“Why weren’t you in the Vietnam War?” my 11-year-old granddaughter asked as she looked at me accusingly a few weeks ago. Wow. Blindsided! I didn’t know that Aria knew anything about the war. After her history lesson in school, I guess she figured out that I was aged 22 to 35 during our major involvement.
What did she think I would say? “I fled to Canada.” Or “I stayed in school so I wouldn’t get drafted.” Or “I faked a physical deferment?”
My answer: “I was in the Army Reserve from 1964 to 1970. We never got called up.”
That question and answer were worth the six years, first six months of basic and advanced training, then weekly meetings and summer camps. This is nothing compared to the dangers and sacrifices of the people who were on active duty two or three years, but her question did not put me on the defensive.
I could have avoided the draft in April 1964 with a deferment for asthma if I had pushed it. But I didn’t want to be a coward. If I had known of the debacle to come, I don’t know if I would have made the same decision. I’ll never know.
I did avoid the draft, which was creeping up on me, but my boss knew the local unit commander, who got me into the Army Reserve in Dover, Del.
I told my granddaughter I did not know many friends who went to Vietnam, but maybe we were a sheltered group. Many were in college. Even if I was sent there, I probably would have been a clerk typist or a reporter on “”Stars and Stripes” rather than in combat. I also probably should have gotten a deferment because my allergies affected me badly in Florida. Maybe they would have gotten me before the Viet Cong did.
I don’t think I was meant for the Army anyway. I was not Sergeant York. Maybe Beetle Bailey. The sergeant in basic training at Fort Gordon made me a squad leader because of my two years of Reserve Officer Training Corps classes. But I had been sitting at desks before entering the Army all the time my fellow soldiers were fixing cars or plowing fields, and I wasn’t in good shape. A hairline fracture in my leg sidelined me for two weeks. Rather than make me start over, they just let me finish the eight weeks of basic. The commanding officer in Dover told my editor that enlistments dropped sharply in there afte he published my unhappy training experiences in in training. This was my contribution to the war effort? (Advanced training was in supply school at Homestead Air Force Base in Florida.)
In the six years of meetings, I was stationed at a public relations unit in Pittsburgh, a searchlight unit in Las Vegas and a civil affairs unit in Portland, Oregon. The Las Vegas unit was filled with skilled bartenders and blackjack dealers. If we had decided the Vietnam War at a poker table, we would have won hands down! Our not-so-tough Portland group’s training was to attend two weeks at the University of Washington to learn Cambodian history. Hardly dangerous duty!
The idea was that we would run the Cambodian government if we ever invaded the country. We actually did invade Cambodia but did not run the government and were not needed.
Few reserve units were called up back then. I have since concluded that we were a paper force intended to scare the Russians or prepare for a second war but were not in any way prepared for battle.
How times have changed. I doubt that I would have been involved today in an all-volunteer army for which reserve units are frequently called up. I salute those who serve our country so bravely.
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