Stories From Under A Bootheel (Rants, Laughs, and Tears)

Interlude

 "Navy?" the grandkids ask puzzled. "Weren't you an engineer in the Air Force? How were you in the Navy?"

"I guess that does require a bit of explanation."

"Do tell," they roll their eyes sarcastically in unison.

Well kids, when I graduated from Georgia Tech, the Vietnam war was still going on. And although it was winding down, there was still a draft and without a student deferment I had to find some way to fulfill my military commitment or the army would draft me and I could very well end up as an infantryman on the ground in Vietnam. This was a prospect I did not relish.

I should have taken ROTC, but I really didn't have room in my schedule if I wanted to graduate early. I still remember the ROTC cadets marching around the campus quad unable to keep from marching in step to the tune one of the fraternity houses was blasting. It was Country Joe and the Fish's anti-Vietnam war song, "I feel like I'm fixin to die rag":

"And it's one, two, three

What are we fighting for?

Don't ask me, I don't give a damn

Next stop is Vietnam

And it's five, six, seven

Open up the pearly gates

Well there ain't no time to wonder why

Whoopee! we're all gonna die."

Sorry about that digression. I was having pop music withdrawal.

Because I didn't do ROTC, I had to find another way to serve. I went around to all the various recruiters to find out what other options might exist. The Navy recruiter came up with the best deal. Because so many hospital corpsmen were killed in Vietnam, there was a shortage of that skill stateside in the reserves. Hospital corpsmen are basically the Navy's medics. Because the Marines are part of the Navy, Navy medics serve with the Marine ground forces and these were the ones being killed in Vietnam. To make up for these losses, the Navy created a program to train hospital corpsmen specifically to serve in reserve units. The program consisted of ten months of Active-Duty training followed by a four-year reserve commitment. As a reservist, you only had to work one weekend a month and the rest of the time you were basically a civilian - unless your reserve unit got called up to active duty which at that point in the war was very unlikely. So, my Active duty was only 10 months. At the time, this seemed like a quick way to put in my military time; so, I signed up. Ironically, when my Active-Duty training was over, I realized I enjoyed military life and so transferred to the Air Force to become a Navigator and then when my stroke disqualified me from flying status, the Air Force made me serve out the rest of my commitment as an engineer.

"What did your parents say when you told them you enlisted?"

They couldn't really say much. I was twenty years old and I didn't tell them until an hour before I left for boot camp. Yeah, I'm a bit of a coward and wanted to minimize the amount of time I had to listen to my mother's fretting. Believe me, after that hour of my mother's guilting, boot camp and the derision of drill instructors were a relief.  Now, let us get back to the story.