My brothers and I grew up while Vietnam was an active conflict, Congress never called it a war. I remember waiting for their birth dates to be called in the Selective Service Draft lottery. The older ones had numbers in the high 200s. With going to college, the war was over by the time it would have mattered.
My husband enlisted in the Navy immediately after graduating high school. The draft was active, and the Korean War was going strong. He ended up in air traffic control, a new and unknown area in the early fifties. He spent two years working in the air traffic control towers at Norfork Virginia and 2 years at a seadrome in Panama. He used to say no Koreans ever landed there during his time of service.
When we first met, he was hesitant at those annual events of ball games and concerts when Veterans were asked to stand up and be honored. Although he served voluntarily, he saw himself as different since he didn’t serve in wartime.
My father was older when he was drafted in 1941 at 24 years old. As part of the Army’s Signal Corp, he served in Hawaii in the hills above Pearl Harbor. As the war in Europe heated up, his battalion went to Europe while he was sent stateside to train the new recruits and prepare them for war. I don’t really know his details because he never talked about it. Although we knew his army buddies throughout their get togethers around their special days. Though we never knew what made them special.
I was a supporter of peace and ending the Vietnam war. I also worked with veterans and their service organizations. I was part of services that honored those that came back. Yet I was labeled as unpatriotic and told that because of my beliefs I had to “love America or leave It”.
Today, our federal legislature promotes lip service but doesn’t properly fund and support the military and their families. During Iraqi and Afghanistan wars, 7000 didn’t make it home. Today, to our shame, there’s been more than 170,000 veterans that have committed suicide. And still, we don’t provide proper funding and support services that veterans deserve.
thoughts keeping me awake 