Comments:
How do you summarize 50 years, and where did they go?( Notice the comma, per Miss P.) Here's what's been happening:
1961-1965 - Davidson College(Lance Walker was a classmate).Took ROTC and was a Kappa Sigma. Learned to play the guitar(Hence the unimpressive GPA).
AB(History)1965.
1965-1968 - UNC Law School. Loved Chapel Hill. Figured the Vietnam war would be over before I graduated. Har har.
JD(Juris doctor)1968, laude how cum.
-Summer 1968 - Met wife-to-be; studied for and passed bar exam. Yee haw.
Oct.1968- Aug.1970 - Army active duty:
-Officer Basic Traininginthedeadofwinter at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.
-Attended Supply School at Ordnance Corps HQ, Fort Lee, Virginia. (Yep, a lawyer was placed in the Ordnance Corps, rather than the JAG Corps, which of course makes no sense whatsoever, but is duly in keeping with the mysterious workings of the U. S. Army, an outfit that can neither measure distances nor tell time like everybody else.)
-Was Military Police Company Commander and Provost Marshal at Camp(now Fort)A P Hill in Bowling Green, Virginia.
[Ambrose Powell Hill, Jr. (November 9, 1825 – April 2, 1865), was a career U.S. Army officer in the Mexican-American War and Seminole Wars and a Confederate general in the American Civil War.]
Aug.1969: Off to 'Nam(a journey into the unknown).
-My first assignment: Supply Officer for the 41st Civil Affairs Company, based in Nha Trang, Vietnam. We had pacification "teams" scattered about the II Corps area (the Central Highlands). A typical team might consist of a team leader,a physician, an engineer, an interpreter, and an enlisted man or two, usually attached to a MACV unit. Many were in Montagnard areas.
[The French term Montagnard, meaning "People from the mountain(s)" refers to an indigenous people group generally from the Central Highlands of Vietnam. It includes individuals from multiple tribal groups. Many Montagnards immigrated to the US states of North Carolina and South Carolina in the late 1970s after the Vietnam War.]
Hint: When dining in 'Nam with the Montagnards, don't forget the Tetracycline.
The 41st was deactivated in early 1970, thanks to Nixon's "Vietnamization", and it befell my lot to account for and gather all of the Company's equipment - vehicles, weapons, furnishings, radios, etc. - to be turned in at the big base in Cam Rahn Bay, which was about 25 miles south of Nha Trang. Thanks for the most part to my NCOs(Noncommisioned Officers run the Army), the mission was accomplished, whereupon the venerable old 41st Civil Affairs Company was no more. [R.I.P.] So, in that long ago and far away February of 1970, I was off to:
-My second assignment: G4 Staff Officer at IFFV(II Corps) Headquarters, located in the old Duy Thahn Hotel in Nah Trang. I was Captain Jones by that time, working for colonels and generals, keeping up with captured enemy weapons, preparing Reports of Survey, tracking blivets; and, believe it or not, I learned in advance about the controversial ARVN incursions into Cambodia, which began in April of 1970, as I recall.
-Aug.1970 - My DEROS arrived and I headed home. I had accrued some leave, so I stopped over in Tokyo for a few days en route home.
My jungle fatigues were last seen going into a trash can in the mens room at the San Francisco Airport. Man, was I glad to be out of the Army and happy to be wearing real clothes again.
A few thoughts on my short military career:
-Maybe the draft wasn't such a bad thing. I met people from all over the country while in the Army. For example, my best buddy in 'Nam was Joel Kobert, a young officer/lawyer who was a contemporary of mine in all respects, except that he was a Howard University graduate and a New Jersey Jew, born, he said, near Exit 13, New Jersey Turnpike. The two of us of even took an R&R together in Hong Kong, but that's another story, one best not posted to a G-rated web site. (Hee hee, what a pair: a Southern WASP Cracker and a New Jersey Jew at large in the Orient!) We've kept in touch through the years. Ol' Kobert went on to build a fine private practice in New Jersey(http://www.ckclaw.com/joel-kobert.html) and has been president of the New Jersey Bar Association and a good friend of Christie Whitman. Had it not been for the draft, our paths would not have crossed, and I would have missed out on an enriching friendship. Mayhap this was merely predestination, but it should give you draft-dodgers something to think about.
-On the subject of the Vietnam War, I have a few thoughts, none of which coincide with the views of the late George McGovern. (Did you notice how much he sounded like Liberace?)
Vietnam was a pretty scary place when I arrived in August of 1969, but, by the time I left in 1970, things had calmed down to the point where one could travel about in relative safety. The military historian Lewis Sorley believes the war was in a sense "won" by the end of 1970.The following is an excerpt from a review of his book, "A Better war":
"One book can not change peoples' minds about a matter as contentious as the Vietnam War. In fact, the intellectual classes and the Baby Boom Generation have so much of themselves invested in the idea that the War was wrong and unwinnable that it's unlikely that any number of books could change their minds. But as the years go by and as new generations take a fresh look at the War, it is important that they approach it with an open mind. They, and we, may still conclude that we should never have been there or that there was never a chance that we could win, but those conclusions should be arrived at after examining all the evidence and considering the different possibilities. No one undertaking this task should fail to read A Better War; it is historical revision of the very best kind, thoughtful and thought provoking."
To me, Sorley's book is evidence of what I have long suspected, namely, that the war in Vietnam was essentially "won" in 1970 and again in 1972, but that the US lacked the resolve to follow through, and, as a result, we squandered untold treasure and thousands of precious young lives in a lost cause, betraying the friendly and gentle South Vietnamese in the process. Anyway, that's my proselytism, for what it's worth.
-Another observation about the Army concerns giving and taking orders, that is, following and leading--something that most of us do every day.
Most of my superior officers were educated, intelligent and capable men, so I seldom resented being told what to do, and I (usually)did the best I could to follow orders and carry out assignments.
When it came to giving orders, I was young and green in those days, so, as a leader, I doubt that I would have invited any comparisons to Eisenhower, but, on reflection, I think I learned some useful lessons about leadership.
So much for the Army, and pardon the digression. Next:
Aug.1970-1973-Lived in Washington, D.C.; was the Legislative Assistant to Congressman Richardson Preyer during the 92nd Congress and for a time thereafter.
[The Ninety-second United States Congress met from January 3, 1971 to January 3, 1973, during the third and fourth years of Richard Nixon's first term.]
Working on Capitol Hill and living in DC was a terrific experience. I have lots of stories to tell of those days, and I met countless interesting and wonderful people, some of whom became lifelong friends.
-1974 to present day-Have been practicing law in Raleigh. Bought my present house in 1977; Married in 1978; Son born 1980; both parents and my sister(Sarah) are deceased; Had a stroke in 2005 and a relapse in 2010, but am on the mend, counting blessings, and hoping to be back in harness soon.
Have I lived here all my life? Not yet.
