For a few years I've almost been obsessed with Viet Nam. Books, T.V. shows, movies, I've absorbed everything I could.

I was never there.

In 1970, I had been married just over a year, my 'Student Deferment' was running out, I had kept it through almost five years of college, but my draft board wouldn't extend it another year. About a year and a half earlier, during my first year at Eastern Michigan, the first Draft Lottery had been held, nationally televised, I didn't even bother to watch it. I think we all had that 'invincible' feeling, it wouldn't happen to us. The morning after the Lottery I was reading the paper in the student union, they listed the "winning" birth dates, mine was number 22 out of 365. I've always been sort of lucky.

At the time winning the lottery was more of a item of curiosity and scorn, than a concern. I still had my deferment, I was, philosophically, against the war, and, it couldn't happen to me.

By the time my deferment ended, the war had become even more unpopular, and it was becoming evident to all of us that, like Korea, winning was unlikely, and those of us "at-risk" had a difficult time understanding why we were being sent. In addition, I had a family by that time, Donna and I had been married just about a year, Sean was an infant, I was only a few credits short of graduation, and the letter came. I was to report for an induction physical at Fort Wayne.

The physical didn't mean I was going to be 'Drafted', it only meant that the government was going to determine if it wanted to consider me for future use. I 'won' again.

It wasn't that I tried to win, in fact, within the limits of my ethics, I tried to 'lose'. I didn't do very well on the hearing test, pressing the button at random, instead of when I heard the tone, should have indicated my hearing was bad. I guess they felt they same way, they had me take the test a second time. I pressed the button at random again, finished the test, and was told I passed.

Then there were the psychological questions. Being a Psychology major in school, it was pretty evident to me what the questions were looking for. In trying to walk a thin line between having a government record that indicated I was psychotic, and looking just strange enough to be undesirable, I must have been a bit too conservative, after

being interviewed by the Psychiatrist, I was told I passed that too.

1-A, another magic number, even better than 22, you can't get much better than 1-A, can you.

It was obvious, at that point, that I was going to get drafted. I requested an appeal with my draft board. After telling them that I had 'Philosophical' objections to the war in Viet Nam, that I had a wife and child, they told me that I was still 1-A.

After the appeal I had several months during which there was much thought and discussion about going to Canada. I could justify it intellectually, ethically, philosophically, but I couldn't rationalize the impact it would have on Donna and Sean. However, there did seem to be a way to mitigate the situation.

If I enlisted I would be able to choose a 'M.O.S.', the job in which I would be trained, it would mean three years instead of two, but we felt that it might be possible to choose a specialty which would preclude combat. Here's where it got confusing.

It seems that if you have a wife and child they can draft you, but you can't enlist. You figure it out. The Sargent at the Recruiting Office had a solution, if I lied about my marital status, and my child, I could enlist, this meant Donna and Sean wouldn't have access to any benefits while I was in the service, but the Sargent didn't seem to be worried about that. I was!

In order for me to enlist I had to get a statement from someone stating that, if I was unable to support my family, they would provide for them. I had to fight to get into a situation I didn't want to get into.

As it turned out, the years in the service weren't that bad, but that's another story, or several. I never got sent to Viet Nam.

While I was in the Army, Viet Nam was a 'Boogy Man' we all talked about in hushed voices. Several of my assignments were too closely related to Viet Nam; a year at Fort Sam Houston dealing with drug addicts returning from 'Nam, a year in Korea, close enough but just far enough away. But, by the time I got out of the Army, the 'war' was over, and none of us talked about it much.

The feelings now are difficult to understand. I think it started with the construction of the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington, D.C.. Suddenly the war became to graphic to ignore any longer, the impact of those years was reflected

in the size and emotional magnitude of that structure. And it made us all think, and, because these thoughts are nearly 20 years later, we think differently than we did than.

Would I have done the same thing, given the choice today? I don't know, and it's difficult to determine why I feel different. Sometimes it seems that the reasons I voiced not to go, 20 years ago, would be reasons to go today.

What I do know is that it changed my generation, those who went into the service and went to Viet Nam, those who went into the service and drew safer duty, those who were lucky and didn't have to go, and those who elected to actively resist. Despite our different situations 20 years ago, today we are all dealing with similar emotions.

Twenty years ago I resisted, and manipulated, in order not to go to 'Nam. Today I sometimes feel something is missing in my life as a result. I sometimes feel that, because I didn't experience it directly, I will never be completely in touch with a factor that had a major impact on our times, that might be why I am so obsessed by it now.

I think back, at times, to my last days in Basic Training. I can still remember the day we got our orders, some of us sent on to specialty schools, knowing we would have duty which would keep us out of combat situations, and the others, receiving orders to Advanced Infantry Training, we all knew what that meant.

The two guys I shared a room with during 'Basics', all three of us 'Squad Leaders', they both got orders for Advanced Infantry Training. After that weekend I never heard from them again. I don't know what ever happened to them, maybe they are married, living in Detroit or Chicago (everyone in the company was from Detroit or Chicago, except two of us from Jackson), maybe they didn't come back.

I need to know. I need to take a trip to Washington, I need to remember the guys that crossed my path over those three years, I need to read the names, and feel, in person, the magnitude of Viet Nam. Even after 20 years the shadow lingers over all of us.


© Robert Coller, 1996