As a young man growing up in the 1950s and 1960s I turned 18 in 1966 in the middle of the Viet Nam War and I wondered about being drafted but also wondered if I would be released from the draft because of my concussion and seizures from age 10 to 15 years of age.
it turned out that I was released from the draft because of my concussion and seizures and I was given a 4F classification which means that unless the U.S. was attacked on our lands I wouldn't be called up in the draft. If out landed area was ever attacked every able bodied person would be likely drafted between the ages of 18 and 60 or more in that case.
But, another factor here was that I was raised a Libertarian Conservative Republican and that meant something then unlike now when you have Trump and the totally Corrupt Republican party instead.
So, at that time I would have gone and died if necessary in Viet Nam had I been called up because of my patriotic Training as a child and young adult.
And of course I was told between 6 and 10 years old especially by male adults that I would probably die in a nuclear war as a soldier. This was widely believed to be what was coming especially in the 1950s and especially just after world War II. So, there was a preparation for dying like that as a boy child from about age 6 through 12 years old. But, by age 14 I realized all that was bullshit. And that probably the people saying this just had PTSD from World war II and the Korean War.
So, by 18 years old I was psychologically prepared to die as a U.S. soldier then in 1966 if I was drafted then. But, of course that didn't happen even though other friends of mine from church or school were drafted or had different experiences.
One of my good friends who was half white and half Eskimo from Alaska stole a Corvette at age 15 and went to an honor camp in the San Fernando Valley for a month. So, he recovered from that and Joined the Army as a Helicopter pilot under contract. However, the Army didn't fulfill their training of him as a pilot so he sued them for breach of Contract and they released him from the Army so he didn't have to serve because they broke their contract with him.
Then my best friend from Junior High and High School didn't want to die on the front lines in that meat grinder of boys dying within a week or two of arriving there from High School so he went to Glendale College with me but I was studying by then to be a computer programmer and studying Computer Engineering which then was mostly about IBM Computers in 1966.
So, he got a Certification as a Jet Engine Mechanic at Glendale College while I studied COBOL and FORTRAN computer languages and became proficient on IBM Computers and periferals then starting in 1966. However, by 1969 he had joined the Air Force and had been sent first to Texas and then to Thailand to Work on Fighter jets and B-52s and stuff like that in the Air Force. However, his mother moved from Glendale to Santa Barbara and I didn't know this and I moved from Glendale to San Diego and he didn't know this and so we lost track of each other until our 40s. I found him through a Yahoo Email address finally that was something like Ovalwindow54 or something like this because he still liked to work on cars but had grown up and wasn't a street racer with a 56 Chevy with wide 18 inch slicks like before.
The point is my evolution to become who I am now as a long slow painful process. However, learning to be my own best friend and kind to myself and to all others is why I'm still alive today here at age 78 and happily married since 1995 to the same wonderful lady.
By God's Grace
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