Memorial Day

I walked downtown in Redding to go to my barber. On the same corner of the street, sat the same man, with both legs gone, selling small toys he made, and pencils, knowing many of the children went by him to the town’s barber would give him a nickel or so….

The man was well worn, he had holes in his clothes.

He was the only man I ever saw with both legs amputated.

He also had a hat on that was from the Army. The hat was well worn, with dirty parts and some areas that looked like blood.

Some of my buddies made fun of the man. I didn’t…

My Dad had told me a long time ago, that the man “had lost his legs killing Japs”.

As children we played war all the time. Most of our fathers had been in “The Big War”, some in action, some not.

None of them talked about it much. Most of them did not go to war movies.

Some even, if asked “What did you do in the war”, they started to cry. They didn’t want to talk about it….

I never saw my Dad cry unless it was when the war was brought up.

I was born in 1947, we were the baby boomers, the children of the veterans.

We played war all the time…and often our fathers told us to knock it off. They never talked about “The War”.

The “Great War” was what our grandfathers talked little about…as well.

All of them got real quiet whenever war was brought up.

We loved going to war movies in Redding back then; we had two theaters, but only one we mostly went to. We went to the movies and watched how the G.I.s killed the bad guys.

Our fathers never went.

Then high school came, and a “dust up” was happening in southeast Asia. Nobody gave much interest, until we were seniors, in 1965. Then this thing named the “draft” increased and some of the graduates were getting drafted. A very few went to Vietnam…but none of them got hurt….then.

That would happen when we were in college.

At first we thought it was cool, just like the movies. Our fathers told us to knock it off. Once my mother yelled at me, when I said I might want to go kill some Vietnamese (playing war again). My mother said to remember the little old man selling pencils next to the barber shop.

Then it was 1965 and graduation time. I was lucky enough to win a scholarship for football at Stanford University. Some of my high school friends got drafted.

One, the only one at first, were killed. It was very rare back then.

I went on to Stanford, some of my friends went into the service, a few did not come back…but a very few.

When I was a junior, the first demonstrations against the Vietnam War started. I was not too keen on going to “Nam” either, since my deferment would stop when I graduated.

I enrolled in Sac State, and got into a teacher preparation major. Partly I did this because if you were in an educational preparation, your deferment remained.

I participated in the first Vietnam protest then. The war was, like all wars, starting with vigor, then falling into protest and tragedy. War is hell!

The first high school friends did not come back from Vietnam. Suddenly I understood why that man on the street corner was so poignant. Suddenly I became a protestor of the war. Suddenly War was not fun, or a game, it was a tragedy.

At the same time, a rich man in the east, unbeknownst to me, was also running out of his deferment….and he used his rich father, to get a doctor to lie and write a letter about a bunion on his foot, and got a permanent deferment.

That same man, my age, would grow up to become President of the United States…He never served a god damned minute…but as a right wing nut, he promised a tough Presidency, was ready at all times to send in the Army; etc.

He never spent a second in service to his country….and as President mostly took from his country.

I, on the other hand, continued in college, got my teaching credential, and my deferment ran out, so I joined the service, National Guard.

I never really thought I would be drafted because I had been hurt playing football at Stanford and my injury would mean a deferment.

Once my college was over, I volunteered for the service to get it over with. I went to the draft medical, knowing my back injury disqualified me. By this time I was very much against the Vietnam War, that was taking more of my friends all the time.

I was interviewed by a corporal who was eating his lunch. He read my letter from the Stanford Team Doctor, that said basically I did not qualify medically for the military.

The corporal shrugged his shoulders and said I was 1A….which is qualified to be drafted.

I went home bewildered….but I knew since our draft board was very conservative…kind of like that guy who grew up to be President, but my Dad did not have the power to get me a deferment.

So I joined the Army National Guard. I would have to serve six years, but I was pretty sure I would not get sent to Vietnam…only actives and draftees went to Vietnam in those days.

But, I also had to take an oath, that I would serve in a war if needed….I was a ready reservist.

Trump, was the other guys name, simply went about his business, lazy but lucky because his father was a billionaire….he inherited over and over again with privilege.

In fact he other bragged that those men getting killed in Vietnam were suckers.

My friends were not suckers. They were men of honor.

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I married two wonderful women…my first died of breast cancer, the other I am married to now. My second wife’s father was a heavily decorated soldier in the Army….

I talked to him when I was courting his only child. He would not talk about “The War” either, just like my friend’s fathers would do…just like my father would do..just like that little man with no legs….

None of the Greatest Generation bragged about or talked about the war.

Trump did…he did a lot of things that were brags…He was the guy nobody liked, the little rich kid, who most of us would like to kick the shit out of.

But I digress….I am becoming an old man, kind of like the grandfathers of my generation who fought WWI, kind of like the fathers who my generation who fought WWII.

None of them bragged on it. Those who had seen real combat “did not talk about”.

My wife’s father, who was a lifer and heavily decorated, was asked once by his grandson, who was six; “what did you do in the army”..

The old man hesitated, started to talk, then wept.

That’s right, this man who attained the rank of Major in WWII…and had seen heavy combat….would not talk about the war…

I was immediately reminded of that man, in front of the barber shop, who sold pencils and toys to live; and had given both his legs to allow the jerk Trump to be a free man.

God Bless America.