This story was submitted as part of Minnesota Remembers Vietnam. We have faithfully reproduced each story as it was originally submitted for the Story Wall, and have not corrected any spelling or grammar errors.
By Jerry Meyer | Burnsville, MN
1968 was the height of the Vietnam war. I was twenty years old, a sophomore in college, and worried that I would lose my college draft deferment due to failing one class and dropping a couple of others due to an eye illness.
I did not buy the “domino theory” that the government was throwing at us and I certainly did not feel that the United States of America was at risk. If I did, I’d have joined the military. To eliminate my fear of being drafted, I joined my local Army Reserve unit. (Google Champagne Unit – Vietnam) I received my honorable discharge after six years of Reserve meetings (16 hours per month) and two weeks of “camp” every summer.
I was one of three brothers: one was in the Reserve unit with me; one would have fled to Canada if he’d been drafted; the third served eleven months in Vietnam as a 1st lieutenant, Marine helicopter pilot (twin rotor, CH46). He and his crew all died on January 26, 1969.
Okay–here is my regret and this is what I want today’s draft-age Americans to consider. I took the easy way out. I should have stood up against a war that I knew was wrong. I should have waited to be drafted and then refused induction into the service.
By doing that I would have formally logged my opposition to the war (and suffered the consequences.) Instead, I slipped through the crack allowed to predominantly educated white guys. Military induction has been controversial for decades. I am on the side of those who believe there is a flaw in our leadership when a war is so unpopular that it must enslave citizens to fight it.
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