Photo by Vinnie Cammarano
Key Points
The U.S. Army and my 19-year-old self had two things in common. Neither of us was enthusiastic about the idea of me being a soldier; and neither of us had much choice.
They needed people and I was one. So, I got drafted.
At a nearsighted 135 pounds, I was hardly a five-star recruit. I couldn’t have been more than a C-minus, but when I arrived at Fort Polk, I found that I wasn’t much worse than most and a little better than some. As has often been said, despite its name, the Selective Service wasn’t very selective.
The draftees were just a bunch of scrawny, fat, athletic, frail and tough, tall and short, country city boys of assorted colors, backgrounds, social standing and ethnicities. There were so many of us that we were, by definition, nothing special.
That was then. The Compulsory Service Club is getting more exclusive because fewer of us can meet the membership requirement of still being alive. The last of the draftees pulled their unwanted boots on in 1973 and the youngest are nearing their mid-70s.
Not to be overly morbid about it, but there is an appropriate word for their condition, a term soldiers used when their tours of duty were just about up: Short timers.
It seems to me that there should be some sort of recognition while some of them are still around to appreciate it. All our veterans are special, but in a way, these guys are especially special. Everybody who served ended up doing some things they didn’t want to do — these guys didn’t want to do any of it.
But here’s the part that matters: They did it anyhow, because it had to be done by somebody. That’s about as close to a definition of “duty” as you are going to get.
This isn’t taking anything away from anybody else, just acknowledging that this particular experience deserves a salute of its own – something a little nicer than the one-fingered version a lot of us got in airports back then.
This Veterans Day, the other guys can have the parade and the discounts and we can do our own thing. No invitations necessary. Just pick an inconvenient time and tell us we have to be there, or else. Dress code would include boots that don’t fit and hats that make the wearer look like a dork. Forget menus. Just feed us whatever you want, have us show up early and make us cook it ourselves, holler at us to hurry, then require half the guests to clean the kitchen while the rest duckwalk around the grounds picking up cigarette butts.
Just like old times.
And as a keynote speaker, we could have one of those rich and famous draft dodgers say a few words about how he would have gone except he had some other stuff to do. Instead of applauding, we could all stand up and salute. Not the regular one. The special one we learned in the San Francisco airport.