Arms and the Men

Arms and the Men

Sue:   To  Dave and Sam: Jon tells me there may be some family lore that I haven’t heard about Arn and his buddies packing side-arms and shooting at things that moved. What can you tell me?

Sam:
That is accurate and pretty funny too...
Arn and all his buddies, and I reckon there were at least 15-20 of his classmates, all owned and strapped on their big irons real regularly and would wear them to go out in the country for target practice...their favorite target was often the digger squirrels they would run into along the banks of the various streams in Coos County...slap leather! I think that with all the westerns on TV, they sort of got carried away with the mystique and excitement of it all. I mean, they would go pigeon hunting with their sidearms holstered up...it's a wonder, but maybe a testimony to Dad's careful firearms training and instructions, that Arn and his buddies never had an accident.

Dave:  I think that while Arn was “slapping leather”, I was in the Army carrying a real rifle and protecting San Francisco from the Presidio!

Jon: Good for you Dave!!! I hope that those of us who felt we were 'protecting something or someone' from 'the enemy,' e.g. cold war USSR, poor little Vietnam (which whipped both the French's & our asses), can still be proud that we 'answered the call.' Jon

 Sue: Did he have a choice?

Sam:  As I remember, Dave had a choice and decided to join the Army; Arnold became a papa and was thus exempt from the draft; and I was in the Nixon draft lottery and drew a number in the high 200's exempting me (just in case, I had passed Naval Aviation entrance exams, mental and physical while awaiting the lottery and then with the lottery number, opted out of Nam)...I'm proud of those who answered the call, even if the call was wrong.

Jon:  If he had had political connections, he might have had the taxpayers (us) pay $200K to train him as a pilot in the reserve or national guard, then watch him go AWOL (more or less) during his last year of commitment, while he was doing political work in Alabama. Or, as with Cheney, gotten five deferments (but yet having apparently no qualms about getting us into two wars). The other alternative might have been to go to Canada.

Short answer, we either served, or we scattered like rats off of a sinking ship. :-(

Dave:  I did have a choice; I could have been in Korea protecting us from North Koreans and freezing my ass off rather than bartending part time in San Francisco.

Jon:  Dave, I respect your choices I've heard so far. I too had to make that sort of choice in 1970 when I'd been at 'Uncle Ben's Rest Home,' Ft. Benjamin Harrison, IN for more than three years. I chose to volunteer to go back to Vietnam for a second tour (rec'd combat pay, etc.).

A potentially more difficult choice might have been when Pres Nixon was having his difficulties during the Watergate affair, and I was attending graduate school at GWU. What if he, as commander-in-chief, had called us in the area to check out rifles and surround the White House? I like to think (in retrospect) that I would have consulted my Oregon congressperson to determine what to do. Jon

Jon: I'm proud to have two cousins who answered the call; and I TOTALLY agree that the

'call' was wrong (how many centuries do we have to keep bailing out the French). Jl