My father was vague about what he did in the years 1929 to about 1935. He maintained several stories that, when later I considered them, were inconsistent or simply did not make sense. He said he served in the United States Army, variously as an artillery person or a pilot of biplanes. Enlistment in the military was something many men in the depression that hit agricultural communities of the United States and in the Later Great Depression sought out. In the military, one had a job, three hot meals, and other benefits. However, the United States drastically downsized its military after World War I. Enlistment was a tough thing to obtain. My old man also said he graduated from the University of Virginia. Given the time involved---four years for a degree from UVA and the time of commitment to military enlistment---he could not have done both. He returned to Howard County from the East Coast around 1935 and began to work in the steel mill. That much is certain. He said he tried to enlist for World War II, but was turned down because he had had rheumatic fever and his heart was bad. Instead, he stayed here in the States and made money. Later, he worked at Sears. He told a lot of stories about Sears---the hierarchy that ruled from Chicago, the department in which he worked, his sales of furnaces.

   After I graduated from college, I asked my father about some of the courses he studied at UVA. He was vague. He mentioned a couple of courses in psychology had had taken, but the "psychologists" to whom he referred were what we would today call motivational speakers. I never heard him speak of classmates, or experiences he had outside of class, as one would have in college. In the same vein, I never heard him tell a story about his time in the United States Army. I never have encountered anyone who has gone through either college or the military (absent those who had horrific experiences in war; the years during which my father supposedly served in the Army the United States was at "peace" and, besides, he did not claim to have fought in a war) who has failed to tell some stories of their experiences during what usually are formative years. He told a couple of stories about an old woman who ran a boarding house. 

   My brother was about ten years older than me. He was enrolled at Indiana University-Kokomo. During the 1964 presidential campaign, he worked for Barry Goldwater's local effort in Howard County. On Sundays, I remember the TV was tuned into "Meet the Press" and similar shows. Both my father and brother supported United States military efforts in Vietnam. However, when my brother received his draft notice, college students no longer were exempt from the draft. The night before his induction into the United States Army, my brother fell down two flights of stairs at IU-K. He said he had slipped on a loose tile. The stairs from the main floor to the "commons" in the basement were solid and the building only a year or two old. As he went through the process of appeal of his draft status---and my parents hired several neurologists to issue opinions, to a relative degree of medical certainty, my brother was medically unfit to serve Uncle Sam---my brother was stridently anti-war. He  refurbished the servants quarters on my parents' farm and made it into a party place of sorts. He and his friends from IU-K would gather there and play, on the stereo, such anti-war music as that of Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan. Eventually my brother was given a pass on the war. He finished his degree and started up an asphalt-sealing business. The back brace he had worn faithfully through his battles with the Selective Service System disappeared around the time he no longer eligible for the draft. With his back brace so, too, disappeared his anti-war views. He returned to his bellicose pronouncements from his days as a volunteer for Senator Goldwater. He went even further and said the government of Rhodesia should stand its ground. Then there was the settlement he obtained from Indiana University from the lawsuit he filed for the injuries he suffered in his fall. He missed the war and bought a new car. That is a weird spin on the American Dream.

   I applied for conscientious objector status when my time came. I was in class at DePauw when I was called out by a University employee from the Office of the Dean. I was told I had to call home for a family emergency. When I called, my mother answered the phone. She said she had opened the letter from my draft board that had included instructions on how to apply for CO status. She informed me there were no cowards in our family. I said something like gee, does that count my father and brother? As it turned out, the draft board said my short letter, in which I informed the board I did not believe its members could tell me what my conscience says, was insufficient for a CO claim. The draft lottery only took people up to the number "2" that year anyway.

   Later I found out my old man was a bootlegger in Baltimore, and environs, during the period he said he was in college. Such would explain the absence of stories from that period. I am sure those stories would have been far more interesting than vague recollections of motivational speeches heard while he was trained as a furnace salesman for Sears.

   My old man and my brother were hypocrites. I suppose each of us is a hypocrite. The matter only is one of degree. I find it difficult to believe one can advocate for deployment of United States military personnel when one has been successful in a bureaucratic dodge of one's own individual deployment in that cause. Worse are those who claim to have been in the military, when in fact they performed no such service. And just so we are clear, I did not succeed in my quest for CO status. Neither do I like Canada all that much. Their national sport is lacrosse, not baseball. I probably would have tried to enlist in the Air Force. As far as I know, one need not know how to swim in the Air Force. I can't swim.

   I opposed United States military involvement in Vietnam. I still believe our involvement there was more for corporate profit than anything. We supported a dictatorship against a dictatorship. I have experienced the place of target for a round of ammunition fired by someone who intended to hit me. The feeling is not good.I have to say, though, it would be far worse to have a lot of those bullets flying in one's direction, or to be hit by one. I would like to believe I would have enlisted for World War II. The men who landed on the beaches in Normandy fought evil. So did the men in the Pacific. And no matter what one's view on the Korean police action or whatever Vietnam was called, or more recently the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the men and women of this country who have fought there have placed themselves in harm's way in service of this country. Political leaders who made decisions that resulted in needless death should be damned. But Veterans Day began after World War I---one of the most ridiculous wars in human history. Our dead and wounded deserve respect for the sacrifices they made.

   This weekend's Show will be at the White River Yacht Club. We shall have as guests veterans of the United States military. We stream live from 11 am to 1 pm.