In the days of my youth, the experience of Vietnam came close to me, although I remained thousands of miles away from that country. The draft was the way the reality of a far away war became something very close to my life. Like so many others, I feared when my day of reckoning would arrive.
But the steps into a fearful foreboding of my future were products of a growing awareness that there was a draft, and then that the draft was the way young men were brought into the maelstrom of war, and then finally, that the draft was something that was coming into my life whether I liked it or not. There was a growing sense of “They are coming after me to help conduct this war!”
As the time of the announcement of the draft came near, I began to think about what I would do if my number was called and I was told to go to war. I never thought of not going into military service – not because I was ready to go to war but because, growing up in a conservative region of the country, the circles of my family and friends had no “draft dodgers” and so not following orders was, at the time, a kind of incomprehensible leap away from the responsibilities laid on me by society.
But I did feel a growing fear. And it was with considerable relief that though my number was low enough that I would have been drafted, the unexpected happened: the involuntary draft was suspended, and young men like me were given the gift of freedom. And I cannot imagine what might have happened to me, and what the experience of war would have done to me – and I am not optimistic about what the answer would have been. Looking back, I am grateful that the wheels of fate did not draw me into those dark maws of war in a far away land.
Ed Brock
But the steps into a fearful foreboding of my future were products of a growing awareness that there was a draft, and then that the draft was the way young men were brought into the maelstrom of war, and then finally, that the draft was something that was coming into my life whether I liked it or not. There was a growing sense of “They are coming after me to help conduct this war!”
As the time of the announcement of the draft came near, I began to think about what I would do if my number was called and I was told to go to war. I never thought of not going into military service – not because I was ready to go to war but because, growing up in a conservative region of the country, the circles of my family and friends had no “draft dodgers” and so not following orders was, at the time, a kind of incomprehensible leap away from the responsibilities laid on me by society.
But I did feel a growing fear. And it was with considerable relief that though my number was low enough that I would have been drafted, the unexpected happened: the involuntary draft was suspended, and young men like me were given the gift of freedom. And I cannot imagine what might have happened to me, and what the experience of war would have done to me – and I am not optimistic about what the answer would have been. Looking back, I am grateful that the wheels of fate did not draw me into those dark maws of war in a far away land.
Ed Brock
Edmonds
Photograph courtesy of Alphise Brock. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment