5 comments

  1. The problem with the timing, i.e. summer of 1969, is that the draft hung over the heads of all young American men. We did not have the luxury of going off and “finding ourselves”. We had to keep our noses to the grindstone or get put in that grinding machine called the Vietnam War. Look up the story of my old high-school classmate, Jack Smith, RIP, the son of TV reporter Howard K. Smith.
    At this time I was in OCS myself.

    1. Here:
      https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/JACK-SMITH-1945-2004-Coming-to-a-final-peace-2791334.php

      I went much later, 1971-1972, when we were shutting down. My self-assigned mission was to get as many of our people home whole. I “gave” a $4000 night scope to a young Lieutenant who was going to get dinged for it by signing a hand receipt saying I had it. In another instance I gave a company grade Article 15 to a young GI due to go home in three weeks precluding a battalion grade one that would have kept him from getting a discharge that would have stripped him of his VA benefits. I got in mucho hot water for that one.

      1. There was a cartoon I recall seeing where a young kid was speaking to his grandfather about taking a year off to backpack around Europe at 22 or so. The kid said something to the effect of “I bet you never did anything this cool when you were my age” and teh grandfather’s thought balloon showed the grandfather thinking about when he was 22 and fighting WW2.

        JQ

  2. Enjoy the hell out of this song. It was popular back when we had a real US President (Miss you Ronnie), and I was a callow yoot in High School.

    As for the actual summer of 69, my mom was hunkered down in a hospital bed birthing me.

Comments are closed.