In August of 1963 our high
school began the dreaded two a day practices. In the hot humid
Virginia heat it didn't help that our practice field was mostly dirt,
which turned to dust under the churning cleated feet of football team
hopefuls, and then to muddy sweat which covered our young bodies.
It was a new school, and many of the students were from military
families, Langley Air Force Base and Fort Monroe being close by.
We would graduate in 1965, and given that there were so many military
brats, and sons of the south to boot in that class, a lot of them
would be sweating half way around the world in a place they had not
heard of, yet, if unlucky enough not to go to college. By the end of
the decade six of them would be dead over there, five more that did
not make the team would also perish, and four more in the class who
were not athletes. A staggering total from one high school.
But, the world was still
blue and beautiful when we were sixteen, and on that first day of
practice I would meet Ray who would become my friend for life.
Both of our dads were career military officers newly assigned to Fort
Monroe, so we not only had football in common, but that rare life of
youngsters who had travelled around the world before colliding at the
fifty yard line in Hampton, Virginia so long ago. Ray would be
a fullback, I would be a running back, and we quite simply loved the
game with an intensity that makes me smile to this day, even when I
hobble into the kitchen for coffee on cold mornings, my aches and
pains the result of the reckless abandon with which we all threw
ourselves into one another when we were young and strong.
Our senior year in high
school we became aware of vague foggy places named Laos and Vietnam.
We were subject to reports by Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley,
and our own fathers, both veterans of WW2 and Korea, and more than
likely headed for their third conflict. No one could have
imagined the horror that these far away places would have in store
for the country in the years after we graduated. But, my own
participation would be delayed, as I was off to Auburn and Ray was
bound for Princeton. It was a given that we would both join
ROTC (in fact it was mandatory for the first two years) and receive
commissions in the Army four years later. We talked animatedly
about Ranger and Airborne schools as a great adventure, although
Vietnam loomed in our destiny with each passing year as escalation
there seemed to never end. We did not want it to end. Our
dad's went, and so would we. Volunteers fought that war for the
first four years, and we would be among them.
Auburn was in the south,
where anti war sentiment was rare, Ray was in the Ivey League where
protest was in force by 1969, the spring of which Ray and I would
graduate and be commissioned. Ray, as a distinguished military
graduate, would get his choice of branch assignment, and duty
station. I, not as academically talented as Ray could only request
both. I got what I wanted, Field Artillery (my dad had been)
and Ray would be in the Corps of Engineers. As the clock ticked
down toward May and wearing Army green full time, Vietnam was raging
at the height of its' fury, and many of our friends from high school
had been claimed as casualties. I wanted to go. I was young,
and the clearer thoughts that come with age eluded me. Looking back,
voluntary participation prolonged the conflict. An odious president
resigned in 1968 after starting the whole thing and left a million
young men without that option. His replacement prolonged our
involvement in the war for five more long bloody years when it could
have been finalized in a month.
One day about two weeks
before graduation I got a call from Ray telling me that he had
informed his professor of military science that he was refusing his
commission and would join the army as a private, volunteering for
Vietnam as a medic, the most dangerous job on the battle field. I was
stunned. He calmly told me that the war had lost its purpose,
was being managed horrendously, and that he would not help extend it
by being an officer, but would do what he could as a medic for the
boys who had no choice. The draft was in full swing (when it was
repealed, the protests stopped overnight). My father was
outraged, and Ray's was beside himself. While the anti war
sentiment in the Ivey League was a heavy weight on Ray as an ROTC
student in that environment, I never believed that it influenced his
decision. He was too smart and he was his own man. He made his mind
up based on moral convictions and was determined to do the right
thing. Some were running to Canada, some going into hiding, but Ray
presented himself for induction as a medic, bound for war. He
never made it. The Army determined him to be a conscientious objector
and assigned him civilian duties in community service. He was subject
o enormous introspection, scorn from the military community, and
unease initially from his military family. What he had done was
just unheard of in 1969, his father being a war veteran and full
colonel. Ray never looked back. He did what he thought was right. His
conscience was clear.
I was proud of Ray, but
determined to go, and I did, serving with an air cavalry infantry
company as an artillery forward observer. I saw many acts of
bravery during my time over there, but none more poignant than what
Ray had done. His act of defiance remains one of the bravest things I
witnessed during that whole dreadful time. We are best friends
today.
