Legal Commentary

An important 40th anniversary passed last week with nary a ripple of acknowledgment.

January 23, 1968. The USS Pueblo, a naval intelligence ship operating in international waters off the coast of North Korea, was attacked by North Korean jets and ships. One U.S. serviceman man was killed and several wounded. The ship is boarded and seized by the North Korean Navy. The crew, 82 men in all, are imprisoned.

In a dormitory hallway of a private liberal arts college in Upstate New York, male students gather and talk excitedly about this act of war upon the U.S. by Communist zipper-heads. Now, FINALLY, friggin LBJ will go to Congress and ask for a Declaration of War against North Korea, and while he's at it, North Vietnam. Unleash the hounds! Bomb the dams! Flood the Dinks, carpet bomb them back to the Stone Age, then invade and conquer those Commie bastards, and if the Chinks and Ruskies want a taste, give 'em a taste: of the Big Nuke! Head to Hanoi, rescue the prisoners, and lay waste to the forces of evil like our fathers before us. Draft? What draft? We're Enlisting. Now! And death to any traitorous retard who doesn't rally to the flag. A Declaration of War. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Of course, we were all going to enlist. Arguments only erupt over which branch is preferable. Most of us favor the service our fathers served in during World War II, but in a pinch like this, wherever our country needs us, we'll serve. No more of this "Police Action." We've been anti-war solely because the US Government seems content to let our guys bleed and die with two hands a leg tied behind us. Now that the leash is off, the big dog will hunt. Gotta be. Just got to be!

Well, no. Don't gotta be.

Two weeks later, the Tet offensive erupts. Followed by: LBJ's decision not to seek re-election; Martin Luther King's assassination; Bobby Kennedy's assassination; police riot at the Democratic Party convention in Chicago; Nixon's narrow victory over Humphrey based on his "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam; and, right at the end of the year, after 11 months in captivity, the crew of The Pueblo is finally, humiliatingly, released. The Navy proceeds to court martial the Captain of the ship.

Fast forward to May 1971. The "secret peace plan" is still secret, unless, of course, it's to slowly suck a generation of American men dry to show the Commies that we, too, can waste our youth in half-baked efforts to achieve "Peace With Honor" without triggering "toe-to-toe nuclear combat with the Ruskies." I am among the multitudes beaten down not because we believe the war to be unjustified, but because we are embittered and bewildered by our government's unwillingness to do what it takes to win it.

I sit in the US Army induction center in Kansas City, Missouri, on a bench among many benches. Hundreds of young men dressed in nothing but white u-trou (this being in the time before the return of boxers). All of us with hair too long for good taste. Many clutching papers from doctors describing ailments that, with hope and a prayer, will keep the holder from his appointed rounds. All of us waiting to be the next one to talk to one of the Army doctors sitting at desks at the front of this cavern.

Color the mood: Cynical. Hateful. Despondent. Disgusted.

And very, very Disrespectful.

With a tone of weary suspicion, a doctor asks the young man seated before him "So, you have a rotator cuff injury? How high can you lift your arm?"

"Not above shoulder height," says the well-coached youngster, wincing as he struggles to raise it as high as his elbow.

As the doctor turns around in his chair and reaches down to retrieve something from a file cabinet behind him, the kid turns to the hundreds of us and raises his arm straight to the ceiling with a maniacal grin. Laughter erupts. Before the doctor can turn to see what causes it, the kid has returned the arm to his lap.

Other flashes recalled:

A black kid, obese, blowing 190 over 120 on the blood pressure test and a medic telling him "Son, you're in danger of stroking out right here. You understand?" I can still the looks of wonder and fear on their faces.

A freak wearing blue jeans and a denim shirt. A medic walks over and tells him "Everybody strips down to his underpants; that means you, asshole." The freak grins and takes off his pants. He's not wearing underwear. "Nicely hung, young stud," says a voice from the benches. "Righteously put, my brother" replies the freak. "Put your f***in' pants back on, asshole" replies the medic. "Arrrr, Cap'n" the freak replies in the voice of a cartoon pirate, closing one eye.

Another freak walks around distributing cards of an anti war group run by The Quakers, in Lawrence, Kansas, that will, he assures one and all, put you "on a fast train to Canada." I politely decline. Strangely, no one stops him.

My hearing test is administered by an inductee who failed his hearing test 3 days before. The Army thinks he's faking. They've given him the test over and over, hoping to break him. Instead, he's become so proficient that when lunch time rolls around, the Army tester lets him take over. Of course, his hearing is perfect. I wonder who gave up first, him or the Army. I always bet on the kid. I, on the other hand, don't fake anything. I can hear just fine. Damn it.

The intelligence test is extensive but ridiculously easy. One of the questions shows pictures of a saw, a hammer, a screwdriver and an elephant. The question: which of the objects does not belong with the others? A young man sitting next to me scratches his head and mutters "this sure is hard." He sounds serious. He's definitely going to be canon fodder.

At the end of a grueling day, a smirking medic with rimless glasses sits at a table and stamps my papers. "1-A. You're going to Vietnam, son," he says snidely. I look at him and ask, "Am I in the Army now?" He answers, "No, you'll be called up by your local draft board." I reply, "Then, F*** YOU." He looks shocked. Why, I wonder to myself, is this asshole surprised? Applause and cat calls echo in the cavernous building. A hollow and very temporary victory. "The Man" always has the last laugh.

A week later apparent salvation arrives in the form of a letter from some entity of which I've never heard, which is odd, because I have a great interest in military history. It informs me that because of my superior performance on my intelligence tests (Screwdriver? Elephant? Who's to say?), I am being recruited for an "elite" agency of the US Army whose mission cannot be revealed to me in this letter. However, they can tell me that many of their members wear civilian clothes. Many even live and work close to their homes. A bonus perk will be learning a foreign language. Mention is made of the G.I. Bill (useful for law school). Finally, and not least, by enlisting in this club, I have only a 3- rather than a 4-year commitment. True, that's one more year than if drafted, but then if drafted, the letter points out, I could be assigned to a job "not of my own choosing." Yeah, I get it. Like the "new guy" in the squad who always takes point.

Well, sounds good to me. Yeah, that's the ticket. Don't have to be a coward. Be a man like my old man. Serve my country. Do the right thing, but use the old noggin to do it. Problem solved.

Maybe I'll learn French. Maybe Spanish. Worse case, Russian.

Or, maybe a Southeast Asian language, you moron.

"Many of our members wear civilian clothes and work close to their homes."

Others do not.

"The Man" always has the last laugh.

Yet, as luck would have it, the day after the letter arrives, Teddy Kennedy rams through Congress a bill that cuts off funding for the draft for the rest of 1971. No money, no draft. My number is called, but I am not chosen. Due to the odd and unfair rules of the draft law, I am ineligible to being called up in a later year. Those of us on the brink have been  left at the alter. Better to be lucky than smart.

My father, a  decorated veteran of The Big One, tells me that he is relieved, not because he feared that I might die in combat, but that my drill sergeant would surely have beaten me to death before the completion of basic training. If he did not, then certainly one of my fellow G.I.s would have done so.

"With your mouth and temper, you'd have had a shelf life in a barracks of about five minutes," he advises me.

I do not disagree.

Such are the seemingly random incidences in a life that appear at the time of their occurrence to be completely without rhyme or reason, but, looking back, appear to have been preordained.