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I was drafted in Mar.69 (when Viet Nam was in all the papers) and did basic at Ft.Knox Ky. On the trip down to the Indy.induction center on the bus there was a young man laughing all the way down while we were sweating bullets. He had doctors paperwork that considered him "legally" blind. That means that he had about 20% vision. Then we got to the induction center they ran him thru the tests then set him down in front of a typewriter and said "can you read this" and of course he said yes. They drafted him right there and made him a clerk, so we knew we were all screwed. Did my AIT training in Ft.Gordon Ga. with an MOS of an MP. When we were getting our orders on the last day of AIT the first couple of platoons all went to 'Nam, when it got to us they picked 1 or 2 for 'Nam and the rest of us went to Thailand. Just luck of the draw.
From Aug.'69 to Feb.71 spent this time being an MP in the city of Bangkok Thailand. We stayed in a Govt.owned hotel, had the lil motorpool out back. We basically did every thing that police do today. We had break-ins, thefts, traffic accidents, bar fights, you name it we did it. One big priority was keeping the guys out of trouble that were there on R&R from Nam. And being that Thailand was under a King rule back then we could not carry a weapon unless it was a special occasion. I remember that when my time was almost up they offered a lot of money to "re-up" but being that I had not seen home in almost 2 years I turned my back on them and headed home as an Spec.4. Moving around the San Fran airport we ran into a lot of "demonstrators" that we had not heard about that spit on us and threw crap on us (called us babykillers) and we had orders not to touch. I get to Chicago airport in a blinding snowstorm, all the small flights are shut down. The only clothes I own at that point is "tropical weight" with no heavy coat and it was blowing a blizzard outside. I caught the last bus out of Chicago for South Bend Ind. and sat at the bus station waiting for a pickup. Still felt good to be home,,,
Did 4 years inactive reserve after I got home with a 2 week stint up in Ft McCoy Wis.
