Like TRUMP, I dodged the draft.
I had a history of anxiety that hospitalized me in junior high school for a short time and again in college. The Army doctor who interviewed me gave me a one year deferment. Then the draft lottery was introduced. My number was near the bottom. I admit I did not want to die Viet Nam.
Jerrie was my best friend in junior high school where we played drums together. His dad owned a car dealership. He lived in a big expensive house but did not act grand or entitled. (We all know kids who come from rich families - as if they made the money they spend.) We made mischief together - and I am not the kind of guy that ever made mischief. I was a square and a nerd. Jerrie brought out a different kind of person in me. He was the best looking boy in my high school - not that looks matter - but they do. He was sexy as hell. And he reached out to me to be his friend. Not the other way around. Truth be known, he was my first love although nothing ever happened. Not an inference.
I went on to college and later to law school. I worked at a big bank in Denver starting in the late 1970s when one day Jerrie's father's auto dealership came up. I mentioned I went to school with Jerrie in the 1960s. It was the lender who told me Jerrie went to Viet Nam where he lost both of his legs.
On January 1, 2014 (my birthday) I was scrolling through the various sites visit each day when I hit the obituary page of my home town newspaper. I saw Jerrie's name. I was shocked. I read and re-read the obit several times. Tears welled up in my eyes and I cried for several minutes - more than I cried when my mother passed. He was such a sweet beautiful boy. His life was torn apart during that awful war. I cannot fathom all of the pain and suffering he went through for decades.
Those of us who failed to serve owe so much to those that did.
God Bless You, Jerrie.
3 comments:
Just because you throw the Trump name into your statement doesn't make it any better. Don't know if I'd be going around telling people you dodged the draft. Nothing to be proud of.
I to was a draft dodger, was a science teacher. One of my high school lab partners, a very smart person, got a full boat to the Air Force Academy, no student loan to repay, shot down over the Jungle over North Vietnam. My college room mate came home depressed by what he saw and took his own life. All brought to us by the elite of DC.
Trump is not one of the elite of DC--thank God.
Thank you Gary for your tribute to Jerrie and for reminding us that it was Veterans Day. Your honesty about your own past is most refeshing. And honesty is indeed something to be proud of.
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