By: Ken Root, Editor

I was standing in a long line of men, all looking to be about the same age as myself, just one year post high school. We were clad only in our undershorts, which was good, because the previous hour we had been in a very large circle, fully naked. A doctor and a corpsman had made the circle of us, requiring strange contortions like placing our hands flat on the floor and "duck walking" to count appendages and determine physical limitations.

It seemed like a game of a twister played in a nightmare, but it was real. I was in line for a physical to determine my suitability for military service. The year was 1968. A time of conflict had not been known for a generation. We were told that we were the "target" group to become America’s first line of defense against the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. What we knew was that there was a war half way around the world that we saw every night on CBS, and it didn’t look like a very good place to go, if we could figure a way to get out of it.

Therein lay my dilemma, because I was the son of a proud rural family which had done its part in WWII and sent its oldest son to Korea. I was being swept along by events that I hadn’t caused and over which I had very little control. If the army said "come," I knew I would enter military service. No thought of running from my military obligation crossed my mind."

Do you have any physical ailment that may prevent you from serving your country?" was the question I heard every time I took a step forward in the line. The question came from an old doctor who sat in a chair and looked at each raw, young man before him.

"My heart," said one potential recruit in a nasal Oklahoma drawl, "It hurts me sometimes and beats fast." The doctor slid up close and listened with his stethoscope. "Sounds fine to me. Next person!"

As each one was given his opportunity to state his case before judgment was passed, I felt this was just a formality and determined that I would not disgrace my family by pleading or lying. When my turn came and the response solicited, I was ready.

"Do you have any condition that may prevent you from serving in the military?" the doctor asked.

I said, "No, sir," and then pausing I thought about an earlier admonition that we must not withhold any information from those in authority, so I added, "Except that I have had surgery on my right knee," and I showed him the scar.

He looked at my face, not my knee, and deftly pulled a piece of paper from a tray on his desk. "You have 48 hours to have this completed by the doctor who conducted the surgery and returned, by him, to us. Get your clothes on. You are dismissed."

I was still stunned by the day’s ordeal as I drove the family pick-up back to my parents’ home. I had left the AGR house at Oklahoma State the evening before and intended to be back by dinnertime this day. The form given to me by the doctor lay in the seat beside me and had a larger than life presence as I hurried home and informed my mother of the request. She called the doctor and the receptionist scheduled me for the next day. I stayed the night, and headed back to the big city missing my second day of classes to fulfill this obligation.

The knee injury was the result of a dumb, but heroic effort to catch a touchdown pass during my sophomore year of high school. We only had one good player, a young man named Franklin, who could cut and twist so quickly that he was hard to touch, let alone tackle. I had played since the first grade and every version of the "T" formation of Oklahoma football was actively spinning in my mind. By the end of August, we fielded only fourteen players, so most of us played the whole game. By mid-season, I was quarterback on offense and tackle on defense. Franklin played running back and safety.

In this period building up to Martin Luther King’s shooting, we had strong racial feelings that clouded our thinking and caused constant friction between us. I made the honor roll, he had failed a grade and made "D’s", but he could run 100 yards by the time I ran 80. The final game of the year found us with a season of 0-1-8, the worst our school had ever seen.

In the last seconds of the first half, after trying to get him to carry the ball into the line and move us down the field, I’d had enough. During a time-out, I said, "Franklin, you’re so good, you throw the ball, and I’m going to run your route, deep." We both took it as a challenge and, on the snap, I ran 45 yards before I looked back. When I did there was a football heading right for me. I caught it and, realizing that I was on the five-yard line, turned toward the end zone and simultaneously heard and felt the most excruciating crack I could imagine.

My next memory was seeing my family running out of the stands and across the field to drag me off the field. End of half, no touchdown, broken leg and wounded knee.

"Kenny, I thought your knee was doing okay?" were the first words of the orthopedic surgeon as he came through the door of the examination room.

"My draft board wants you to complete this form regarding my suitability for military service." It was my second practiced line in 24 hours, surprising me that my response was much more concise than I normally could have spoken to a person of authority.

"Well, I’m not in favor of that war over there," he stated abruptly: "Do you want to go?"

"No, sir," I said with a sheepish smile.

He took the form and handed it to his assistant, smiled and said, "Tell them he doesn’t have to." He shook my hand and walked out as I offered a stunned, "Thank you."

My deferment soon came in the mail, it was an "4-F," which means they’d take the women and children before us. I was embarrassed and kept my draft card buried for several years. But I actually wore it around my neck as I came to understand what Vietnam was all about.

The first from my class to die was a guy named Farrell. He moved to the small community just before high school and had shown artistic talent, but in the subjects that counted, he was a below-averate student. His maturity with girls and married women became legendary. We learned many of the facts of life from him as he related his exploits. He was "too cool" for college, so he was drafted shortly after his 18th birthday. He talked a local girl into marrying him saying that he would not come back alive unless she did. I viewed it as the ultimate line of the day for making it with a chick. She, however, took it far more seriously and came back from their week of R and R in Hawaii totally in love with him.

The call came from a classmate: "Farrell stepped on a landmine. He’s dead."

I went home for the funeral and felt a cold rush when the honor guard brought in the flag draped casket and saw his parents and wife huddled together, crying. When the uniformed boys of my age spread out and fired a salute at the cemetery, I felt like the shots had hit me.

Most of my world was inside Oklahoma State University and the AGR house. It may have been a shelter from the storm, but the actives of Alpha Gamma Rho felt the shock wave that reached back to us from the front lines of Vietnam. The seniors were jumping into National Guard and Reserve units after substantial family conferences and the ROTC jocks could hardly wait until they got their chance to go. Anyone who flunked out was gone. The lottery had not yet allowed some to make the second cut.

Looking back, I know that the political unrest affected me. I witnessed protests against the war, but I took no part and any AGR who did was sharply criticized in chapter meetings. We never talked about why we should or should not go and were just swept along, not really knowing or appreciating our good fortune. I do know that I felt very empty during my middle college years and my grades reflected it.

One evening, when I called home, my mother said: "Did you hear about Franklin?" I knew immediately what she meant, because he had gone into the army as early as any in our class. "He was killed in Vietnam," were her words of verification.

I didn’t think I’d have any feelings about him. We never got along, but now that he was gone, I felt very badly because I really should have been there instead of him. This war was selective, it drafted those who failed to make the grade in school, and it shielded those who fit the mold that the establishment had set. It should have sent those who had the most to lose if they failed. We should really send the old men who start wars, but we always send the young who think they are immortal and will eagerly fight for the glory.

So here we are, thirty-some years after Vietnam heated up and started siphoning off young lives. It is very easy to condemn the conflict as an act of idiocy of the 1960’s, but we all know that it was far more complex and, good or bad, it shaped the personality of a generation. The generation just happens to be the "Baby Boomers" of today, the best educated and wealthiest yet. Our age and our economic status now allow us to look back at this traumatic time and re-examine it.

Vietnam took more than 58,000 American lives. Most college boys were lucky. The Wall holds only a few AGR names that we know. It does not list, however, the number of our ranks whose lives were altered or shortened by the mental or physical anguish caused by serving there. Nor does it list those, like me, who don’t like to think about it and don’t want to deal with it, because we didn’t go.

I have to say that I laughed when Dan Quayle and Bill Clinton had to defend their record of non-service during the Vietnam years. They succeeded at what most of us attempted . . . staying out of the war. A generation from now, we’ll all have an airtight excuse for staying home.

After college, my AGR pledge trainer went to Vietnam and flew a helicopter. He came home a far different man than then one who left. We lived several months in a mobile home while I taught vocational agriculture, and he worked as an agricultural lender. One morning about 5 o’clock, we had a thunderstorm. I awoke to the sound of hailstones hitting a metal roof, he awoke to an enemy attack. It took a moment of talking to him to bring his mind back home.

They say you’ve reached the second half of your life when you stop trying to get away and start trying to go back. I think the ‘60’s generation is in the second half and needs to take a minute to look back with a ‘90’s perspective in mind.

We asked you to tell us what Vietnam meant to you and you responded. Some of you were 19-year old foot soldiers and others were officers who volunteered for military service.

I am sure that many brothers who read this have more poignant stories than mine or others related here. We hope that you draw from this recounting a peace that may have eluded you for 30 years and that you understand that your actions or feelings of that time were those of a nation and especially a young and innocent generation, which would have to use the lessons learned to shape the world we live in today.n

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