It was the fall of 1967 as I began my college days as a freshman at Grand View Jr College in Des Moines. At the time I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue my education but being respectful to the wishes of my parents I did what they asked. I was working for Frankel’s Men's Clothing Store at the time and loved what I was doing.
My college career lasted about six months. It seems making the reverse Dean’s List didn’t cut it in the time of the Selective Service Draft. A couple of months after dropping out of school I received an invitation to join approximately 296,000 other young men who were called to duty in 1968.
After asking around I discovered by enlisting for three years I could select my military career option as opposed to serving in the infantry. At 19 years old another year didn’t seem like much more of a commitment.
By selecting the enlistment option it also meant I could delay my active duty by 90 days, giving me another summer at home.
And oh what summer it was! 1968 has been referred to as “the most tumultuous single year in history*” and that spring and summer were no exception. As the country dealt with Civil Rights issues, a coded law and order campaign, the much hated Vietnam War and a presidential election year where the incumbent chose not to run for re-election, yes, it was quite crazy.
There was protesting in the streets and on college campuses across the country. 1968 also witnessed the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King on a hotel balcony in Memphis, TN and a few months later Robert Kennedy was assassinated after winning the California Democratic Presidential Primary. All of this and more lead to riots across the country and in Chicago during the National Democratic Convention that August. Demonstrators were protesting a war few believed in and wanted it to end, equal rights for all citizens and a chance for the country to return to normal.
Yes, the summer of 1968 was a tumultuous time for the country and one hell of a backdrop for a 19 year old with a high school education and a point 89 college GPA.
In spite of all of this, or maybe because of it I stood in a room at Fort Des Moines on July 25, 1968 and raised my right hand and took the oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Certainly not a choice I regret now but definitely a scary choice at the time.
The writer-philosopher George Santayana is credited with the phrase: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Yet here we are, repeating that of just 52 years ago.
*https://www.history.com/topics/1960s/1968-events
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