Yesterday was Veterans Day. Never paid much attention to that holiday but nowadays with Facebook, etc people are constantly singing the praises and their gratitudes to the soldiers fighting crazy wars in the Middle East--understandable because these soldiers are their children, grandchildren , nieces, nephews, etc. Lots of pictures and lots of adulations!
So I thought I would post a picture of Peter from his soldiering days in the early seventies. Most people probably do not even know we were in the Army. (I say "we" because I was with him every step of the way, no separations.) It was then I realized that I could not even remember a photo of him in any kind of army garb. I realized then that I don't think we ever took pictures of him in a uniform. That fact struck me. I think there is a class picture of him graduating from basic which was at Ft McClelland, AL. At that time it was the training center for WACS (Women's Army Corp) but also for the chemical corps which is where Peter was assigned.
He wound up in the Army not by desire but by process. He joined ROTC in college so he could get $50 extra a month, his spending money throughout college. Soccer and Lacrosse and being a residence hall assistant covered everything else. He came out of college debt free.
In 1969 he did graduate as a second lieutenant in the US Army Corps. His two best friends, Bob Lipinski and Ron Seabold managed to avoid the service . Bob had joined ROTC for the same reasons as Peter had but he went to court after graduation and got CO (conscientious objector) status. Seabold was 4F which meant he was physically unfit. We all used to laugh because he was made ineligible on account of knee injury from playing football on Sunday afternoon with the guys behind the high school. It was kid of a joke, or a fluke. Thinking about it now and knowing how the world works his dad, a prominent community guy, probably pulled some strings. Dr Seabold was pretty much a pacifist, though a quiet one.
In 1968, Vietnam blew up and things got incredibly heated and boys were dying in droves. Seems like everyone I knew in Vietnam died, lost a limb or 2, or 3 or 4 or came back crazy. Those last two years of college were very active demonstrating against the Vietnam War. I got my first bell bottom jeans and t-shirt ( the uniform of the day) at a navy surplus store for the Memorial March in DC in the spring of '68. That was also the year Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated.
When Peter graduated he toyed with the idea of doing as Bob was doing and "going CO" as we called it. But he is too well groomed with the idea that one must stand up and meet his responsibility so that never happened. Never even came close to happening.
He went active in March, 1970 and we drove to Anniston, AL to begin his army career. We had decided that if orders ever came through sending him to Vietnam we would leave the country. That ideal was never tested because those orders never materialized. As a matter of fact, he got "an early out" due to the glut of lieutenants in 1972 and the elimination of post chemical officers on most bases. Agent Orange was passe and the war was winding down, its apex being the Tet Offensive in 1968.
We had Ben in the army--Ft Cambell, KY. His hospital bill was a tad over $5. Remarkable! I learned to cook. There was nothing else to do. I tried to hang in the Officers Wives Club but didn't do that very well. Never hung much in the Officers Club which was the social hub on base.
We did belong to something called "The Concerned Officers Movement" introduced to us by a young lieutenant who lived across the street. He and his wife (I don't think they were married but they claimed to be so they could get base housing) were Cornell grads. She baked whole grain bread and introduced me to some bits of the alternative life style. We never got to be real friends. She stuck to herself mostly and I had a kid. I don't ever remember their names.
Peter was pretty vocal about his opposition the war. He and his Master Sargeant had heated and lengthy discussions frequently regarding the war during their work day. His MS used to say "what is the sense of practicing all the time if you never get to play a game." As a result of all this our phone was tapped and in the end, when Peter was due to be discharged things got very bumpy.
In those days we drove a VW bus with tie dye curtains, I wore my hair long and loose, bell bottom jeans and tee shirts. Our baby boy had long curly hair. Those were indicative of a whole other culture, one not well espoused by our army peers. In the end Peter went from being recommended for the army commendation medal to almost being dishonorably discharged. Turns out the confidential files that he was in charge of were missing some papers. These files were checked just before Peter was to be discharged. Some papers were missing. Now, when they were checked prior and when those papers were last accounted for was unknown. That fact was his salvation but it took some weeks for the Army to aquiesce. Peter was on Valium during that time to settle his stomach. Peter never takes drugs so things had to be bad.
Then we had to go through the process of checking out of our quarters. We decided not to hire the Army's sanctioned cleaning crew, a side line business of one of the army officers. We opted to clean the house ourselves. Peter took our entire stove apart, to a million pieces and scrubbed the grease off of each individual piece. We vacuumed out all the heating vents. These were the notorious places where they would flunk you and not allow clearance of quarters. Our place was spotless. But they did manage to take a razor blade to the underside of the toilet bowl and scrap up some residue and measure the grass during an ice storm and find it a quarter of inch too long. We failed! I scrubbed the toilet while Peter took a broken push mower (a wheel was jammed but he was so angry brute strength made it work) through the ice coated grass and thus we were able to leave very late in the day.
Our army career was over!
No comments:
Post a Comment