In remembering Dan's twenty-sixth I told him about mine. It was long ago and a very different time -- a time when the local draft board often determined a young man's future -- or, in fact, whether or not he had one. My eighteenth birthday had of course been exciting and twenty-one made me legal in all sorts of ways, but twenty-six was the big one.
I started at Notre Dame in September of 1966, turning eighteen on my third day there. After a year and a half I dropped out to join VISTA -- for those of you who don't know it, that's Volunteers in Service to America, kind of a domestic Peace Corps. As soon as I dropped out I heard from my draft board; they called me in for a physical.
My VISTA acceptance papers arrived two days before the scheduled physical, but when I phoned the draft board they said, "you'd better come in for the exam; we'll likely give you a deferment, but if you don't show up they might go looking for you and the deferment won't matter."
So I went through the long, mostly boring, occasionally humiliating, pre-induction physical demanded by my friendly Uncle Sam. And then headed to Chicago for VISTA training a couple weeks later, with my II-A (Occupational) deferment in hand.
A year-and-a-half after that I returned to Notre Dame, securing a student deferment again, but then dropped out once more in the aftermath of Kent State. I headed to New York where I started my first job waiting tables, at Steak and Brew, 51st and Broadway. My pesky uncle wrote me again, wanting another pre-induction physical.
This time I had no student deferment and no occupational deferment and was likely to be given a ticket on the government's Vietnam Express.
I was opposed to the war but, more than that, I was opposed to killing. I was willing to serve my country, but I felt I had just done that with seventeen months of VISTA service. I would NOT be drafted, so this time when I completed the paperwork I "checked the box." The question, to the best of my memory was, "Do you now have or have you ever had homosexual tendencies?" It was one of many questions on the form that asked about my physical/mental status. Saying "yes" meant that I was scheduled to see an Army shrink a week later.
That conversation was remarkably short and easy. The officer asked, "what's this about being homosexual? You didn't claim to be the last time you were here." I told him I had come out since. He asked what I did. I thought at first he was asking about my sex life; he clarified the question, asking, "What to you do? The bars? The street?" I told him that, no, I had a boyfriend. And that was pretty much it.
I was told to wait outside the office and was then given a form to "take to desk 10." When I handed it to the uniformed man there he smirked at me and said, "Ok."
"Ok?" I asked.
"Ok to go; get the hell out of here."
"Yes, sir!" I replied, wanting to salute but thinking better of it.
A week or so later I received the official letter from the my local draft board, stating that I was classified I-Y. That meant I could still be drafted, but only in time of national emergency, i.e. we were under attack. Relieved, I went on with my life. It was June of 1971; I was twenty-three years old.
So what's this about turning twenty-six? Well, that was the age that the draft board was officially done with you. They only wanted young men to send to Vietnam. Anyone twenty-six and over could take the Selective Service off their worry list.
The day I turned twenty-six, September 19, 1974, I celebrated big time, playing "I'm Free" from The Who's Tommy over and over and over again.
So happy birthday, Dan. I'm happy you haven't had to go through what I did.
ps: I should state that I have mixed feelings about this tale. Being gay should never have been a criterion for keeping someone out of the Army. But it was, and the war in Vietnam was such a horrible injustice that I would have done anything to avoid it. Many young men, gay and straight alike, told their draft boards they were homosexual in an attempt to get out.
I also want to add that, on the morning I went down to see the shrink, I first had coffee with my Dad, a career military man. I told him that, whatever happened, I would not go in the Army. He said I would break his heart if I refused induction; hearing that nearly broke my heart, but I told him again I wouldn't go. Luckily, it didn't come to that.
Finally, I should add that my feelings about the Army have undergone many changes over the years. I was opposed to the Vietnam War, and to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well, but I support the men of women of the armed services and I applaud their bravery and dedication. My parents are buried together at Arlington National Cemetery and I am immensely proud of that.
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