Fin, I will be 69 in two days, Christmas day, which is also the reason I played Santa for most of my life. :p
When I got drafted there was no lottery, that came after I went in. In 1969 when I was drafted, everyone was eligible and if you were 18, in decent health and not in college (which I have a really big problem with as I feel that if you were lucky enough to have the money to go to college, you should be the first ones to go and fight for your country. But what do I know)
I feel I did come back better and I can usually tell a combat Veteran from 100 yards away. We have a different attitude and silly things like "OMG, my fish got ich, Or I got fired, I have pimples, no prom date, psoriasis, broken tooth, dented car etc.
Most of my friends served but the ones that didn't have a totally different perspective on things. If getting fired, breaking your arm, having a car accident or losing a parent was the worse thing in your life, then everything that is even a little worse is a big deal until the next worse thing comes along. So your life is one bad "tragedy" after another. But if you see heavy combat at a young age where people are dying all around you and you have a very good chance of dying, after which you have to put some of your very young friends in body bags with their parts, and write to their Mother of how he died, it changes you no matter who you are. Especially if some of those friends died in your arms. Not much is worse except for maybe losing a child, that has to be the worse thing and I hope I never experience it.
Today the wars are much different, thankfully. Can you imagine if today we had a battle where we killed 200 enemy and we lost 40 or 50 Americans in an hour was in the news, people would go crazy. Probably rightly so. But in those days, losing 50 guys in one battle wasn't even reported, as it was commonplace. On the Wall in Washington, for the day of that battle I spoke of, it lists a few people dying that day. It is wrong. I loaded many of them on the chopper myself. They spread out the names so it didn't look so bad.
If today everyone had to serve, we wouldn't see all the people on welfare, people protesting, breaking windows, rioting etc. More people would have a love for the country as I and many Veterans do.
They would also have a work ethic and want to work and do a good job, be proud of what they do. But much of that is gone now because people don't have to do anything for the country except take from it. It makes me very sad. :(
I actually like the days when if you could work, but you didn't want to, you starved.
There are a few pictures of the place here and the guys I served with. My picture is not there, I looked. It was Fire Base Illingworth.
https://www.facebook.com/FSB-Illingworth-144305559024950/
They wrote a book about it. You can see some of the bunkers I spoke about on the radio and other pictures of the place. I think if you click on the book or Google FSB Illingworth, you can read about the battle.
This guy, Peter Lemon was awarded the Medal Of Honor that day. I got a Bronze Star that day, not because I did anything heroic but all the guys there were heroic. I was just one of the few guys still walking around to receive the medal. That was one of two Bronze Stars I received that year. But I would have rather been home feeding my fish.
This tells something of the battle. If you are interested. (not really about fish, Sorry)
What they say about the 1st Bn, 77th Arty being hit with 7 losses, those were my men as I was the Commo Chief and I should have also been in there. But I was out on the perimeter or helping with the big guns.
