29 March 2012
Fifth Job of Bob - Army - the decision - Jobs of Bob - book version
This entry was posted on 3/29/2012 1:30 AM and is filed under Jobs of Bob - book version.
I was thinking about how convoluted "the media" and pop culture reacts to super stars and entertainers and their petty lives that are thrown in our faces. An entire nation is riveted to what team an overpaid primadonna professional sports player will choose to move to.
Everyday us rabble make life-changing decisions. No one cares. I was reflecting back to 1973 and '74 when I made the decision to join the Army. Viet Nam was still rumbling in the background of an entire generations' minds. The military draft had just ended - although we were still required to register yet. The economy was hitting the dumper. Nixon's Watergate capers were about to bring down a Presidency. The Cold War was a way of life well into its second generation. The Baby Boom was starting to collectively realize its mortality. It was clear to almost every soul in the country baring a few hardliners, that our American Viet Nam War had been a catastrophe - and at the time still lingered in limbo. The Arab Oil Embargo had contributed to high fuel prices. Unemployment was climbing. The entire nation was cynical.
As for me, my dad was reflective - and wise - insisting small-operation family farming was on the precipice of national collapse. Yes, people hung on over the decades. Farmers adapted to other schemes - turning their farms into golf courses; starting vineyards and winerys; planting alternative crops; raising exotic animals; turning to corn or soybeans as a mainstay; and nowadays in the Twenty-first Century, turning their operations into organic farms. Dad foresaw that all these schemes and the old dairy scheme had a couple things in common. They would require a great deal of back-breaking, seven-days-per-week work; and, they would still often be contingent on the one owner of the small businesses. If he or she got sick, the operation could perish. Dad knew this, he had functioned on the margins of this dilemma for decades as a small family farm operator. He often worked while sick - it just was what it was.
A high school classmate of mine had joined the Army. He came home from Basic Training and I had a chat with him.
"No body is being beaten with sticks in the Army, as far as I can tell," my classmate had said to me. "And, it is a paid full-time job," he added.
He continued with, "And, I am getting to see parts of the country I could never afford to see otherwise."
Take your self out of the Twenty-first Century for a second. Fifty years ago, people did not just hop on a plane and go the Paris for the weekend, like some of my college colleagues recently did. Back when I was a kid, often the only way you got to travel was to..., join the damn military. Like it or not.
Then he quietly added a caveat, "'Nam is for the most part over now."
The catastrophic end to our Viet Nam War would come a year later in 1975 as our forces scrambled to get what was left of our presence there out as the communists overran what was left of South Viet Nam. Neither of us or anyone else saw it coming; or, if anyone did, there were few who cared.
I remember taking a walk around the farm with my dog to think about the possibility of joining the Army. A co-worker at the gas station I worked at who had recently got out of the Army was constantly feeding me tips on how to negotiate the nuances of military life. One variable was that if I joined for three years as opposed to two years, I could lock in a duty station - baring any major new war or any re-ignition of 'Nam. My co-worker had managed to stay in Germany all through his service even in the height of the Viet Nam War.
I remember thinking about what I would be leaving behind. The beautiful farm land; my family; a possible future as a farmer; a beautiful state; my girlfriend; my truck; and, my beloved dog Sandy.
In retrospect, it was an amazing decision for an 18 year old kid. And to be honest, if confronted with a decision like that today, I am not sure I could do it again. The price is just too high. Youth tempers mortality.
My decision to go, changed my life forever. It was a quiet decision that millions of young people made in the same era. No television news conferences, no publicity, no one cared but the many families.
The time I lost in the Army with the things and people I left behind can never be recovered. It leaves a hole in my life I will take with me until I die.
Note: This blog "Jobs of Bob" - book version Category is a work in progress. The original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Jobs of Bob Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).
