Don't Want To Fly

[Terrierman]

I didn't have a car, a motorcycle, trouble with the law or a pregnant girlfriend.  All I knew at the time was College wasn't ready for me and vice versa, and I needed to get out of the town where I lived and away from the people I was hanging out with.  This was in 1970 when there was a draft.  I didn't want to go to Leonard Wood, then Fort Hood and then be the FNG in an Army platoon in the jungle either.  So a two year enlistment in USMC sounded a little like a lark and when I got out there would be GI bill for college and so on.  It wasn't a lark but it wasn't all that bad either.  Got to see and do a lot of things before I turned 21.  I'm a Viet Nam veteran who never set foot in country, I did my time there on ship.  Closest I got to shore was about a thousand yards in a Landing Craft, but we were only practicing.

The rest is history.  No interventions, no rehab, did do college on the GI bill though, which was really the only option for me as my family was not what anybody would call well off.

I'm glad I did it with no regrets.  I've never said one thing to anyone who didn't go.  And when anybody says thank you for your service to me, my response is always "no problem, it was my honor".  Which in retrospect it truly was.  

So there.

 

 

[fishinwrench]

Right on, bro 👍 

If this country had turned out to be a better place, post wars, then I'd sure be compelled to thank everyone for their service.

But as it has turned out I wish they'd have all remained civilians, and not potentially risked, or given, their lives.   A short stint in prison, for a few, would have resulted in the same outcome......and the same tattoo's.