Just about 50 years ago today, I sat on my bed in my family’s
home and thought: “This job could kill me…or worse.”
Three days later I got on a bus bound for Fort Jackson,
South Carolina and nine weeks of Basic Combat Training courtesy of the United
States Army. “This job,” of course, was to fulfill my military obligation to my
country.
That meant, either sign up and go, or sit around and wait to
be drafted. I made my choice and rolled. I saw it as a patriotic duty – the same
as that faced by most of the men in my family going back to the American
Revolution.
(And as an interesting sidelight, I have since learned that
many of my precursors, being Scots Highlanders in the New World, remained loyal
to the British Crown, while others fought for American Independence.)
On this Veterans’ Day, I salute them all, however – each one
of whom I have no doubt also sat once in a similar place knowing that they could
sacrifice their lives as a part of doing their duty for something they believed
in.
That is all.
