombed a day before.  De-boarding I was overwhelmed by American military personnel.  I had been unaware of Vietnam due to my extended oversee travels.  Realizing something was very wrong and that this was not a place to be, I booked the next flight out, to Manila, Philippines and on to Taiwan, Japan and Hawaii.

Upon reaching home I entered a defensive position.  One thought was leaving the country, however, as a patriotic anti-war American I decided to simply wait and get drafted and take my chances. I never gave being a CO any consideration.  If one joined, they would be able to pick an Army job, however, for a three-year commitment.  Draftees entered a two-year active duty commitment with no choice of occupation. The risk, of course, was infantry – carrying a gun on the front line.  Not my thing. However, five people support just one fight man.

Thoughts reached to Saul Bellow's 1944 first novel, "Dangling Man", about a Chicagoan waiting to be drafted.  That was me.  I decided the easiest job one could have when drafted was being a desk clerk.  I enrolled in the second floor secretarial school on Sherman Avenue near Selig's men's wear in downtown Evanston.  My recollection was I was the only male in the class.  Few, if any, men were enrolled so I knew I was on to something. 

Drafted in October 1966, with a respectable typing speed of forty per minute, I boarded a railroad troop car to Ft. Campbell, Kentucky for eight miserable weeks of basic training.  I hated it.  The free spirit in me rebelled against the regimented, impersonal life. I brought my skate board and longish hair, neither of which was appreciated.  My long hair placed me first to have my head shaved.

Basic training is filled with fears, harassment, bewilderment, self-doubts deprivations, physical tests, and more fears.  Thoughts of being killed or killing someone remained in the forefront in many of our minds. We lived those months with no privacy 60 to a barracks), lousy food, and wasted time doing duties of no use or value to anyone.  The short of it is I volunteered to carry ammo instead of shooting rifles.  I refused to yell, “To Kill” when bayonetting rubber manikins. I began counting each day until discharge. This was simply not my thing.  I was not a promising, well-disciplined soldier.  I was not a warrior going in, nor leaving, basic training.

Things got measurably better after basic training ended.  With some finagling on my part along with my newly acquired typing skills I ended up in clerk typist school at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona.  A desert base I actually liked.  For the first time in my life, due to my head start, I excelled at typing school and was forwarded after two months to finance school at Ft. Benjamin Harrison, Indianapolis, Indiana.  Several months of study later and I had completed twenty-five percent of my two-year commitment.  With anticipation, I read on the bulletin board my next assignment: Ft. Gordon, Augusta, Georgia, not exciting but better than Nam.  We all knew we could, on any day, receive orders for Nam. After several months in the finance corps, I applied for a job as assistant manager at new bachelors officers quarters (a hotel for officers), working civilian status, where I remained until my early out in September 1968.  I had a car; I lived illegal off post, and had no KP or guard duty.  My planning worked for easy military duty during wartime. It couldn’t get any better than this.

I never forget the times we were in, or my fellow soldiers who served in Vietnam and their hardships often lasting the balance of their lives.  My younger brother, a Purple Heart 101st Airborne Screaming Eagles volunteer returned never the same, now on 100 percent disability still fighting the war demons. As someone said, the war is not over until the last veteran has died.

I remain angry at how we were treated by civilians during and after our return to civilian status.  Most American's did not support the Vietnam War and took their opposition out on those in uniform and those who served.  I remember once, trying to rent a car wearing my dress uniform and being denied simply because of that uniform. We can oppose war but we should never forget those that served.  Protest the government for their pro-war positions, but support our brothers and sisters in the service and those who served.  The Veteran's Administration remains an underfunded, problematic and disgraceful institution.  Those that support going to war forgets those that served.

A footnote to my military service:  The GI Bill provided the necessary funds to partially finance my BA and MA degree, paying more after the Army than in.  A college era surgery was provided at no charge at a VA hospital.

And a parting political shot:  Any war or conflict needs Congressional authorization including immediate tax increases to pay for all war and the 50+ years of veterans’ costs, as well as the immediate implementation of conscription.

Preston - thank you for sharing your Vietnam era experiences.  I, too, remember when soldiers were returning home and the disgusting treatment they were given.  The social upheaval and divisiveness fueled by the anti war demonstrators and the complete bumbling inability of the politicians at that time to make the right decisions, and back off and let the military do its job made for such a sad, sad time in this country. 

Preston, thank you for sharing your story, and thank you for your service.  Many of us were (and are) supportive of our service men and women and proud of of them one and all.