Auld Lang Syne

T'other day I received an email from Joe Harrison stating that the date of the CG Reunion had been changed to August 15, and querying if I could make that date. While I had plans already for later in the day, I quickly made sure I could spend a few hours with the old guys.

Maybe I should start near the beginning. There are times when it makes sense to go through a wallet and remove stuff that really no longer needs to be there. Such an item is my draft card. It has been over 26 years since I was legally required to carry it, so it is time it went into the drawer with a lot of other old stuff.



One of the things that people who haven't seen me since high school notice is that I am no longer 5 feet 8 inches tall and 120 pounds. In fact, if they remember me at all, it is as the kid who was only 5 feet 2 and wrestled at 98 pounds in his junior year. The draft registration card shows that I was still in the growth spurt, and, in fact, when I started my sophomore year at Akron U, the ROTC Department had to reissue my dress greens because I had grown out of the set they had issued the year before.

The 1-H classification was issued after I notified the board that I had gotten married. Viet Nam was winding down, and they were not likely to bother me again.

When I registered, in 1965, I was given a 2-S deferment. ROTC was mandatory for male students at Akron U then, and I simply took what they stuck me in, which was Army ROTC. Just after the Spring 1966 semester began, I was on campus one Saturday and ran into a bunch of guys in fatigues, doing PT in the snow and drill with real M-1s. One thing led to another and I ended up in the Counterguerilla Unit. When Spring Break came, instead of going to Florida, I found myself in the woods eating Tom Hastler's cooking.


Carefull!! That is a 23 meg + .pdf !!

Of course, some 43 years later, we all look a bit different :



So we sat around swapping condensed versions of our life stories since graduation. Eddie treated us to a demonstration of the fact that he still knew how to field strip and reassemble an M-1. Not quite 8 seconds any more. Not quite. He did avoid "M-1 thumb", though.

Was ROTC useful? I think so. Cadets were taught to say "Yes, Sir" and "No, Sir", and that only a woman would wear a hat inside a building. They were taught to polish their shoes and tie their ties. They were taught the difference between their left foot and their right foot, and how to walk with other people without tangling up their legs. These are all useful skills for college graduates (or even high school graduates -- Eddie teaches ROTC at Garfield High in Akron) and it is amazing how many people complete a college degree without knowledge of such simple civilizing graces. The jungle always encroaches when civilization retreats.