This is something that has bugged me for over twenty years.
I have friends and relatives who went to Viet Nam. Some didn't come back.
Some friends who enlisted in the Army, Air Force or Navy, hoping that by enlisting they wouldn't be sent to Viet Nam. Most didn't go, but a few did.
I graduated high school in June of 1969. My whole high school curriculum was the "fast track" courses for college. I was an honor roll student.
By 1970, I was attending the university. On and off.
Some semesters, I was on. Others, I was off.
There was a year or two in there when I wasn't enrolled at all.
IOW, the draft board could have picked me up just about anytime they wanted.
In 1965, I was certain that I would go. It seemed like the only right thing to do.
By 1970, thanks in no large part to the media and the popular culture I thrived on, going to Viet Nam didn't seem like the best of ideas. My friends and relatives who were coming home said, "don't go." And Walter Cronkite had already convinced us all that the Viet Nam war was lost.
I waited for my number in the draft lottery. I came in at #314. I wasn't going to be drafted.
It really wasn't until TFL and THR came online that I gave any of this much further thought. Prior to that, any movies made about Viet Nam were along the lines of "The Deer Hunter," or "Platoon," or "A Popsicle Now." They made the friends and relatives I knew who fought to look like felons.
Now, I read some of the posts on THR and TFL between members who were in the same fights, some even in the same units.
And, as I read those posts, I ask: why was I not there? Was I a coward? (I wasn't in my day-to-day life).
Or was I just happy chasing skirts and getting drunk, while other guys were getting shot at and living in mud?
During the past several years of fighting for CCW, I've met many, many veterans. And I always feel that I owe them an apology for not being there with them.